Pathfinder 2E We need a damage on a miss forum again!!

[Arilyn]

I don’t think it’s a big deal either, actually I think it’s a great mechanic. But people get really touchy when it comes to the degree of abstraction involved in attacks, hits, and damage. That’s why damage on a “miss” and if hit points should be meat are two of the most controversial topics in D&D. To me, a failed attack roll doesn’t have to mean a miss, a successful attack roll doesnt have to mean a hit, and damage doesn’t [/i]have to[/i] mean physical injury. For many others, the opposite is true, and damage on a failed attack roll isn’t going to sit well with them even if you argue that the failed attack roll isn’t really a miss. That’s a non-starter for many people, and in my observation, many PF1 fans in particular.

I agree, it's not likely to survive playtesting. It's odd though. There are plenty of spells which pretty much do damage on a miss...

And the game is already full of abstractions, unrealistic absurdities, and large swathes of players obsessing over their DPR, you wouldn't think this would be that big a deal.

 

[RangerWickett]

It's not a miss. It's a "failed attack."

You fail to beat their armor class, but you still made contact and hurt them. It makes perfect sense to me.

 

[Charlaquin]

I agree, it's not likely to survive playtesting. It's odd though. There are plenty of spells which pretty much do damage on a miss...

And the game is already full of abstractions, unrealistic absurdities, and large swathes of players obsessing over their DPR, you wouldn't think this would be that big a deal.

Yeah, apparently a successful save and a “miss” aren’t the same thing to the anti-damage-on-miss crowd (even when the “miss” targets Fort, Ref, or Will as a defense). I think the words “miss,” “hit,” and “damage” are the root of the problem. People are fine with abstracting what exactly constitutes a “hit” as long as it involves some sort of physical contact, or what constitutes “damage” as long as it involves injury. But if your roll was successful any narration that doesn’t involve the weapon touching its target, or if your roll was unsuccessful and the narration does involve contact... That’s just too much for some folks’ suspensions of disbelief.

 

[Morrus]

The cynic in me wonders if this is a Censory Decoy for the playtesters. Put in something they know their fan base hates, fully intending to cut it, in hopes that the players direct all of their ire that things are changing there and overlook the less controversial changes.

Only if your assumption is that the playtest program is not intended to playtest.

 

[ccs]

It's not a miss. It's a "failed attack."

You fail to beat their armor class, but you still made contact and hurt them. It makes perfect sense to me.

What seperates this from a successful hit where I simply roll min. Damage?

Anyways, damage on a miss is as stupid am idea today as its been every other time it's come up.

 

[Arakasius]

Magic missile despite not being a very good spell does have some appeal because of the fact that it can’t miss, despite the inferior damage result. I’m not sure why giving fighters something similar is breaking anything.

 

[mach1.9pants]

It's a day early.

Not in New Zealand

 

[Charlaquin]

Only if your assumption is that the playtest program is not intended to playtest.

That’s why I say it’s the cynic in me that wonders that. I don’t think it’s actually a censor decoy, but I thought it was an amusing idea.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I think players are reacting badly cause they think the breeze from the missing weapon is somehow damaging?

Except we've already had it explained by one of the design people, in a much earlier thread, that damage in Pathfinder always contains a substantial physical component. It's impossible to deal HP damage without making physical contact.

And that means this attack is really just a guaranteed hit. Maybe it doesn't have some other special side-effect, and that's why it's still balanced mechanically, but it's still a guarantee that the attack will hit and it will deal damage.

Imagine how that works in play. Your noble fighter is fighting off a group of orcs, and you have to go on the defensive because you're running low on HP and you need to stall for time so the cleric can get to you, and then the next orc just walks up to you and drops you without even rolling any dice.

I mean, that's not quite where we're at, because they can still miss on a critical failure and going on the defensive increases their chance of critical failure, but still.

 

[TwoSix]

First warlords, and now damage on a miss? At the rate that we're time warping here, we're going to end up losing 3 months of threads soon.