Quote from: Brad;763269Damage on misses just seems stupid to me. Even to the point where, I like 13th Age, but am not going to play it because it's literally that fucking stupid.

You do know it's not in anymore?

Quote from: Necrozius;763251I always rationalized that a miss in D&D wasn't always a complete whiff, but an abstraction of things like weapons glancing off armour or shields and parrying. So I can see why, even if a targets armour, shield or sword parry could stop an attack the defender is still reeling back from the impact or effort.

But that is what HPs are for.

You spend HPs to mitigate a wound by making it glance off armour or a sheild so you get a bit fatigued as a result.

If I stand dead still and you miss me why am I fatigued?

Quote from: Brad;763269Damage on misses just seems stupid to me. Even to the point where, I like 13th Age, but am not going to play it because it's literally that fucking stupid.

I'll use small words: there is no such thing as "damage on a miss."

If you did damage, it's not a miss.

Attacks with auto damage do not miss.

If you make the attack roll, you do normal damage.

If you don't make the attack roll, you do the auto damage.

Anyone who isn't a complete drooling moron can figure this out.

Quote from: Xavier Onassiss;763297I'll use small words: there is no such thing as "damage on a miss."

If you did damage, it's not a miss.

Attacks with auto damage do not miss.

If you make the attack roll, you do normal damage.

If you don't make the attack roll, you do the auto damage.

Anyone who isn't a complete drooling moron can figure this out.

So how does in work. Are you saying that Dave the 2 handed sword guy simply can't miss. If he tries to hit he will always do so even if its a glancing blow.

How do you reconcile that with Frank the guy that is really good at dodging blows?

Quote from: jibbajibba;763305So how does in work. Are you saying that Dave the 2 handed sword guy simply can't miss. If he tries to hit he will always do so even if its a glancing blow.

How do you reconcile that with Frank the guy that is really good at dodging blows?

I love it. How about a rogue ability that allows them to automatically negate opponent strength bonuses to damage? How would that work?

,

Quote from: JasperAK;763311I love it. How about a rogue ability that allows them to automatically negate opponent strength bonuses to damage? How would that work?

They somewhat already do. Like I said rogues are pretty much right behind fighters in a pure combat situation. It's why I find the cantrip discussion ridiculous.

On the one hand say I'm running an Evoker the combat mage.....so I'm basically playing tag so anybody gives me an opening to drop the hammer. Meanwhile the fighter is daring anybody to actually fight and the cleric is just making everyone else better  Then you have the Rogue..moving and sneak attacking and moving and sneak attacking while making your hits half damage ON A HIT.

It's actually very fun if you think about it.

Quote from: Marleycat;763319They somewhat already do. Like I said rogues are pretty much right behind fighters in a pure combat situation. It's why I find the cantrip discussion ridiculous.

Why does the consistency of the rules that make magic work in the setting have any relationship to fighters being able to hit stuff or rogues being able to dodge?

Quote from: jibbajibba;763320Why does the consistency of the rules that make magic work in the setting have any relationship to fighters being able to hit stuff or rogues being able to dodge?

Maybe so there might be pure magic users? Why not multi-class then? And consistency is such a loaded and personal term sir especially when talking about Dnd.

I can understand folks having problems with a system built around damage on a missed roll, like 4e.  I can get, I guess, 3e players having issues with the great weapon fighter ability because that edition of the game really had a paradigm of fighters = mundane, casters = Masters of the Universe, as well as a 1 roll = 1 swing.

But I've never quite understood why folks who play TSR D&D would have a problem with the one ability.  One would assume that they'd be less given to the HP = Meat idea (and ergo, 1 successful attack = application of physical damage).  As Old Geezer has often put it, HP = HP.  Nor would they be married to the idea of 1 roll = 1 swing of the sword and especially not beholden to the idea that missed attack roll = complete and utter whiff, no contact made.

So, big strong guy wielding big two-handed weapon: if you're within 5 feet when he attacks, you're going to lose some HP.  It's a glancing blow, or avoiding the attack took something out of you, or at the least, you've lost a bit of luck and fortune.  Whatever -- there are any number of ways to describe what the loss of HP represents (including the old stand-by, "You've lost X hp").

Personally, whenever I hear newer players bitch about how boring or unrealistic the old combat rules were, I tell them, "In old school D&D, combat is resolved to quickly get on with the game, not simulated for your amusement."

I dunno.  I grew up on B/X, BECMI, and 1e, so that's just how I've always viewed things, and why the GWF ability and Second Wind don't bug me.  I've never been able to wrap my head around why my fellow TSR D&D players have such a problem with it.

It's not the "damage on a miss" that's the problem, it's the implementation that's stupid.  Having it always work based on type of weapon is silly.

Quote from: CRKrueger;763332It's not the "damage on a miss" that's the problem, it's the implementation that's stupid.  Having it always work based on type of weapon is silly.

That I can understand. Do you have a good solution beyond just banning it? Because it makes sense to me in relation to how I view HP in Dnd without using an alternate system.

Simplest way would be doing something like Sac said, you have to "miss" by 5 or less to get a "fatigue hit".  If you wanted something more complex you could do 5-Dex bonus for the range, so really Dextrous people dodged more and got less "fatigue hits" on them.  Even more complex would be to base it on AC you get from armor, as "misses" on armor would be more likely to fatigue you.  At that point though, you're on your way to a full-blown fatigue system and Wounds/Vitality.

So miss by 5 or less, or 5-Dex bonus or less seems easiest.

Quote from: CRKrueger;763332It's not the "damage on a miss" that's the problem, it's the implementation that's stupid.  Having it always work based on type of weapon is silly.

No it's not it's damage on a miss.

you spend HPs to mitigate wounds. When you loose HPs you are taking fatigue etc etc just like when you take he great sword blow on your shield.

So the fact of HPs means that you don't take damage on a miss because of the force of the blow etc because that is what HPs are already doing.

If you are saying that the great blow always connects but for a low range of those hits it is really just buffettign damge then in D&D terms you shoudl say " A great Blow gets +8 to hit, but only deals Str bonus damage if it doesn't exceed the target to hit bonus my more than 8"

Now when you write it out like that it becomes obvious that the great blow shouldn;t have that effect cos a +8 to hit is really silly

Quote from: CRKrueger;763336Simplest way would be doing something like Sac said, you have to "miss" by 5 or less to get a "fatigue hit".  If you wanted something more complex you could do 5-Dex bonus for the range, so really Dextrous people dodged more and got less "fatigue hits" on them.  Even more complex would be to base it on AC you get from armor, as "misses" on armor would be more likely to fatigue you.  At that point though, you're on your way to a full-blown fatigue system and Wounds/Vitality.

So miss by 5 or less, or 5-Dex bonus or less seems easiest.

I was thinking a W/V system but up the wounds because armour isn't DR in 5e. So say you have a fighter with D10 HP + CON.....you set your base CON + plus ability adder and half or third your random HP as wounds and the rest is vitality. Meh, it won't work at low levels. Somehow if you can set your wounds to 25% of your vitality is what I mean. But something more like 40% is better for a typical baseline.

Your typical fighter with 100 HP would have 40/60 for wounds/vitality.

To me... whether or not DoaM is a "big deal" or not depends on how what a roll of the dice represents.

If there is a stated correspondence of 1 attack roll = 1 swing of the sword, then yes, "damage on a miss" is a big conceptual problem and makes no sense.

If, however, 1 attack roll = the best of a number of opportunities, then I'd argue that DoaM is pretty sensible, though I'd prefer if only the fighter got it. In my mind, this represents the notion that getting into a hand-to-hand fight with a fighter is a super bad idea: he is the guy whose specialty is stabbing you, and even if he can't stab you super well (makes a hit and rolls full damage), he is still going to be able to fuck you up a little bit at a time (misses and deals some, significantly smaller, amount of damage anyway), just by virtue of being that good at it.

For rogues and such archetypes that need to be established as being really good at dodging, I would give them some kind of "if an attack that missed you would deal damage, it deals no damage instead" ability. Similar to evasion from 3e, but more broad. And this ability I would give only to rogue-type characters, to help establish that they are the sneaky-dodgy types that get away with pissing off fighter-types and can get away unscathed.