DM: Bob the Bold, you are surrounded in an ally by a rival adventuring party.  All 6 of them swing their swords at you."  *Rolls Dice*  1,2,3,4,5,6.  "They all miss."

Bob:  "Whew!"

DM:  "Take 30 points of damage."

Bob:  "WTF?"

Quote from: JRR;763403DM: Bob the Bold, you are surrounded in an ally by a rival adventuring party.  All 6 of them swing their swords at you."  *Rolls Dice*  1,2,3,4,5,6.  "They all miss."

Bob:  "Whew!"

DM:  "Take 30 points of damage."

Bob:  "WTF?"

Well, that's just arbitrarily reading information the system is not producing - and damned lazy in terms of meeting the actual expectation that you'll use imagination.

If the D&D concept does not suit you, it certainly can be tarted up (e.g., Arneson's hit locations and critical hits) - but I'll say again that folks inclined that way might want to look into something designed from the start for that kind of simulation. RuneQuest, The Fantasy Trip, HarnMaster and GURPS are a few examples that come to mind.

Quote from: JRR;763403DM: Bob the Bold, you are surrounded in an ally by a rival adventuring party.  All 6 of them swing their swords at you."  *Rolls Dice*  1,2,3,4,5,6.  "They all miss."

Bob:  "Whew!"

DM:  "Take 30 points of damage."

Bob:  "WTF?"

Well, that's just arbitrarily reading information the system is not producing - and damned lazy in terms of meeting the actual expectation that you'll use imagination.

If the D&D concept does not suit you, it certainly can be tarted up (e.g., Arneson's hit locations and critical hits) - but I'll say again that folks inclined that way might want to look into something designed from the start for that kind of simulation. RuneQuest, The Fantasy Trip, HarnMaster and GURPS are a few examples that come to mind.

(Aside: Is not 5 pts./fig. rather higher than the actual rule? And if I understand correctly that it's limited to two-handed swords and axes and such, how are 6 fellows getting the chance to inconvenience  Bob so much more than each other?)

Quote from: JRR;763403DM: Bob the Bold, you are surrounded in an ally by a rival adventuring party.  All 6 of them swing their swords at you."  *Rolls Dice*  1,2,3,4,5,6.  "They all miss."

Bob:  "Whew!"

DM:  "Take 30 points of damage."

Bob:  "WTF?"

Yeah, something similar o this happened in one of my play-test games with some Ogres. It did not go down well.

Quote from: jibbajibba;763339No 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.

Yes and after X number of rounds someone will just drop from blocking no matter how tough they are, how well they defend, or anything else even if a solid hit is never landed. The reason:

because great weapon.:rolleyes:

Well I gotta say the name don't lie. A weapon that can steadily kill someone without scoring an actual hit is pretty great compared to everything else.

It isn't about hp being meat vs other stuff, and no D&D round has ever been short enough to try and map a hit roll to a single swing. The simple abstraction of D&D combat is simply that a success indicates the effort for the round scored damage sufficient to cause HP loss and a failed roll doesn't. That damage can be from a hit, glancing blow, or whatever.

Followed through to a logical conclusion, if we start saying that the effort of blocking a single blow from a strong fighter can still cause 1-3 points of fatigue damage, how do all those 1-2 HP peasants work in the fields all day without keeling over?  When there are such people in the world then something that causes actual HP damage needs to be significant.

Quote from: jibbajibba;763348But with long AD&D rounds the guy weilding the 2h Sword should be taking fatigue damage cos those things are bloody heavy

Not as heavy as D&D makes them out to be. If you are talking manga swords then sure. Historical 2 handers were often in the 5-7 pound range. Anyone in decent shape and trained with such a weapon wouldn't fatigue all that quickly.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;763246yay, are we gonna have this argument again?

Guess so...

Quote from: Phillip;763400Bill, I'm sure you know that the point tally has been used quite a bit to put figures out of action without killing them.

True; I was using the word 'Kill' improperly. I should have said 'defeat'

Quote from: JRR;763403DM: Bob the Bold, you are surrounded in an ally by a rival adventuring party.  All 6 of them swing their swords at you."  *Rolls Dice*  1,2,3,4,5,6.  "They all miss."

Bob:  "Whew!"

DM:  "Take 30 points of damage."

Bob:  "WTF?"

Disclaimer: I am not fond of automatic damage.

But, I don't think its the end of the world that a person surrounded by six enemies might get murderstomped.

But I would favor giving all the six attackers a +6 to hit over auto damage.

Quote from: Zachary The First;763382It was a participant ribbon of the mechanics.

That's honestly how I feel too, and it's good to know that RQ is around to hand out a gold medal to the victor and send everyone else packing.

And I'd say some of the other mechanics being argued in other threads also stem from the Participant Ribbon mechanic philosophy. I think this philosophy also limits (or at least discourages) the kind of tactical creativity I enjoy in D&D combat. I like the panic when dice rolls go wrong and PCs run out of ammo/spell resources. So all these little rules may add up to a personally dispreferred combat experience.

To be a touch more generous, though, the Ribbon mechanics could also come from combat rounds taking too long. In our AD&D, a combat round is usually less than a minute or two of table-time, especially once we're a few rounds into combat when tactics have been established. So if I roll my d20 and miss, or I run out of offensive spells, or miss my backstab, it sucks for now, but I get to try something again really soon. If the combat round is 10 minutes or more, and I miss once or twice, it could be a half-hour until I get to do damage. So Damage On A Miss is a way for me to not completely waste time. There's still a good bit of "waah, I'm bored" here but it makes a bit of sense at least.

So perhaps the TSRD&D guys (like me) don't like or need all this extra stuff because the rounds are quick enough that a miss ain't a wasted evening.

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.

How about I use even smaller words so you can understand: IF I ROLL A DIE TO ATTACK BUT I DO DAMAGE REGARDLESS OF THE ROLL, IT IS NOT AN ATTACK ROLL BUT A ROLL TO DETERMINE DAMAGE.

It's a fucking simple concept. It's NOT a fucking attack roll if you cannot possibly do less than 1 point of damage. You're simply determining how much damage you are doing. Also, mister dumbfuck, why does 13th Age State it thusly, if IN FACT it isn't a miss?

Attack: Strength + Level vs. AC
Hit: WEAPON _ Strength damage
Miss: Damage equal to your level

HEY, LOOKS LIKE IT'S CALLED A MISS IN THE FUCKING RULES.

Christ, don't call me a moron for using the fucking language in the goddamn rules.

Quote from: JRR;763403DM: Bob the Bold, you are surrounded in an ally by a rival adventuring party.  All 6 of them swing their swords at you."  *Rolls Dice*  1,2,3,4,5,6.  "They all miss."

Bob:  "Whew!"

DM:  "Take 30 points of damage."

Bob:  "WTF?"

Not to nit pick overly but in Next at best the fighters would with 18 STR have a +4. So that would be "only" 24 damage. aheh...

See my previous posts elsewhere on the potential of getting a cursed magic sword that makes you allways miss.

I am sure monsters everywhere are relieved that they can no longer be annhialated by roving bands of keystone cops.

Heh.  I just thought of an interesting take on great weapon fighting.  If you miss by 5 or less, you inflict ability modifier damage (like the rules). If you miss by 6 or more, you inflict ability modifier damage to every target within melee range, including allies.  I call it the "Groo Effect"

Quote from: languagegeek;763442That's honestly how I feel too, and it's good to know that RQ is around to hand out a gold medal to the victor and send everyone else packing.

Paraphrasing Sean Connery in the Rock: D&D is always whining about it's best, RuneQuest goes home and fucks the Prom Queen.