The best part about the internet. You find all the people who claim they could do a job better than the person currently doing it and also not fired for their apparent failure.
D&D and MTG have two different target audiences and also have two different goals. If you think 5e is such a horrible deal “there’s the door.” 90 percent of “the rules are horrible” issues come from interactions that are niche. Something a card fake can more easily test honestly and also something that is also just as prevalent in MTG - why do you think they ban cards - becuase of horrible rules/card interactions.
I'm not claiming I could do their job better, I'm not an experienced game designer. Though I am saying other people have done their job better...
WotC would very much like MTG and D&D to have the same audience, that is why there are 2 MTG setting books in D&D and a D&D set coming out in MTG this year.
And niche rule interactions happen all the time. Sometimes they are just confusing because of vague language and sometimes they flat out don't have an answer because of vague or non-existent wording.
And suggesting I quit playing this fun and widely accessible game that I've spent hundreds of dollars on just because the developers didn't and/or won't fix a few fundamental rules is not helpful advice. Wow, I feel like I just described something much worse than d&d yet I don't see anything inaccurate...
Wow. I can't believe how much is missing from the rules.
The whole point of D&D using natural language is to avoid having to deal with highly technical situations. If you want 5e to use highly technical language, I'm sorry, you're out of luck. The game very deliberately does not use it.
This is really a situation that's very easily solved by the DM going, "okay, sure" or "no, not a chance." As is intended. Lots of niche rules have proven to be more of a hinderance than aid. They want simple, easy to pick up and use, and let DMs take care of minor, niche things in this case.
I'm not claiming I could do their job better, I'm not an experienced game designer. Though I am saying other people have done their job better...
WotC would very much like MTG and D&D to have the same audience, that is why there are 2 MTG setting books in D&D and a D&D set coming out in MTG this year.
And niche rule interactions happen all the time. Sometimes they are just confusing because of vague language and sometimes they flat out don't have an answer because of vague or non-existent wording.
The D&D team did their job perfectly fine. They wrote a book that works for millions of people, if the sales are any indication. It might not be the game you want, but it is very much a successful exercise of their job.
D&D and MtG players don't need to have both games be rules heavy in order for the audience to have overlap. The two games are fundamentally different in how they play.
Niche rules happen all the time... but they're almost always different niche interactions. Nailing down a giant list of rules and having to search through it for your one odd interaction is a pain, and not something most tables even do. The DM makes a call, and the group moves on, rather than bog the game down with rule searches.
Yeah, I've clearly over inflated the importance of clear rules due to spending too much time on rule forums and too little time playing the game (thanks covid).
Ok. Tangential tantrum over.
So where did we land on damage type of an attack? DM call due to unclear rules?
Regardless of RAW or RAI the DM always had the final say.
Under RAW and errata you can deal 0 damage. this doesn't void your attack, seeing as the d20 determined a hit.
In game you see this all the time with smite spells. As soon as the d20 rolls higher then AC both weapon and spell die are rolled. If a creature is invulnerable to non-magical attacks the smite damage doesn't suddenly get unrolled. If it would then invulnerability would invalidate a lot of spells and abilities.
The language is clear on the matter. The smite applies "on hit" not "on damage". The same is true for the crusher feat. The language in these spells and abilities don't care whether you deal 0 or 99 damage, they care if you hit or not.
All the effects that trigger on damage are also pretry clear in wording. Concentration, rage and hellish rebuke all use this language, the crusher feat does not.
In this all the rules, spells and abilities are consistent in wording.
I have yet to see an example that doesn't follow this simple english trigger prase of "on hit" and "on damage" followed by the specified type of attack.
I'm not getting sucked back into this. After several pages of debate, we reached a reasonable and amicable conclusion: the wording is not clear, it could be reasonably read either way, so it is up to DMs judgement. With no new information brought to the debate, we will gain no clearer answer than that.
So where did we land on damage type of an attack? DM call due to unclear rules?
Pretty much.
It doesn't help that hit points themselves are a huge abstraction that includes things like luck, timing, endurance and dodging ability. So, a lot of this is going to come down to how DMs see how Hit Points work as well, what damage means, and more.
Honestly, for such a seemingly simple question, it has a surprisingly large amount of abstractions behind it.
If a creature is invulnerable to non-magical attacks the smite damage doesn't suddenly get unrolled. If it would then invulnerability would invalidate a lot of spells and abilities.
Creatures are not immune to non-magical attacks. They are immune to one or more types of damage from non-magical attacks. The hit with a weapon would still cause bonus damage from spells to be applied, but that spell damage might still be of a type to which the creature is immune.
In game you see this all the time with smite spells. As soon as the d20 rolls higher then AC both weapon and spell die are rolled. If a creature is invulnerable to non-magical attacks the smite damage doesn't suddenly get unrolled. If it would then invulnerability would invalidate a lot of spells and abilities.
Smite doesn't have a 'damage' requirement, you can in principle smite with an attack that does no damage (assuming you can find a melee weapon attack that does no damage; the only weapon I can think of that does zero damage is a net, which is a ranged weapon).
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(Lyxen, I don't have the energy to read your thesis paper there.)
I'm not claiming I could do their job better, I'm not an experienced game designer. Though I am saying other people have done their job better...
WotC would very much like MTG and D&D to have the same audience, that is why there are 2 MTG setting books in D&D and a D&D set coming out in MTG this year.
And niche rule interactions happen all the time. Sometimes they are just confusing because of vague language and sometimes they flat out don't have an answer because of vague or non-existent wording.
And suggesting I quit playing this fun and widely accessible game that I've spent hundreds of dollars on just because the developers didn't and/or won't fix a few fundamental rules is not helpful advice. Wow, I feel like I just described something much worse than d&d yet I don't see anything inaccurate...
The whole point of D&D using natural language is to avoid having to deal with highly technical situations. If you want 5e to use highly technical language, I'm sorry, you're out of luck. The game very deliberately does not use it.
This is really a situation that's very easily solved by the DM going, "okay, sure" or "no, not a chance." As is intended. Lots of niche rules have proven to be more of a hinderance than aid. They want simple, easy to pick up and use, and let DMs take care of minor, niche things in this case.
The D&D team did their job perfectly fine. They wrote a book that works for millions of people, if the sales are any indication. It might not be the game you want, but it is very much a successful exercise of their job.
D&D and MtG players don't need to have both games be rules heavy in order for the audience to have overlap. The two games are fundamentally different in how they play.
Niche rules happen all the time... but they're almost always different niche interactions. Nailing down a giant list of rules and having to search through it for your one odd interaction is a pain, and not something most tables even do. The DM makes a call, and the group moves on, rather than bog the game down with rule searches.
Yeah, I've clearly over inflated the importance of clear rules due to spending too much time on rule forums and too little time playing the game (thanks covid).
Ok. Tangential tantrum over.
So where did we land on damage type of an attack? DM call due to unclear rules?
"So where did we land on damage type of an attack? DM call due to unclear rules?"
Think so. That's where I've landed, anyway.
Regardless of RAW or RAI the DM always had the final say.
Under RAW and errata you can deal 0 damage. this doesn't void your attack, seeing as the d20 determined a hit.
In game you see this all the time with smite spells. As soon as the d20 rolls higher then AC both weapon and spell die are rolled. If a creature is invulnerable to non-magical attacks the smite damage doesn't suddenly get unrolled. If it would then invulnerability would invalidate a lot of spells and abilities.
The language is clear on the matter. The smite applies "on hit" not "on damage". The same is true for the crusher feat. The language in these spells and abilities don't care whether you deal 0 or 99 damage, they care if you hit or not.
All the effects that trigger on damage are also pretry clear in wording. Concentration, rage and hellish rebuke all use this language, the crusher feat does not.
In this all the rules, spells and abilities are consistent in wording.
I have yet to see an example that doesn't follow this simple english trigger prase of "on hit" and "on damage" followed by the specified type of attack.
I'm not getting sucked back into this. After several pages of debate, we reached a reasonable and amicable conclusion: the wording is not clear, it could be reasonably read either way, so it is up to DMs judgement. With no new information brought to the debate, we will gain no clearer answer than that.
Pretty much.
It doesn't help that hit points themselves are a huge abstraction that includes things like luck, timing, endurance and dodging ability. So, a lot of this is going to come down to how DMs see how Hit Points work as well, what damage means, and more.
Honestly, for such a seemingly simple question, it has a surprisingly large amount of abstractions behind it.
Wait, what? On the internet?
Yeah, we still disagree, but we all blame the same thing for the disagreement.
Creatures are not immune to non-magical attacks. They are immune to one or more types of damage from non-magical attacks. The hit with a weapon would still cause bonus damage from spells to be applied, but that spell damage might still be of a type to which the creature is immune.
Smite doesn't have a 'damage' requirement, you can in principle smite with an attack that does no damage (assuming you can find a melee weapon attack that does no damage; the only weapon I can think of that does zero damage is a net, which is a ranged weapon).