Quote from: jibbajibba;729580Yup 6 figures for senior SA, PM or whatever (so someone with 12+ years of experience)

I run the build team out here for APAC and I pay similar salaries in Singapore, bit less in HK.

If you let that out of the bag, you'd have thousands of SAs knocking on your door.  Most of the SA salaries I know of have been stuck in a much lower range for ages, ever since shortly after the March 2000 dot net implosion and the rising tides of outsourcing to India/China/Manilla/etc.  And that's nothing to say of the salary downward pressure created by the big outsourcers, like IBM, EDS/HP, and Infosys.

I work in the tech side myself, and while I'm a QA test manager here in the states, 90% of our devs are in India.  The only reason my job hasn't been outsourced is because I also act as a liason between the business and the developers/PMs, and you can't really do that with someone overseas who doesn't have firsthand knowledge of how the business works.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;729643I work in the tech side myself, and while I'm a QA test manager here in the states, 90% of our devs are in India.  The only reason my job hasn't been outsourced is because I also act as a liason between the business and the developers/PMs, and you can't really do that with someone overseas who doesn't have firsthand knowledge of how the business works.

I've seen teams try, and it usually hasn't gone over well.  Typically those experiments last about six months --it could be less if there's a major issue-- and then they pull the responsibility back in house.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;729601Damage on a miss is stupid.

It is stupid except that a d20 roll of the dice in many editions of D&D doesn't represent the result of a single swing rather it is an abstract resolution of a period of combat.

However despite that I was the D&D Next designer I would not have damage on a miss ever. While I, as the designer, may consider and design the rules to abstract combat, the great majority of gamers naturally and understandably equate a dice roll to equal a swing of the weapons.

Rather than debate it, I would just concede and not have that rule.

Likely they are trying to represent the greater mass and force of two handed weapons. It probably overly fussy but the case was made that I had to represent this the rule would read some thing.

If swinging a two handed weapon, any attack that misses by X does 1 point of damage. I would set X to 2.

The more D&Dish way of giving 2 handed weapons a special characteristic due to mass would be

On a successful attack with a two handed weapons roll damage twice. Take the higher of the two rolls. In essence taking the idea of advantage but using it for damage roll.

You could even do it for daggers as well giving them a disadvantage for damage rolls.

Quote from: estar;729649It is stupid except that a d20 roll of the dice in many editions of D&D doesn't represent the result of a single swing rather it is an abstract resolution of a period of combat.

However despite that I was the D&D Next designer I would not have damage on a miss ever. While I, as the designer, may consider and design the rules to abstract combat, the great majority of gamers naturally and understandably equate a dice roll to equal a swing of the weapons.

Rather than debate it, I would just concede and not have that rule.

Likely they are trying to represent the greater mass and force of two handed weapons. It probably overly fussy but the case was made that I had to represent this the rule would read some thing.

If swinging a two handed weapon, any attack that misses by X does 1 point of damage. I would set X to 2.

The more D&Dish way of giving 2 handed weapons a special characteristic due to mass would be

On a successful attack with a two handed weapons roll damage twice. Take the higher of the two rolls. In essence taking the idea of advantage but using it for damage roll.

You could even do it for daggers as well giving them a disadvantage for damage rolls.

For the record, at first I was very much against damage on a miss.  But I can actually rationalize it now.  But as you say, it's better for D&D to just not have it in the rules.

For example, as you mention, AC and HP are abstract.  You can hit someone, and it be a "miss" because you didn't break through their armor.  So...

With a great weapon, even if you don't break through the armor, the force of your exceptional strength still reverberates past the armor and impacts hard.  To illustrate this, block a two-handed maul with a shield and tell me how your arm feels.  it should be noted that the damage isn't based on the weapon, but on your STR mod.

But again, it just doesn't feel right to be in D&D, so while I can sort of rationalize it, I think it's better without it.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;729655But again, it just doesn't feel right to be in D&D, so while I can sort of rationalize it, I think it's better without it.

In other words doesn't feel D&Dish. .

It's again the question (and problem) of the abstraction of HPs, and to a lesser degree - attacks in a combat round. Which, I actually myself, haven't a problem with (as long as the rounds are 10 - 12 seconds long, heh). I'd rather see such rules done away with, as they feel a remnant of the 4e heavily abstracted design for me.

I don't do damage on a miss for martial combat. I'm cool with it for magic because it's magic. For martial combat, I tell the players that instead of X damage on a miss, they instead gain +X to their damage on a hit with that power. Nobody complains.

I agree damage on a miss is weird and I'm not a big fan but....

D&D 4e is chock full of damage on a miss!

Where has this guy been?

I wager it stays in as a tip o hat to 4ed.

At least we will know it was WoTC that ruined Amerca.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;729641If you let that out of the bag, you'd have thousands of SAs knocking on your door.  Most of the SA salaries I know of have been stuck in a much lower range for ages, ever since shortly after the March 2000 dot net implosion and the rising tides of outsourcing to India/China/Manilla/etc.  And that's nothing to say of the salary downward pressure created by the big outsourcers, like IBM, EDS/HP, and Infosys.

You need to do some more job research mate :-)
Check out average unix sa salaries for the top 10 us banks. You cand find data easily enough. But at this point i need to stop having this conversation owing to compliance issues.

Not having read the playtest material, do they actually say what damage on a miss is supposed to represent? I am just curious about the explanation because that would definitely shape my feelings about it. Is it supposed to be something like you slam your sword into someone with such force, even if they block there is enough power to do some minimal damage. Or is it meant to be some kind of underhanded manuever where you slip in some minor dirty trick to get a little bit of damage in. I am just not sure how the ability is presented in the first place.

I think that would work better with a Wounds/Vitality split. *The blow/swing was blocked/missed but the effort to avoid injury was still fatiguing* kind of thing.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;729981Not having read the playtest material, do they actually say what damage on a miss is supposed to represent? I am just curious about the explanation because that would definitely shape my feelings about it. Is it supposed to be something like you slam your sword into someone with such force, even if they block there is enough power to do some minimal damage. Or is it meant to be some kind of underhanded manuever where you slip in some minor dirty trick to get a little bit of damage in. I am just not sure how the ability is presented in the first place.

The problem has many levels. Firstly the round is a series of blows idea though referenced in the text is never actually thought of like that especially with special attacks. Second the armour makes you harder to hit model means that a blow could ring off your breastplate or it could miss by three feet. Thirdly hp are abstracted but not uniformly so you can't for example expend hp in order to have a blow miss and avoid an associated special effect.

So in this example if you say you miss but your blow rattles their armour but the guy you missed was an unarmoured wizard, it doesn't work. Likewise if you try to say that this mighty blow special attack with your two-handed sword is actually a flurry of mighty blows as an attack isn't just one swing... it doesn't work with the description. And if you say the blow is so mighty that you need to leap to one side and expend energy (=hp) then what is a reflex save for and how does that leap to one side differ fron the actual hit for 2 damage that triggers the weapon's poison/flame/level drain power.

The original abstract model has been usurped by the increasing sophistication of the game and the desire to add more options. This means that rules relying on that abstraction no longer makes sense. You need to simplify and unabstract (??) the model define it clearly then you can design to it in a consistent way.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;729981Not having read the playtest material, do they actually say what damage on a miss is supposed to represent? I am just curious about the explanation because that would definitely shape my feelings about it. Is it supposed to be something like you slam your sword into someone with such force, even if they block there is enough power to do some minimal damage. Or is it meant to be some kind of underhanded manuever where you slip in some minor dirty trick to get a little bit of damage in. I am just not sure how the ability is presented in the first place.

It is a fighting style called Great Weapon Fighting that can be picked by the Fighter. On a miss with a 2H or versatile weapon the fighter does damage equal to his strength modifier. There is no explanation or fluff text.

Quote from: jibbajibba;729983The original abstract model has been usurped by the increasing sophistication of the game and the desire to add more options. This means that rules relying on that abstraction no longer makes sense. You need to simplify and unabstract (??) the model define it clearly then you can design to it in a consistent way.

You are overthinking it.

The Great Weapon Fighting mechanic is fine with the the abstract of D&D combat. If want to get technical about I suppose you could say if the attack is higher than 10 + dex mod then it does damage on a miss. But that just make  it more fussy.

The primary problem is not the "design" or the "abstraction". The problem is that vast majority of gamers equate a dice roll with a single swing the weapon. It is natural and logical to make this assumption. That is the primary problem with the mechanic not the design. For the above reason I would not include any type of damage/effect on a miss mechanic in a D&D derived game.