Minimum Weapon Damage?

[RVA_Grandpa]

Originally Posted by Xergrell

So I was reading the be Melee rules pdf and I see that some weapon damage rolls are 1d-4 for a thrown rock. So does that mean if I roll 1-4 on the die the. I do no damage to an unarmored for even though I did hit with the rock or is there a minimum of 1 point of damage if I hit?

Sheldore the Great throws a rock at WoloWizard. He rolls a hit on 3d vs DX and then rolls one die (1d-4). He rolls a 3 for no damage (3-4=-1).

The rock tears a small hole in WoloWizard's dickie of incredible immaturity. Enraged, he raises his wand and aims a fireball at Shedore's spot (er, hex).

And the battle goes on.

[platimus]

Originally Posted by RVA_Grandpa

Sheldore the Great throws a rock at WoloWizard. He rolls a hit on 3d vs DX and then rolls one die (1d-4). He rolls a 3 for no damage (3-4=-1).

The rock tears a small hole in WoloWizard's dickie of incredible immaturity. Enraged, he raises his wand and aims a fireball at Shedore's spot (er, hex).

And the battle goes on.

LOL
In theory, that fireball will be a Big Bang!

[Skarg]

You're doing it right; the minimum damage is zero, not one.

Missile spells in the new Wizard are the first exception that has a minimum damage roll in TFT.

[RobW]

Originally Posted by Skarg

You're doing it right; the minimum damage is zero, not one.

Missile spells in the new Wizard are the first exception that has a minimum damage roll in TFT.

Curious, where is minimum damage == 0 specified?

[Melichor]

Both Magic Fist and Fireball have this qualifying statement in their description:

... but never less damage than the ST used.

[Oneiros]

Originally Posted by RobW

Curious, where is minimum damage == 0 specified?

It's not. It's a natural outcome of the math and in game logic assumptions. If I attack bare handed, doing 1d-4, and I roll a one. You can't do -3 damage to an enemy by in game logic, but you could do none, so that's what you do.

Missle spells calling out minimum damage implies this is not always the case, and are an exception to the base assumptions.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Oneiros

You can't do -3 damage to an enemy by in game logic, but you could do none, so that's what you do.

Yes, but it's still not insane or dimwitted to wonder in the absence of the rules actually stating or giving an example.

Before you rolled damage, you rolled to "hit". Melee even calls damage "hits"; congratulations, you know you've done some! Some people might well think that since the dice say you've scored some hits, the logical minimum is 1 hit rather than 0. Zero hits is the amount of damage you do on every miss -- and so those zero results should all taken care of by the to-hit roll, not the damage roll. Given that there's a known hit involved, the minimum could well be 1, as that's every bit as much "a natural outcome of the math and in game logic assumptions".

I don't think anyone is suggest that a -3 means your dagger stab should heal the enemy. The question is just whether the minimum is 0 or 1. I happen to think the answer is 0, but the rules don't actually say.

(For what it's worth, GURPS actually does specify minimum damage on a damage roll as 1 for most damage types, though 0 is still permitted for crushing damage. The "Rolling For Damage" section on Melee p11 could certainly stand one more sentence to clarify minimum damage in the case of a negative modifier. But that's not errata, per that thread's definition.)

[Shadekeep]

I've taken both sides of the fence on this one in the past. I can see where a 1D6-4 weapon might be so weak that even a successful hit doesn't do significant damage (minimum of 0), or conversely that a weak weapon does minimal damage most of the time with a chance of doing a little bit more (minimum of 1). I'll defer to however it ends up spelled out in the rules, and hopefully it will be unambiguous.