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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6662524" data-attributes="member: 2067">Yes, the major cost is the spell slot. I don't know that you're reading my post, because the line afterwards isThe reason it DOESN'T is likely because for your Mythical Typical Player, Action Surge is probably more fun - another dice to roll, another chance to crit, a more flexible action to use. There's less assurance there, but there's more dyanmism, more moving parts, more things to interact with, a bigger chance to grab the table spotlight and let everyone else go "woah." But like I said, mechanically - even with HP-as-mostly-meat - I'd have zero issues with a player who asked, "Can I spend my use of Action Surge to just deal half damage from this attack, even though I missed?" Heck, that might be on the weak side - I might say "You know what? If you spend action surge, we can just say you hit." (Even that doesn't carry quite the high-level oomph that a big AS does, so I'd probably think it was kind of a bad trade - maybe worth it from a confidence/loss aversion/ "THIS COULD BE THE LAST HIT AND THE BREATH WEAPON IS RECHARGED" standpoint, though.)I'd typically narrate it as not-actually-a-miss, but as actually grabbing a small piece of them despite almost missing. That is, it wouldn't just be battering and exhausting and tiring and plot-armor-ing in my HP-is-mostly-meat world, it would actually be a hit, just not a very strong one. I can get why other tables would from a more "sim-y" perspective based on what attack rolls vs. saving throws represent in the world. I wonder if that group would be cool with damage-on-a-miss if the fighter had some ability that was like "every creature within 5 ft. takes damage as if they had been hit with your weapon.  A successful Dexterity save halves the damage." (It's a little Legend of Zelda whirlwind attack, perhaps). But point being: DoaM futzes with more than just your HP narration. If people think monsters are too simple, it's not hard to complexify them - add some spells, give them unique attacks, use action-activated terrain, toss in a mix, use lair actions, etc., etc., etc.Just because folks think a thing is too simple doesn't mean it's hard to make it more fiddly. And the simplicity - the straightforward monster mechanics or the easy-to-learn Action Surge mechanics - are appealing to folks who have never hefted a d20 before. One of the big wins of 5e from my casual/newbie group is that it is SIMPLER, that there are FEWER options - they find this leads to more role playing and less fiddling about with things, and more dynamic, fluid gameplay. And this is a group that started with 4e, so it's not like their view is exactly driven by nostalgia bias. They just aren't tactical, optimization-oriented, fiddly players who spend their weekends posting on D&D message boards like I am. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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