Can you miss on purpose?

[Keenberg]

Spiritual Weapon
You conjure a glowing weapon adorned with the symbol of your
deity. The weapon attacks one of your foes and guides your allies’
attacks against the same target.

From the flavor text, I could see the weapon standing there, acting as a beacon for your friends and giving them the bonus. However, it says the weapon attacks, not the character. I would never allow falling prone to "grant" a penalty. I wouldn't even allow closing your eyes to do so since you aren't swinging or guiding the weapon, it is an animate object fighting on it's own.

Furthermore

Sustain Minor: When you sustain the power, repeat the
attack.

You have to make the attack when sustaining.

All in all, this is just a bad flavor choice for a pacifist. Why would a pacifist be conjuring weapons in the first place?

 

[Nikosandros]

From the flavor text, I could see the weapon standing there, acting as a beacon for your friends and giving them the bonus. However, it says the weapon attacks, not the character. I would never allow falling prone to "grant" a penalty. I wouldn't even allow closing your eyes to do so since you aren't swinging or guiding the weapon, it is an animate object fighting on it's own.

So, if we forget the pacifist healer issue for a moment, are you implying that a prone cleric attacking an invisible opponent with spiritual weapon would do so without penalties?

 

[babinro]

As a DM I rule that you cannot intentionally miss. The only reason to intentionally miss that I can think of is to abuse feats/powers.

However, if your character were to always intentionally miss, from first fight at level 1 until last fight of level 30, than I would consider this to be a character quirk/rp element and it would be more acceptable (albeit still an abuse of rules).

 

[Mort_Q]

I agree that you can't let a PC intentionally miss, else the distinction between a creature and an enemy becomes meaningless.

In this case, though I can find no RAW to support it, I'd say that like forced movement, the player doesn't have to use the attack provided by sustaining to grant combat advantage. I don' think that that is abusive... it's a daily... let it do something. The trading damage output for healing is still achieved/balanced.

 

[Keenberg]

So, if we forget the pacifist healer issue for a moment, are you implying that a prone cleric attacking an invisible opponent with spiritual weapon would do so without penalties?

I can see your point, it is a can of worms. You can play it either way. I am saying the player is not rolling for the spiritual weapon attacking, but rolling to see how the object performs. Maybe if the party is in a sticky situation and the DM wants to help them out, he can say "no penalties, your deity guides this attack." Not that that applies in anyway to the situation at hand. I wouldn't say spiritual weapon is an attack that never takes a penalty due to conditions.

But this is off topic...

 

[chitzk0i]

You really think the cleric is in danger of hitting with implement vs AC? ;P

I see it as poor planing on the part of the pacifist cleric. If you want a similar debuff, retrain to weapon of the gods. If you don't like that one, clerics have plenty of other options for dailies that don't do damage.

 

[On Puget Sound]

"You conjured a Sword. Swords exist for one purpose. If you wanted a potted plant, you should have conjured one. Roll to hit."

IMC the weapon would be the Platonic ideal of a weapon - lethal and unrelenting. When next to your enemy, it acts as its nature impels it to. Magic is like that sometimes.

 

[Ferghis]

How would those who don't allow The character to miss automatically react to The players statement that The character closes his/her eyes and runs in a Quick circle before to accrue penalties before making The attack roll? Requiring those futile actions would make me feel foolish, as a DM. That's why I came down on allowing the player to lose the attack bonus without going through those hoops.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I would tend to allow a character to close their eyes for a full turn, but not for the duration of a dice roll. That is just cheesy.

As for intentionally missing, sure, but you get absolutely no benefit from that. Not effects, or properties, like the SW vaguely is.

And I think I would not allow a pacifist Cleric either. Just too many rule and other problems there. NWTE (Not worth the effort)

 

[Infiniti2000]

I would bitch slap the player if he tried those actions. Next question.