Can you miss on purpose?

[DracoSuave]

Pacifist Healer took a power that could cause him stunnage for attacking a bloodied enemy.

Suck it up princess.

 

[Saagael]

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.

That's what I've ruled in the past. If you want to close your eyes and swing your weapon, then by the time you've finished your "attack", all the other combatants have taken their actions. Let the character close their eyes, but they become blinded until the start of their next turn.

As for the "running in circles", you can say that instead of running around, the player hesitated for too long and missed the chance to effectively wound the enemy and were thrown off-balance. They would then suffer all the penalties you get for running.

Perhaps instead of falling prone, the player knelt down low to try and strike a non-lethal area (ankles and shins), and as such, they get a penalty for that. This seems like the least worrisome to me, as it's perfectly legal within RAW to kneel down, attack, then stand back up.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

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.

A voice of reason! OMG!

Sorry, not much else to contribute other than utter shock at how many DMs wouldn't allow a player to deliberately miss with his attack (or at the least, make him roll a d20 and on a 20, he scores a very unfortunate "lucky" hit, and might possibly crit).

 

[On Puget Sound]

deliberate misses are, IMO, always associated with an attempt to game the rules. If you want to "pretend to attack" for some purpose, like a bonus to intimidate or a ruse to fool an enemy into thinking you are on their side, that's different. But that calls for a bluff check, not an attack roll.

 

[robotsinmyhead]

There's a lot of snide, terrible, overly-opinion driven responses here in this thread.

So you hate pacifist healers? That's not the question in mind here. They are asking if you can miss on purpose. As for the Pacifist Healer's choice of Spiritual Weapon as their Daily, I don't see much wrong with it. I personally love sustain minor abilities and would use that spell to dart around the battlefield whacking enemies to bloodied before moving on. A weakness is this situation where you're fighting a solo, but that's really no reason to fetter the player with having to drop their daily.

As a DM in that situation, I would absolutely allow the player to miss on purpose. They control the Spiritual Weapon and if you remove yourself from the hard lockstep 4e rules for a half second, you could justify fluff of the power by saying that your spiritual weapon is making feint-like attacks at the dragon to garner this CA bonus.

If the character is a Pacifist, you could imagine that they have put some thought into situations like this and have devised methods for getting the most out of their abilities.

edit: Let me edit this by saying that cheesing the rules and making the most of your character are 2 different things, and should be left to the discretion of the DM and common sense. In a hypothetical situation where a character could gain some sort of bonus by "fake attacking" a friendly combatant, I would shut down this sort of behavior.

 

[Incendax]

I don't see the issue.

Spiritual Weapon is a Conjuration, and cannot trigger Pacifist Healer. The Conjuration uses the summoners ability scores and defenses if necessary, but it is a distinctly separate entity as described on page 59 of the Player's Handbook.

The player can sustain Spiritual Weapon as much as he likes and never fear being stunned.

 

[DracoSuave]

I don't see the issue.

Spiritual Weapon is a Conjuration, and cannot trigger Pacifist Healer. The Conjuration uses the summoners ability scores and defenses if necessary, but it is a distinctly separate entity as described on page 59 of the Player's Handbook.

The player can sustain Spiritual Weapon as much as he likes and never fear being stunned.

Spiritual Weapon is a ranged attack with the square of origin being yourself. It doesn't make any attacks, you do.

This argument is equivalent to saying you don't damage the kobolds, a fireball does.

Conjurations and Summonings are still considered you making the attack. The keyword doesn't magically change the fact it's your attack power causing the attack roll to occur.

And that's all that is needed for it to be your attack.


As for the question; You are not permitted to miss on purpose. What you want to do is not make the attack at all.

You do have that choice, to not make an attack after the primary.

 

[Mort_Q]

I don't see the issue.

Spiritual Weapon is a Conjuration, and cannot trigger Pacifist Healer. The Conjuration uses the summoners ability scores and defenses if necessary, but it is a distinctly separate entity as described on page 59 of the Player's Handbook.

The player can sustain Spiritual Weapon as much as he likes and never fear being stunned.

My Beastmaster Ranger Pacifist Cleric Hybrid loves you, though I think it's cheesy.

The RAW reading of "whenever you hit or miss a bloodied enemy and deal damage to it, you are stunned until the end of your next turn" is open to debate, but the RAI... this all reminds me of 3.x Vow of Poverty cheese.

 

[Incendax]

Spiritual Weapon is a ranged attack with the square of origin being yourself. It doesn't make any attacks, you do.

You are wrong. Page 59 of Player's Handbook states "A conjuration uses your ability scores and defenses to determine the outcome of attacks it makes and attacks against it (if such attacks are possible)."

Show me where in that line of text it states that 'it doesn't make any attacks, you do'.

This argument is equivalent to saying you don't damage the kobolds, a fireball does.

Fireballs are not Conjurations.

Conjurations and Summonings are still considered you making the attack. The keyword doesn't magically change the fact it's your attack power causing the attack roll to occur.

The Player's Handbook clearly contradicts you.

 

[bganon]

You are wrong. Page 59 of Player's Handbook states "A conjuration uses your ability scores and defenses to determine the outcome of attacks it makes and attacks against it (if such attacks are possible)."

Show me where in that line of text it states that 'it doesn't make any attacks, you do'.

Congratulations, you've successfully argued that conjurations can never get enhancement bonuses to attack or damage, since the conjuration is not actually wielding or even holding an implement. Enjoy your version of the game, where conjurations are utterly useless at high level!

Really, all Pacifist Healer says is "when you deal damage". If I'm using a power to conjure a sword which stabs my enemy, I am "dealing damage". By means of a sword I conjured. Do weapon-users also get to avoid "dealing damage" by arguing that it's really their weapon that deals the damage? If a Halfling hits you in the head with a rock, would be believe him if he says "I didn't deal damage, I'm not even touching you!"