Can you miss on purpose?

[Gammatron]

If you intentionally want to attack and miss, that's one thing. But the idea behind combat advantage is that your attack is serious enough to be distracting, which means it is serious enough to potentially damage an enemy, even if only on a 20. So no, I wouldn't think you can attack just to grant combat advantage and miss intentionally.

I'm new here, but when we only wanted to scare somebody, our DM allowed us to throw things at the empty square next to whoever we were trying to scare. His reasoning was that it had the same effect as an intentional miss, but the person on the receiving end wouldn't know that! Of course, we had to let the DM know this before doing it though.

This obviously doesn't deal with the "intentional miss to gain actual game mechanics" question, but it seems to work well enough for our uses.

 

[DracoSuave]

hrmm, just thinking out loud to myself on this, but, if the spiritual weapon attacks on a sustain (minor) and aid another is a basic attack (roll versus opponents AC) for no damage, could this work in combination with the pacifist healer feat..?

No because Spiritual Weapon is in no way a basic attack.

 

[vagabundo]

I wouldnt allow the PC to ignore the attack, as I think the effects of the power are linked to the attack. So the CA comes from the attack itself.

I would let the PC alter the power so that it grants CA, but does no damage if that is what they wanted; the attack become irrelevant anyway then.

 

[CAFRedblade]

No because Spiritual Weapon is in no way a basic attack.

True, Spiritual weapon is a not a basic attack. What my thoughts were was that Aid Another in combat allows one to use a basic melee attack within melee reach to attack AC 10 and grant combat advantage.
True this is a Standard Action all upon it's own.

Could this not be used as precedent to allow someone to attack with Spiritual Weapon, cause no damage, but grant CA..?

I know others are thinking this is cheese, and perhaps it's DM prerogative, but, I might allow it in my game this way, although I'd have them roll versus the opponents AC instead of the generic 10 due to the power in effect.

Just a few musings.

 

[DracoSuave]

Could this not be used as precedent to allow someone to attack with Spiritual Weapon, cause no damage, but grant CA..?
Just a few musings.

Why would you do this?

You are not required to attack with the sustain effect of the power. The power includes combat advantage as part of its effect, and that effect is not depending on whether you attack with it or not. It's just there.

If you attack a monster with it, then use your ability to move it to move it to a different monster, then that new monster has combat advantage. Attacking is not relevant to that particular effect.

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But, beyond that, if that were the case, it would be because of a house rule set so you cannot do that. As a DM, if you were to ask me to set up a house rule so you could circumvent the house rule I just set to avoid the very thing you want to do... that's not cool, dude. That's just not cool.

 

[CAFRedblade]

"when you sustain, repeat the attack" is how it is written, and for those who will not allow a person to forgo the attack in the sustain, I just wanted to point out that there is precedent to allow for pulling the blow to cause no damage (through other effects/powers).

The combat advantage note in the power is there to specify that the weapon basically acts as a threatening target as if a real ally was standing in that spot.

Is one effect tied to the other in the sustain entry for spiritual weapon...
some have argued yes, others no.
Looking at the rules, in general I'd say no.

The threat of injury from the spiritual weapon cannot be ascertained.
Will he, won't he, actually attack this round...

But some, or all, of this is my interpretation of the situation.

 

[Pyrex]

So, to drag this back on-topic a bit, what about *other* cases where missing might be desirable.

Say, Band of Fellows.

My warlord would happily miss with this on purpose several rounds in a row when an opponent is surrounded...

 

[Nytmare]

To drag it back off topic for just a second:

For example, let's say I'm in a tavern and I want to use Thunderwave to knock over a table or something to create a distraction, but I don't want to potentially do lethal damage to any bystanders in the area.

Then don't deal lethal damage; having 0 hitpoints does not have to mean that an NPC is dead.

 

[Aulirophile]

So, to drag this back on-topic a bit, what about *other* cases where missing might be desirable.

Say, Band of Fellows.

My warlord would happily miss with this on purpose several rounds in a row when an opponent is surrounded...

Should check out the Lazy Warlord on the CharOp forums. 8 str, and he wields a whip... which he isn't proficient with. Mostly the build takes powers that grant other people attack rolls/damage/anything. It is quite possibly the best enabler ever, it literally can't do anything by itself. Hell, at later levels a natural 20 will hit, not crit, on most monsters with the build.

 

[DracoSuave]

"when you sustain, repeat the attack" is how it is written, and for those who will not allow a person to forgo the attack in the sustain, I just wanted to point out that there is precedent to allow for pulling the blow to cause no damage (through other effects/powers).

Yes, but such an attack is not the main attack of the power. That being, the attack you do when you originally use it. That is the only mandatory attack. Subsequent attacks that are always optional to take or not take: See Chaos Orb for precident on this.