D&D 5E Damage on a missed attack roll

[Ashrym]

Also:

"...the negative score may be converted to a positive and applied as additional damage to the automatic hit. Thus, for example, a 20th level fighter with 19 strength and a +5 sword attacking an AC 2 dragon would require a roll of -8 to hit it; the character would be allowed to modify his or her damage roll by +8."

DMG p. 74.
Fighter level 17+ to hit AC 2 requires a 2.
+5 sword is -3.
19 strength is +3/+7.

So, -6 to hit. No damage conversion.


ps- re-reading the tables reminded me of one of my favorite rules; the extra backstab damage. High level thieves could get up to QUINTUPLE damage.

I remember playing with the rule before the retro clones existed, however. Those are typically a consolidation of rules from various sources and I doubt we house ruled the same optional rule appear in those retro clones. The hard part is figuring out that optional rule came from.

Now I'm seeing if I can find it.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Ashrym]

Pretty sure it's not OD&D, B/X, or 1e.

2e maybe?

I don't think it was 2e. I remember 2e revising THAC0 to remove negative numbers and adding auto-miss on a 1. I thought it might be Unearthed Arcana because that's where weapon specialization was added but I'm not finding that reference.

It's entirely possible it came from a Dragon article. If nothing else I'm feeling old now, lol.

 

[Yardiff]

a

 

[Garthanos]

never mind ...

 

[Garthanos]

And it can be thrown in after the roll.

arguably you need 1.5x the benefit if you have to pick it in advance btw. These maneuvers are very restricted use they might as well be dailies.

 

[Tony Vargas]

arguably you need 1.5x the benefit if you have to pick it in advance btw. These maneuvers are very restricted use they might as well be dailies.

Y'know, damage on a failed save or missed attack is pretty minor, really, unless it's half damage and full damage is pretty high to begin with. Even then it's essentially the default with many damaging attack spells.

And those same spells are short-rest resources for warlocks.

So why not more generally apply a CS die of damage to manuevers or action surge, also a short rest resource, that otherwise fail, just, as a general rule?

Like "when you use Action Surge to attack with a weapon, and the attack misses, you inflict half damage on the target" and "when you expend a CS die on a manuever before rolling the attack, and miss, you roll the CS die and inflict that much damage on the target." (Obviously, wouldn't apply to all manuevers, all the time, because they don't all require the due up front.)

 

[Garthanos]

Y'know, damage on a failed save or missed attack is pretty minor, really, unless it's half damage and full damage is pretty high to begin with. Even then it's essentially the default with many damaging attack spells.

And those same spells are short-test resources for warlocks.

So why not more generally apply a CS die of damage to manuevers or action surge, also a short rest resource, that otherwise fail, just, as a general rule?

Like "when you use Action Surge to attack with a weapon, and the attack misses, you inflict half damage on the target" and "when you expend a CS die on a manuever before rolling the attack, and miss, you roll the CS die and inflict that much damage on the target." (Obviously, wouldn't apply to all manuevers, all the time, because they don't all require the due up front.)

There are some UA ones that even give skill modifiers if the skill check fails you gain temp hit points out of ummm anger/frustration? An action surge too might be used for something other than an attack ... ok at least in that marvelous land of theory

 

[Sadras]

It's entirely possible it came from a Dragon article. If nothing else I'm feeling old now, lol.

Wherever it comes from, it's quite a neat rule. Did you apply the rule for monsters hitting PCs or was this solely a fighter capability?

 

[Ashrym]

Wherever it comes from, it's quite a neat rule. Did you apply the rule for monsters hitting PCs or was this solely a fighter capability?

I applied to everything that needed a negative number to hit. That just typically applied to high level fighters (and their subclasses), although as I recall the rule was specific to using the fighter table. The retro-clone copy of the rule is specific to fighters.

Based on using the optional rules a 12th level fighter can take 12 attacks against commoners, auto-hit, apply bonus damage, and overkill quite easily.