D&D 5E Damage on a missed attack roll

[Garthanos]

Damage/hps do scale faster in 5e, staring lower at 1st, and ending higher at 20th in 5e than 4e at 30th. Necessary as BA constrains scaling on attacks/AC/saves/DCs/skills/tools/checks, so a sense of advancement had to come from somewhere.

Too bad skills etc cannot get hit point like advancement in effectiveness on them too. Well they could have for instance....

• My intimidation skill ability affects N hit points worth of enemies varying by level.
• My acrobatics skill reduces the damage from falls based on my level or an amount based on success of roll.
• My athletics even without a roll could enhance running distance jumped by level in feet.

 

[Arnwolf666]

What are you referring to here? I don't recall this.

With a thac0 of 1 with additional modifier on top of that. They pretty much had autohit in 2E

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I wasn't going to ask him to drop the class, I was just thinking that automatically doing damage every attack wasn't balanced against the other melee characters who don't have that ability. I was going to ask that the auto damage require an expenditure of tempo points, turn a miss into a partial hit.

You're on to something. Note that although plenty of spells are save-for-half, no cantrips are. 5E's attitude appears to be that this sort of reliability requires resource expenditure. Or, perhaps more likely, it's the reverse: resource expenditure requires extra reliability so you don't get so nasty a feelbad moment when the monster succeeds on its save. In 4E, too, you see damage-on-miss a lot more often on daily powers than encounters or at-wills. And all those fighter dailies that didn't deal damage on a miss had the Reliable keyword instead, so you didn't expend the resource. So (notwithstanding the edition war trolls in this thread) we seem to have found a pretty consistent cross-edition design philosophy here.

 

[Garthanos]

A level 1 at-will in front and center in the Fighter doesn't say 4e partitioned it off as NOT applicable to non-resource abilities all quite the opposite it says it can be. Those other cases just says some form of reliability was necessary for other instances. That is two distinct conclusions.

And actually those other cases were even less of an argument, as damage on a miss it wasnt how the reliable keyword worked.

Arguably having melee weapon attack at-will damage on a miss was a fighter special that basically nobody else got.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You're on to something. Note that although plenty of spells are save-for-half, no cantrips are.

There's a feature that can make certain cantrips save for half, though.

5E's attitude appears to be that this sort of reliability requires resource expenditure

If so, it'd be fine on a BM manuever or an add-on benefit to action surge, for instance.

OT1H, it appears to be more consistently tied to magic. Spells frequently gets damage on a successful save, or, in a couple cases, even on a miss. Non-magical attacks never do.
OTOH, it's not 5e attitude, but a divisive element of the fanbase attitude: Next floated a GWF feature almost exactly like Reaping Strike, and it provoked some virulent minority hate (countered by majority meh, since, it's like a point or 2 of DPR).

In 4E, too, you saw damage-on-miss a lot more often on daily powers than encounters or at-wills.

Yes, but you did see it on at-wills. The Fighters Reaping Strike and Wizards Cloud of Daggers, in The PH1, and as of Essentials, Magic Missile was returned to auto-damage, and a lot of wizard encounters made half-damage on a miss.

So the direction was to more such mechanics and it has carried to 5e, just only magic benefits.

 

[Garthanos]

An ability that you can engage and spend a resource AFTER the to hit roll has s similar impact not to damage on a miss... but to the reliability that was sometimes associated with martial encounters/dailies

Disarming Strike : When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend one superiority die to attempt to disarm the target, forcing it to drop one item of your choice that it's holding. You add the superiority die to the attack's damage roll, and the target must make a Strength saving throw. On a failed save, it drops the object you choose. The object lands at its feet.

The saving throw of course partially ruins the reliability however since it does accelerated damage anyway.

 

[Garthanos]

Similar clauses on other Battlemaster maneuvers put them in the same category.

Some do not... like Lunging attack.

 

[CleverNickName]

Melf's acid arrow fits the bill.

Damage on a miss has a very vocal minority opposition, especially here.

"Here," where? In the rules? Seriously though: I don't know if I'm truly in a "minority" but I am certainly vocal about it: I hate damage on a miss. It would be the first thing I houseruled out, if it somehow made its way into the PHB.

But that's not really helpful, and my opinion (minority or not) isn't really the point of the discussion. If I were looking to add more DoaM to my game, from a martial source (which is the most contentious way of getting DoaM I think), I'd try to find a way to do it using the existing rules in the game. I'd find some kind of analog in the game to us as an example, and then switch it around.

The first thing that comes to mind is some kind of a spell, and the lowest-level spell that I could find that meets our criteria (an attack roll with damage on a miss) is Melf's acid arrow. This is a 2nd level evocation spell, and is only available to Wizards. When you cast this spell, you make an attack roll against a target; if you hit it takes X dice of damage and then takes X/2 dice of damage on its next turn. If you miss, it takes only X/2 dice of damage and none on its next turn.

Now. With all that in mind, let's make it a martial attack.

Melf's acid arrow is a 2nd level spell, which means it shouldn't be available as a feature until 3rd level. It's restricted to only one class, too, so this should be as well. (I nominate the fighter for obvious reasons.) And just as a wizard can't cast MAA at will, this ability too should be a limited resource. Considering all these balances, it might be easiest to make this a combat maneuver, available to the Battlemaster (and maybe those dedicated individuals who take the proper feat).

Something like this, perhaps?

Decisive Attack
When you make a melee weapon attack on your turn, you can expend one superiority die to deal an extra X damage to the target. If you miss, the target still takes this extra die of damage.

Anyway, that's just my two coppers. Like I said before, I'm not a fan of damage-on-a-miss and I wouldn't allow it at my table...but if I did, maybe this would be a good place to start?

 

[Garthanos]

Something like this, perhaps?
Decisive Attack
When you make a melee weapon attack on your turn, you can expend one superiority die to deal an extra X damage to the target. If you miss, the target still takes this extra die of damage.

Without crunching the numbers I agree it works...

I have a mechanic i have been considering which would allow a maneuver to be used as though you had a superiority die ( at the cost of one of your attacks. ). In this case you could have made 2 attacks but you decided instead to make one decisive or lunging or something.

This basically lets you put your eggs in one basket so to speak its not a vast improvement of some sort.

 

[Garthanos]

There's a feature that can make certain cantrips save for half, though.

What feature?
Is it a feat?