D&D 5E Damage on a missed attack roll

[Tony Vargas]

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.

...but if I did, maybe this would be a good place to start?

I'll quibble that it doesn't sound decisive, at all. And as a pure DPR benefit, it'd have to stack up to precision strike.

But it's a reasonable sort of idea.

 

[Hussar]

Note, your Melf's Acid Arrow example is dealing 5 points of damage on a miss on average. And it's available as a ranged attack.

Your Battlemaster is averaging 3 points of damage and cannot use a ranged attack. Nor, is he doubling his damage if he hits. Actually, the wizard's doing 2.5 times more damage on a hit.

If we doing the level/2 route, it would take 5 misses at 3rd level to equal 1 2nd level wizard spell. Seems pretty fair to me. By 6th level, I'd still need to miss twice just to equal one miss from a 2nd level wizard spell. Again, I'm not seeing the power problem here.

How many times is a fighter missing over the course of an adventuring day? Figure a 20 round adventuring day and about a 66% hit rate, he's getting 46 attacks, and missing about 15 times (give or take, presuming 3 actions surges and 6th level). So, he'd get a 45 point bump of damage over the course of an entire adventuring day. This is hardly going to break the game and it does bring the fighter up on par with the other classes.

 

[Tony Vargas]

What feature?
Is it a feat?

Sub-class, IIRC, a particularly ill-concieved one, as it doesn't apply to any standard cantrips: you need MCing or supplemental cantrip choices.

 

[Garthanos]

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).

Yeh there is no such thing as a fighter only ability these days...

Note, your Melf's Acid Arrow example is dealing 5 points of damage on a miss on average. And it's available as a ranged attack.

Your Battlemaster is averaging 3 points of damage and cannot use a ranged attack. Nor, is he doubling his damage if he hits. Actually, the wizard's doing 2.5 times more damage on a hit.

If we doing the level/2 route, it would take 5 misses at 3rd level to equal 1 2nd level wizard spell. Seems pretty fair to me. By 6th level, I'd still need to miss twice just to equal one miss from a 2nd level wizard spell. Again, I'm not seeing the power problem here.

How many times is a fighter missing over the course of an adventuring day? Figure a 20 round adventuring day and about a 66% hit rate, he's getting 46 attacks, and missing about 15 times (give or take, presuming 3 actions surges and 6th level). So, he'd get a 45 point bump of damage over the course of an entire adventuring day. This is hardly going to break the game and it does bring the fighter up on par with the other classes.

Thanks for number crunching so if we add attribute modifier to each miss too?

 

[Hussar]

I'm the wrong person to ask for number crunching. I can ballpark, but, others can do the math better than me.
It just seems to me that adding in 1/2 level damage on a miss isn't going to change the game that much and it might make some players happier to at least be doing something every round. And, it does help on those days when the dice gods really, really hate the players and it takes them about 10 rounds to kill 3 bullywugs.

 

[CleverNickName]

I'll quibble that it doesn't sound decisive, at all. And as a pure DPR benefit, it'd have to stack up to precision strike. But it's a reasonable sort of idea.

Yeah, the name isn't great...I should have called it "Unerring Strike" or something that hinted that it couldn't miss. ;-)

 

[Garthanos]

I'm the wrong person to ask for number crunching. I can ballpark, but, others can do the math better than me.
It just seems to me that adding in 1/2 level damage on a miss isn't going to change the game that much and it might make some players happier to at least be doing something every round. And, it does help on those days when the dice gods really, really hate the players and it takes them about 10 rounds to kill 3 bullywugs.

In general there are players who feel like their characters spending a round whiffing make them seem incompetent which are for whom these kind of abilities are perhaps designed. Making the game so that it plays for the individual is a good thing.

 

[Garthanos]

Yeah, the name isn't great...I should have called it "Unerring Strike" or something that hinted that it couldn't miss. ;-)

Reaping strike wasn't necessarily the most glorious name but you cannot avoid the reaper might be the premise.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Reaping strike wasn't necessarily the most glorious name but you cannot avoid the reaper might be the premise.

One player in my old group really liked saying it, FWIW.

The default fluff text was very action-movie too.

 

[Garthanos]

One player in my old group really liked saying it, FWIW.

The default fluff text was very action-movie too.

And I agree the flavor text rather does rock