D&D 5E Damage on a missed attack roll

[Garthanos]

I do distinctly recall a tweet from Mike Mearls circa 2014 where he trolled people that he was going to remove "damage on a hit".

The trick is just cherry pick... there are mechanics all over in D&D that you can focus fire on if you like or actually if you "don't like" actually its the danger of taking opinions as good enough reason. It is generally more like criticism with an agenda than anything legitimate and the rogue dancing in a fireball and taking zero damage while his friend in the same fire dies horribly in flames even though both "succeeded" on their saving throws. For one just take mechanic words literally.... that saving throw sure didnt save him from death in flames did it? and for the other its force feeding levels of realism that the abstraction of D&D was never meant to deal with ie - that rogue must be able to slide between raindrops. = note this does not bother me at all really - its an example just like the all the dice disappearing from your game of D&D because you let someone do damage on a miss it is a bit hyperbolic but it demonstrates the weaponization that went on.

It is pretty easy to do but those people you mention in spite of Mearls opinion/attitude got the WOTC community forum closed down as burial mound for the edition they attacked. Treating their behavior as just an "opinion" which should be respected and should drive you to make exaggerated warnings about a low impact balanced mechanic ..... smh. I cannot think of a mechanic in D&D which does not have or has not had detractors based on nothing more than opinion and attempts at hyper-realism. We can discuss the mechanics whether they are balanced, whether they parallel other ones that are used, what they could represent and so on but bald faced opinion will call anything at all BAD WRONG FUN for "someone".

AND unless that someone is you and yours who the flank cares.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Have always dm'd with variable crit ranges (as per normal) and variable crit fail ranges (not normal). Perhaps what would make the most sense is building on the thing ive been doing and having dual "to hit" dcs. One for a good hit (candidate for normal damage including crit damage and one that is a candidate only for half and nothing)?

Ill start using this and let you guys know how well it goes and where problems pop up. Granted when i dm i dm 3 and 3.5 but still. Shouod be able to glean some good observational data.

 

[the Jester]

Is it not in an optional rule right under the fighter hit table in your PHB?

"...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."

Well, the fighter attack matrix isn't in the PH in 1e, it's in the DMG, and the quote you posted doesn't appear in either my PH or my DMG as far as I can tell. Can you give me a book and page number at least? If this is actually a thing, it's something that I missed the entire time I played 1e.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Obviously many spells do this, but they are generally a limited resource, so allowing some portion of damage on a miss with a limited number of uses should be no problem. Level 6 evocation wizards even get to do it with saving throw cantrips so there is an unlimited resource precedent.

However, have damage on save usually involves also avoiding whatever the other effects are, so a full half damage is very generous. I think either limited uses or something like half damage of the base weapon die roll without ability bonus would be appropriate.

 

[Garthanos]

or something like half damage of the base weapon die roll without ability bonus would be appropriate.

he specified later it was a custom class and had half the characters class level.. so while that sounds fine to me it really is dependent the rest of the class to get a full picture balance wise.

 

[Tony Vargas]

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

Yeah, you could use Action Surge to do something other than attack. You can't, as a fighter, do a whole lot of impactful things other than attack, but if the situation makes, IDK, makes crossing a large room inside of 6 seconds super-important, ATM, and there's no Rogue with Cunning Action to do it without expending a short-rest resource, sure.

So I suppose I should phrase the auto-damage option as an add-on only to attacks that'd've done damage.... maybe revise it to "when you use Action Surge to use the attack action, and an attack misses, you inflict half damage on the target" (since it's half damage, a non-damaging attack does nothing, but you could use an unarmed attack) and "when you expend a CS die on a manuever that requires an attack roll, and miss, you roll the CS die and inflict that much damage on the target." (So the new maneuvers that affect checks would be unambiguously excluded.)

Either way, the idea is that auto-damage is OK when you're expending a resource, to do damage, so the resource isn't entirely 'wasted.' Kinda a consolation prize.

 

[Garthanos]

That's why I'd want to phrase the auto-damage option as an add-on only to attacks that'd've done damage....

stacked on precision strike would be an example, what if you gant an attack to an ally and that misses?

 

[Tony Vargas]

stacked on precision strike would be an example, what if you gant an attack to an ally and that misses?

Yeah, maybe both thing. If you do declare a precision strike ahead of time, then getting a bit of damage on a miss in spite of the bonus to the attack roll would be fine.

Not sure there needs to be an issue with who makes the attack roll.

 

[Garthanos]

Yeah, maybe both thing. If you do declare a precision strike ahead of time, then getting a bit of damage on a miss in spite of the bonus to the attack roll would be fine.

Not sure there needs to be an issue with who makes the attack roll.

There are fewer maneuvers that this kind of thing would adjust anyway. I think if you spend a resource to make a skill check awesome some compensation on a failure is kind of strangely interesting myself LOL

 

[Jonathan Tweet]

Are there any classes in 5e that still do some damage on a missed attack roll? (melee, ranged, spell)

I would give all PCs a little bit of miss damage with melee attacks.