D&D (2024) Graze on a miss questions

[Charlaquin]

Can someone please recap:

• what the various opinions from the community about graze on a miss?

Basically either “about time” or “but muh verisimilitude!”

• what is the in-fiction story that connects to the graze on a miss mechanic?

You didn’t land a direct hit, but still managed to graze them, hence the name.

• what is the in-fiction story behind the rule that "this damage is the same type dealt by the weapon"?

Because it’s the weapon that you graze them with.

 

[Rejuvenator]

Basically either “about time” or “but muh verisimilitude!”

Why do you phrase it this way? "about time" sounds like someone talking in a reasonable tone. “but muh verisimilitude!” sounds like someone being a doofus.

 

[mellored]

Trying to understand the in-fiction aspect for the rule. For example, trying to wrap my head around the Dex 20 rogue cannot "completely dodge" the slashing damage of the Dex 6 fighter who mastered the greatsword. (If it could be like morale-type damage, that feels more on-genre to me, but the specific rule exactly as is confuses me.)

Well, if you have less than 12 Str, it does no damage... and the fighter is a master with his weapon. This doesn't appy to wizard swinging a sword.

But I always assume "hitting" someone 12 times with a sword before they dropped wasn't really what was happening. It was more that you were tiring the enemy out before you could land the actual blow.

So forcing a 20 Dex character to back flip out of the way instead of side step out of the way, will make their legs sore faster.

 

[CleverNickName]

Can someone please recap:

• what the various opinions from the community about graze on a miss?
• what is the in-fiction story that connects to the graze on a miss mechanic?
• what is the in-fiction story behind the rule that "this damage is the same type dealt by the weapon"

My opinion: "damage on a graze" forces the player to reimagine the way that hit points, damage, attack rolls, and weapons all work in order for it to make sense. I'm not willing to do that, so that new rule will never make sense to me. (Which is fine. I've never needed it.)

 

[Gorck]

My opinion: "damage on a graze" forces the player to reimagine the way that hit points, damage, attack rolls, and weapons all work in order for it to make sense. I'm not willing to do that, so that new rule will never make sense to me. (Which is fine. I've never needed it.)

You don’t really need to reimagine how hit points work. Hit points are a combination of physical damage and nonphysical (emotional/mental) damage. Graze causing damage on a miss can be interpreted as a swing coming so close to hitting that the target loses morale or gets scared *^%#less.

 

[Rejuvenator]

You don’t really need to reimagine how hit points work. Hit points are a combination of physical damage and nonphysical (emotional/mental) damage. Graze causing damage on a miss can be interpreted as a swing coming so close to hitting that the target loses morale or gets scared *^%#less.

Sure, but I think to further @CleverNickName point, certain ways of imagining hit points may beg the question of what does the damage types actually mean (slashing, bludgeoning, etc.)? Why do melee weapons have that kind of granularity in describing weapon damage? Maybe the damage type is just a description of how you die when a weapon kills you but it has nothing to do with hits that don't reduce you to 0 hp. In my opinion, some rules make me more curious or confused about how hit points work than other rules.

 

[Mistwell]

To start with, it's only on the greatsword and glaive. And only for people who have mastered the weapon.

Fighters can put it on anything that qualifies, which is any melee weapon with the heavy property. That would include Greataxe, Halbred, Lance, Maul, and Pike.

We'll see if Monks can do something similar.

 

[Charlaquin]

Why do you phrase it this way? "about time" sounds like someone talking in a reasonable tone. “but muh verisimilitude!” sounds like someone being a doofus.

My intent was for both to be hyperbolic exaggerations of the positions, but I guess my bias as someone who has no problem with damage on a miss may have unintentionally resulted in making that position sound more reasonable

 

[Charlaquin]

My opinion: "damage on a graze" forces the player to reimagine the way that hit points, damage, attack rolls, and weapons all work in order for it to make sense. I'm not willing to do that, so that new rule will never make sense to me. (Which is fine. I've never needed it.)

Doesn’t force me to reimagine anything, since I’ve always imagined hit points as an abstraction. I already had to come to terms with that to make sense of half damage on a successful save. And with the fact that characters get more HP as they gain levels.

 

[Charlaquin]

Sure, but I think to further @CleverNickName point, certain ways of imagining hit points may beg the question of what does the damage types actually mean (slashing, bludgeoning, etc.)? Why do melee weapons have that kind of granularity in describing weapon damage?

Well, because 4e didn’t have different damage types on weapons, and its detractors didn’t like that.