"Hit" and "Miss"

[Bullgrit]

"Hit" and "miss" have always been inaccurate descriptions of what attack rolls vs. AC result in. That is, you can actually hit an opponent without getting through his AC, such as an attack against a person with average Dexterity wearing plate armor, or against a big monster with thick skin (natural armor).

It's funny, but in 27 years of playing D&D, this "hit and miss" concept has never bothered me until recently. Even with D&D3's acceptance of the concept, with touch AC and flatfooted AC actually called out, it's never bugged me until now.

We need new words to describe the success and failure to get through an opponent's AC. "Hurt" or "harm" kind of work, and I've been using them a bit lately.

Player: "I got a 27."
DM: "You hurt him. Roll damage."

But what word for "miss"?

Player: "I got a 25."
DM: "You missed him."
Player: "I missed him with a 25!?"
DM: "Well, you hit him; you just didn't get through his armor."

What word can we say to describe an attack that failed to get through the target's AC but didn't necessarily completely miss him?

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit

 

[Walt C]

How about "he avoids taking damage?"

 

[Festivus]

The blow glances off his armor/hide.
The blow lands a serious dent in the armor but your opponent seems unfazed.
You hit him with the flat edge of your blade.
The arrow/bolt bounces harmlessly off the armor/thick hide.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

You failed to harm him.

 

[Twowolves]

The blow glances off his armor/hide.
The blow lands a serious dent in the armor but your opponent seems unfazed.
You hit him with the flat edge of your blade.
The arrow/bolt bounces harmlessly off the armor/thick hide.

Precisely. I rarely describe an attack as just a "miss", unless the attacker rolled a natural 1 or something, and even then I describe it humorously.

Sitting at a table where every roll is answered with "hit, roll damage" or "miss, NEXT!" would be incredibly dull. That's another reason why I don't get the 3.X/4th ed emphasis on speeding up combat. They should instead be emphasizing better narrative descriptions. The alternative seems very dry and wargamy to me.

But that's just me.

 

[Bullgrit]

I tried the whole "descriptive" thing, but after 20, 50, 100 times in one game session, it wears thin. "Hit" and "miss," being one syllable words, are much easier -- they're faster and definite, especially when the target of the attack can be anything from a man in armor to a slimy monster, a scaled dragon, or a wispy, incorporeal shadow.

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit

 

[Bagpuss]

Sitting at a table where every roll is answered with "hit, roll damage" or "miss, NEXT!" would be incredibly dull. That's another reason why I don't get the 3.X/4th ed emphasis on speeding up combat. They should instead be emphasizing better narrative descriptions.

Having last session had a three hour combat that was literally "hit, roll damage" I can see the need to speed up combat, because we might then have the luxury of time to give some narrative description.

The alternative seems very dry and wargamy to me.

It was.

But that's just me.

You are not alone.

 

[Bagpuss]

I tried the whole "descriptive" thing, but after 20, 50, 100 times in one game session, it wears thin. "Hit" and "miss," being one syllable words, are much easier

Exactly it works okay at lower levels where a creature might fall to one or two hits, but at higher levels where PC's are getting four or more attacks a turn and the creature is still standing even at the end of all that, your narrative starts to sound the same after awhile.

You can use phases like "your flurry of slashes and cuts", "your devastating combination", and just give a summary of each players actions that way but I tend to stick to describing killing blows and criticals in detail and using "hit and miss" for everything else.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

There was a time when I tried describing battles. Then Everyone wanted combats to go faster, and I started running out of new things to say, so "you hit him" and "you missed him" became the norm, and the players deside how to flavour it.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

When a guy in my group took over as DM for a couple of sessions to give me a break, he used the method of resolving all the attacks and actions for the round then gave us a detailed description of what had just happened, based on what everyone did.

It worked really well, and although I don't have the same natural flair that he does, it is something that I'm trying to introduce into the game when I DM.

And personally, when someone misses someones Touch AC I consider it a miss. When the attack beat the Touch AC, but not their actual AC I describe the attack as bouncing off the armour/stopped by magical protection or whatever may be relevant to that particular character. I think it helps to give the players an idea of how hard or easy the person/monster they are fighting may be to defeat.

Olaf the Stout