"Hit" and "Miss"

[GreatLemur]

I've actually been making multi-tiered AC gauges for my monsters, showing which component of their defenses is responsible for each range of "miss" results. So attack rolls under the base 10 AC + Dex mod + size mod + dodge bonus are described as misses or dodges, failed attacks with slightly higher rolls are described as hitting the target's shield (if any), a little higher and the blow is absorbed by armor (if any), and nearly successful rolls just fail to penetrate natural armor (if any). It's actually not as much of a pain in the ass as it sounds like, since I make my own quick-reference statblocks, and it saves me from having to just say "you miss" again and again.

 

[Ilium]

Of course, you have to remember that a "hit" (roll > AC) doesn't necessarily mean that you have actually hit him - losing hit points can mean that he has dodged out of the way, or that a bit of his luck has ran out. This is why it's not a good idea to think too hard about D&D combat in terms of simulation!

This is what's been bugging me lately (though it may be slightly off-topic for this thread). As nerfherder says, a "hit" that does damage is just using up luck/dodging at first.

Unless you use poison, in which case the weapon must have broken the skin to work. So when the drow are peppering your character with dozens of hand-crossbow bolts, every single one that "hits" has to find a chink in your armor to force your poison save. But if they were humans with heavy crossbows (doing far more damage) they'd just be near misses.

Sounds like Order of the Stick fodder.

 

[nerfherder]

This is what's been bugging me lately (though it may be slightly off-topic for this thread). As nerfherder says, a "hit" that does damage is just using up luck/dodging at first.

Unless you use poison, in which case the weapon must have broken the skin to work. So when the drow are peppering your character with dozens of hand-crossbow bolts, every single one that "hits" has to find a chink in your armor to force your poison save. But if they were humans with heavy crossbows (doing far more damage) they'd just be near misses.

Yup - I remember a magazine article back in the early 80s that talked about this and came up with the idea of hit points purely representing luck, fatigue, etc, and having a second set of points (equal to CON) that represented actual physical damage and that only get reduced when all hit points are expended, or on a particularly good hit.

Hey, maybe someone should adapt that for D20

Sounds like Order of the Stick fodder.

Heh!

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

This is what's been bugging me lately (though it may be slightly off-topic for this thread). As nerfherder says, a "hit" that does damage is just using up luck/dodging at first.

Unless you use poison, in which case the weapon must have broken the skin to work.

I don't see this as a problem, since it's all abstract, anyway. You shouldn't say "a 'hit' when you have lots of hit points is just using up luck," but rather "a 'hit' when you have lots of hit points could be using up reserves of luck, skill, and fighting capability." Maybe it was a clean miss that nevertheless makes you dodge and adds fatigue, maybe it was a bruise, maybe it was a scratch that would've run through a lesser warrior, et cetera. It's abstract, so you can fit the description of the hit to the circumstances.

Say you're a fighter with 50 hp. A crossbow bolt without poison that hits and does 5 damage might have been a clean miss that used up luck, bounced off your armor, nicked the back of your hand, or whatever. The same crossbow bolt with poison that hits and does 5 damage grazed you just enough to deliver its poison, so what would've been an insignificant hit becomes a save vs. poison. In this case, 'nicked the back of your hand' (or whatever) would be the appropriate description.

 

[roguerouge]

I'm generally fairly narrative in my descriptions of the effects of attack rolls as a player and a DM, until I get tired. As a DM, I describe everything in terms of nicks, cuts, and bruises (unless a critical hit occurs) until a fatal blow is struck.

I'd be careful to distinguish what an ordinary failed hit was from something negated by damage resistance.