You always hit!

[Quickleaf]

What if the PCs always hit with their attacks?

I'm considering a house rule which allows the players to turn a miss into a hit by suffering some kind of backlash. What kinds of backlash would be a good trade off?

Losing a healing surge? Having your weapon lodged/jammed and needing to spend a standard action to ready it? Dropping to the end of the initiative order? Granting adjacent enemies opportunity attacks? Triggering hazardous terrain or a trap?

There have been so many times when a player IMC would get all excited about their attack and then they'd roll a miss and it would just feel anti-climactic. I am searching for a way to address this 'miss let down' that doesn't punish players who invest in attack bonus feats or make those kinds of feats "must haves."

 

[fuzzlewump]

Taking your healing surge in damage (not reducible) lets you reroll the attack. That's comparable to defiling in Dark Sun. Maybe surge and a half.

 

[TornadoCreator]

Interesting consideration, I would use it to be cinematic if you want to make missing less of a disappointment.

With powers that offer things like "half damage on a miss" don't do this, as it would skew their value.

1. Whenever someone misses, they can spend a healing surge to force the attack through, however doing so will disarm the person, possibly enbedding their weapon into a nearby wall or even into the creature itself in the case of a large golem. This would then cost them a standard action to retrieve the weapon and they would grant combat advantage doing so. In the case of bows, the string snapped and they need to restring their bow requiring a standard action and granting combat advantage.

The reason I'd make it so much; costs a healing surge, a standard action next turn and grants combat advantage to retrieve your weapon is that it wouldn't be used often. This is a gambit that would only really be used for daily powers. People don't get disappointed when they miss with an at-will, it doesn't really matter... but that daily power that you only get one of, when that misses it stings. However, daily powers are valuable enough that it's worth sacrificing your next standard action and putting yourself in risk to make sure it hits. As such this will make it more balanced.

This will however have the side effect of making your game more cinematic and less realistic, but it's high fantasy D&D so I doubt thats and issue.

 

[KahnyaGnorc]

Give the PCs a number of "Fate Points" (or Luck or some other force that fits your setting and campaign) per day/milestone/plot arc/whatever. When the PCs miss, they can can spend a point to deal Basic Attack damage (including At-Wills, but not any Encounter or Daily powers that can be used a a Basic Attack) to their target. Powers that deal half damage on a miss still deal half damage, in addition to this damage.

 

[the Jester]

Are you giving the same ability to the monsters?

 

[Quickleaf]

Taking your healing surge in damage (not reducible) lets you reroll the attack. That's comparable to defiling in Dark Sun. Maybe surge and a half.

Thanks for the comparison, that seems right.

With powers that offer things like "half damage on a miss" don't do this, as it would skew their value.

It's in the players hands, so with those sorts of powers specifically there would be less incentive to use this house rule.

1. Whenever someone misses, they can spend a healing surge to force the attack through, however doing so will disarm the person, possibly enbedding their weapon into a nearby wall or even into the creature itself in the case of a large golem. This would then cost them a standard action to retrieve the weapon and they would grant combat advantage doing so. In the case of bows, the string snapped and they need to restring their bow requiring a standard action and granting combat advantage.

The reason I'd make it so much; costs a healing surge, a standard action next turn and grants combat advantage to retrieve your weapon is that it wouldn't be used often. This is a gambit that would only really be used for daily powers. People don't get disappointed when they miss with an at-will, it doesn't really matter... but that daily power that you only get one of, when that misses it stings. However, daily powers are valuable enough that it's worth sacrificing your next standard action and putting yourself in risk to make sure it hits. As such this will make it more balanced.

Isnt that too much? With those 3 negative effects I don't see a player using this house rule for anything but the most dire of circumstances. I'm looking for something that would see more regular use, make the player pause about whether or not to take the backlash.

Give the PCs a number of "Fate Points" (or Luck or some other force that fits your setting and campaign) per day/milestone/plot arc/whatever. When the PCs miss, they can can spend a point to deal Basic Attack damage (including At-Wills, but not any Encounter or Daily powers that can be used a a Basic Attack) to their target. Powers that deal half damage on a miss still deal half damage, in addition to this damage.

Well I'm specifically wanting a way for the power to retain it's "cool" not just it's damage. This method would give the essentials classes a bit of an advantage, since their basic attacks tend to be stronger. I do like the idea of tying the resource to milestones, however...not sure I'd want to introduce another point system to track though.

Are you giving the same ability to the monsters?

No I hadn't planned to. I prefer to move quickly when I'm running monsters and I'm fine with monsters missing PCs. Do you think this gives the PCs too much advantage?

 

[Mengu]

You could always give players magic items to accomplish this.

For instance the shaman or druid might have dice of auspicious fortune. They roll the bones in the morning, and gain some foresight into their day.

You could make up boons and the like. The Gnome Thief might have the Luck of the Feywild Boon, and once per day adds +5 to an attack roll after the roll is made, but is dazed and suffers -5 to attack until the end of his next turn. The Paladin of Ilmater might have Ilmater's Boon of Suffering, and can once per day take damage equal to his surge value to reroll an attack with a +4 bonus.

This would give more individualization to the character's method of turning bad luck into something workable, while not stepping on the toes of an elf or deva too much.

 

[Matt James]

How do you handle critical hits?

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Why not just use action points with something like:

As a free action, you can spend an action point to repeat an attack that missed. All effects of the attack are negated. If you miss with the repeat attack, you become dazed until the end of your next turn.
This use of an action point does not count against your use per encounter, but any special effect based on the use of an action point do trigger.

Sent from my SPH-M900 using Tapatalk

 

[Quickleaf]

You could always give players magic items to accomplish this.

That's a really creative idea! It might be a bit much for my players to keep track of, but there's lots of potential.

How do you handle critical hits?

Crits are unchanged. If you roll a miss, and decide to turn it into a hit with this house rule, it becomes a normal hit.