What if all attacks/spells did half damage on miss/save?

[EnnPeeCee]

Third round of combat, you roll to attack, and miss again, for the third time. You've been nothing more than a speedbump on the battlefield. Your dice have decided that you'll be contributing nothing to the battle.
IMO, one of the most frustrating aspects of D&D. Missing turn after turn and feeling like you're accomplishing nothing.


Just at the conceptual level, how would D&D look and play if all missed attacks and successful saves vs spells still dealt half damage (like how Fireball, etc currently does)? Obviously, there would be a lot more to consider before implementing a rule like this into a game; I'm not about to drop this on my players. Just a half-baked idea I'm curious what other think about.

Main goal being to prevent player investment of actions/resources/etc from feeling wasted on a bad roll. Everything has an impact.

First obvious effect I see is that everyone (players & enemies), would be taking a lot more damage. Large numbers of weak creatures become much more deadly. Healing becomes more important than it already is.

Definitely a boost to martials, but also to a lot of spells that normally have no effect on a successful save.
Also leaves spells that currently do no damage, like Hold Person, in a worse spot than before.


Anyway, thoughts?

[Lunali]

Dunno if it's a boost to martials, martials are also usually the ones taking the most attacks. I think that if you wanted to change something as drastic as this, you'd probably be better off playing a different game entirely.

[EnnPeeCee]

Dunno if it's a boost to martials, martials are also usually the ones taking the most attacks. I think that if you wanted to change something as drastic as this, you'd probably be better off playing a different game entirely.

Most likely, but I'm not very familiar with other systems. No other system I've used did anything like this. Any that you're familiar with?

Edit: And fair point about Martials, bit of a double edged sword for them.

[Witty Username]

I did see an rpg at one point that did something like this as an extra attack replacement. How it worked for the Fighter class was after a certain level your attacks would deal normal damage on a miss and double damage on a hit. Cuts down on rolling, might make Martials too scary though.

[Naanomi]

Makes sharpshooter/GWM stronger. Makes advantage (and other accuracy boosters) weaker. Potentially increases the power of debuffing poisons and the like. Greatly increases the power of high damage spells

[Zhorn]

Yeah, sounds like the end result is just more power creep
do not want

[bid]

AC21 becomes useless. Instead of receiving 1/10th the damage, you receive 6/10th.
Bladesinger is just dead.

[Magic Myrmidon]

It's not quite the same, but 13th Age does Escalation Dice. Basically, as combat goes on, everyone starts getting bonuses to hit. It ensures that combat doesn't go on too long without anyone hitting each other, and ensures that everyone can hit each other after a while if they had some bad early rounds

[PhantomSoul]

I could imagine having a Fighter Subclass or Raging (Subclass?) Barbarians still deal their Strength Modifier in Damage on a non-Critical Miss a restricted number of times per Rest... but then that could easily just lead to "when you deal damage, add X" pile-ons and some really weird ruling requirements... (Is it a Hit? What other abilities stack?)

[BigRedJedi]

Add the following rider to Extra Attack: "In addition, the first time on each of your turns that you miss with a weapon attack, deal <your attack's ability modifier> damage to the target of your attack."

Alternately, it could be "each time you miss with an attack" if you really want to ensure that martials always feel like they're contributing.

In either case, by specifying that it is on a miss and limiting it to the ability modifier, you don't have to worry about Sharpshooter/GWM or high-modifier magic weapons, but you get a small, consistent amount of damage on even the worst rounds.

It doesn't have to apply to monsters or NPCs either; just be a function of the Extra Attack feature.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

AC21 becomes useless. Instead of receiving 1/10th the damage, you receive 6/10th.
Bladesinger is just dead.

Kind of what I was thinking. HP become way more important than AC or even Saves. Definite boon to anything with d10 or particularly d12 HP; can't imagine a d6 character front lining in this situation, so maybe characters revert to more traditional roles.
As to the OP, maybe I'm just old, but I don't think everyone needs a participation ribbon with every roll of the dice. If you miss occasionally that makes the hits more exciting.

[Eldariel]

Kind of what I was thinking. HP become way more important than AC or even Saves. Definite boon to anything with d10 or particularly d12 HP; can't imagine a d6 character front lining in this situation, so maybe characters revert to more traditional roles.

HD still is a pretty minor part of your total HP. HP is mostly about Con and spells/abilities (stuff like Twilight Cleric, Shepherd Druid, Glamour Bard, Abjurer Wizard, Moon Druid, etc. provide some of the highest effective HP in the game not accounting for AC).

@OP: I could see this as a Fighter/Barbarian/Ranger/Paladin/(Monk) ability. Currently they're pretty shafted in having no safe options for damaging hard-to-hit enemies (which are, of course, rare) meaning they're more on the mercy of the dice than casters. Casters, meanwhile, have boatloads of spells that autodamage enemies regardless of saves or hit rolls. Since martials are way weaker anyways, it would probably be no problem to add a limited number of autohit damage to e.g. Extra Attack.

This works better with like 4 or 6 degrees of success though. PF2e has a nice start to that. I'd like an ability that increases a martial's category of success by 1 grade; so a "fail" is a "success", a "critical fail" is a "fail" and a..."colossal fail" is a "critical fail". This way missing would still be possible but exceedingly unlikely and you'd get the reliability (and the crit boosting) you want. It seems to make sense to space these within 5 points of target value so most of them fit on the die at all times, and have nat 1 and 20 automatically increase or decrease the grade of success by 1 (so if your 20 is normally a "critical success", it would become "colossal success" instead and if your 1 is normally a "critical fail", it would become a "colossal fail" instead).

[Pex]

It's disappointing to miss, but without that risk victory is not sweet. It's not a wasted turn to have tried but failed.

[da newt]

I'd think combat would become much more formulaic and predictable - if every attack made deals 1/2 damage, there is much less reason for any sort of tactic other than attack for max damage. AC and save proff and resistances etc all become devalued. SS/GWM increase in potency. Everything that grants ADV/DISADV is devalued. BUFF/DEBUFF is devalued.

It's too game changing IMO, but I haven't done the math.

[Theodoxus]

Add the following rider to Extra Attack: "In addition, the first time on each of your turns that you miss with a weapon attack, deal <your attack's ability modifier> damage to the target of your attack."

Alternately, it could be "each time you miss with an attack" if you really want to ensure that martials always feel like they're contributing.

In either case, by specifying that it is on a miss and limiting it to the ability modifier, you don't have to worry about Sharpshooter/GWM or high-modifier magic weapons, but you get a small, consistent amount of damage on even the worst rounds.

It doesn't have to apply to monsters or NPCs either; just be a function of the Extra Attack feature.

This is the direction I would tend to go, if I were to implement something like this. Though I wouldn't gate it behind the Extra Attack feature specifically - but would grant it as a base ability at 2nd level to any class that gets Extra Attack. For those subclasses (Swords, Bladesinger, Battlesmith, etc.) that gain EA as a feature, I could see adding a tag that basically states "When you miss with a non-spell* attack, you still deal your [Cha, Int, Dex, or Str] modifier damage."

*yes, I'm well aware that 'non-spell' isn't a term used in 5E. I really really didn't want to write out the complex sentence that would state the same, in purely 5E terminology.*

Basically, this leaves straight Rogues out of the mix, and I think that's perfectly fine - they're trying to generate advantage anyway.


It's disappointing to miss, but without that risk victory is not sweet. It's not a wasted turn to have tried but failed.

I mean, yeah, but that's wisdom garnered from age, or bullied into a 'just deal with it, life sucks and then you die' mentality. I agree that 1/2 damage would render victory less sweet (especially if said victory is gained solely through missed attacks). But ability mod damage at least lets you do something, and hey, who doesn't love to kill steal when their dice are behaving poorly?

[stoutstien]

I floated the idea of some classes getting partial damage on weapons attacks. So a barbarian would get their strength modifier and their rage damage when applicable if they use RA and miss.

[Lunali]

This is the direction I would tend to go, if I were to implement something like this. Though I wouldn't gate it behind the Extra Attack feature specifically - but would grant it as a base ability at 2nd level to any class that gets Extra Attack. For those subclasses (Swords, Bladesinger, Battlesmith, etc.) that gain EA as a feature, I could see adding a tag that basically states "When you miss with a non-spell* attack, you still deal your [Cha, Int, Dex, or Str] modifier damage."

*yes, I'm well aware that 'non-spell' isn't a term used in 5E. I really really didn't want to write out the complex sentence that would state the same, in purely 5E terminology.*

Basically, this leaves straight Rogues out of the mix, and I think that's perfectly fine - they're trying to generate advantage anyway.

If the point is to make things not feel so bad on a miss, characters with extra attack are the least important to gain the ability while rogues are probably the most important as theirs is a single large attack instead of multiple smaller ones.

[GeoffWatson]

In 4e one of the low-level Fighter options was an attack that did a small amount of damage on a miss.
Many 3e fans went total rabid hatred over it, as they thought only magic should have automatic damage.
So I don't think it would be all that popular.

[PhantomSoul]

This is the direction I would tend to go, if I were to implement something like this. Though I wouldn't gate it behind the Extra Attack feature specifically - but would grant it as a base ability at 2nd level to any class that gets Extra Attack. ...

...every turn at level 2?!?!?! :o

[Pex]

I mean, yeah, but that's wisdom garnered from age, or bullied into a 'just deal with it, life sucks and then you die' mentality. I agree that 1/2 damage would render victory less sweet (especially if said victory is gained solely through missed attacks). But ability mod damage at least lets you do something, and hey, who doesn't love to kill steal when their dice are behaving poorly?

Get off my lawn and listen to your elders.

[JackPhoenix]

*yes, I'm well aware that 'non-spell' isn't a term used in 5E. I really really didn't want to write out the complex sentence that would state the same, in purely 5E terminology.*

That would be 'weapon attack'. It's even shorter than your term.

[DwarfFighter]

Anyway, thoughts?


The issue you are addressing is that of one player experiencing a string of bad luck. I'm thinking: Either this is a rare occurrence, or he is actually up against a rare foe that is really hard to hit!

Neither is an excuse good enough for introducing this sort of rule.

[EnnPeeCee]

I'd think combat would become much more formulaic and predictable - if every attack made deals 1/2 damage, there is much less reason for any sort of tactic other than attack for max damage. AC and save proff and resistances etc all become devalued. SS/GWM increase in potency. Everything that grants ADV/DISADV is devalued. BUFF/DEBUFF is devalued.

It's too game changing IMO, but I haven't done the math.

Probably true, although in my experience with 5E (at least with the groups I play with), this is already the case.

[Theodoxus]

That would be 'weapon attack'. It's even shorter than your term.

Nope, then it doesn't include natural attacks, unarmed attacks and probably a half dozen other specialized things I was lambasted for the last time I made a comment that didn't use 5E terminology.

[PhantomSoul]

Nope, then it doesn't include natural attacks, unarmed attacks and probably a half dozen other specialized things I was lambasted for the last time I made a comment that didn't use 5E terminology.

Those are weapon attacks; you're mixing up "weapon attack" with "attack with a weapon".

[Theodoxus]

In 4e one of the low-level Fighter options was an attack that did a small amount of damage on a miss.
Many 3e fans went total rabid hatred over it, as they thought only magic should have automatic damage.
So I don't think it would be all that popular.

Times change. People change. Just because something was unpopular (4E) in the past doesn't mean it will forever be into the future. Just one more concept scrapped by WotC to appease the 4E angerbots... it's really not that bad, honestly.


...every turn at level 2?!?!?! :o

Yup. I see it this way, how many discussions have these boards had regarding HP<>Meat? If some measure of HP is luck and training and bruises and scrapes, then shouldn't actual combat be the same? Have you ever actually done live-action combat? How often do you actually, full on miss? Hardly ever. Even if your opponent dances out of an effective hit, it still is an ineffective one - which is what this would be describing. Sure, maybe make it more complicated if it fits better with your verisimilitude: If the total to hit is more than 10+the opponents Dex mod, but less than their AC, you deal 'attack mod' damage. It represents getting past their natural grace and landing a blow to their armor or shield or whatever. Yeah, it's not an effective hit, but it still hurts a bit.


Those are weapon attacks; you're mixing up "weapon attack" with "attack with a weapon".

Not me man, the board. I'm not gonna debate this ad nauseum. Been there, done that - almost made a super snarky remark regarding exactly this on my first post - but figured it'd get scrubbed... didn't need the hit. But now, I kinda wish I had. This is the last I'm gonna post on it. Peace.

[DomesticHausCat]

Currently running a "realistic" game set during the 3rd Crusade in the real world. Everyone is human and the max level is 6 (they cannot level up past that but they do get other stuff as they "level" up past that.) It is in Pathfinder 1st edition, but this house ruling may be relevant for the 5th edition conversation. Maybe some of you may find this useful.

Since characters' hit rates will never be super high I've added in a damage reduction system for armor based on how close you were to hitting your target. If your attack roll was a miss by 1-4 from the AC then it is considered a "Partial Hit." If your attack roll was a miss from 5-8 from hitting then it is a "Minimal Hit."

For example if a fighter were to attack an ac 20 character and he rolled an 18 the attack hits, but it's a partial hit. If he rolled a 16 it's still a partial hit because it's within the 1-4 window away from 20. A minimal hit would be an attack roll of any result between 12-15.

Depending on the armor type you have damage reduction for both Partial hits and Minimal hits.

Light Armor:
Partial Hit: Damage reduced by 10%
Minimal Hit: Damage reduced by 33%

Medium Armor:
Partial Hit: Damage reduced by 25%
Minimal Hit: Damage reduced by 50%

Heavy Armor:
Partial Hit: Damage reduced by 33%
Minimal Hit: Damage reduced by 75%

We've only done one fight and it was fairly quick so not sure how it feels to play like this yet. But I'm guessing fights will be faster and your high AC is no longer going to be something you can always rely on. However high AC still helps in case enemies roll very low due to totally missing still being possible.

[Anonymouswizard]

It's not quite the same, but 13th Age does Escalation Dice. Basically, as combat goes on, everyone starts getting bonuses to hit. It ensures that combat doesn't go on too long without anyone hitting each other, and ensures that everyone can hit each other after a while if they had some bad early rounds

13th Age is just packed with good ideas. I love that it states that players should not have control of Full Recoveries, and the Escalation Die is fantastic.

Although as I remember the Escalation Die is pretty solidly built into the system, with some mechanics keying off of it. Although admittedly it's been a while since I've read the books.

The other interesting thing 13th Age does related to the 'wasted turn' thing is the Occultist. The Occultist is very unusual, it's standard procedure is to use it's action to gain a condition called Focus, which it can use to reactively cast it's sorted when certain conditions are met (it's the only way to cast most of them). It has two mechanisms to ensure that Focus isn't wasted: one of it's powers is a quick action attack that costs focus meaning that you'll always be able to do something with it before using your standard action to regain it, and most b of their spells give you back your Focus of you roll below a certain number (meaning that if your spell fails you can often try another later in the round or just throw out your Rebuke when your turn comes up,). It's the most interestingly designed class in the game, and really has to work to make you feel like not holding onto your focus wasn't a mistake.

Actually the class design in 13th Age is just interesting, especially outside of the main book (which has the normal boring classes). I really need to pick up Book of Demons to get that shiny class inside it.

[Kane0]

Just at the conceptual level, how would D&D look and play if all missed attacks and successful saves vs spells still dealt half damage (like how Fireball, etc currently does)? Obviously, there would be a lot more to consider before implementing a rule like this into a game; I'm not about to drop this on my players. Just a half-baked idea I'm curious what other think about.


- Players will be taking much more damage, especially from creatures that wouldnt be considered much of a threat because of their inaccuracy (really dials up the bounded accuracy thing, swarms of goblins, orcs, ogres etc can still waste high level PCs)

-low-accuracy-high-damage creatures and attacks just got a whole lot better (GWM, SS feats)

- The DM can easily adjust for higher PC output by increasing number of monsters (see above) or monster HP.

- Save-and-nothing-happens will be even more rare and harder to justify picking/using

- Concentration saves. Concentration saves everywhere

[JackPhoenix]

Nope, then it doesn't include natural attacks, unarmed attacks and probably a half dozen other specialized things I was lambasted for the last time I made a comment that didn't use 5E terminology.

Every attack is either a weapon attack or a spell attack, or it's not an attack at all. Unarmed strike? Weapon attack. Natural weapon? Weapon attack. Anything that isn't explicitly a spell attack? Weapon attack.

Your 'non-spell attack' is just a slightly longer and more confusing way of saying the exactly same thing as 'weapon attack' in the rules.

[RSP]

Every attack is either a weapon attack or a spell attack, or it's not an attack at all.

Mostly true; off the top of my head Grapples and Shoves are attacks that are neither weapon nor spell attacks (they’re a “special melee attack” if that matters).

Not sure of those key off the OP’s idea of half success, but they should be factored in, one way or another. Unless the idea is to just downgrade grapple builds altogether.

[clash]

I made an interesting change kinda in this vein of thinking. Basically I replaced ac with defense and Evasion. Heavy armor improves your defense and light armor improves your Evasion. When attacked you choose to defend or evade. If you evade they roll to hit like normal and deal full damage on a hit. If you defend they don't have to roll to hit and instead roll damage but it is reduced by your defense. So plate armor and a shield would give 10 defense reducing every attack by 10 damage instead of making them roll to hit.

[Kane0]

I made an interesting change kinda in this vein of thinking. Basically I replaced ac with defense and Evasion. Heavy armor improves your defense and light armor improves your Evasion. When attacked you choose to defend or evade. If you evade they roll to hit like normal and deal full damage on a hit. If you defend they don't have to roll to hit and instead roll damage but it is reduced by your defense. So plate armor and a shield would give 10 defense reducing every attack by 10 damage instead of making them roll to hit.

Could you ever crit someone in heavy armor?

[JackPhoenix]

I made an interesting change kinda in this vein of thinking. Basically I replaced ac with defense and Evasion. Heavy armor improves your defense and light armor improves your Evasion. When attacked you choose to defend or evade. If you evade they roll to hit like normal and deal full damage on a hit. If you defend they don't have to roll to hit and instead roll damage but it is reduced by your defense. So plate armor and a shield would give 10 defense reducing every attack by 10 damage instead of making them roll to hit.

What about medium armor?

And the defense option is weird. It makes you immune to weak attacks, which means the starting chainmail and shield available to most heavy armor wearers allows you to ignore kobolds, goblins and other low-level opponents, while being less and less useful as the enemies do more damage per hit.

[Kane0]

And the defense option is weird. It makes you immune to weak attacks, which means the starting chainmail and shield available to most heavy armor wearers allows you to ignore kobolds, goblins and other low-level opponents, while being less and less useful as the enemies do more damage per hit.

Sounds a lot like the HAM feat.

[JackPhoenix]

Sounds a lot like the HAM feat.

Except HAM requires a feat, something you have to work for, and the reduction is relatively little. Even a commoner with his 1d4 club can get through that 25% of the time. Wear a chainmail and a shield with this houserule, and infinite horde of commoners (or kobolds, or goblins, or whatever) can't touch you.

Then there are the issues with how advantage/disadvantage, critical hits and various AC bonuses interact with the defend option.

[clash]

Except HAM requires a feat, something you have to work for, and the reduction is relatively little. Even a commoner with his 1d4 club can get through that 25% of the time. Wear a chainmail and a shield with this houserule, and infinite horde of commoners (or kobolds, or goblins, or whatever) can't touch you.

Then there are the issues with how advantage/disadvantage, critical hits and various AC bonuses interact with the defend option.

Advantage and disadvantage applies to the damage roll instead of attack roll and no you can't crit against a defending opponent. Great for small hordes. Less useful agaisnt big hits with a lot of damage. Medium armor gives a smaller bonus to both Evasion and defense letting you choose the one you want for the situation. Been playing it for 2 years now and it's lots of fun.

[Cheesegear]

Just at the conceptual level, how would D&D look and play if all missed attacks and successful saves vs spells still dealt half damage (like how Fireball, etc currently does)?

You want to avoid comparing single target attacks to area of effect triggers. The reason that area of effect spells do what they do, is because you can't actually miss. Not really.

There's a big difference between say, Fire Bolt and Fireball.


Main goal being to prevent player investment of actions/resources/etc from feeling wasted on a bad roll.

Just because it feels good, doesn't mean it is good.


First obvious effect I see is that everyone (players & enemies), would be taking a lot more damage. Large numbers of weak creatures become much more deadly. Healing becomes more important than it already is.

Correct.


Definitely a boost to martials, but also to a lot of spells that normally have no effect on a successful save.

Significantly boosts the effects of single-target attack spells (e.g; Fire Bolt), putting martials back to square one. If everyone is boosted by the same amount, no-one is.


Also leaves spells that currently do no damage, like Hold Person, in a worse spot than before.

Correct. The focus is now on dealing damage. Since hostiles also deal more damage, the other focus is on healing. Since you will always be taking damage because AC doesn't really matter.


Anyway, thoughts?

Narratively, I don't like it either. Because in narrative what's happening is that every single attack is a meaningful hit. Narratively, if I roll a '4', and the Cavalier on a Warhorse in Plate and Shield has an AC of 20+...His AC doesn't actually matter because I still deal damage.

Also see spells/abilities like Shield or Parry. They no longer do what they do. They merely give Resistance to damage.

Actually, yeah. That's it. Somebody's probably already said it; It's not a buff to martials and attack spells. It's a nerf to AC.

You will always take damage, no matter what. AC only gives you a better chance of having Resistance to attack damage. But mechanically - and therefore narratively - every single attack is a hit. I heard you like making Concentration saves.

[Hytheter]

Adjustments to consider:

Automatic damage is melee only. Personally I'd make it equal to the ability mod rather than rolling.

It's threshold-based. If you miss by a lot (say, by ten since that's easy to compute) then you don't get anything.

[Theodoxus]

It's threshold-based. If you miss by a lot (say, by ten since that's easy to compute) then you don't get anything.

I've been using the PF2's "+10 over AC = crit" for over a year now. Using the -10 under AC = no damage whatsoever is a good bookend.

[Hytheter]

I've been using the PF2's "+10 over AC = crit" for over a year now. Using the -10 under AC = no damage whatsoever is a good bookend.

I'll gladly admit that's where I got the idea. :P

I haven't even played the game, but +/-10 degrees of success in a d20 game? Beautiful, elegant, sexy.

[shipiaozi]

A huge nerf for all attack roll boost abilities, they only worth 50% or even 33% of before
+10-5 would become much better, especially in early game.
Maybe martials could take feat before str+2 or dex+2? Not sure

[Man_Over_Game]

...every turn at level 2?!?!?! :o
Average weapon damage is about 5.
Average stat damage is about 3.
Average chance to hit is about 65%.

So instead of dealing 8 damage 65% of the time and 0 damage 35% of the time, we're now 8, 65% and 3, 35%

The default equates to about 5.2 damage per turn, while the suggested version is 5.2 + 1.05 = 6.25. So about a 20% increase from before between levels 2-4. At level 5, you're only getting a single proc in a turn, so it means you're getting that +3 damage about 50% of the time instead of 35% of the time, once per turn, so it basically translates into about +1.5 damage with 11 After Hit damage, so it's barely a 10% damage increase from level 5 and up.

Or, to put it simply, adding this houserule essentially:
Increases level 2-4 weapon damage by 20%.
Increases level 5+ weapon damage by 10%.

It's just worth noting that this is adding damage to the bottom end, you are not going to be increasing much damage for folks who are already optimized and hitting most attacks.

So I'd say it's not that big of a deal. It's not like folks are worried about Hit Dice being too effective just because bards get Song of Rest. Buffs aren't always overpowered. Sometimes, they barely matter.

[luuma]

Average weapon damage is about 5.
Average stat damage is about 3.
Average chance to hit is about 65%.

So instead of dealing 8 damage 65% of the time and 0 damage 35% of the time, we're now 8, 65% and 3, 35%

The default equates to about 5.2 damage per turn, while the suggested version is 5.2 + 1.05 = 6.25. So about a 20% increase from before between levels 2-4. At level 5, you're only getting a single proc in a turn, so it means you're getting that +3 damage about 50% of the time instead of 35% of the time, once per turn, so it basically translates into about +1.5 damage with 11 normal hit damage, so it's barely a 10% damage increase from level 5 and up.

It's good to know that the impact on the game won't be too drastic with +stat to miss - that kicks ass.

I thought I'd calculate the impact of GWM/Sharpshooter. Both feats are already excellent, but now its downside deals damage, so I thought it might become completely compulsory. How much wider does the gap get between -5/+10 and an unmodified attack?

Let's find out lol. This is a calculation of the *relative* benefit of using -5/+10 with this ruleset.

At 1st level, the chance of gaining this stat damage because you used -5/+10 is 0.25 (5 extra die results out of 20 result in a miss). So, you're now gaining an extra 0.25*stat dpr on top of the boost it already gave (-5 to hit is an extra 0.25 probability of missing). About 0.75 per turn

With extra attack, the chance of gaining the benefit of +4 due to the use of -5/+10 is the probability of missing the first and/or second hit due to great weapon fighting when both attacks would otherwise have hit, which is 0.25*0.65*2

= 0.325*stat per turn.

It's not as bad as one might think. Like, it's obviously bad that it's buffing the strongest feat in the game, but a single point of damage per round is not going to make them feel significantly stronger than they already do.



Edit: (apologies for always editing) It's a good idea to exclude creatures summoned from spells from the benefit. Hordes of skeletons from Animate Dead become scary, as does an army of Giant Poisonous Snakes from Conjure Animals, or a load of spoons from Animate Objects.

You'd probably want to increase the encounter multipliers for total monsters massively. Horde encounters are balanced in their current state, and consist of a lot of missed attacks from tiny foes.. If those misses did 2 damage each, everyone would take 14 more damage per turn, which is a substantial amount of extra damage. Something like:
1 ×1
2 ×1.5
3-4 ×2
5-7 ×3
8-11 ×5
12-14 ×7
15 or more ×10

[Man_Over_Game]

Edit: (apologies for always editing) It's a good idea to exclude creatures summoned from spells from the benefit. Hordes of skeletons from Animate Dead become scary, as does an army of Giant Poisonous Snakes from Conjure Animals, or a load of spoons from Animate Objects.

You'd probably want to increase the encounter multipliers for total monsters massively. Horde encounters are balanced in their current state, and consist of a lot of missed attacks from tiny foes.. If those misses did 2 damage each, everyone would take 14 more damage per turn, which is a substantial amount of extra damage. Something like:
1 ×1
2 ×1.5
3-4 ×2
5-7 ×3
8-11 ×5
12-14 ×7
15 or more ×10

I'd just be lazy and convert the damage-on-miss to being equal to CR. That way, you don't really have to look at the statblocks to know how much damage it does.

[Theodoxus]

If I were to implement this rule, I'd definitely make it character based, and only character attacks, not summons, pets, minions, henchmen or whatever.

It is interesting that it does in a way, promote the use of GMW/SS, since you're going to do a LOT of damage on a hit, and still some damage on a miss. There's little downside to not going "balls to the wall" on every attack, even if not using the 'power attack' portion of those feats would garner more damage over the long run against high(er) AC targets.

Definitely something to think about.

[Man_Over_Game]

If I were to implement this rule, I'd definitely make it character based, and only character attacks, not summons, pets, minions, henchmen or whatever.

It is interesting that it does in a way, promote the use of GMW/SS, since you're going to do a LOT of damage on a hit, and still some damage on a miss. There's little downside to not going "balls to the wall" on every attack, even if not using the 'power attack' portion of those feats would garner more damage over the long run against high(er) AC targets.

Definitely something to think about.

Personally, I'd just modify GWM/SS to lose all of the bonus effects and just make it a single feat, called Power Strike, that just requires you to use a weapon with both hands for the -5/+10 strike. It's not like anyone would ever have both Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master at the same time, it gets rid of a lot of the annoying bonus stuff from Sharpshooter that DMs hate, and it streamlines your party into being more knowledgable about each others' capabilities (since all Power Strikes operate the same way).

Now, thinking about it, it seems kinda silly that they didn't bother trying to streamline these feats from the getgo. Seems kinda obvious, you know?

[Garresh]

It would be bad. Really bad. Like atrociously bad. You'd be incentivized to ignore accuracy and just pump damage. Like gwm needs more power. Same for using spells that target high saves. Who cares just punch right through.

[PhantomSoul]

...

It's just worth noting that this is adding damage to the bottom end, you are not going to be increasing much damage for folks who are already optimized and hitting most attacks.

So I'd say it's not that big of a deal. It's not like folks are worried about Hit Dice being too effective just because bards get Song of Rest. Buffs aren't always overpowered. Sometimes, they barely matter.

It matters in practice not because your average changes much (assuming the stat mod version) nor because your maximum damage changes (it doesn't), but because your minimum is no longer 0. The mod might not sound like much, but there are plenty of monsters that have your stat mod or lower in total hit points... and that means they immediately die on an attack regardless of your attack roll. I dislike that at higher levels because low-level monsters still having some potential relevance is a nice thing, but at high levels it's not too bad to give an "epic" feel (but I'd still make it a feature only for specific classes, and probably limited-use or otherwise restricted)... but at level 2, you're insta-killing lots of reasonable things to run into that are still expected to be a reasonable challenge.

[Man_Over_Game]

It matters in practice not because your average changes much (assuming the stat mod version) nor because your maximum damage changes (it doesn't), but because your minimum is no longer 0. The mod might not sound like much, but there are plenty of monsters that have your stat mod or lower in total hit points... and that means they immediately die on an attack regardless of your attack roll. I dislike that at higher levels because low-level monsters still having some potential relevance is a nice thing, but at high levels it's not too bad to give an "epic" feel (but I'd still make it a feature only for specific classes, and probably limited-use or otherwise restricted)... but at level 2, you're insta-killing lots of reasonable things to run into that are still expected to be a reasonable challenge.

I'd still say its fair. Those cards would die easily to an AoE attack, this essentially gives some of that power to attackers when AoE solutions are virtually inaccessible to them.

Most martials are killing two of those things a turn, which is still pretty low when you consider how much a level 1 spell would get.

[PhantomSoul]

I'd still say its fair. Those cards would die easily to an AoE attack, this essentially gives some of that power to attackers when AoE solutions are virtually inaccessible to them.

Most martials are killing two of those things a turn, which is still pretty low when you consider how much a level 1 spell would get.

Level 2 for a ressourceless insta-kill of reasonable-for-level monsters still seems wildly early, and the spell comparison continues to reinforce that for me.

The closest comparison would be level 6 for only the Evocation Wizard, and even then there's the added caveat that it's only some cantrips (saving throw ones) and it being half of the damage for cantrips even at level 6 still means they might only do 1 damage. It's not until level 10/11 when it gets into range for the guaranteed damage (2+mod or 3+mod, before halving).