I am playing a tempest domain cleric with a high AC (20), the question is the following, my high ac is not derived by dexterity, it is because of armor/race if an attack does not reach my ac (it misses) does it literally misses me or does it hit me and does not damege? if it does can i use my wrath of storm?
Rules as written are that you cannot activate abilities that activate when you are struck if your armor class exceeds the attack role. However if you talk to your dm about activating it when they are close to your AC that is something he may allow.
Do note that it's typically much better for an enemy to miss, potentially wasting their entire turn, than it is to deal your Wrath damage. If you were easy to hit you'd burn through all your Wraths quickly and then be dying on the ground from taking damage.
I am playing a tempest domain cleric with a high AC (20), the question is the following, my high ac is not derived by dexterity, it is because of armor/race if an attack does not reach my ac (it misses) does it literally misses me or does it hit me and does not damege? if it does can i use my wrath of storm?
The idea with AC has always been what it takes to hit for damage, not just to make contact. So where dex means you dodge out of the way, heavy armor means the armor block the attack from hurting you. But that’s a general theme. Any given attack might not score damage for any reason, it’s kind of a flavor thing. And calculating if it was your armor or your dex or your shield that stopped the damage would turn into a mess really quickly.
Like others say, you have to be hit for damage to activate that power, but don’t worry, your DM will figure out a way for you to use it, I’m sure.
If the attack does not match or exceed your AC, you cannot trigger features that require you to be hit.
Often times DM's and players will flavor misses as blocks, or attacks that hit armor but don't penetrate, but for the mechanics, the attack has to actually "hit" you.
Realistically the target hits you, since the weapon hit an armor part probably, but did no damage because it wasn't a tiring hit that drained your stamina (hitpoints).
Game-wise, there's no distinction between missing by not hitting the object, or missing because the armor negated the damage.
If you were to increase the complexity of the game's hit system, there would be two hit calculations, one vs dextery dodge chance and one vs armor weak points, with perhaps, as you allude to, different mechanics spawning from different types of hits.
Tim Kask, one of the people involved in early D&D development with Gary Gygax, described HP in one of his videos (YouTube channel Curmudgeon in the Cellar) using Game of Thrones show as an example. The sparring between Brienne of Tarth and Arya Stark at Winterfell. As Brienne attacks, Arya dodges, but in D&D terms those would be “hits” and a reduction of HP as she exerts herself and losing “stamina” or something like that. So indeed, HP and AC are quite abstract in the game.
As others have said. Not hit (attack meets or exceeds AC) no wrath of storm.
This would make a very different system as wearing armor makes you easier to hit but much harder to damage. Runequest does this well, for example, but requires much more computation.
Runequest only requires more computation because it's got a hit location system. It would be mechanically trivial to convert armor from '+X to AC' to '-X to damage taken', but it would require rebalancing pretty much everything.
I read an article that described it as whether an attack attempt could cause damage before all bonuses are applied. Not matching/beating the AC could mean a miss or a hit that just has no potential to do any damage.
In the case of abilities that require a hit to affect the abilities, the author stated that it only applied to hits that had any potential to cause damage before all bonuses were applied. (This differs from abilities that require damage to affect the abilities as there are hits that can have all the damage negated by subsequent bonuses but are still considered hits.)
The author said she interpreted it that way for roleplaying things like a target with high AC that would otherwise be really difficult to actually miss with an attack. An example she gave was the attack not having enough power or the correct angle to affect dragon scales at melee range rather than somehow, altogether, clumsily missing the huge or gargantuan beast right in front of the character.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
The Dungeon Master's Guide has an optional rule about hitting cover (useful for destroyable cover). If you and more importantly your DM really wanted to homebrew it, you could easily extrapolate a means to determine whether a miss was a clear miss a dex miss or armor deflection (the latter still implying some contact). However, for consistency that should open up PCs vulnerability to similar contact based damage dealing defenses, like the Remorhaz as an off the top of my head example (I'm thinking there's lots of creatures that have fire and other elemental type damage radii that only trigger when hit. Basically if your Cleric gets wider latitude to do its cool thing, so shouldn't antagonists to the party with cool things governed by that mechanism. This would lead to a lot more AC break down calculations on the DMs part, which is the sort of minor hassle 5e tends to avoid, so again you could do it ... but there's a lot of ways you could explain why striking true for damage is the only way to trigger the response (armor glances/deflects so there isn't enough contact time to generate the retaliatory defense, etc) to stick by the RAW's efficiency.
One could also layer a degradable armor system based on the hitting cover mechanic. Other games where armor/cover are essential for survival use those too, but again the 5e design set mindset seems to think of those as more headachy, but crunch can crunch if they want to house rule it. Design spirit seems to want faster combat resolution though.
This would make a very different system as wearing armor makes you easier to hit but much harder to damage. Runequest does this well, for example, but requires much more computation.
Runequest only requires more computation because it's got a hit location system.
No, this is a much too simplistic view of the system. Runequest takes more time in general because there are not only attacks, there are parries and dodges, that all these have qualities of results that influence the damage absorption by an interposing weapon / shield / armor, and the damage both to that item and to the body beneath. And on top of that, the amount of armor worn influences the dodge chance, etc.
It would be mechanically trivial to convert armor from '+X to AC' to '-X to damage taken', but it would require rebalancing pretty much everything.
And it would not work at all. It would make armor immensely powerful at low level and totally useless at high level. It would also not work well with magic.
'Mechanically trivial' means 'it would be easy to write up the combat system to work that way'. This doesn't mean it would be easy for the rest of the system. You'd most certainly need to redesign spells, monsters, etc.
And I'm not sure at all that it would be that mechanically trivial to balance it again with the large range of damage that D&D deals. It's completely opposed to the abstract way HP and AC works, and would undercut all the basic mechanisms, including level progression.
Who said anything about balancing it being trivial? It would be trivial to make the game run that way, but it would most certainly not be balanced without a lot more work. However, changing the numbers for weapons, spells, monsters, classes, etc, isn't really mechanically complex, it's just a large amount of work.
It's funny because while yes, the fact that HP are a pool not necessarily connected to one's health, D&D is very inconsistent about it.
I mean - sure, you could say that a hit can be described as a near miss or a dodge. What about paladin's smite that relies on dealing damage? Still dodged? Then why does it do extra damage to fiends and undead? They have a harder time dodging? Same with Holy Avenger. Or any magical weapon dealing elemental damage.
What about vulnerabilities and resistances? They all work on the premise that actual physical harm is being done to you, otherwise it breaks versimilitude hard.
When you damage an Ironscale Hydra and get acid splash on you, you are not barely dodging the splashes - it deals acid damage and if you have armor that grants resistance to acid, it deals less damage to you and it has nothing to do with dodging.
So yeah, it's not ideal and not perfect. One can't say for sure that HP is 100% this or that because there are examples that make and don't make sense in both approaches.
But if you think that it's trivial, and interesting, please post your ideas, I will gladly discuss them.
In third edition terms: you just change plate armor from AC +8 to Damage Reduction 8/-. What with the broad availability of power attack in 3e it probably wouldn't even create a balance problem there (I guess there would be some issue with immunity to small monsters, but there was a tendency to be immune to small monsters anyway).
It makes you invulnerable to small monsters and the armor fairly useless again larger monsters. And no, the immunity to small monsters is a big problem in 5e, because of the bounded accuracy. And how do you treat the other forms of AC computation ? And the less protective armors ?
All of them are DR, dex bonuses remain as difficulty hitting. And really, I don't care about preserving bounded accuracy. I'm not saying that you can convert armor to damage reduction without the game changing, obviously it will, I'm saying that you could build a functional game using that model and it wouldn't be harder to play than regular D&D.
I am playing a tempest domain cleric with a high AC (20), the question is the following, my high ac is not derived by dexterity, it is because of armor/race if an attack does not reach my ac (it misses) does it literally misses me or does it hit me and does not damege? if it does can i use my wrath of storm?
If the attack roll meets or exceeds the target's armor class, the attack hits. Otherwise, the attack misses.
Rules as written are that you cannot activate abilities that activate when you are struck if your armor class exceeds the attack role. However if you talk to your dm about activating it when they are close to your AC that is something he may allow.
Once rolled a -2 on a perception check
Oh thanks,
I may have done a poor choice then
Do note that it's typically much better for an enemy to miss, potentially wasting their entire turn, than it is to deal your Wrath damage. If you were easy to hit you'd burn through all your Wraths quickly and then be dying on the ground from taking damage.
Please do not contact or message me.
The idea with AC has always been what it takes to hit for damage, not just to make contact. So where dex means you dodge out of the way, heavy armor means the armor block the attack from hurting you. But that’s a general theme. Any given attack might not score damage for any reason, it’s kind of a flavor thing. And calculating if it was your armor or your dex or your shield that stopped the damage would turn into a mess really quickly.
Like others say, you have to be hit for damage to activate that power, but don’t worry, your DM will figure out a way for you to use it, I’m sure.
If the attack does not match or exceed your AC, you cannot trigger features that require you to be hit.
Often times DM's and players will flavor misses as blocks, or attacks that hit armor but don't penetrate, but for the mechanics, the attack has to actually "hit" you.
Realistically the target hits you, since the weapon hit an armor part probably, but did no damage because it wasn't a tiring hit that drained your stamina (hitpoints).
Game-wise, there's no distinction between missing by not hitting the object, or missing because the armor negated the damage.
If you were to increase the complexity of the game's hit system, there would be two hit calculations, one vs dextery dodge chance and one vs armor weak points, with perhaps, as you allude to, different mechanics spawning from different types of hits.
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Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
No hit not struck, especially if it would be to affect the target in any way whatsoever. Fluff wise, it could often be described as such no problem.
Ok, thank you all for the responses
Tim Kask, one of the people involved in early D&D development with Gary Gygax, described HP in one of his videos (YouTube channel Curmudgeon in the Cellar) using Game of Thrones show as an example. The sparring between Brienne of Tarth and Arya Stark at Winterfell. As Brienne attacks, Arya dodges, but in D&D terms those would be “hits” and a reduction of HP as she exerts herself and losing “stamina” or something like that. So indeed, HP and AC are quite abstract in the game.
As others have said. Not hit (attack meets or exceeds AC) no wrath of storm.
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Runequest only requires more computation because it's got a hit location system. It would be mechanically trivial to convert armor from '+X to AC' to '-X to damage taken', but it would require rebalancing pretty much everything.
I read an article that described it as whether an attack attempt could cause damage before all bonuses are applied. Not matching/beating the AC could mean a miss or a hit that just has no potential to do any damage.
In the case of abilities that require a hit to affect the abilities, the author stated that it only applied to hits that had any potential to cause damage before all bonuses were applied. (This differs from abilities that require damage to affect the abilities as there are hits that can have all the damage negated by subsequent bonuses but are still considered hits.)
The author said she interpreted it that way for roleplaying things like a target with high AC that would otherwise be really difficult to actually miss with an attack. An example she gave was the attack not having enough power or the correct angle to affect dragon scales at melee range rather than somehow, altogether, clumsily missing the huge or gargantuan beast right in front of the character.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
The Dungeon Master's Guide has an optional rule about hitting cover (useful for destroyable cover). If you and more importantly your DM really wanted to homebrew it, you could easily extrapolate a means to determine whether a miss was a clear miss a dex miss or armor deflection (the latter still implying some contact). However, for consistency that should open up PCs vulnerability to similar contact based damage dealing defenses, like the Remorhaz as an off the top of my head example (I'm thinking there's lots of creatures that have fire and other elemental type damage radii that only trigger when hit. Basically if your Cleric gets wider latitude to do its cool thing, so shouldn't antagonists to the party with cool things governed by that mechanism. This would lead to a lot more AC break down calculations on the DMs part, which is the sort of minor hassle 5e tends to avoid, so again you could do it ... but there's a lot of ways you could explain why striking true for damage is the only way to trigger the response (armor glances/deflects so there isn't enough contact time to generate the retaliatory defense, etc) to stick by the RAW's efficiency.
One could also layer a degradable armor system based on the hitting cover mechanic. Other games where armor/cover are essential for survival use those too, but again the 5e design set mindset seems to think of those as more headachy, but crunch can crunch if they want to house rule it. Design spirit seems to want faster combat resolution though.
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'Mechanically trivial' means 'it would be easy to write up the combat system to work that way'. This doesn't mean it would be easy for the rest of the system. You'd most certainly need to redesign spells, monsters, etc.
Who said anything about balancing it being trivial? It would be trivial to make the game run that way, but it would most certainly not be balanced without a lot more work. However, changing the numbers for weapons, spells, monsters, classes, etc, isn't really mechanically complex, it's just a large amount of work.
If you make the game run that way without rebalancing everything to account for it, you'll have a broken mess that can't honestly be said to "run."
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
It's funny because while yes, the fact that HP are a pool not necessarily connected to one's health, D&D is very inconsistent about it.
I mean - sure, you could say that a hit can be described as a near miss or a dodge. What about paladin's smite that relies on dealing damage? Still dodged? Then why does it do extra damage to fiends and undead? They have a harder time dodging? Same with Holy Avenger. Or any magical weapon dealing elemental damage.
What about vulnerabilities and resistances? They all work on the premise that actual physical harm is being done to you, otherwise it breaks versimilitude hard.
When you damage an Ironscale Hydra and get acid splash on you, you are not barely dodging the splashes - it deals acid damage and if you have armor that grants resistance to acid, it deals less damage to you and it has nothing to do with dodging.
So yeah, it's not ideal and not perfect. One can't say for sure that HP is 100% this or that because there are examples that make and don't make sense in both approaches.
In third edition terms: you just change plate armor from AC +8 to Damage Reduction 8/-. What with the broad availability of power attack in 3e it probably wouldn't even create a balance problem there (I guess there would be some issue with immunity to small monsters, but there was a tendency to be immune to small monsters anyway).
All of them are DR, dex bonuses remain as difficulty hitting. And really, I don't care about preserving bounded accuracy. I'm not saying that you can convert armor to damage reduction without the game changing, obviously it will, I'm saying that you could build a functional game using that model and it wouldn't be harder to play than regular D&D.