One thing that can really suck in D&D combat, is when you try to do something, fail and that's basically your entire turn wasted. It stops you from feeling like the cool character you wanted to play as, makes you feel like you've wasted your turn, aren't contributing and so-on.

UPDATED: See this post for the latest version of the rule

To try to counter this I've been thinking about what could be done to mitigate this, and I've been thinking about a homebrew along these lines:

Fallback Actions

If during your turn in combat you take an action that entirely fails (your attack(s) do not hit, your spell has no effect etc.) then you may choose to instead take the Disengage, Dodge, Help, or [Tooltip Not Found] action. You may not directly inflict harm with the Use an Object action (e.g- throw a bomb).

When you choose to take a fallback action, this is considered to have been your action for the purposes of triggering any other abilities. For example, an ability that requires you to first take the Attack action cannot be triggered if you choose to fallback to a Dodge instead.

Basically the idea is that narratively the reason you completely whiffed your turn is because actually you were doing a feint to ready your own guard (Dodge), giving yourself some space to move away (Disengage), to create a distraction to aid an ally (Help), or to stop the enemy from blocking your effort to throw that lever ([Tooltip Not Found]) and so-on. It should enable a failure to feel like a kind of success, even if it's not what you originally wanted to do.

It should also help characters who have less reliable options on their turns, e.g- casters who have mostly save-or-suck spells available in that moment, or martial characters with fewer attacks forced to fight an enemy with very high AC and so-on. It also gives players more freedom to do something risky, such as making a desperate attack at disadvantage, or attempting a grapple against a strong opponent and so-on, without having to worry so much that they'll waste their entire turn if they fail; this should give martial players in particular more options rather than having to feel like they can only do what is most optimal and just rinse and repeat every round.

For monsters, DMs would need to use their judgement as to whether they should use fallback actions, though mostly it will depend upon numbers. Smaller numbers of more elite enemies might use them to keep combat balanced, but hordes of weaker enemies probably shouldn't; as they already have the superior action economy, and with weak attacks they're more likely to "fail" an action, plus it won't not be fun for players to have a horde of zombies that are constantly dodging or helping one another, plus that could become a headache for the DM to run.

I'm curious what people think about the idea?

I like it conceptually, but a free dodge when you miss is pretty strong. If you let the monsters do the same thing (and I think you probably should), then you get a feedback loop where one side missing creates a higher chance of the other side missing, which creates a higher chance of the first side missing again, and now your combat is longer than ever.

Limiting this to maybe just Help and Use an Object would help to speed up combat rather than slow it down. But it still feels like there should be a cost or use limit associated with it.

Quote from scatterbraind >>

I like it conceptually, but a free dodge when you miss is pretty strong. If you let the monsters do the same thing (and I think you probably should), then you get a feedback loop where one side missing creates a higher chance of the other side missing, which creates a higher chance of the first side missing again, and now your combat is longer than ever.

Sure, there's definitely a risk of that. Though if we assume both creatures had the precognitive ability to know that rolling was hopeless, then it's not something they couldn't have done anyway, i.e- both choose to Dodge. While dodging can be strong, it's only equivalent to a -5 to hit, which rarely means you can't be hit. I lost count of the number of times I used Patient Defence on a Monk and still got hit just as much; sometimes it works great, sometimes it makes no difference, I guess because being d20 based makes D&D swingy enough to eat disadvantage.

But you'd also be looking at an extreme 1v1 case; I think in practice with a party and either one big main enemy, or several enemies, it should be varied enough that it's not likely to be a problem. For example, if a party of four is wailing on a big monster that whiffs all of its own attack rolls, by dodging it stays somewhat challenging despite having dealt no damage. While party members may then miss as well and do the same, the monster doesn't have to target them if it has a choice of targets, and would open itself up to being hit normally again if it goes for one that isn't dodging. I think getting stuck in a loop seems unlikely?

I'm going to see if I can give the rule a trial run at a session over the weekend, see how it plays out in a brief test; definitely needs more play-testing than that, will have to see if my other main DM is open to trying it as well for a few sessions.

I like the idea and the execution, but as scatterbraind said, the Dodge action becoming more frequent might cause some issues. Characters being generally harder to hit is one thing (playing a PC that fails their attack more often does not feel more cool/heroic either).

Aside from that, an occasional free Dodge action will affect Rogues in particular, given that having Advantage on an attack roll is one of the triggers for their Sneak Attack feature. There might be other abilities affected in the same way, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

So I've been giving this a bit of a try, and I have refined the rule as follows:

Fallback Actions

If during your turn in combat you take an action that entirely fails (your attack(s) do not hit, your spell has no effect, no damage is caused etc.) then you may choose to instead take the Cancel, Disengage, or Help action as a fallback. You may not take a fallback if your action failed as result of an ability your target(s) used, such as counterspell, legendary resistance etc.

Cancel. This fallback action allows you to cancel one additional ability you triggered immediately before, or during, your failed action. If the ability cost limited use(s), you may recover up to half (rounded up). For example, a Barbarian may cancel Reckless Attack after missing their attack(s) even with advantage, a Sorcerer might cancel Heightened Spell to regain two of three sorcery points if their target saved anyway etc.

When you choose to take a fallback action, this is considered to have been your action for the purposes of triggering any other abilities. For example, an ability that requires you to first take the Attack action cannot be triggered if you chose to Disengage instead.

We've ditched the dodge action as suggested but added the special "cancel" fallback to help with those especially frustrating cases where you put something extra into a failed attempt. Reckless Attack is one of the worst examples of this, as it actively punishes you for failing a roll that it was supposed to make you more likely to succeed; other possible contenders are abilities like Guided Strike that somehow still failed to hit despite the +10, losing a use of channel divinity to still fail is not fun for anyone. You might also use it to retain inspiration, which is supposed to be a reward but is ridiculously easily wasted (though my groups tend to use it as a re-roll rather than advantage as written).

I also dropped Use an Object; it's too complex an action to allow as a fallback as standard so we decided to make it situational, it was in danger of requiring multiple paragraphs of exceptions or additional rules so it was decided to ditch it instead. A DM is of all free to allow alternative fallback actions on a case-by-case basis, which is how we'll be handling it.

Lastly we added the stipulation that you don't get a fallback if your action failed due to something the target(s) did, this is to prevent you from getting a "free" action despite forcing an enemy to burn a legendary resistance, or a spell etc.

There is still an element of DM fiat required, as this house rule does reduce some risks, however I haven't encountered any where it was obviously broken. In a few play tests this helped to take the sting out of a whiffed turn, and with 5th-edition combat consisting mostly of waiting, the last thing you want to be doing is spending 90% of a round kicking yourself for completely failing that fourth round of attacks in a row using Reckless Attack (yes this happened to someone that I know am). 😉

You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could break the game that you never stopped to think if you should.

Quote from MisterCardholder >>

You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could break the game that you never stopped to think if you should.

Not sure of your point here? This shouldn't be even remotely game-breaking as all you're really doing is swapping one action for another you could have taken in the first place; mechanically nothing has happened, but you get to turn that into something that might still be a little useful.

Narratively the failed attack created an opening to get away (Disengage) or create an opening for an ally (Help), while Cancel is so you can mitigate one extra thing that was wasted.

In balance terms it's up to the DM whether they allow this for all creatures, only the players, or some mixture (e.g- players and elite/intelligent enemies), but it's very unlikely to tip the scales of an encounter on its own.

I can see a few reasons why this rule doesn't look like it would work in 5e. I've listed them here.

1. I feel like this rule causes some level of class imbalance. If a rogue misses one attack out of one, they get to take an extra action, but if a fighter misses two attacks out of three, they deal less damage and get no benefit. How is that fair? Fighters had the scales tipped against them enough before we started adding in bizarre homebrew rules to make them even worse.
2. It's possible to succeed without dealing damage. If I try to scale a stone wall as an action, but instead fall off of it halfway and take 1d6 damage, do I get a bonus-action help action to aid one of my companions in climbing? Or if I use my action to make a Charisma check to persuade the angry orc who is about to start a fight to please not stab me, but I fail, do I get to disengage with my fallback action and run away? The wording of this rule assumes that the only form of success in combat is dealing damage.
3. This is the biggest one that really gets me. The narrative that "oh you actually meant to miss the whole time so you could do this other thing" doesn't make any sense at all. Does this suggest that you can never actually fail in this game? As frustrating as it is, sometimes you fail because of bad planning or bad luck. It happens, and it's a core assumption of the game that your character will fail. Adding a system which makes it so that even if you fail, you actually succeed isn't a constructive thing to put in this game. It sucks to miss, but your players need to be mature about it when it happens. I could go on and on about this particular point, but I think that I've said enough to get my point across.

Overall, it seems like a good idea at first glance, but your fallback action house rule doesn't solve the problem it sets out to solve, and creates new problems along the way. I'd suggest scrapping this idea, because I really can't think of any way to make it work.

Quote from Panda_wat>>

I feel like this rule causes some level of class imbalance. If a rogue misses one attack out of one, they get to take an extra action, but if a fighter misses two attacks out of three, they deal less damage and get no benefit. How is that fair?

If the fighter hits once out of several attacks then they've still achieved some measure of success, whereas if the Rogue misses they have achieved nothing with their action. Also it's wrong to think of it as an extra action; the fighter can already take an actual, full extra action with no restrictions thanks to Action Surge, the Rogue in this case is limited to Disengage (which they can already do with a bonus action using Cunning Action), Help, or maybe a cancel (if they had some ability to undo).

It's possible to succeed without dealing damage. If I try to scale a stone wall as an action, but instead fall off of it halfway and take 1d6 damage, do I get a bonus-action help action to aid one of my companions in climbing? Or if I use my action to make a Charisma check to persuade the angry orc who is about to start a fight to please not stab me, but I fail, do I get to disengage with my fallback action and run away? The wording of this rule assumes that the only form of success in combat is dealing damage.

Fallback actions only occur during combat so neither of these cases is likely to count. The condition is also explicitly an action "that entirely fails", so any amount of partial success won't count either, for example if you fell while scaling a wall, but still made it to the other side, then that'd still be a partial success. If you don't make it over it might be a failure, though the normal limitations of Help apply; your DM isn't going to let you help someone over the wall if you had no movement left and ended your turn prone.

This is the biggest one that really gets me. The narrative that "oh you actually meant to miss the whole time so you could do this other thing" doesn't make any sense at all. Does this suggest that you can never actually fail in this game?

Only if there's always something else you can do; again there are only three fallback actions. If you have nowhere to disengage to, and aren't in a position to help someone else then there's no way to exploit the failure. Meanwhile the cancel fallback action doesn't really create an alternate success, it just lets you maybe cancel something that was wasted. Also it doesn't have to be narratively "oh I meant to do that all along" it can simply mean a character going "crap, crap, crap, crap, crap!" and distracting the enemy enough for an ally to take advantage of.

This is a pretty long post, so please bear with me. I'd really like for you to understand everything I'm trying to communicate here.

Quote from Haravikk>>

Quote from Panda_wat>>

I feel like this rule causes some level of class imbalance. If a rogue misses one attack out of one, they get to take an extra action, but if a fighter misses two attacks out of three, they deal less damage and get no benefit. How is that fair?

If the fighter hits once out of several attacks then they've still achieved some measure of success, whereas if the Rogue misses they have achieved nothing with their action. Also it's wrong to think of it as an extra action; the fighter can already take an actual, full extra action with no restrictions thanks to Action Surge, the Rogue in this case is limited to Disengage (which they can already do with a bonus action using Cunning Action), Help, or maybe a cancel (if they had some ability to undo)

I think you missed the point of what I wrote. Both a fighter and a rogue, if they are being played effectively, can deal a similar amount of damage. There is a different attacking style here - the fighter makes lots of attacks which each do a little damage, while the rogue makes one that does a lot of damage. Both of these have the same expected damage value, but the rogue has a small chance of big failure, while the fighter has a larger chance of small failure and almost no chance of big failure.

The problem is, in this case, that fallback actions provide a reward (I know that it is, in fact, a reduction of punishment, but we'll call it a reward in this case). Since the rogue has the same expected damage value AND gets a reward when it does fail, this benefits the rogue. It also benefits the wizard and all the other classes that make only one attack, while also harming the classes (such as rangers) that make many attacks. The fighter and rogue were just an example to prove that point.

Quote from Haravikk>>

It's possible to succeed without dealing damage. If I try to scale a stone wall as an action, but instead fall off of it halfway and take 1d6 damage, do I get a bonus-action help action to aid one of my companions in climbing? Or if I use my action to make a Charisma check to persuade the angry orc who is about to start a fight to please not stab me, but I fail, do I get to disengage with my fallback action and run away? The wording of this rule assumes that the only form of success in combat is dealing damage.

Fallback actions only occur during combat so neither of these cases is likely to count. The condition is also explicitly an action "that entirely fails", so any amount of partial success won't count either, for example if you fell while scaling a wall, but still made it to the other side, then that'd still be a partial success. If you don't make it over it might be a failure, though the normal limitations of Help apply; your DM isn't going to let you help someone over the wall if you had no movement left and ended your turn prone

Granted, those were some pretty bad examples, but my point still stands to reason. These examples are, first of all, assumed to be occurring in combat, not out of combat. It's totally possible to scale a wall while being fired at by archers. Let's change my wall example a bit, though, to match the new scenario. I am attempting to scale a very tall stone wall, and have been doing so for several rounds. Behind me on my side of the wall, several archers are firing arrows at me as I climb. I use my action to make a STR (Athletics) check to climb, but roll really low, lose my grip, and fall. However, as your rule is written, I can then use a fallback action to Disengage and run away from the archers in the other direction (or start climbing the wall again) without provoking opportunity attacks from the archers.

Quote from Haravikk >>

This is the biggest one that really gets me. The narrative that "oh you actually meant to miss the whole time so you could do this other thing" doesn't make any sense at all. Does this suggest that you can never actually fail in this game?

Only if there's always something else you can do; again there are only three fallback actions. If you have nowhere to disengage to, and aren't in a position to help someone else then there's no way to exploit the failure. Meanwhile the cancel fallback action doesn't really create an alternate success, it just lets you maybe cancel something that was wasted. Also it doesn't have to be narratively "oh I meant to do that all along" it can simply mean a character going "crap, crap, crap, crap, crap!" and distracting the enemy enough for an ally to take advantage of.

Your original post specifically said that "the idea is that narratively the reason you completely whiffed your turn is because actually you were doing a feint to ready your own guard (Dodge), giving yourself some space to move away (Disengage), to create a distraction to aid an ally (Help), or to stop the enemy from blocking your effort to throw that lever (Use an Object) and so-on." That's the narrative that I referred to in my post. However, your new "the character freaks out" narrative doesn't make too much sense either. You try and hit the bad guy with a sword, he parries it, you don't exactly automatically make it a last-minute distraction. Using this logic, you can also help as a bonus action if you hit the target because the target is distracted by the pain of a sword to the face.

As another note, you still haven't addressed the problem that this negates failure a little too much for me. It seems a lot like you created this rule because you have one player who keeps whining that they get "SO BORED" when their attacks miss. In that position, I would tell the player to grow up. If the worst thing that can happen is 'instead of taking an action, you take and action," there's no real risk involved.

Finally, I'd like to poke a little bit at the "cancel" option. Abilities that you would be able to "cancel" are assumed to sometimes be paired with failures for the purpose of balance. I'm not sure what letting players recover them would do, but it probably wouldn't be good. Also, it doesn't make any sense at all. If I cast Disintegrate and the target dodges it, do I really get my spell slot back? And even if I somehow do, then haven't I done essentially nothing? Good luck telling your players that you're making them feel like they're doing something by letting them do nothing instead of failing.

You have some truly remarkable homebrew creations, and your analysis of the rules and their problems are generally good, but this one sadly isn't worth using. The way I see it, there's nothing to build on here.

Quote from Panda_wat>>

The problem is, in this case, that fallback actions provide a reward (I know that it is, in fact, a reduction of punishment, but we'll call it a reward in this case). Since the rogue has the same expected damage value AND gets a reward when it does fail, this benefits the rogue.

If you frame it as a reward then it's misleading; it's not a free action, it's a limited choice of three actions that may or may not apply to your situation.

At the most extreme end of the feature the Rogue misses their attack and chooses to Disengage instead, which is something they could already have chosen to do (and can actually do as a bonus action no less), or they can choose to Help someone else.

For the Wizard or similar cases neither of these options may be any use to them, or it might help them get out of dodge. Meanwhile the fighter who didn't mess up in the first place isn't being disadvantaged by doing so, because they haven't lost anything, their attack might not have been as successful as they'd hoped, but it still did something.

I am curious though, would you have the same objection if the fallback action still cost something, e.g- your bonus action? There could be a case to make for making the rule kind of like a special cunning action you only get when something goes wrong? Doing it this way would make it more balanced for adding some actions back onto the fallback list, without really diminishing the Rogue's Cunning Action feature (which they get all the time).

I can then use a fallback action to Disengage and run away from the archers in the other direction (or start climbing the wall again) without provoking opportunity attacks from the archers.

Your original post specifically said that "the idea is that narratively the reason you completely whiffed your turn is because actually you were doing a feint to ready your own guard (Dodge), giving yourself some space to move away (Disengage), to create a distraction to aid an ally (Help), or to stop the enemy from blocking your effort to throw that lever (Use an Object) and so-on." That's the narrative that I referred to in my post. However, your new "the character freaks out" narrative doesn't make too much sense either. You try and hit the bad guy with a sword, he parries it, you don't exactly automatically make it a last-minute distraction. Using this logic, you can also help as a bonus action if you hit the target because the target is distracted by the pain of a sword to the face.

These are just examples of how to describe it narratively, I really don't see why you're getting so hung up on this because this is how the game works? We describe narratively what a mechanic lets us do. If you don't like how I've described it, then describe it differently.

As another note, you still haven't addressed the problem that this negates failure a little too much for me.

So don't use the house rule? 😝

And I have already addressed tried to address this; as I've already said, you're limited to three actions that you did not originally want to take, and the most powerful of these offensively is Help which can give one ally advantage on one attack or ability check, or you can Disengage to run away. This is not some game breaking change where I let you cast a free 9th-level spell because you feel bad, it's letting a player do something they could have done in the first place, had they known they were about to waste their entire turn; it's about letting a player spend the next 10+ minutes feeling like they didn't completely waste their turn simply because of bad luck.

If I cast Disintegrate and the target dodges it, do I really get my spell slot back?

No. Cancel is not for the action you originally took, it's for an additional ability you used as part of it; it's for when you use a class feature as part of an action that failed.

This is why I gave the example of Reckless Attack, as that's a feature you trigger in addition to the action you took (attacking). If you cast a spell and it fails, then it failed, and everything you spent to cast it is lost as normal. But if you used some limited feature to try to enhance the spell then that may be eligible, such as the Heightened Spell Metamagic (failed to cause an enemy to fail its save) but an additional feature that didn't fail wouldn't be, such as the Distant Spell Metamagic (as it gave you the range you need to cast the spell at all, so that part succeeded).

Quote from Haravikk >>

Quote from MisterCardholder >>

You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could break the game that you never stopped to think if you should.

Not sure of your point here? This shouldn't be even remotely game-breaking as all you're really doing is swapping one action for another you could have taken in the first place; mechanically nothing has happened, but you get to turn that into something that might still be a little useful.

Narratively the failed attack created an opening to get away (Disengage) or create an opening for an ally (Help), while Cancel is so you can mitigate one extra thing that was wasted.

In balance terms it's up to the DM whether they allow this for all creatures, only the players, or some mixture (e.g- players and elite/intelligent enemies), but it's very unlikely to tip the scales of an encounter on its own.

lol.

"narratively" a missed attack is however the DM or player describe it. and it's not "punishment" and it's not "wasted." it's just bad luck. even Superman gets his ass handed to him from time to time. usually by some dude with a ton of money. and he's practically a god.

as for how this breaks the game: the action economy (and bounded accuracy) is the foundation of 5e's combat system. you're not even proposing this as a feat, or a subclass ability with an associated depletable resource. giving PCs or monsters a free mulligan they can use an unlimited number of times per day any time the dice don't roll in their favor very explicitly breaks the action economy.

you asked for feedback in your OP. that's mine.

if you run games, do as you wish. you're the DM. hack the rules to bits until you and your table are maximizing your definition of "fun." make jeremy crawford rue the day he ever took a job at wizard's of the coast. but if you're really looking for some honest and constructive feedback (as opposed to just getting permission from strangers to do what you already wanted to do in the first place): add restrictions and a resource cost.

two examples off the top of my head: 1) make it a maneuver for battle master fighters; they can use their reaction to expend a superiority die and add the number rolled to their AC until the beginning of their next turn. 2) make it a feat, allowing the pc to use their reaction to take the disengage action a number of times equal to their proficiency modifier, regaining all uses after a long rest.

Quote from MisterCardholder>>

"narratively" a missed attack is however the DM or player describe it.

And this isn't true for the house-rule… why?

as for how this breaks the game: the action economy (and bounded accuracy) is the foundation of 5e's combat system. you're not even proposing this as a feat, or a subclass ability with an associated depletable resource. giving PCs or monsters a free mulligan they can use an unlimited number of times per day any time the dice don't roll in their favor very explicitly breaks the action economy.

It's not a mulligan, it's not a free action, it's a limited ability, and it doesn't "explicitly break action economy"; if your original action entirely failed then it effectively didn't happen. A fallback action isn't letting you re-run the result till it succeeds, or do twice as much, it's not a free Action Surge, it's only letting you do one of three very specific things. Since everyone has access to it it can't be unbalanced, though it's up to the DM how much they use it for enemies.

By all means disagree with the need for this in your own games, but I have seen players having a bad time due to repeated bad luck more than enough times that I'd like to do something about it, this was my attempt at creating a house rule to help with it, I've tried and it seems to mostly work as intended.

What I'm unclear on is what people think is actually unbalanced about the house rule; for example, is it Disengage that you take exception to? Because I can't imagine anyone believes a fallback Help is overpowered, especially when it's an action I don't think I've ever seen used in combat except by Masterminds, and only rarely outside of combat, so if the rule were "if your action fails, you can still Help" would it still be a problem? What about cancel (which really only reduces resource loss due to bad luck)?

two examples off the top of my head: 1) make it a maneuver for battle master fighters; they can use their reaction to expend a superiority die and add the number rolled to their AC until the beginning of their next turn. 2) make it a feat, allowing the pc to use their reaction to take the disengage action a number of times equal to their proficiency modifier, regaining all uses after a long rest.

I appreciate the attempt at alternatives, but I don't think either of these really solves the same problem; making it a battle master manoeuvre means restricting the feature to only a sub-class that's unlikely to need it (fighters will usually hit at least once with their attacks, and battle masters even more so with Precision Attack, Feint etc.). Making the fallback limited use would still penalise an unlucky player, who would burn uses faster than a lucky one.

You did however give me an idea for a possible alternative feat similar to Lucky but based on the idea of bad luck charging its uses, so it's limited use in the sense you have to accumulate points first, but it's kind of like a rubber banding on luck (an unlucky player will gain uses more often).

bad luck isn’t punitive. it’s just bad luck.

a professional baseball player hitting the ball 3 times in 10 consistently for their entire career is gonna be a first ballot hall of famer. no one says a player who averages .179 is being “penalized” or that the game is unfair.

D&D characters hit way better than .300. double that, usually, against an appropriate CR monster. 5e PCs are insanely consistent when it comes to making successful attack rolls, especially compared to older editions.

my feedback hasn’t changed: make it an ability that has a resource cost, conditions on its use, and restrict access to it. like any other version of a mulligan that already exists in 5e.

ultimately you don’t need our permission or validation. you don’t need us to think it’s a good idea. if you’re the DM, you play by whatever rules you think are fun and fair for your group - and I encourage you to do so.

my feedback hasn’t changed: make it an ability that has a resource cost, conditions on its use, and restrict access to it. like any other version of a mulligan that already exists in 5e.

You keep calling this a mulligan but it's not letting you re-roll any attacks, or granting a full do-over on your turn.

Meanwhile the problem with tying the rule to a resource cost is that it doesn't really solve the problem, because a player experiencing a run of bad luck will just burn through that resource faster than a player who isn't, so they'll still end up worse off (you'll end up making the already luckier players even luckier). I've also tried to mention alternatives and other issues; specifically, is it only Disengage that you think is too strong? What if the fallback was a bonus action (like a situational Cunning Action) etc.?

However as I already said, your suggestion did inspire another idea, which essentially is fuelled by bad luck as its mechanic instead, i.e- it's not a finite use resource, the unluckier you are, the more you get to use it.

ultimately you don’t need our permission or validation.

I didn't ask for either; I proposed an idea, gave my rationale for it and invited feedback. But this is a forum topic not a survey; I am allowed to discuss any issues raised, because that's how I can identify what the actual problem is, or work out what that might mean in terms of refinements etc.

I am aware that I can often come across as blunt or, I dunno, combative? But the vast majority of the time I am trying to be constructive, but sometimes that means defending what I originally proposed; that doesn't mean I think it's perfect, but I also didn't come up with the idea at random or for no reason either, I thought about what I wanted to do and came up with an idea for how I think it could be done.

My intention in posting the idea was that others might find it interesting or useful, and might like to help improve it or propose their own alternatives to solve the same problem.