Parry vs. Graze

Would you allow the Graze damage to apply to a target who first used a Parry reaction casuing the initial strike to miss?

The weapon mastery property for Graze:

Graze

If your attack roll with this weapon misses a creature, you can deal damage to that creature equal to the ability modifier you used to make the attack roll. This damage is the same type dealt by the weapon, and the damage can be increased only by increasing the ability modifier.

The parry reaction wording changes depending on the monster stat block but usually indicates that a melee weapon must wielded, and the attack is visible. The AC is then boosted to cause the attack to potentially miss. e.g. for Gladiator:
Parry. The gladiator adds 3 to its AC against one melee attack that would hit it. To do so, the gladiator must see the attacker and be wielding a melee weapon.

I sort of read this as: Barbarian attacks with greatsword, rolls a hit. Gladiator parries, causing the hit to miss. No graze damage is dealt as the roll was a hit from the start and now it is a miss due to the reaction. I know that being the DM I can rule as I desire, and I am somewhat inclined to still allow that graze damage. I am curious what the consensus is though.

I think allowing the graze damage is the best option. Regardless of how something misses. It still misses.

What is the idea behind Graze damage?  Why does a target get damaged due to a miss?   I do not know the reasoning behind graze.  Once that intent is determined. you have a a basis to rule graze vs parry.

But again, what is parry suppose to do?  It is an (re)action that allows a hit to miss, because a miss = 0 points of damage, but that is not the case with Graze.

Following RAW it might be an advantage for the swordsman to purposely miss and that makes no sense.

As I started, what is the basis or graze to do damage on a miss?  I think the at answer of intent might lead to an answer on this.

Graze is applied.

There's no such thing as "an attack that hit, but actually missed" -- the attack would have hit, but a reaction was taken that caused it to miss instead. (Shield is the most common version of this.)

If the ability was supposed to soak the damage, it would be structured like the Monk's Deflect Attacks -- as a damage reduction. The monk is hit even if they no-sell the entire attack, so Graze does not apply there. (And also they take any rider effects that are applied on a hit.)

Quote from Character77006 >>

What is the idea behind Graze damage?  Why does a target get damaged due to a miss?   I do not know the reasoning behind graze.  Once that intent is determined. you have a a basis to rule graze vs parry.

You'd have to ask the people who actually designed the weapon mastery rules for an answer to that, but fortunately it doesn't matter; the rationale behind Graze existing has no impact on how it interacts with things like Parry.

Quote from Character77006 >>

Following RAW it might be an advantage for the swordsman to purposely miss and that makes no sense.

Given the way Graze is defined, a hit will always deal more damage than a miss, so there does not seem to be any situation where it would be advantageous to miss on purpose. 

As jl8e said, according to the actual rules, Graze's damage would be applied if Parry caused the attack to miss. There is not really any actual ambiguity there.

I think the idea is that Graze triggers whenever you miss, no matter what made you miss.

To me Graze should apply to any attack that miss, including when being affected by Parry or Shield  for example.

Some threads I found interesting, involving "hit" vs "miss," or Graze, if they're helpful for @DB_Velocity or other adventurers:

- Armor of Agathys question
- Question about damage from the Graze Weapon Mastery & Concentration saving throws
- Weapon cantrips and Graze Weapon mastery
- Graze weapon mastery abuse
- Damage Reduction and On-Hit Effects

Graze generally doesn’t come up that often, but if it did, I would say that it would count as going through the Parry/Shield or whatever blocking measure, but would not bypass Deflect Attacks.

Quote from LinkArcher >>

Graze generally doesn’t come up that often, but if it did, I would say that it would count as going through the Parry/Shield or whatever blocking measure, but would not bypass Deflect Attacks.

Deflect Attacks triggers when "an attack roll hits you", so under the rules as written it cannot be used against a missed attack that deals damage via Graze.