In D&D, there are often times instances where an attack roll matches an Armor Class exactly. How that’s adjudicated isn’t terribly consistent, and can be hard for players to keep track of. If an NPC or creature matches an AC, does it hit? But if a PC hits an NPC or creature, is it a miss? What about a push? Why is that, and why the misunderstanding?
Well, the concept of a “Glancing Blow” allows for consistency of thought. This homebrew rule dictates that if an attack meets an AC exactly, the damage is halved. Both the attack and the defense are equally successful.
Glancing Blow
If an Attack roll meets the Armor Class exactly, the attack damage is halved and the target makes saving throws with advantage from any triggered effects (that require saving throws).
Tom Moses
I just had a conversation with my players about this on Monday.
Mike Ellis
And what were the thoughts/conclusions?
Moses
The players like the idea. It also adds a bit more tension and survivability to everything. The consensus was the armor should protect a creature up to a specific point. Doing damage greater than that point should not be reduced but doing damage at the exact armor class should also be a failure point too.
We also discussed the idea of doing a critical hit could reduce the overall AC until the armor was repaired. Kind of like how a Black Pudding’s acid degrades Armor too. Enhancing the role play opportunity of an economic need for blacksmiths to repair damage.
Ellis
So, in the case of criticals causing AC reduction, would it also do the standard double damage? That seems like a lot of impact for something that has a 5% chance to happen. I imagine players being all for it a) after having a black pudding melt them and b) absolutely hating it when the DM starts dropping 20s.
Moses
Yeah we discussed it but the idea was tabled for now to think over, because it also becomes something that additional that needs to be tracked.
Ellis
Gotcha. I could see some value in having it become a choice. Melt the AC down, or do the double damage. That’s pretty crufty, but it opens up player agency, and also adds some tactical depth to combat, especially when facing creatures with a lot of damage resistances or immunities. Might help the other players do chip damage with a lowered AC.
Moses
Yeah that’s the other side. What’s good for the players is also good for the monsters.
So they have a 5% chance at armor reduction, but then the unarmored people don’t have that problem unless you start taking damage to Dex, which I’m all for ability score damage as a lingering injury.
Matt Lewis
What if the determining factor for critical hit effects was the damage type? Bludgeoning damages armor or pushes them back, piercing doubles damage, and slashing triggers bleed out damage, for example?
Ellis
Interesting! How would that play out? Is it like rock-paper-scissors, or to borrow Fire Emblem parlance, the weapon triangle? Meaning, essentially, is that across all armor types, or do different armors affect things in return?
Lewis
Now that I think about it, it’s kind of ripping off some of the damage-type feats from Unearthed Arcana (UA) released a couple months ago. You could make it apply only to non-magical armor to limit it a bit. If we add too much, it could get complicated and bog down the play.
Ellis
Gotcha, gotcha. I don’t know if anyone here played any Warframe, but that’s basically how damage worked there, too. Slashing causes bleed damage, bludgeoning against armor, and puncture against…well, I’m not really sure anymore, but if anyone wanted to go get inspo, they could go take a look.
Lewis
Interesting, I haven’t played that one. So the damage types are also tactical decisions, which I like. I’ve always felt that the way 5e splits non-magical damage into 3 types is a mostly wasted effort. The more important division is usually magical vs. non-magical.
Ellis
Yeah, for me, I think simple is the key. I trend toward not being a “realism” player, so, while, that sounds lovely in that type of game, my idea for Glancing Blow is to make that instance of attack vs. armor class easier to understand. It’s easy to conceptualize, too. But I really like this idea of giving players more tactical agency, should there be an appetite for it.(edited)
Lewis
I agree. Returning to the Glancing Blow concept. It’s a simple, solid rule that makes intuitive sense. While I don’t strive for realism either, the binary outcome of dealing full damage or not at all, seems pretty artificial. Glancing Blow adds a middle ground without overly complicating it.
Ellis
Can we think of any reasons why the Glancing Blow might be a terrible addition?
Lewis
I’d need to think through effects that trigger on a hit. Could a monk stun on a Glancing Blow? Or a paladin smite?
Ellis
Good question! I guess the answer would be no, because that’s not how spell DCs work, but then, if there’s a “problem” we’re aiming to solve on attack rolls, why not abilities and saving throws?
Lewis
A lot of saving throws have half damage built in, do we want to go there? That could get messy. Also, would sneak attack damage be halved? I suggest we keep the existing rules for that. Seems weird to halve the damage on an attack predicated on finding an opening in an enemy’s defenses.
Moses
Stuns are a saving throw, right? So long as there’s a connect I don’t see why the victim couldn’t do the save at advantage.
Lewis
Excellent point. You could apply that advantage to all triggered saves.
Moses
Smites only require a hit. A Glancing Blow is still a hit, but smites can be triggered after the attack roll and the paladin might not choose to smite.
Back to stuns: a critical attack could auto succeed the stun or trigger the stun save at disadvantage.
Ellis
I’m checking advantage mathematically to see how close it comes to (or exceeds) +50% overall chance before it rubber bands. If my back of the napkin math is correct (highly dubious), it looks like it under performs +50% once you get higher than DC15, which means it favors the defender on a majority of the dice. If we’re taking neutrality into adjudicating on a glancing blow, it’s perhaps a little less than neutral.
Moses
Simple thing we just say to apply condition effects that require a successful hit. We redefine success as > AC instead of >=AC
Ellis
I’m aligned with that. Any thoughts on a contested roll? Personally, I don’t like it, but curious if there’s some merit to more tactical players.
Moses
I’m not a fan of contested rolls. They tend to add confusion to the table in the moment and break immersion in my experience. The more explanation the less fun.
Ellis
Totally aligned. I think that it only makes sense in that it’s giving the attacker the opportunity to “shake off” the stun/effect, but that’s essentially what the saving throw is doing anyway.
Moses
Yeah. Maybe the Glancing Blow knocks out their ability to react for that round?
Ellis
How would that work?
Moses
The problem part is that it’s very specific to the monk. Meet the AC, spend the Ki Point, target fails save, but instead of being stunned outright you’re dazed and as a result the target loses its reaction until the start or end of your next turn.
Ellis
I mean, it does apply to the monk most of all, but I think it would play out elsewhere, right? Primarily monsters?
I’m sure our resident Monk will come back with some ideas.
Lewis
Ha, gladly! Taking a creature’s reaction is a Way of the Open Hand (WotOH) 3rd level benefit, and similar to a Drunken Master (WoDM) benefit as well (disengage for free on Flurry of Blows). Personally I wouldn’t want to spend a Ki point to just take an enemy’s reaction unless I got something else for it. Both WotOH and WoDM gives you an extra attack AND takes reactions for 1 Ki point. I don’t think we should tailor the Glancing Blow rules around the Monk, but taking reactions does edge in on their territory a little. I’d be happy with making the save with advantage on a Glancing Blow, though.
Moses
Good point. Forgot about the open hand monk.
Lewis
So, we’ve settled on a working mechanic for Glancing Blows? My read from our above conversation looks like:
If ATK Roll=AC exactly, then attack damage is halved and target gets advantage on saving throws from triggered effects (that require saving throws). I like this version personally. Any other issues?
Moses
That’s how I understand it.
Aaron Brown
My initial thought about this so far is that, as a homebrew mechanic “for funsies,” glancing blow seems all right and could add an extra layer of RNG-based excitement, but at the same time I’m still not entirely clear on any particular “problem” it’s trying to solve. I’ve always adjudicated attack rolls as meet-or-beat AC value to hit, regardless of attacker or target. Mechanically, it just seems like it’s adding an extra layer of abstraction to combat rolling and an additional 5% chance for the damage roll to kinda suck.
Lewis
Fair point, especially about adding complexity without a clear problem to fix. My thinking for this is to market it as a homebrew option for people who intuitively think that dealing damage to an enemy shouldn’t be a strictly all-or-none option, which can feel a bit too game-y to some.
Moses
It can also help the survivability of enemies as well, just a little bit of help against action economy.
Ellis
You bring up some really valuable points, Aaron, and I want to use them to dive into game theory a little bit. I absolutely agree that “meet-or-beat” is the clearest way to resolve attack rolls versus armor class mechanically. Glancing Blow ultimately isn’t a mechanical solve for a mechanical problem, but for a perceptional problem.
Trust me, I know that way lies madness. If it’s a problem of perception, that could and should be addressed by the DM, not mechanics. That said, how many times do players (even seasoned ones) match an AC, or have theirs matched and go “so what happens?” Even if mechanically they understand what happens.
There’s something about being in the heat of combat with everything else going on where I think the human brain just goes… that’s a “push.” That’s why in baseball there’s a nifty saying “tie goes to runner,” because we naturally expect a tie to be neutral.
Glancing Blow is an attempt to solve that perception, by making ties seem more neutral. It absolutely isn’t a perfect solve, and one that I’d be inclined to leave out of almost all my games.
It’s interesting though, because it’s coming up a lot lately on D&D social media. Heck, even Tom said he discussed it with his players before I even broached the topic. I think the reason for that is because 5e really isn’t much of a tactical game, and I think there’s a real hunger for combat that is in it’s current lifespan.
Glancing Blow, even if it’s just inviting more possibility for fiddly numbers “feels” more tactical because again, the brain rationalizes it as an attack meets its equal in combat, no one should have the advantage.
Also in the way encounters and balance work in 5e, almost all difficulty is predicated on enemies being a big ol bag of hit points and outclassing most players with action economy. In this way it feels like there’s a bit more strategy or tactics needed behind the scenes to overcome that. Even if the reality is, all damage is valuable in 5e, because all encounters boil down to chip damage anyway.
Conclusion
Oftentimes the “why” of a homebrew rule is more important than the “how” or “what.” We were seeing the concept of the Glancing Blow across a lot of D&D social media lately, and rather than just present our version here, we wanted to discuss “why” someone might bring it into their games, what possible game design problems it addresses, and what other ones in might create.
It seems only right, that we’re pretty evenly split on this mechanic. The idea of using a mechanical solve for a perceptional issue always has potential for hurting the overall game design, but the truth is, is that Glancing Blows are a pretty low-impact way to bring some more tactics and verisimilitude into your games, if that’s what you and your players are after.