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Movement vs. Entering - Interesting CustServ Response
I saw this Customer Service ruling on the topic of "movement" vs. "entering". See below for why I was interested*.
Here is the ruling:
Quote:
Originally posted by Harzerkatze
I heard back from Customer Support on the Storm Pillar issue:
"Response (Support Agent) 04/24/2009 11:07 AM
Hi there XXXXX,
Thank you for contacting Wizards of the Coast game support! Please allow me to clarify how this works.
When a character "moves" into an area, it implies action (like a move action would) and refers to intentional movement.
When a character "enters" an area, this refers to entering an area by any means, including forced movement.
Forced movement does not trigger the Storm Pillar. We intend to provide an FAQ for this in the future.
And another clarification, the Storm Pillar's damage is not limited to once per round. A character moving through multiple adjacent squares will be damaged multiple times. If the terrain and positioning allow it, you can potentially trap an opponent so that in order to move where they want, they'd have to pass through 2 or 3 squares adjacent to the Storm Pillar. He would take damage each time. Heck, if you had two Storm Pillars near each other, a character entering a square that is adjacent to each of them gets damaged by each one.
Take Care and Good Gaming!
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As the OP of this topic pointed out, this ruling does not fit to the Dragon Magazine R&D article on Wall of Fire, which speas of "move into", too, but does specify that forced movement triggers the damage.
So, according to this ruling, Storm Pillar, Wall of Fire and Storm Cage do not instantly damage enemies that are forced into them. Cloud of Daggers, Freezing Cloud, Stinking Cloud, Cloud Kill and Acid Storm still do.
I look forward to the promised FAQ on this topic.
*I was interested because Storm Pillar, a new wizard at-will specified in Arcane Power, seemed like a pretty good new power that would let me push foes into it's damaging area with a thunderwave, or pull them into that deadly lightening-striking area with a hypnotic pattern or Visions of Avarice spell (both also from Arcane Power). Alas, that does not seem to be the case, and while the at-will is still good for certain control/blocking situations, it has significantly less utility if forced movement does not trigger the damage from Storm Pillar.
Grease
Daily * Arcane, Implement, Zone
Standard Action
Area burst 2 within 10 squares
Effect: The burst creates a zone of slick grease that covers all horizontal surfaces until the end of the encounter. The zone is difficult terrain. You can make the following attack, using a square within the zone as the origin square.
Free Action
Close burst 1 Trigger: A creature enters the zone
Target: The triggering creature in burst
Attack: Intelligence vs. Reflex
Hit: You knock the target prone. Miss: You slide the target 2 squares.
Given the new Customer Service response, Grease is an automatic prone.
On a miss, the wizard can slide the creature out of the zone and back in the zone for another attack, and keep doing this on a miss as a free action until he or she hits.
That's because the spell text says the trigger is a creature enters the zone, instead of saying moves into the zone.
Seems like WOTC should get this issue nailed down, soon.
But can you slide a target back and forth and count as entering again? As a DM, I wouldn't allow that. I'm not sure what the RAW says on the subject though.
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On another related matter, the language on Polearm Gamble uses the phrase, 'When a non-adjacent enemy enters a square adjacent to you...'. That ruling would imply that forced movement works in this instance as well.
Sheesh, WotC is going to have to come up with a whole 4E legal dictionary...
I really like the idea of 4E with keywords, in theory it should make everything really simple. However WotC haven't been anywhere near strict enough with the use of english and keywords. A glossary of all english terms that have a game specific game effect would have been ideal then everyone, including their staff!, would know where they stand. An example is Defence Writing where specific words or phrases have only one meaning, ambiguity is not good in military orders! e.g. 'are to' is an order (and can only be written to subordinate units)....
On another related matter, the language on Polearm Gamble uses the phrase, 'When a non-adjacent enemy enters a square adjacent to you...'. That ruling would imply that forced movement works in this instance as well.
Sheesh, WotC is going to have to come up with a whole 4E legal dictionary...
Well I think polearm gamble triggers an opportunity attack, and opportunity attacks already have an explicit exception to forced movement.
Well I think polearm gamble triggers an opportunity attack, and opportunity attacks already have an explicit exception to forced movement.
Not quite. Under OAs in the PHB (p290), it states two (distinct and separate) conditions under which an enemy provokes an OA: "Moving Provokes" (this condition excludes forced movement) and "Ranged and Area Powers Provoke". Polearm Gamble adds another condition which also provokes an attack - entering an adjacent square. By my reading this doesn't fall under the rules of the "Moving Provokes" condition as it's yet another separate and distinct condition.
So yes, I agree that if this clarification does become official, then a lot of feats/powers/items will have to either be changed or will lead to some seriously broken combos (as if Polearm Gamble wasn't bad enough already)!
Not quite. Under OAs in the PHB (p290), it states two (distinct and separate) conditions under which an enemy provokes an OA: "Moving Provokes" (this condition excludes forced movement) and "Ranged and Area Powers Provoke". Polearm Gamble adds another condition which also provokes an attack - entering an adjacent square. By my reading this doesn't fall under the rules of the "Moving Provokes" condition as it's yet another separate and distinct condition.
So yes, I agree that if this clarification does become official, then a lot of feats/powers/items will have to either be changed or will lead to some seriously broken combos (as if Polearm Gamble wasn't bad enough already)!
I see what you are saying. I guess you could argue that by making "enter" and "move" into distinct ideas, they actually did change the rather obvious definition in Polearm Gamble to be not nearly as clear as it used to be.
Given the new Customer Service response, Grease is an automatic prone.
On a miss, the wizard can slide the creature out of the zone and back in the zone for another attack, and keep doing this on a miss as a free action until he or she hits.
That's because the spell text says the trigger is a creature enters the zone, instead of saying moves into the zone.
Seems like WOTC should get this issue nailed down, soon.
That is... bad. Theres nothing saying a slide has to be in a straight line? Ugh.
Grease seems badly written. You can run around inside the "zone" as much as you want, it's only entering that is the problem.
I'm not going to think about line of sight and the like for the grease and just assume they don't mess it up.
Last edited by Regicide; 29th April 2009 at 09:55 PM..
Yeah I looked at Grease when it was released in AP as it was one of my favorite 3.5 spells and said to myself, "So if you put this in, say, a corridor where the enemy has to pass through it and you miss...couldn't you slide them back to where they just started and they have to enter again?" Either they run out of movement or they go prone, but I'm inclined to believe I'd rather miss them a few times and eat all their movement, leaving them in the same position next turn while ranged strikers wail on them.
That seems pretty good, and in the right circumstance it could even be better than using the 2 squares of slide to make them reenter the area, as they have to use 2 squares to even enter the difficult terrain of grease again.
That seems pretty good, and in the right circumstance it could even be better than using the 2 squares of slide to make them reenter the area, as they have to use 2 squares to even enter the difficult terrain of grease again.
Yeah, so this puts the wizard in a position where they'd rather miss than hit, which is a very bad thing for a power to do. Will you let the wizard automatically miss if they want... with a pool of grease? Bizarrely the grease attack is an attack against will as well.
I'm really really not liking these area of effects that get attacks, it seems very awkward and has very weird consequences. Just because attacks replaced saving throws doesn't mean they should be used in every situation that had a saving throw!
For grease maybe if it slows on a miss or something instead of sliding. I dunno. It definitely needs fixed, I'm not going to use it as is.
Our group must look at forced movement different than everyone else.
Here is some examples of how we do forced movement.
Player A starts his turn in Stinking Cloud. He gets hit with a power that slides him 2 squares. The owner of that power slides him out 1 square and back in with the second square. We rule that there is no extra damage because he starts in the Cloud before the forced movement and then ends his forced movement back in the cloud. We don't look at each individual square. Just his starting and ending position.
If the person started outside and got forced moved in, then he would take damage.
If the person started outside and got forced move in and out (with the same power, slide 2 for example) he never really was in the cloud and does not take damage.
It's simple, elegant and seems pretty balanced. There is no abuse of any rules, there is no massive damage that makes these spells overpowered and in the case of Grease, this fixes that issue quite simply.
Not sure if this is the RAW of looking at it (I believe it is), but IMHO it is the best way to view forced movement and removes the metagaming of multiple entries of the zone or area with one power/forced move.
It's simple, elegant and seems pretty balanced. There is no abuse of any rules, there is no massive damage that makes these spells overpowered and in the case of Grease, this fixes that issue quite simply.
It doesn't fix the issue Krensus outlined at all (that in some situations it's better to miss with Grease than hit with it). Enemies will still move in, get missed and then get slid back out again, wasting more movement than if they'd been hit and knocked prone...
It doesn't fix the issue Krensus outlined at all (that in some situations it's better to miss with Grease than hit with it). Enemies will still move in, get missed and then get slid back out again, wasting more movement than if they'd been hit and knocked prone...
I see what you are saying...provided the circumstances are right. That tactic is only effective in narrow areas when you can't circumvent the Grease spell. In my mind, its not an issue. Every version of D&D (and I'm trying to avoid edition wars here) had spells where certain circumstances made them rediculously powerful. This is just one of those times and even then its still not that bad.
For starters, using forced movement as we do, it breaks the infinite loop of attacks until a successful hit. Even if you allow the infinite loop, all you acheive is a knock prone. Next round, the target is already in the zone and can no longer be targetted by the spell. Essentially you have slowed his movement (and possibly his allies) and that is it. No more sliding because he no longer enters the zone since he is already in it.
There are other ways for a DM to circumvent this. Bad guys leave, comes back later, encounter ends, power dissipates. Monster roles, like artillery and some lurkers have the ability to bypass this. Some creatures can fly. Lastly, the DM can limit the free action of this ability to once a turn (not per round) because the DM has the ability to limit the number of free actions a player can make.
Is it a good ability on lower levels? Sure. Is it too powerful? Not in my mind.
Having said that, it is odd, that missing is tactically better but you aren't guaranteed to miss. At some point you will hit. I'm betting the spell will see some sort of errata - whether its changed to an immediate interrupt or the miss effect is changed or something else.
Edit - If you get knocked prone, don't you lose the remainder of your movement? If so, tactically, its not any worse than having the person slid out of the zone and he continues his movement back in and then gets knocked prone. At some point, he will be knocked prone, then he has to stand and then continue moving.
Is it a good ability on lower levels? Sure. Is it too powerful? Not in my mind.
I actually agree. I wasn't saying the problem is that it's too powerful (though it certainly is plenty good under the right circumstances), just that it's very odd that the power is better on a miss than a hit. And that your "fix", while good for other problems, doesn't fix that oddness.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Markn
If you get knocked prone, don't you lose the remainder of your movement? If so, tactically, its not any worse than having the person slid out of the zone and he continues his movement back in and then gets knocked prone.
Not quite. Assuming the only option for the target is to continue attempting to move past, missing is actually better - the target will waste more movement (and hence more move actions) on all the misses before it is eventually hit - at which point it is knocked prone and loses the rest of that move action too. That's much better than just moving up, getting hit, being knocked prone and losing the one move action...
Not quite. Assuming the only option for the target is to continue attempting to move past, missing is actually better - the target will waste more movement (and hence more move actions) on all the misses before it is eventually hit - at which point it is knocked prone and loses the rest of that move action too. That's much better than just moving up, getting hit, being knocked prone and losing the one move action...
That scenario is possible for sure. But consider this. Grease is cast beside the target. Target moves into the zone (using 2 squares of movement). The Grease attack misses and he is slid out. He continues his movement using 3 more squares to get back into the first Grease square. Another Grease attack misses. Slides him out. He uses his last movement to get next to the Grease square. Then he repeats with his second move action. Odds are pretty high that 1 of those 4 attacks (over the two move actions) will hit. Now, he is prone and not subject to attack again.
In the end he is delayed, 1 maybe 2 rounds in getting by the Grease zone. Even in this best case scenario this DAILY spell can still be underwhelming.
Even in this best case scenario this DAILY spell can still be underwhelming.
When it came up in game it was effective and amusing as heck.
It combines VERY well with a Thunderwaving wizard.
I most definitely wanted it to miss. Every time.
Note - I have Rushing Cleats so I'm sliding 3 and not 2.
Twice I slid an opponent into a wall of Blades for damage.
Another time I pushed an opponent (via thunderwave) into the grease, slid
him across the grease, and then continued the push out the other side. Net effect was a 7 square push and the bad guy on the other side of the grease. Ended up taking him a couple of rounds to get back and whale on us.
So, here is one other piece to add to the puzzle from the original post. I decided to send an email to Customer Service and basically asked, if a zone moves over a character do they take damage. In other words, is that part of their definition of "entering" a zone. Here is the response:
Mark,
Thank you for writing.
Since they did not enter it, they would not take the damage. However if the zone was still there at the start of their next turn they would take damage.
Good Gaming!
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Online Response Crew
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Ah yes, there will always be people listening to custserv, lol.
Just forget about them. They aren't BAD at making sensible rulings a lot of the time, but they are just not any more knowledgeable about the rules than your average player. Imagine who staffs WotC CS. They are probably a whole bunch of college students that happen to like to play D&D. They go through some training process for maybe a week or two, take a test maybe, then get thrown into the call center to field questions. They have a standard CS type database and whatever internal ruling lookup thing WotC has cooked up. I bet they answer 10 questions an hour for 8 hours and its frowned upon to pass them up to other people to look into in more depth. Their orders are "answer the question as best you can, here's the compendium of what we've answered before, don't take more than 5 minutes per question on average."
In other words, whatever that CS guy told you is just badly thought out. Maybe he's a newb. Seems at any rate he's taken it on himself to distinguish two terms that are not clearly distinguished in the rules, with untold possible ramifications, so he could answer one simple question about one spell. WotC is NOT going to officially rule this way, it breaks WAY too much stuff and at best fixes a few things that don't desperately need fixing.
Yup, in retrospect I'm sure the 4e designers are wishing they had created a very extensive term dictionary and precisely nailed down the one and conclusive meaning of everything that could be taken to be a term. Or that they had at least had the time and resources to thoroughly vet all published rules against said dictionary. One of many things they could have done better, in a perfect world.
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