I don't see where in the Grease spell it specifies that it's Free Action is an at-will. The format is exactly the same as Planar Gateway, so why does the Daily give an at-will attack when the Encounter only gives an Encounter attack?
Please point out where is says that the grease attack is at will and the gateway's isn't? Please point out how one free action attack is different in writing? I'm looking at both and they BOTH have the same wording. if grease can be triggered multiple times in a round, so can gateway.
The only thing I'm sure if is that this power is not totally clear.
If they wanted it to be used only once after the gateway was set up, why didn't they format the power the same way they do warden 'form' powers in PHB2? Those have a line like "Special: Once during this encounter, you can use the Form of the XYZ Attack power while you are in this form." Would have been much clearer.
Hmpf. At any rate, it's probably not worth worrying about much - I estimate a 95.133% chance that this never comes up in actual L4e play.
EDIT: I just realized you aren't being stupid elecgraystone. AP in print doesn't have the designations. If you read the update on AP I think it may mention this. However in the compendium it very specifically lays out that both the original and triggered actions are encounter powers. I think it solves your problem well.
Sorry for being such a dick about it, I didn't realize we were reading separate and conflicting source references...
LOL No problem. It explains why things weren't adding up. Sigh... It WOULD be nice to be able to read the compendium.
I didn't notice this in the errata when I looked over it. I'll download it and check out what it says. If it says what you've posted, then you are right and there isn't a problem with the power.
EDIT: Just realized it could even be in those July updates...
Yeah my DDI has been well worth it... Then again, I haven't run into the same CustServ issues others have.
Last edited by CaBaNa; 20th July 2009 at 10:26 PM..
Planar Gateway: I agree with CaBaNa. Once you use that encounter power, you gain a new encounter power: Planar Gateway Attack (and thus, you can use it only once per encounter). If you would be able to use the Planar Gateway Attack more than once, it would be an at-will power, just like Arcane Deflection.
Grease: Strange power. The power is an area burst within 10 feet, but the attack power is a Close Burst 1. Anyway, as someone have told it, I find that power a lot more interesting if you miss than if you hit (to keep enemy to come in close combat). Could be a good power for a multi-class with only 13 Int, so you avoid to hit as much as possible.
But as it is a daily, do no damage, and the at-will is a close burst 1, I don't see it broken.
EDIT: Ok, I looked in the compendium too, not in AP book. But compendium is clear on the encounter/at-will of Planar Gateway and Grease. And the compendium is the most up to date source I have avalaible.
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Here's my opinion on what to do with these spells (if anyone cares lol):
Grease: Make it an opportunity attack. This eliminates the problem of it being able to activate against an opponent more than once per round since it only activates when they ENTER the area, not while they are within it. If they go back in on their next turn... that's their idiocy =P Also, make it so that on a miss it slides IN A STRAIGHT LINE in the direction they were originally headed. This prevents the power from being able to slide creatures in and out of the effect (which doesn't make sense anyways. It's grease on the floor, not a magical hand grabbing and moving you wherever you want).
Planar Gateway: Make this an immediate reaction with a trigger of the enemy entering a square adjacent to the zone or starting their turn adjacent to the zone. This prevents it from being the overpowered beast that elecgraystone claims it to be (even though I don't personally read it as being such).
It specifies on the compendium and probably in the updates for AP.
Well, I downloaded the arcane power update and the july updates and neither one has that errata. I hadn't thought I'd missed it. That's a bit of an issue. If they are going to have errata ONLY in the DDI then how is anyone to know there is a difference until we get into an argument about the wording and we're both right?
Ok, what with the downtime and general state of being constantly busy, I lost track of this thread for a while... and it got a little ugly. Let's keep this civil and friendly, folks.
That said, can't we just agree that if a power/effect/whatever causes an infinite loop or an auto-hit situation, that it's wrong and you should use common sense? In the case of grease, I think it's pretty obvious that sliding out and back in again shouldn't trigger a second attack -- but if you slide him out, and your fighter uses Tide of Iron to push him back in, that does trigger a second attack. I don't remember how Planar Gateway works, but surely there's some other common-sense interpretation we can come up with.
I do think that there's a possibility for a reasonable case where a single power's zone effect could reasonably affect a single target more than once in a turn, even without cheesy slide effects. Here's a situation I've seen come up in combat: Wizard casts Wall of Fire in a zig-zag, then uses Thunderlance to push an enemy in such a way that it enters and leaves the wall several times:
Code:
| ABCDEFGHIJKL
===============
1| F F
2| WBF F F F
3| F F
F is the wall of fire, B is the bad guy, and W is the wizard. If W manages to push the bad guy 5 squares east, he'll enter the wall of fire three times.
Does he take damage each time? I say yes. To me, this is absolutely classic wizard play.
I see where you are coming from, but what is the difference between pushing an enemy from 2C to 2H in your example, or pushing the enemy from 2C to 2H through the SAME spell, but with the wall positioned from 1D down to 3D, right to 3E and up to 1E, then right to 1F and down to 2F (total of 8 squares just like your example) and having the wizard and badguy positioned just like you had them and pushed with thunderlance the same distance to the right? The badguy would be pushed right through 3 contiguous squares of fire, even though it would "technically" be 3 seprate walls of fire? If that works just like your example, then what would be the difference between doing either of THOSE two examples and simply pushing an enemy from, say 4D diagonal up-right to space 0(zero)H? Though he's only going through one "wall" of fire, the enemy would still be traveling through the exact same number of fire filled squares.
Basically what I'm asking (in this example) is: Shouldn't each square be treated as it's own zone/space regardless of it's relative position in relation to other squares of the same effect?
There is no errata. The version in the Compendium is identical to the printed version, except instead of "You can make the following attack, using..." it says, "You can use the Grease Attack power, using..." Then it has a power header: "Grease Attack: At-Will + Arcane, Implement, Zone", followed by the exact same power as in the printed version, with the extra line, "Requirement: The Grease power must be active to use this power."
For Planar Gateway, exactly the same situation except the new power header says "Encounter". Which takes care of my problems with that one.
Illusory Wall has some minor wording differences, but the effect seems identical, except the Compendium version says "Sustain Minor: You can sustain this power until the end of the encounter," while AP just says, "The wall persists."
I haven't checked if any other powers are different, and I'm not going to. I think we should clarify in the charter (if it's not clear already) that the official versions are the ones in the published books, with the published errata, not whatever the Compendium happens to say this week. (Which means character judges must be sure to check the books and not the compendium wherever possible.)
Also, after the wall I agree that we shouldn't make a ruling on slides in general - too many cases we'd need to consider.
So if I was going to propose AP (which I'm not, because I want to vote) I'd add these alterations:
As AP is accepted, remove the Illusions article, since it's been overridden.
Grease: change Hit to "...slide the target 2 squares and knock it prone." Add "Special: Forced movement caused by this power does not trigger this power again."
Illusory Wall: change "on its current turn, but it can try again on later turns" to "until it is attacked again and missed".
Planar Gateway: Add "Once per encounter" before "You may make the following attack..."
This hasn't officially been proposed yet, right?
Last edited by JoeNotCharles; 21st July 2009 at 10:19 PM..
I officially propose we adopt the Arcane Power Book. Vote away JoeNotCharles!
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeNotCharles
I think we should clarify in the charter (if it's not clear already) that the official versions are the ones in the published books, with the published errata, not whatever the Compendium happens to say this week. (Which means character judges must be sure to check the books and not the compendium wherever possible.)
Two thumbs up here!
I'll add these alterations to the proposal for AP so everyone can vote on them {not that i agree with all of them}.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Proposal
As AP is accepted, remove the Illusions article, since it's been overridden."
{100% agree}
Quote:
Originally Posted by Proposal
Grease: change Hit to "...slide the target 2 squares and knock it prone." Add "Special: Forced movement caused by this power does not trigger this power again."
{I'd keep the spell as written with the following line added to the miss line. "This movement does not trigger another attack form the Grease spell."}
Quote:
Originally Posted by Proposal
Illusory Wall: change "on its current turn, but it can try again on later turns" to "until it is attacked again and missed"
{simply change to "Whenever an enemy moves adjacent to the wall or starts his turn adjacent to the wall"}
Quote:
Originally Posted by Proposal
Planar Gateway: Add "Once per encounter" before "You may make the following attack..."
As for which source (book/compendium) to use, I think whatever is the most up to date.
The big issue there is that non-DDI people only have the books + errata and NO way to know if a more up to date version is available. If we use the compendium as the rules source for anything, players and DM's are left guessing if their characters/adventures are up to date. It also leads to arguments like we had CaBaNa, where you were right by the DDI and I was right by the book + errata and we had NO idea why the other person is arguing.
As for which source (book/compendium) to use, I think whatever is the most up to date.
Sometimes it's not clear which is the most up-to-date, though. Sometimes there are typos in the Compendium that take a while to fix. If you spot a difference, is it an intentional update or is it just a mistake?
Anyway, I found another question (a minor one) about familiars:
Quote:
Originally Posted by N0Man
Consider the following:
Akunal background: You gain resist 2 cold, resist 2 fire, and resist 2 thunder (or your existing resistance to these damages types increases by 2).
Book Imp familiar: You gain resist fire 5. If you already have resist fire, increase your resistance by 2.
What is your fire resist?
Since you are level 1, and you are taking these at the same time, which "already have" or "existing resistance" is first?
Does the background apply first for +2? If so, does that mean that that the Imp grants you +2 (since you already have resist) for a total of 4? If that's the case, then it means your background bonus is actually penalizing you 1 point.
Or does the Imp's apply first and give a +2 to the +5 imp resist for +7 total?
We don't allow that background, but there could be other situations where someone has a Book Imp and some other feat or item which gives "X fire resistance or +Y if you already have fire resistance". I think we should just say it gives whichever is better for the player. This is something the character judges would have to hash out anyway, not a DM during an adventure. I just wanted to make a note of it.
Mainly, I don't think we should interpret "if you already have resist fire" as "if you have resist fire already before you take the Familiar feat", because then you start getting different results depending on the order you take things in. It should just mean "if you have fire resistance from another source".
Last edited by JoeNotCharles; 22nd July 2009 at 03:57 AM..
Personally I'd go with the combination that adds up to the highest amount. So for the example you give, it would be 7. Any other way, and you end up LOSING resistance over someone that didn't start out with any.
I would think the designers had intended for such class options to increase rather than reduce character potency, regardless of whether the wording should suggest it.
I agree, but the CB actually puts it in at Resist 4 for the above. Not that it's 100% accurate, but just throwing it out there. Weird how it costs you. As for what order things would go in, your background is always first because well...it's your origin. Then you learn your moves/feats/powers.
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