Using Powers Outside of Combat

I had some players doing "Caravan Duty" and ended up in a wagon chase. Two players fighting from cart to cart to the front and two others trying to catch up on another wagon.

The players on the carts working their way up were fine with combat as is. Just using Powers and a LOT of skill checks to keep advancing and keep from falling.

The players playing catch up were a Cleric and Warlock (Fey Pact), both 4th level. They caught up and were doing some side by side shootouts (both had some good ranged attacks) and then there were no targets left visible. They had hidden and dropped the reigns. The warlock used her encounter (it was a teleport on a hit) to teleport over. It wasn't a combat action as she didn't have anyone to attack. I just had her make an Arcana check DC 20/10 in leu of an attack roll - 20+ perfect, 10+ would be passable with complications.

Are there even rules for using "Powers" out of combat in 4e? How do you guys handle this?

Way outside of combat I would consider an "encounter" to be a scene and probobly require some skill checks instead of attack rolls.

I really miss how previous editions (and various other games) had magic that was very useful outside of combat and even many combat spells that could help you out if you were crafty. I know the Arcane book is out now, that might have some ideas. Just seems like they exchanged everyone being more useful in combat for not being terribly useful out of combat.

The rules for this sort of thing are really simple.

Does it make any sense to you as a DM, and does it add fun to the game?

If the answer to both is yes, then go for it. The rules are designed to encourage creative use of powers outside of beating ogres in their face.

Depends on what the "target" line say's in the power..

But it is always changeable as per situation per dm..

For a start, it sounds from your description as if this was still a combat situation. You said that the potential targets had hiden and dropped the reins, but presumably they were still there even if not immediately visible, and things were stil progressing in a turn-by-turn sequence. In that situation the normal rules would apply.

Even if it were outside of combat I'd argue that you are complicating things unnecessarily. Fey Step lets a warlock teleport 3 squares or around 15 feet and can't be used until the warlock has a chance to rest. Just go with that. If the warlock wants to toelport 15 feet then he can with no roll for accuracy needed any more than it would be in combat.

Denaes said:

I really miss how previous editions (and various other games) had magic that was very useful outside of combat and even many combat spells that could help you out if you were crafty. I know the Arcane book is out now, that might have some ideas. Just seems like they exchanged everyone being more useful in combat for not being terribly useful out of combat.

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Unfortunately, that book does not help very much on that front...

Denaes said:

The warlock used her encounter (it was a teleport on a hit) to teleport over. It wasn't a combat action as she didn't have anyone to attack.

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Otherworld Stride?

Look at the description of the power - or the player's description of it - and use that as your basis for making a ruling.

If it is Otherworld Stride, I don't think it matters that there's no target; it opens a vortex and you step through it, teleporting nearby.

It would help to know which power it was, to know if it's a valid use of the power. Someone mentioned Fey Step (actually teleport 5, not 3) but that doesn't require a hit, so that can't be it. Another mentioned Otherwind Stride which is a teleport of 5+(INT bonus) in distance, which has an incidental effect of tearing up all the people around the point you start the teleport from (friend and foe alike).

I have noticed that 4th Edition is actually very minimal on any rules for using combat powers on anything other than a hostile combatant. There are no rules for attacking inanimate objects as there were in 4th edition. Given the potential ramifications of actions like Sunder, and the desire to avoid any sort of extra book keeping, this is not a surprise to me. It seems to me that there was an obvious desire to avoid creating any windows for players to use their combat powers in unforseen ways. Given how most DC checks scale for level, checks / attacks on inanimate objects could have created some strangeness at the Paragon or Epic tier. Needing something along the lines of perhaps a DC 30 Str check to break down a tree about a half foot wide might make sense until your level 22 Dragonborn is getting +20 to the roll (conservatively, +11 from level +7 or more from level adjusted Str score, and maybe an item that grants a bonus to Str checks that are not attack rolls), and suddenly your PC can snap large trees in half with about a 50% success rate on a Str based check.

However, it does leave a bit of a gap in the rules.

For powers where you just want to use a movement component (a fly or teleport movement), just let them use the power and apply the 5 minute rest rule for encounter powers, or burn the daily. If they want to blow the unholy hell out of something though, that gets harder to deal with. You could just pull some Def scores and a HP value out of your ass, and try to apply some common sense to prevent someone from chopping through a rope with a warhammer or great club.

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There are no rules for attacking inanimate objects...

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There are, actually. The books give defenses and hit points for different materials, and the DMG errata clarifies that, at the DM's option, any power that specifies a "Creature" as the target can also target an object.

Trevelyan said:

For a start, it sounds from your description as if this was still a combat situation. You said that the potential targets had hiden and dropped the reins, but presumably they were still there even if not immediately visible, and things were stil progressing in a turn-by-turn sequence. In that situation the normal rules would apply.

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Technically true, but of no importance. Round by round or in story mode the point is that a player wanted to teleport, but technically had no foe to trigger the effect.

I am interested in official rules, but I'm not going to be a pedant to the players over the cost of fun and swashbucking adventure

Trevelyan said:

Even if it were outside of combat I'd argue that you are complicating things unnecessarily. Fey Step lets a warlock teleport 3 squares or around 15 feet and can't be used until the warlock has a chance to rest. Just go with that. If the warlock wants to toelport 15 feet then he can with no roll for accuracy needed any more than it would be in combat.

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What you say makes a lot of sense.

According to RAW, does an effect of an attack happen regardless of successful attack or only on a successful hit.

i.e. with Otherworld Stride does she teleport and might do damage or does she only teleport if she's successful with the strike?

LostSoul said:

If it is Otherworld Stride, I don't think it matters that there's no target; it opens a vortex and you step through it, teleporting nearby.

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Yes, it's OS. That may be correct if I'm mistaken as to how the Hit:Effect/Miss works. I took it as needing a hit to effect and houseruled it otherwise. I might have houseruled it into working like it should, only requiring a skill check (so made it harder and more complicated)

Lord Zardoz said:

For powers where you just want to use a movement component (a fly or teleport movement), just let them use the power and apply the 5 minute rest rule for encounter powers, or burn the daily. If they want to blow the unholy hell out of something though, that gets harder to deal with. You could just pull some Def scores and a HP value out of your ass, and try to apply some common sense to prevent someone from chopping through a rope with a warhammer or great club.

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You're right, regardless of RAW, I would want to allow a teleport or special movement even without an attack.

Out of combat we do flavours effects where as the warlock grows in Fey power, she might start teleporting or phasing in/out espcially if she wants to get somewere faster. I wouldn't make her use an encounter on that, but if she wanted to teleport over a chasm I could see that.

Mouseferatu said:

There are, actually. The books give defenses and hit points for different materials, and the DMG errata clarifies that, at the DM's option, any power that specifies a "Creature" as the target can also target an object.

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This is also good to know. I likely won't get bogged down with it, but it's good to look over and keep in mind in case it comes up.

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Thanks all for your input. I'm going to look up to see the RAW way I'm doing it and regardless, I'll be allowing players to use these abilities in other ways.

I'll likely also be looking into a general writeup of cantrip sort of things that I would let players do as they progress in their class. Just loose guidelines mostly based on the powers their classes get.