Red Box Monsters: Hints of Changes to Come?

eamon said:

Well, what is "right before that event"? How far before? How do you determine this?

My interpretation is that the "event" is whatever causes him to drop to 0 hitpoints. That might be ongoing damage, or perhaps a hit.

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It's possible, but it's also possible that there exists a distinction between the process of hitting and that of dealing damage. I really wish that WotC would clarify thoroughly the rules about "timing" issues.

eamon said:

Actually, you're not paying attention and obviously didn't bother to click on the thread he linked - that discusses an almost exactly identical scenario, except rather than triggering on dropping to 0 or below, the interrupt in that thread triggers on becoming bloodied.

Basically, there is no such moment between a hit and damage - the two are interlinked; just as there's no such moment between leaving a square and entering another (similar discussions have been had on that topic too). You can interrupt seperate squares of movement (explicitly stated), separate attacks (fairly clearly, but no explicit) and seperate actions (almost by definition, though even here, for No Actions and some Free Actions, it's arguable). As far as I can tell, that's it; there's no rules basis for interrupting half-way.

If you rule that interrupts can split events half-way you're opening a huge can of worms. What actions and events can you interrupt half-way? Must you do so, or can you choose to interrupt the "entire" event? Is any of this defined or even ever mentioned in the rules? At which points half-way can you interrupt?

For example, Shield triggers when you are hit by an attack - why isn't that after the attack roll is resolved? Polearm Gamble triggers when you you enter a square - why isn't that after you leave the previous square?

I'm not saying that when the author of the monster brainstormed about what an orc reaver should do that avoiding the attack was the aim of the power. However, using an interrupt is an easy way of writing the power; and they may have been fully aware of the fact that this power does a little more than merely grant an extra attack - and chosen this (simple) wording rather than a more complex approach. Or maybe it was just an oversight, or intended all along - I can only speculate.

But I do know that splitting "getting damage" from "losing hitpoints" leads to all kinds of weird situations; and if you can split that, what can't you split? This is clearly not a reasonable reading of the rules.

So, particularly since this is a monster power, a DM should do whatever works for the versions of the monster that occur in his game; and RAI may even be that the orc drops despite interrupting the killing blow. However, a DM shouldn't delude himself into thinking that because this monster with this specific power works best and most naturally when the power is resolved in a kind of limbo right before death that interrupts should generally work this way.

In this specific case, both interpretations will be eminently playable. A DM should fit monsters' rules to his desires, particularly in cases where it seems the power is simply poorly worded. But do not extrapolate how interrupts work from one possibly wonky power.

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This is a bunch of nonsense, and if it's what that link leads to I'm glad I didn't click on it. The rule on Immediate actions is very clear: Reactions happen after the action, Interrupts happen before the condition. The exact wording is "An immediate interrupt lets you jump in when a certain trigger condition arises, acting before the trigger resolves." The attack isn't the condition that triggers the power, and neither is the damage, so they both resolve and cannot be prevented.

Bluster is not an argument - and you have not replied to nor resolved the issues your interpretation brings up. Being "glad" to have simply ignored keterys's thread whilst claiming its irrelevance suggests you've made up your mind before thinking it through and find that more important that whatever sense, if any, your interpretation makes.

Frankly, the idea of resolving damage yet not losing hit points makes little sense. The state of the event being thus interrupted is rather ambiguous (as earlier posts noted) and confusing to resolve, which is why it's certainly not a pretty rule to follow. It's not a stated rule, nor necessary in any case I can find - except this one monster if you want it to drop after the action and if you cannot simply do that by exception rather than rule.

If you care, there's always the other thread: I don't see the necessity of duplicating any more of it here nor wasting any more time.

eamon said:

Bluster is not an argument - and you have not replied to nor resolved the issues your interpretation brings up. Being "glad" to have simply ignored keterys's thread whilst claiming its irrelevance suggests you've made up your mind before thinking it through and find that more important that whatever sense, if any, your interpretation makes.

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1) What issues are you talking about? Please enumerate them so that I might address them.
2) I'm glad that I didn't check that thread because the rules on Immediate Interrupts are very clear that they interrupt conditions and not actions, and I have no desire to read someone's incorrect interpretation of the rules.

Frankly, the idea of resolving damage yet not losing hit points makes little sense. The state of the event being thus interrupted is rather ambiguous (as earlier posts noted) and confusing to resolve, which is why it's certainly not a pretty rule to follow.

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I never claimed that you don't lose hp while resolving damage. I noted two possibilities for resolution: you interrupt the point of damage that drops you to 0 hp, or you interrupt the resolution of effects that trigger when dropped to 0 hp or less, which occurs after all the damage has been dealt.

Ultimately, you need to prove that when the rules say an Immediate Interrupt interrupts conditions, they mean it interrupts actions. I find it unlikely that you can do so, given that the rules for Immediate Reactions mention actions explicitly, while those for Immediate Interrupts do not.

Anathos said:

I have no desire to read someone's incorrect interpretation of the rules.

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For clarity, the thread is one in which I asked exactly how the timings worked, without making any statements how it worked or leading anyone to an answer, since I was doing research for a timing/errata discussion.

And by the end of it, all agreed how the rules worked, including explicitly going through several permutations of interrupt and free results.

Hence, it's directly applicable, and you're stating you've no desire to read many people's interpretations of the rules, which proves more a lack of desire to _learn_, and a religious interpretation of your opinion of the rules that does not allow self-examination or logic.

So... yay?

eamon said:

Well, what is "right before that event"? How far before? How do you determine this?

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How far? How about right before? I really don't understand your question.

My interpretation is that the "event" is whatever causes him to drop to 0 hitpoints. That might be ongoing damage, or perhaps a hit. Such events are well-defined; they don't exist as part of some vague whole, nor are they explicitly separate (as, for instance, are multiple melee attacks).

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No, the event is the defined trigger. In this case "being reduced to 0 hit points". So, before you reduce the orc to 0 hit points, he gets to do a standard action. I don't see the problem.

For example, which square is your opponent in if he triggers your OA by virtue of Polearm gamble - and why? Can the wizard's Shield prevent a hit?

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Well, Polearm Gamble states that the trigger is when an enemy enters an adjacent square. So the OA obviously occurs before he crosses the edge of that square. Shield says that the trigger is "You are hit by an attack", so the +4 AC and reflex goes before you are hit and can cause you not to be hit.

I still think you are creating your own definition of what constitutes an event here. The trigger defines the event. Resolve the interrupt before that event and then reevaluate the event. There is no rule saying that interrupts goes before an entire action. Actually, there are many examples that it doesn't.

Oldtimer said:

Well, Polearm Gamble states that the trigger is when an enemy enters an adjacent square. So the OA obviously occurs before he crosses the edge of that square.

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Right, so entering one square is unsplittably linked with leaving another. That's perfectly obvious, on the face of it, but the point is that there may be other such linkages as well. The obvious question being: can you resolve damage (including resistances, vulnerabilities and temporary hitpoints) without actually taking any?

Compare with attack rolls: when an attack roll is interrupted, and things like shield resolve before the hit, the effects of the attack roll aren't "saved" for later; you need to reevalutate the attack roll after the interrupt. You may say that the attack roll wasn't changed by shield, but just the seperate (and subsequent) notion of hit that involves comparing with AC, so that's OK; the hit is the trigger - not the attack roll and just the hit is negated. But many other powers don't work that way.

Consider Wizard's Escape: this power interrupts a hit and (RAI) teleports a wizard out of harms way. At that point, the wizard has clearly already been targeted and an attack roll made - yet once the wizard is gone (and presumably out of range), neither his defense nor the attack roll have changed (generally) - he is missed since neither the target nor the attack roll is "remembered", and in the situation after the interrupt, the entire attack fails because the target is no longer valid. So, RAI you can't generally take the attack sequence apart and interpret individual steps as a temporally sequential listing of distinct points in time. Things that happen lower on the list can impact things that happen earlier on the list in at least some cases; rather than a temporal sequence, it's just a bit accounting by the rules. To take the accounting analogy further: if you transfer moner from account A to B this involves reducing A's value and depositing that amount in B - yet if depositing it in B fails, then no money is deducted from A. We speak of and evaluate separate phases to make things simpler to describe, not because they can succeed or fail individually. As far as I can tell this is the norm: you generally reevaluate the entire attack when the attack is interrupted; you don't split an attack phase-by-phase.

Now consider the orc:
If an orc leaves the reach of a swordblow before he takes the damage why would you "remember" the damage and still apply it even after he's left the range of the blow? Doesn't it make more sense to reevalute the effects of that attack in light of the new situation? Doing that is also more consistent with other powers.

I still think you are creating your own definition of what constitutes an event here. The trigger defines the event. Resolve the interrupt before that event and then reevaluate the event. There is no rule saying that interrupts goes before an entire action. Actually, there are many examples that it doesn't.

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I can't deny it: I am (to an extent) and I'm not particularly happy about it either - I'd much prefer a clearcut rule. Unfortunately, the rules aren't explicit on this point. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that actions can't be split, I'm suggesting individual attacks can't be split.

Lets take, for example, close or area attacks. These attacks presumably are "unsplittable" since you're simultaneously attacking a bunch of creatures with a fireball (or whatever). Thus, it makes sense that even though they involve multiple attack rolls, such an attack counts as a single attack (as the rules explicitly state). But as soon as you permit triggers to resove half-way such an attack, that abstraction breaks down: what happens if the first burnt orc bullrushes his friend out of the flames? Or what happens when you interrupt not on "dropping to 0 hit points" but on being damaged by an attack (there are oodles of powers with such triggers) or even just being hit? How bout reactions? If you can interrupt not just an attack in it's entirety, but its the individual phases, why not react to a particular phase - which in principle anyone can do via a readied action.

If you evaluate attacks sequentially, then such interrupts can affect who's included in the area of effect or how they are affected. E.g. if someone pushes the swordmage out of the burst, can the swordmage then trigger his aegis since an attack that doesn't include him hits an ally? After all, you're executing attack phases sequentially, and at the point in time at which the swordmage chooses to use his aegies he is indeed no longer a target of the attack since he is no longer within the area of effect.

The sequence of targetting is undefined, and the sequence of attack effects is hardly defined - so for example, its nowhere said nor suggested that there's an interruptible phase between resolving damage and taking it. Indeed, those phases aren't even named to the best of my knowledge; splitting is no less "creating your own definition of what constitutes an event" than not splitting it (as e.g. for entering/leaving squares). I see attacks as generally unsplittable and further see "dropping to 0 hitpoints" as synonymous with "taking sufficient damage to drop to to 0 hitpoints" and as such would permit an interrupt triggering off dropping to 0 hitpoints to resolve before the damage in general, and in the specific case of an attack, to resolve before the entire attack.