Assassin Shrouds on Minions

[Larrin]

Assassin's Shroud isn't an attack power however. Technically it isn't an attack despite the fact that it "requires" an attack roll. If the attack misses the shroud's effect goes off regardless, probably damaging and thus killing the minion..

No, the assassin shroud power very clearly states " Before you make an attack roll against blah blah invoke all or none of your shrouds..blah....The attack deals 1d6 damage per shroud, minus 1 shroud if the attack misses...". (dragon 279 page 8, text of the assassin's shroud power)

Its the attack dealing the shroud damage, thus minions still take no damage on a miss. Its pretty straight forward. Shrouding minions should be a waste of time, and fortunately, it is.

 

[Turtlejay]

A shroud is invoked as part of an attack. If it hits, the shroud does additional damage on top of the attack. If it misses, it may deal damage, depending on how many shrouds were on the target. This would be dealing damage on a miss. Minions do not die due to damage dealt on a miss. Just because the mechanic is different, that does not change the rules.

The reason this is so, IMO, is to limit the number of minion auto-kills in the game. There are already so many of them. Allowing 'loopholes' like this would make minions pretty much unusable.

Jay

EDIT: Ninja'd by Larrin!

 

[Regicide]

A shroud is invoked as part of an attack. If it hits, the shroud does additional damage on top of the attack. If it misses, it may deal damage, depending on how many shrouds were on the target. This would be dealing damage on a miss. Minions do not die due to damage dealt on a miss. Just because the mechanic is different, that does not change the rules.

So if my attack misses, hits a rope, cutting it triggering the room's trap causing the floor to drop out plunging the minion a thousand feet onto poisoned adamantine buzzsaws, the minion is fine?

 

[UltimaGabe]

So if my attack misses, hits a rope, cutting it triggering the room's trap causing the floor to drop out plunging the minion a thousand feet onto poisoned adamantine buzzsaws, the minion is fine?

First off, a missed attack triggering a trap is 100% in House Rule territory, and thus has no bearing on the issue in question. (In fact, having a missed attack do ANYTHING other than, well, nothing is House Rule territory.) Even in the case you stated, however, the minion would die, but not because of damage on a miss, but because of the trap that the (generous?) DM set up.

Seriously, how could you even think that scenario proved any sort of rule?

 

[RigaMortus2]

I think it depends on the wording of the "minions don't die on missed attacks" rule. Depending on the wording, it might only affect POWERS with a MISS component that still deal damage ona MISS (like most Daily's have). But it could also mean ANY attack that happens to deal damage on a miss, regardless of the source (such as a feat or parapgon path feature).

That being said, I don't think it is over powered to allow the Assassin to kill a minion with shroud due to a missed attack. They are ASSASSINS, they are SUPPOSED to kill things. Also, it's not like the ability can take out minions in mass here, like an AE power.. It only affects one minion at a time. Hardly overpowered.

So again, based on the actual language of shroud and missed attacks, I might be inclined to allow it.

 

[RigaMortus2]

So if my attack misses, hits a rope,

There are no rules for missed attacks hitting something else that I am aware of. If this is something your DM is coming up with, you've already stepped into house rule territory, so why stop there? This situation would never happen with the current RAW... There is no such "If attack misses target, it hits the nearest inanimate object (such as a rope)" rule/power/what-have-you.

Ninja'd by UltimaGabe who explained why that would never work better than I did :/

 

[Regicide]

Seriously, how could you even think that scenario proved any sort of rule?

Shrouds aren't attacks. Neither is a minion dying due to some event which also isn't an attack on the minion.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Seems to me that the question is whether the shroud is adding tothe attack's damage or not. From what I see above (I do not have the rules) it seems to, so it would not damage a minion on a miss.

With minions being killed by _AOE effects or auto dmage effects, no other rules are needed to make minions die.

In my home game, Minions only die to attack rolls, they do not die to auto damage like flaming sphere. This has helped make them at least some damger well up into Paragon.

 

[keterys]

*looks it up*
Before you make an attack roll against the target, you choose to invoke either all your shrouds on it or none of them. If you invoke your shrouds, the attack deals 1d6 damage per shroud, minus one shroud if the attack misses, and all your shrouds then vanish from the target. This damage roll never benefits from bonuses to damage rolls, and is in addition to the attack’s damage, if any.

Seems pretty clear that the shroud's modify the result of the power, and the wording is that the 'attack' deals damage on hit and miss, as a result of the shrouds being invoked.

On a plus note, that means you can maximize the shroud's damage on a critical hit. If it were its own thing, then it would get to kill minions, but deal less damage on crits.

 

[Gunpowder]

Think of it like the shroud power adds a Miss entry on your attack.
Miss: deal n-1 shroud damage. and since minions ignore miss effects, they take no damage.