Cloud of Knives kills minions?

[Goobermunch]

What if no attack roll is made? And then the Minion wanders in? Then its not a missed attack.

Or hey, lets say, Wizard Cloud of Daggers Goblin leader succesfully. Then Goblin lead leaves the cloud, and Goblin minion walks in? Does it take damage then? Its not a missed attack, in fact its still a successful attack by your logic. So this kills the minion, but all other applications of the cloud don't?

Ding ding ding ding ding!

Here's the correct answer.

When interpreting rules, if one interpretation gives an absurd result, and another does not, the preferred interpretation is the latter.

--G

 

[Nikolai II]

That is very curious logic. If it truly offends you, I encourage you to house rule things for your game. A lot of players don't like cloud of daggers anyways, so that will possibly just put a lock on the wizard not taking it, really removing the problem from your game.

That is because Cloud of Daggers looks like a poor spell, until you realize that its balancing feature is that it is a good minion-killer/blocker.

 

[keterys]

Yeah, I was personally really surprised that the wizard in my game didn't take CoD - I even pointed out stuff to him.

But, whatever makes you (the player) happy, really. It's a game. Have fun first. Sweat the little stuff second

 

[Switchback]

This is one of the sillier things I've read. Cloud of Daggers is obviously meant to kill minions. That is the point of the automatic damage. If it doesn't, no other minions are going to walk in it just for the fun of it.

Apart from that, once *any* creature enters that square, they are automatically hit no matter how tough or agile they are. So why should a minion, whether he was missed or not initially, somehow be able to stand in that square at the start of his turn and not take the default damage? Is he 'Neo' the Kobold?

This kind of over thinking could lead to all kinds of ridiculous situations. If a minion that is missed by an aoe can avoid CoD's automatic damage, then I suppose he could ignore all manner of other effects, like continuing damage from poison clouds, or the slowing of Icy Terrain, the auto damage of standing next to a Flaming Sphere, etc. It's just silliness.

 

[lukelightning]

That is because Cloud of Daggers looks like a poor spell, until you realize that its balancing feature is that it is a good minion-killer/blocker.

Plus it makes chopping potatoes a breeze!

 

[Cavalorn]

My only assumption is that the effect is part of the attack. Which it is.

No, the attack and the effect are both parts of the power.

The effect takes place independently of the attack.

 

[Nikolai II]

I can totally understand why someone would think that Cloud of Daggers does nothing to minions if the attack roll had missed, although the implications would be silly (= if you cast it in an empty square it would do more damage to minions than if you cast it directly on them and missed). If you don't understand how someone could come to that conclusion, then there's nothing I can do to persuade you (nor would there be any point).

Well, the difference would be that by not entering the cloud of daggers they could not die, so it turns from an autokill to a "block area". I actually don't know which is the best way to run it - letting it autokill minions without possibility to escape makes it quite powerful - I might rule that it doesn't damage when one starts a turn in it, but as soon as one enters another square than the one one started in (or one stays in place), one takes damage. (So it can only autokill one minion each turn, by centering on him. All others must be hit, or they get a chance to run away. And if fighter is locking them and marking them, running away might kill them..)

 

[GoLu]

letting it autokill minions without possibility to escape makes it quite powerful

Does it really? It's a spell that affects a single square. The wizard uses a turn to autokill a single minion. That doesn't seem particularly overpowered, given that the wizard could cast a different spell and probably end up killing a lot more minions.

 

[Mistwell]

Is there a lot of doubt that any other class could use a standard action to kill a minion just about every time as well? If you are spending your round trying to kill a minion, you probably succeed regardless of class.

 

[keterys]

'I spend my turn killing a minion' could almost (but not quite) invoke the rule from GURPs Black Ops (I think) where you get to describe it however you want, no roll required.

'I parry his sword, then disarm it into the air, catch it with my off hand and ram it through his sternum, stepping past him so that he collapses face down behind me'