How would you write Curse of the Bloody Fangs to make sense?

[CountPopeula]

I think you're missing his point.

He doesn't mean you need to make an attack roll each time you sustain the power.

He means that when you activate the power, you make a Cha vs AC attack roll. You miss; the target takes half damage. Next round, you sustain, and the target and adjacent enemies take 1d10 damage.

The initial attack can miss, without invalidating the sustain.

-Hyp.

What i missed was the miss line... at least I wasn't the only one.

Regardless, I think that if a power that misses can be sustained *is* an interesting question, far more interesting than yet another attempt to take something worded slightly oddly worded and call customer service, then complain that said power is broken/doesn't work.

My assumption that a power had to actually work to be sustained... the fact that I overlooked sustainable powers with on miss effects complicates things. The fact that I didn't look at spellcasters as closely as melee classes does, as well.

 

[Mengu]

When there is an Effect, the use of Sustain is pretty clear. When there isn't an Effect, there are several cases:

1. The Sustain specifically says it works on hit or miss. This I believe is redundant text (that probably would have been good to include with every other sustain it applies to). There is only one such power:
Curse of the Dark Dream

2. The Sustain is indented under a Hit entry. This means the power can only be sustained if you hit. Very clear. There are three such powers:
Battle Pyres
Radiant Pulse
Hurl through Hell

3. The Sustain is not indented, but it still says the power works only on a hit. This is an unfortunate case (and I believe is an error). It should simply have been indented (it's even before the Miss text):
Otiluke's Resilient Sphere

4. The Sustain doesn't specify if it works on a hit or miss. In these cases, I'm tempted to treat it as an effect, because if it were meant to work only on a hit, it should be indented under Hit. Examples:
Seal of Binding
Garrote Grip
Crown of Madness
Curse of the Bloody Fangs
Summons of Khirad
Thief of Five Fates
Curse of the Golden Mist
Fireswarm
Thirsting Maw
Delusions of Loyalty
Curse of the Dark Delirium
Doom of Delban
Victory Surge

----------------------------------------------------

Now on to the separate issue of when a target is eligible for a save. Until I decide to Sustain a power, there really is no save to be made. Afterall, I might decide not to Sustain the power at all. The text underneath Sustain hasn't come into play yet. I haven't taken that action. Only when I take that action, say spend a Minor action to Sustain, then the text comes into play, and the enemy has to start making saves.

 

[keterys]

Hmm, it seems pretty clear to me that Seal of Binding's sustain is only intended to work if you hit based on its language. Same with Garotte Grip.

In fact, going through this list is very much convincing me that they just weren't consistent at all. Curse of the Dark Delirium talks about a miss stopping sustain, Curse of the Dark Dream talks about it not mattering if you miss, Doom of Delban I think clearly is supposed to work regardless of if you miss, those others weren't, etc.

 

[Mengu]

Curse of the Dark Delirium talks about a miss stopping sustain

It's not immediately clear which miss the Sustain is talking about. The way I read it is, regardless of hit or miss, you can sustain the power (because it's not underneath the Hit section). Then if you miss with the Sustain attack, you can no longer sustain it. So worst case scenario, you get to miss with the power twice (and resolve the Miss text both times).

Curse of the Dark Dream talks about it not mattering if you miss

We agree on the inconsistency there.

Doom of Delban I think clearly is supposed to work regardless of if you miss

Yes, I don't see anything inconsistent about this one.

Overall I think a clarification on how all this is supposed to work, would be nice. I am not 100% confident with my assumptions.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

How I read this power as working, in plain English.

Attack, if you hit, it does 2d10+x. The next turn, you can burn a minor action to have it do an additional 1d10+x damage. They then get a save; if it's successful, you can't re-sustain it.

Yeah, I recognize as written the sustain keyword doesn't match up with what it does, but this seems pretty straightforward to me. It kinda represents being clutched in some big phantom jaws and having to 'get free'.

You could probably reword it to something like
Hit: (dmg) + "Dummy effect" (save ends)
Sustain: minor action to do (dmg) if "Dummy effect" is still in place.

if it really bothers you.

 

[keterys]

Except that would let them save before it potentially triggered, which is very different.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Yeah, I'm aware that the wording would need to be tweaked to be made legal, but my point is that if I read the power entry as if it were in plain English, I'm not confused. If I read it in rulesese, I'm confused. So the choice, for me anyway, is pretty simple.

 

[keterys]

So, the way I read it on initial skim was that the sustain only triggered on a hit (as no mention was made of it not requiring one, ala Curse of the Dark Dream) and that you got to save as soon as it hit because the effect was still on you, regardless of whether it had actually done anything bad yet.

Curse of the Dark Dream's sustain to slide 1 may be a safer bed to debate whether you get to save before it's sustaine or not, but either way I think I want some official clarification at this point.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Hmm, it seems pretty clear to me that Seal of Binding's sustain is only intended to work if you hit based on its language. Same with Garotte Grip.

I don't have an issue with Seal of Binding being sustained on a miss. The problem for the caster is that if you miss, the target is neither stunned nor protected, so "The target remains stunned and protected" has no effect. You're basically using an action each turn to deal a little bit of damage to him and to you... you'd likely be better off using an at-will instead.

Garrote Grip is an interesting one. There's basically no way for the sustain to work on a miss, though I could almost entertain an argument from a player that if he misses with the Dex vs Reflex attack, but succeeds in a grab before the end of his next turn (OA, Warlord-granted attack, or standard action in his next turn), he can use his minor action to sustain the grab he has achieved. ... almost.

-Hyp.

 

[keterys]

Oh, you can definitely make them work... but I think it's _fairly_ clear that whoever wrote them though it would only be sustained on a hit. Can't be 100% sure, but I'd hope they'd have written them differently if not!