Hunting Party Question.

[Nichwee]

Hunting Party
Ranger Lvl 10 Utility
Daily

Martial, Stance
Minor Action Personal
Effect: Until the stance ends, each time you miss your quarry with an attack, you can choose an ally within 5 squares of the quarry. If that ally hits the quarry before the start of your next turn, the ally’s attack deals extra damage equal to your Hunter’s Quarry damage.


I suddenly found myself wondering if, by RAW not RAI, this could be used to get extra Hunter's Quarry damage per round.

By this I mean, for example, the following:
Ranger has entered this stance already.
Ranger uses Twin Strike targetting his/her quarry (or any of the Ranger multi-shot powers)
Ranger misses with the first shot at his/her quarry

Ranger picks Ally1 to gain the Hunting Party effect

Ranger misses with the next shot at his/her quarry
Ranger picks Ally2 to gain the Hunting Party effect
Ranger's turn ends

Ally1 hits the Quarry - deals HQ damage (as allowed under Hunting Party)
Ally2 hits the Quarry - deals HQ damage (as allowed under Hunting Party)

In this instance the Ranger's HQ damage has been dealt twice in one round - as it was deal by a seperate trigger to the pure HQ trigger (that is limited to once per round).
The Hunting Party effect triggers of each attack that is missed not each attack power (and any multi-attack power for Ranged/Melee power is assumed to be a set of seperate attacks) so can this be used to make the Ranger want to miss repeatedly. or at least with all but one attack, so as to hand out lots of HQ damage for allies to use in the same round?

Have I missed some restriction by RAW or is this actually allowed? (Of course any DM would and should probably stop this being abused).

EDIT: Actually the Ranger would hardly ever WANT to miss, as the damage caused by hitting (even without HQ) would probably out damage being able to simply allow additional HQ damage on a different attack, but this would still be an interesting issue on a monster, for example, with very high AC (what the ranger targets most) and low NADs - as the Ranger could allow two other allies to deal HQ extra damage if he/she missed twice with Twin Strike (or hit once and deal HQ and missed allowing another HQ to be done by an ally)?

 

[FreeXenon]

As you have framed the question, I think you are right, however, I think Hunters Quarry specifies doing damage only 1/turn which should carry over to this too.

 

[Jhaelen]

I suddenly found myself wondering if, by RAW not RAI, this could be used to get extra Hunter's Quarry damage per round.

RAW? Maybe.
RAI? Very unlikely.

Thus it's a non-issue. It won't work in my game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't see anything wrong with it. As you said in your edit the damage from HQ is going to be a lot less than the damage from a hit. Effectively the stance gives you a CHANCE to do your HQ damage on a miss with the possibility of doing it more than once. The damage gain, even in an ideal situation is going to be pretty marginal. BEST case about 1/2 a d6 per round with Twin Strike, about a 1.5 added DPR roughly. My guess is it isn't really worth wasting a level 10 utility slot on, but I'm not sure what else is available in that particular slot. I'd guess there's at least a skill power you can pick up that is likely worth more than that.

 

[Pickles JG]

This sounded realy strong to me to but I just ran the maths. If you double up rangers who twin strike theri shared quarry. They hit about 60% of the time at par so one will miss at least once about 64% of the time then his buddy will hit at least once about 84% of the time so about 53% of an extra lot of quarry damage or 5 ish DPR at level 11. & that assumes the base conditions llike asolo who soaks all the damage. Less accutrate classes gain less benefit.
If it only works if you miss both twin strikes it's about 1/4 as effective - not worth it at all on a daily utility.

Anyway that make me feel happy with playing it exactly as written (damage equal to HQ damage rather than HQ damage)

 

[Spatula]

Have I missed some restriction by RAW or is this actually allowed? (Of course any DM would and should probably stop this being abused).

I don't see much potential for abuse. For one thing, this is the ranger's lvl 10 exploit - it better be doing something good - and it's a daily, and a stance, making its use limited.

But also, how much damage are we talking here? The ranger misses his or her quarry, and then needs an ally able and willing to attack the same target, and then that ally has to hit. Compare that to lower level powers from other classes that add +1d6 or stat mod dmg to every attack made.

Warlord 2, Heroic Effort (allies in burst 10 add warlord's Cha mod to dmg)
Paladin 2, Bless Weapon (paladin gets +1 hit, +1d6 radiant dmg, crit on 18-20 vs radiant vulnerable targets)
Artificer various

and so on.

The only potential for abuse that I can see is if the ranger is able to make enough attacks each round so that the misses translate into more damage than the ranger would have gotten from hitting. Which seems difficult, but I'm sure someone could find a way to do it.