Question about ranger's powers from Verdant Silence (Dragon 377)

[Klaus]

Look at Plant To The Hilt:

Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC. Make the attack twice, once with your main weapon and once with your off-hand weapon
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage, and you slide the target 1 square to a square adjacent to you. If both attacks hit, the second slide increases to 3 squares

(Emphasis mine)

There are other powers in the article with the same notation in the "Attack" line.

It doesn't say the damage is per attack, and the Attack line doesn't say "two attacks". So am I right to assume that the "Make the attack twice" serves only to increase the chance of hitting (and to increase the slide from 1 to a total of 4 squares)?

 

[FireLance]

While I think this would be a great way to balance some powers (e.g. twin strike only does +1[W] damage if you hit with the second attack, +2[W] at level 21+) the text of the power refers to the second slide. This means there must have been a first slide, and since damage must have accompanied the first slide (the Hit: entry mentions that you deal damage and slide the target), it seems to me that damage accompanies the second slide as well.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Look at Plant To The Hilt:

Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC. Make the attack twice, once with your main weapon and once with your off-hand weapon
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage, and you slide the target 1 square to a square adjacent to you. If both attacks hit, the second slide increases to 3 squares

(Emphasis mine)

There are other powers in the article with the same notation in the "Attack" line.

It doesn't say the damage is per attack, and the Attack line doesn't say "two attacks". So am I right to assume that the "Make the attack twice" serves only to increase the chance of hitting (and to increase the slide from 1 to a total of 4 squares)?

I read it that the sequence is:

Attack with main weapon
Deal 1[W] dmg + Str damage and slide 1 to a square adjacent to you.
Attack with off-hand weapon
If you hit, deal 1[W] dmg + Str and slide a further 3, but the enemy must end in a square adjacent to you.

Nifty power for moving an enemy into the middle of the group.

 

[Nichwee]

The wording definately suggests two seperate attacks, with damage and slide for each. How do you get a second slide if you only apply the Hit line once?

However, I also find myself asking an odd question looking at this power:
Can slides not go diagonally?

I ask as, bar cheesy moves for zones*, a slide from a square reachable with normal melee reach can reach any other square adjacent to you in 2 squares (from directly infront to directly behind via two diagonal slides). So what is the advantage of getting a total of 4 squares of slide when 2 gets the target from where it started to any other legal square (unless you are a large creature I guess).

*By this I mean sliding someone away and then back to make them cross zone effects for auto damage or the like (such as into a Stinking Cloud behind them before bringing them forward again to be adjacent).
I know this is allowed by the rules but it seems cheesy to boomerang slide someone imo, and so I'm surprised they made a situation where the cheesy potential was the reward you could gain.

 

[Klaus]

It's weird that it doesn't read like this:

Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC (main weapon and off-hand weapon, two attacks)
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage per attack, and you slide the target 1 square to a square adjacent to you. If both attacks hit, the second slide increases to 3 squares.

As for diagonal slides, here's a grid.

[1][2][3]
[4][5][6]
[7][8][9]

I think you can't cut through an occupied square. If that's so, a 4-square slide lets you move the target to your opposite square (from 4 to 6, for instance).

This is a good power when the ranger is the first to reach the enemy line and slides the target into the middle of the other PCs.

 

[Nichwee]

As for diagonal slides, here's a grid.

[1][2][3]
[4][5][6]
[7][8][9]

I think you can't cut through an occupied square. If that's so, a 4-square slide lets you move the target to your opposite square (from 4 to 6, for instance).

But if the slides can be diagonal you only need 2 squares to do as you suggest. The PHB (page 283) says that going diagonally round people is fine (unlike round corners) as people don't completely fill the squares they stand in.
So Assuming you stand in Square 5:
Slide Target From Square 4 -> Square 2 -> Square 1,3 or 6.
OR
Slide Target From Square 4 -> Square 8 -> Square 6,7 or 9.
2 squares moved, none through an occupied square, and you have got the target to any adjacent square.
Now if squares around you are occupied as well it gets harder but then you are using the extra slides to boomerang the target round things which seems a cheesy way to slide someone, i.e. it slides them out of your reach but gets them to come back to you in a curved trajectory.

 

[Caliber]

Yeah, the ability to slide the extra squares is mostly going to be useless. If you were somehow Large, it wouldn't be terrible, but I'm not sure how you can even be Large in 4E (on a mount?)

How about if you were somehow wielding two Reach weapons (possible in 4E?) I'm still not sure this power would be useful ...

 

[Klaus]

Yeah, the ability to slide the extra squares is mostly going to be useless. If you were somehow Large, it wouldn't be terrible, but I'm not sure how you can even be Large in 4E (on a mount?)

How about if you were somehow wielding two Reach weapons (possible in 4E?) I'm still not sure this power would be useful ...

Unless you have a stance/paragon path power/weapon property that gives you a longer reach? Say, a goliath ranger/stoneblessed (reach 2) that pulls the foe 1 squares (to an adjacent square), then slides 3 squares?

 

[Tai]

You can also use it to double-slide someone off a cliff. They have to make two saving throws that way.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I know it doesn't answer the question, but powers in Dragon articles are infamously poorly worded. I'd see if WotC CS has anything constructive to say about it. Not having the article and not knowing what sort of power it is makes it hard to say what is appropriate.