Warden L6 Utility "Bears Endurance"

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I think your claim that you are following RAI isn't accurate at all since we really don't know what RAI is.

I don't claim to know what it is, but I can strongly infer the intent.

Shield is intended to shield you from attacks and should be able to disrupt attacks. "You throw up your hand, and a shield of arcane energy springs into existence, protecting you against imminent attacks."

Bear's Endurance is intended to allow one to endure damage, not avoid attacks altogether. "Drawing on the boundless endurance of a bear, you regain a measure of your vitality."

Regain, not Gain. At best I can see the valid viewpoint of gaining the hitpoints then taking the damage (even though I do not agree with this as I'd rather choose a more beneficial effect for the character), but you cannot convince me that the intent was to gain hit points that would then make you an invalid target for a power.

 

[Gryph]

I don't claim to know what it is, but I can strongly infer the intent.

Shield is intended to shield you from attacks and should be able to disrupt attacks. "You throw up your hand, and a shield of arcane energy springs into existence, protecting you against imminent attacks."

Bear's Endurance is intended to allow one to endure damage, not avoid attacks altogether. "Drawing on the boundless endurance of a bear, you regain a measure of your vitality."

Regain, not Gain. At best I can see the valid viewpoint of gaining the hitpoints then taking the damage (even though I do not agree with this as I'd rather choose a more beneficial effect for the character), but you cannot convince me that the intent was to gain hit points that would then make you an invalid target for a power.

As Draco pointed out. The correct is answer is: feh

 

[KarinsDad]

Bear's Endurance is intended to allow one to endure damage, not avoid attacks altogether. "Drawing on the boundless endurance of a bear, you regain a measure of your vitality."

Regain, not Gain. At best I can see the valid viewpoint of gaining the hitpoints then taking the damage (even though I do not agree with this as I'd rather choose a more beneficial effect for the character), but you cannot convince me that the intent was to gain hit points that would then make you an invalid target for a power.

Fluff text for a power not withstanding, as we've been told many many times here on the forums, hit points are not damage. PCs are not actually damaged until they die. Hit points are luck, vitality, etc., etc. but they aren't really damage in 4E (regardless of terminology like healing, damage, getting hit, in the rules).

So, it's not unreasonable that the PC regains his luck and never even gets hit. And of course, the example I gave is an extreme corner case. The foe has to have a bonus to hit for the PC being bloodied, the foe has to roll the exact number needed to hit, and the Bear's Endurance has to take the PC from bloodied to not bloodied. In the large scheme of things, that example isn't really going to be happening in anyone's game enough for it to matter.

But, the reason I interpret it this way is because it's the only way to do so consistently. Every action or event is treated the same way. One does not resolve Combat Challenge before the foe shifts and resolve Bear's Endurance after the PC drops to zero. One treats the entire action as a series of little mini-steps, any one of which can be interrupted and affect earlier steps in the sequence. The interrupt itself changes the state of the situation, sometimes more than what the designers originally intended. But consistent RAW instead of inconsistent RAI.