Wild Sorcerer Control Questions

[Caliber]

Two questions regarding just how much control a Wild Sorcerer can actually exercise.

1) The Wild variant Sorcerer receives an ability that reads:

"When you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll for an arcane power, you must push each creature within 5 squares of you 1 square."

I am almost certain there is a rule that when you push/pull/slide a creature, you can always opt to move it less than required. Is that the case here, or does the "must" wording overrule that previous rule, meaning on a natural 1 everyone is getting pushed back?

2) The Sorcerer spell Chaos Bolt contains this text:

" Wild Magic: If you rolled an even number for the primary attack roll, make a secondary attack.
Secondary Target: One creature within 5 squares of the target last hit by this power
Secondary Attack: Charisma vs. Will
Hit: 1d6 psychic damage. If you rolled an even number for the secondary attack roll, repeat the secondary attack. You can attack a creature only once with a single use of this power."

Does this spell ricochet onto allies? Or even the caster, if he is in range? Does the Sorcerer HAVE to take the secondary attack if only friendlies are nearby? As comparison note Passing Attack's text:

"Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage, and you can shift 1 square. Make a secondary attack.
Secondary Target: One creature other than the primary target
Secondary Attack: Strength + 2 vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage."

Does the Fighter have to take the secondary attack? Is this a case of RAI vs RAW?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[NMcCoy]

1) RAI I would say that the "must" strongly implies you can't reduce the push. Also, I personally think it's more fun that way.
2) This is a trickier thing. There are powers that target "one or two creatures", and powers that target "two creatures" (e.g., Split the Tree). As I understand it, you can't make a power that targets "two creatures" target only one; it would similarly seem, then, that you can't make a power that targets "one creature" target zero creatures. However, the problem with this is that if there's invisible creatures around, you can target a square and hope to hit whatever's in it.

 

[franzel]

2) The Sorcerer spell Chaos Bolt contains this text:

" Wild Magic: If you rolled an even number for the primary attack roll, make a secondary attack.
Secondary Target: One creature within 5 squares of the target last hit by this power
Secondary Attack: Charisma vs. Will
Hit: 1d6 psychic damage. If you rolled an even number for the secondary attack roll, repeat the secondary attack. You can attack a creature only once with a single use of this power."

Does this spell ricochet onto allies? Or even the caster, if he is in range? Does the Sorcerer HAVE to take the secondary attack if only friendlies are nearby?

Mike Donais, the designer who wrote the sorcerer, posted on CharOp a few weeks ago when this question came up and said that it's a voluntary secondary attack on the part of the wild magic sorcerer. Dunno about the forced push on a natural 1.

 

[jbear]

My interpretation: 'Must' in this case overrides the general ability to chose whether to force movement or not. A 1 is a critical failure. In this case it causes your allies to be pushed by the forces of chaos to a possibly disadvantageous position.

As for Chaos Bolt. No 'must' in power description, so it seems optional. Roll even you can stike at another enemy. Roll even again, awesome! Attack another enemy. Roll even but no legal targets, except allies... stops there.

It seems logical that this is the same case for the fighter's power. Would be strange to have powers that attack allies. Critical fumbles affecting allies on the other hand is more comprehensible.

 

[Kinneus]

"Must" seems to strongly imply that the push is not an option.

This, by the way, is one of my favorite bits of the Wild Sorcerer. The unpredictable angle. In one encounter, my Sorcerer used Bedeviling Burst against two targets, one of which was the dreaded Needlefang Drake Swarm. The other was a Kobold Wyrmpriest.

I rolled a 1 on my attack for the Drake Swarm, but hit the Wyrmpriest. I was able to push all my allies out of the way of the Drake's aura, and got to fling the Wyrmpriest an extra square with the Bedeviling Burst power.

It was the first time in my life I was pleased to get a natural 1.

 

[DracoSuave]

1) Mandatory. Most push/pull/slide effects in the game do not use the word 'must.' This one does. If you do not push 1, you have not satisfied the 'must' imperative.

2) RAW, yes (I think). Tho, I'd probably not force my players to do so.

Or I might.

Or the players might ask me to enforce it, for the chaos factor.

 

[keterys]

You can always attack the "invisible guy in that square" with the extra attack, which will obviously miss... so I believe that you're safe on Chaos Bolt just hitting enemies.

I concur on 'must' meaning you can't reduce the push... that said, if the sorcerer does the pushing (which does seem to be the case), you can push into walls or other characters to stop movement and otherwise make it extremely often a boon when it happens.

I'm of mixed opinion there - even things like choosing to push PCs in a certain order will result in it not being all that bad for the PC, but it feels like it's _supposed_ to be something bad.

 

[Kinneus]

I'm of mixed opinion there - even things like choosing to push PCs in a certain order will result in it not being all that bad for the PC, but it feels like it's _supposed_ to be something bad.

Hmm, I'm not convinced it's supposed to be bad. 4e seems to do away with all the "you just got screwed by a dice roll, sucker" stuff, and I think this includes the idea of magical backlash. All the other wild socerer effects that involve an element of randomness all involve either something good happening, or nothing happening.
This feature of Unfettered Power is more like either something good happens, or something neutral happens, and maybe once in a dozen encounters or so, something bad happens (when you're forced to push your ally off the bridge or something, for instance). I don't think it's intended solely as a bad thing, so it's not surprising that players are able to use it to their advantage every now and again.

 

[RedBeardJim]

I think that #1 would fall under the heading of "Specific trumps general", and say that you indeed "must" push everything 1 square. Note that it's "all creatures", so it's going to affect enemies as well as allies. If you're lucky/clever, you could even get something advantageous out of it.