CustServ on "What is 'an attack'?"

[Ginnel]

He shoots. He SCORES!

I hate being stupid.

*Joins the club*

Should have seen that one

 

[Goolpsy]

You do know that none of this is important, since its player vs player situations...

Find a Player vs Monster situation to challenge and you may lay your claims valid..

4e doesn't have to be clear on anything regarding player vs player combat, since its already noted somewhere that the rules don't cover that.

 

[KarinsDad]

You managed to create a third position which I hadn't conceived of - "Wall of Fire is an attack, despite not having an Attack entry, and it has targets, despite not having a Target entry".

That's because I write a lot of this stuff late at night or first thing in the morning where even though I read what people write, only 50% of it sticks.

 

[silentounce]

You do know that none of this is important, since its player vs player situations...

Find a Player vs Monster situation to challenge and you may lay your claims valid..

4e doesn't have to be clear on anything regarding player vs player combat, since its already noted somewhere that the rules don't cover that.

How about a paladin PC versus a hobgoblin with the wizard template and the wall of fire power? Or perhaps a Wizard NPC? Also, what about powers that buff other PCs attacks? It's all relevant.

I should hope the rules do cover it because they are allowing monsters to have player powers. Any power in the PHB, with the exception of path/destiny powers, could potentially belong to a monster thanks to the class template rules in the DMG so your argument isn't really valid. Any situation described above could just as easily be player vs. monster.

 

[Andur]

Just cause:

"Attack Power" is a defined thing, it has it's own "entry in the database".

"Attack" is also a defined thing, it too has it's own "entry in the database".

"Attack Roll" is yet another defined thing, it has its own entry in a different database than either of the two above though...

Now PHB 54-59 really sum it up nicely. Powers (at the current time) only come in three flavors Attack, Utility, and Magic Item, these are used for determining your "resource pool" for a given day. Now a Power only has a Target: entry if it directly affects one or more creatures or objects. This is important to the whole Divine Challenge and Wall of Fire debate (since Challenge only kicks in if there is an attack which does not include the Pally as a target of the attack). Now IF a power has a Target entry it will also have an Attack entry. This is imho what all other feats, powers, and abilities refer to whan they reference "attack". Hit is what happens when the attack succeeds, Miss is what happens when the attack does not succeed, if no Miss entry then nothing happens in regards to the Attack. Effect happens regardless of a hit or miss, or even if there is no Attack at all.

Now there are no Area: Wall in the entire PHB which have a Target or Attack entry. Storm Cage is close, but it is am Area: Burst which then has an Effect of creating a wall at the edge of the burst...

Now is are walls attacks? The are Attack Powers, which use an Area Attack keyword, but has no Targets, no Attack, and no Hit entries. So no they are not attacks, just like Monster Summoning I-IX were not attacks in previous editions.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Now IF a power has a Target entry it will also have an Attack entry.

No - there are lots of powers with a Target line but no Attack line. Most of them are Utility powers. But see Weapon of the Gods (Cleric Attack 5) or Prophecy of Doom (Divine Oracle Attack 11) for examples of an Attack Power with a Target entry but no Attack line.

-Hyp.

 

[Andur]

Bad wording on my part, you can have Target without Attack, you can't have Attack without Target, nor can you have Hit without Attack and thus can't have a Hit without a Target. Hierachy stuff...

 

[Hypersmurf]

Bad wording on my part, you can have Target without Attack, you can't have Attack without Target, nor can you have Hit without Attack and thus can't have a Hit without a Target. Hierachy stuff...

Right.

Well, except for pre-errata Cloudkill

-Hyp.

 

[pemerton]

The problem is that avoiding the two rulings you call absurd is a mutually-exclusive issue. If we define 'attack' so as to prevent Wall of Fire damage someone under Seal of Binding, then Evasion avoids the Effect damage of Elemental Maw or Righteous Inferno. If we define 'attack' so as to stop the Evasion problem, then Wall of Fire isn't subject to the Seal of Binding restriction.

Unless, of course, we say that "an attack" means one thing under the Seal of Binding text, and a different thing under the Evasion text, and repeat for any occurrence of "attack" in the PHB...

The suggestion in your last paragraph is not ridiculous.

Seal of Binding says that the target "can't be affected by any attack" - given that "affect" the verb is cognate with "effect" the noun, it is pretty natural to read that clause as saying that the effects of attack powers do not affect the target under seal of binding. This is (probably) also good for balance.

Evasion says that "you take no damage from the attack" if the attack (of the relevant sort) "misses you but deals damage on a miss" - it is natural to read "attack" there as carrying the content "attack that missed and would otherwise deal damage nevertheless", and to read "damage" (in the "no damage" phrase) as carrying the content "damage that would otherwise be suffered even on a miss". I'm not sure whether or not this reading is good for balance, but it fits with the history of the Evasion ability all the way back to 1st ed Monks.

It is not at all odd in English (or other natural languages) for noun phrases to carry content that is not explicitly stated on each occasion of usage (for example, in "I saw a hippo in the back yard. The hippo was fat" the second occurence of "hippo" carries the content "hippo seen in the back yard" even though that content is not explicity stated in the second sentence).

 

[pemerton]

At to the Divine Challenge thing, I'm inclined to think that, applying the rules as they are written, Wall of Fire is an attack that does not target the Paladin (and thus triggers the damage), but also to agree with Karin's Dad that it probably would fit the flavour and not break the game if dropping the Wall of Fire on top of the Paladin was held to be an attack that does target the Paladin and thus does not trigger the damage.