Invisible Paladin

[Arakim]

If you're attacking the wrong square, he takes no damage because he isn't the target. If he is the target, then he does take the damage on a miss.

Since you didn't hit him, but he didn't take damage, he wasn't the target.

-Hyp.

He attacked the Paladin and missed. The Target doesn't take damage. I might be willing to concede that if the creature hit another character while swinging for the Paladin, that then he might take damage.

If the Target is trying to attack the Paladin, then that is what he is doing. I'm not going to give an invisible Paladin free damage every round for a power that was supposed to guarantee that he was attacked by the target.

If you want to go so far as to say that an incorrectly targeted square isn't an attack on the Paladin, then I would have to say it's not an attack at all. the Target will take no damage from attacking air (Unless it is an Air Elemental). Just swinging your weapon around doesn't constitute an attack.

 

[SJay]

This is EXACTLY the type of tactic a Gnome paly would love.

... or any paladin of Sehanine... don't tell me Sehanine doesn't want you to be even a little sneaky.

Also I agree with Arakim that swinging a weapon around is not an attack... Would be very surprised if any DM ever let the paladin get away with inflicting DC damage every round a monster picks the wrong square.

 

[Arakim]

... or any paladin of Sehanine... don't tell me Sehanine doesn't want you to be even a little sneaky.

Also I agree with Arakim that swinging a weapon around is not an attack... Would be very surprised if any DM ever let the paladin get away with inflicting DC damage every round a monster picks the wrong square.

I do need to remember there are less traditional Paladins out there now. Sneaky Gods would most likely approve of sneaky DC's.

 

[Danceofmasks]

... or any paladin of Sehanine... don't tell me Sehanine doesn't want you to be even a little sneaky.

Also I agree with Arakim that swinging a weapon around is not an attack... Would be very surprised if any DM ever let the paladin get away with inflicting DC damage every round a monster picks the wrong square.

There's a flipside to that argument, 'cos the mob would just shut their eyes, and swing "wildly" at the wizard.
'cos the mob can't see the him, so it's no different from wildly swinging at an empty square.

 

[Runestar]

There's a flipside to that argument, 'cos the mob would just shut their eyes, and swing "wildly" at the wizard.
'cos the mob can't see the him, so it's no different from wildly swinging at an empty square.

They could, but then they would be effectively blind, which would likely degrade their attacking capabilities more. At the end of the day, you wouldn't be any better off.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

There's a flipside to that argument, 'cos the mob would just shut their eyes, and swing "wildly" at the wizard.
'cos the mob can't see the him, so it's no different from wildly swinging at an empty square.

In a universe where many abilities can unerringly differentiate between friend and foe ("ally" and "enemy"), I do not see anything unnatural about resolving some abilities based on intent. If fact, the very concept of Ally and Enemy implies that judgments about intent weighed carefully within the context on hand.

I would consider a scenario where closing one's eyes makes it easier to hit the paladin than not closing one's eyes to be exactly the kind of extreme outlier that I do not want the rules to attempt to cover. It would not be worth the effort.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Because 4e was designed to be easily ported to PC.
Ally and enemy are determined by the circles under their feet, and intent is irrelevant when resolving powers.

 

[eamon]

In general, applying marks when the marked can't see the marker is dubious, albeit legal.

 

[Skyscraper]

You don't 'attack an image' in 4E. You attack the character, who has a power bonus to AC, and if you miss, an image disappears.

So you'd still be making an attack that included the paladin as a target, if you made his image disappear.

-Hyp.

Noted.

How about a paladin with limited teleportation ability that allows him to get out of reach of his target? Attack, mark, teleport. "I challenge you to attack me! *poof!* If you can reach me, of course."

Sky

 

[Skyscraper]

This is why I like the earlier interpretation where the DC'ed creature magically knows where the Paladin that challenged him is.

I think it is a fair houserule, however it does bring about some other consequences as noted by other posters, e.g. by this rule the target gains a precise position detection ability against the paladin for one round.

Back to the general question at hand, i'm still of the opinion that the paladin needs to offer himself as an accessible target if he is to divine challenge a creature.

The argument that attacking "thin air" constitutes an attack doesn't go far enough as far as intent is concerned IMO. Indeed, once the paladin marks and becomes invisible, the target could move wherever it wants and swing at thin air, declaring "to believe that the paladin might be there" (which might well not be true), while in fact positioning himself strategically next to a warlord or a rogue. It is too vague a resolution of this rule for my taste.

Divine Challenge is a challenge. A challenge is a dare, a test in a competition, an invitation to do something that must be reasonably possible to accomplish if the challenge is to have any value whatsoever. To become invisible or teleport or phase through the wall or transform in gazeous form and move out through an arrow slit defeats the purpose of a challenge. It's like challenging another team to a hockey game but not showing up at the rink. IMO, for a challenge to stand, you must offer what the challenge requires, i.e. the paladin must offer himself as a target.

Sky