Immediate Powers that gives bonus. How can we know when use them?

[Nifft]

In our games the DM always just asks "does X hit your [defense]?".

This is how we do it, too.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Klaus]

Err--no, that's exactly what interrupts do.



In other words, when you're hit by an attack, shield jumps in before the attack is resolved and boosts your defenses by 4. In other other words, to resolve the attack, you must now compare the attack roll to your defense + 4 because of the shield power.

Ah, thanks for the quote!

I'd say the best option, instead of the DM asking "what's your AC" would be to say "the monster hits AC X", to which the wizard replies "A-ha! Shield! AC Y, so he misses!".

 

[keterys]

I do think you get a much better 'Aha!' moment out of it that way, agreed. And hey, that's a cool thing

 

[Markn]

To answer the OP's question - there is nothing official as to how it works. You and your DM have to decide if you can use it knowing when it will make the difference or not knowing when it will make a difference. For what its worth, out of the threads I've read, I'd say about 75% of groups allow the player to use the power when he knows it is a difference maker. 25% of groups make the players guess. As for me, I'm in the 75% camp. D&D4e seems to be designed to minimize player frustration. Not giving the info to make a good decision doesn't feel right to me.

 

[LostSoul]

The DM should be describing the hit and you should base your decision on that.

 

[CapnZapp]

Nobody has come out and said it, so I'll do it:

These powers are a terrible design feature.

Fiddly, metagame, and game-slowing.

Either such a power's practically worthless, or you have to make the game slower, introducing a very metagame decision point where none was before. Essentially, the DM must pause a sec after every attack. The alternative being that the DM keeps all player defenses in his head and only asks when relevant - but that's a workload I would definitely not want as a DM.


Solution: either tell your players up front you won't stand for that kind of minutae, warning them these powers will be practically worthless (except in some cases where the immediate trigger is not dependant on things like "you're hit but only by 4 points or less")... or remake them into something less "cpu"-intensive.

Essentially an immediate +4 interrupt means "you miss if you hit by less than four", so why not remake it into a free "I get +4 to all my defenses for one attack or one round" power?

Much easier in the game, and much less metagame intrusion too...

 

[Flipguarder]

So the way I've always played is something like this:


DM: The monster raises its mouth and a spray of poisonous gas issues forth. It attacks your reflex and it rolls a 34, does that hit?
Player: yeah my reflex is 33. Oh wait, I use my daily "blah" power. It raises my reflex by 2 when an attack targets it. It's an immediate interrupt.
DM: okey dokey.

Playing this way REALLY makes the powers more understandable and balanced imo.

I suppose others may play with all hidden roll totals and having the dm have to keep track of the players' defenses constantly. That just seems unnecessary. As long as you hide the dice and they don't know what you rolled then it shouldn't be a big deal.

 

[Horatio]

I (as a DM) play it this way:

Me: The tiefling hexer summons a green flame to his hand and hurls it towrds you. You (brief glance at wizards reflex defense) almost dodged it in time, but ...
Wizard guy: Seeing I can't manage to duck fast enough, I raise my hand, quickly shouting a word of power ...
Me: ... and the green flame hits the invisible barrier you so quickly made.

Of course, we talked about the power before the session and agreed, that I will point out somehow that the attack hits only barely, and he is allowed to use the interrupt.

Should I describe an attack hitting just barely by a mistake, the shield power works too, regardless of the actuall attack roll. It's my mistake I haven't described it how I should have after all.

 

[Thundershield]

So the way I've always played is something like this:


DM: The monster raises its mouth and a spray of poisonous gas issues forth. It attacks your reflex and it rolls a 34, does that hit?
Player: yeah my reflex is 33. Oh wait, I use my daily "blah" power. It raises my reflex by 2 when an attack targets it. It's an immediate interrupt.
DM: okey dokey.

Playing this way REALLY makes the powers more understandable and balanced imo.

I suppose others may play with all hidden roll totals and having the dm have to keep track of the players' defenses constantly. That just seems unnecessary. As long as you hide the dice and they don't know what you rolled then it shouldn't be a big deal.

That's exactly how we do it too.

I've tried with the "hidden rolls" method, where players have to gamble if an interrupt's bonus is enough to negate the attack. Almost instantly all the players avoided those powers as they were too unreliable (with the exception of powers such as Sudden Scales, which grant a huge bonus).

Telling players what defense is attacked and how high the creature rolled also gives them an idea of what they're fighting and how to defend against them. If the party's Fighter sees the Wizard got attacked by this poison-breathing monstrosity and hears it attacked Fortitude he'll know (arguably both in- and out-of-character) that he'd be good at defending against this beast. In other words, it allows for the players to develop their tactics mid-combat, and the level of meta-game intrusion is really at a minimum.

Lastly, the bonus-to-defenses interrupts balance themselves. If a power only gives a +2 bonus you can only use it when an attack hits by a margin of 1, so the power is still limited. If you're only hit by attacks that roll 2 or more above your defenses, the power will basically be useless for all of that encounter, but if used when the opportunity arises, it will potentially cancel out an attack entirely, which is pretty potent.

In other words, these powers are circumstantial but potent, which is perfect. I fully support them.

 

[Thundershield]

I (as a DM) play it this way:

Me: The tiefling hexer summons a green flame to his hand and hurls it towrds you. You (brief glance at wizards reflex defense) almost dodged it in time, but ...
Wizard guy: Seeing I can't manage to duck fast enough, I raise my hand, quickly shouting a word of power ...
Me: ... and the green flame hits the invisible barrier you so quickly made.

Of course, we talked about the power before the session and agreed, that I will point out somehow that the attack hits only barely, and he is allowed to use the interrupt.

Should I describe an attack hitting just barely by a mistake, the shield power works too, regardless of the actuall attack roll. It's my mistake I haven't described it how I should have after all.

And what do you do/say if the player has access to Dragonflame Mantle (immediate interrupt for +1 to AC), Sudden Scales (immediate interrupt for about +10 to all defenses), and Shield (immediate interrupt for +4 all defenses)...? Or do you let him have to gamble what power to use, potentially having the power do nothing or do too much?