Armor of Repulsion - Useless?

[Ninja-to]

Armor of Repulsion - Minor Action. Whenever an enemy moves into an adjacent square, you can push that enemy 1 square as an immediate reaction. This power lasts until the end of the encounter.

From what I can tell from the rules for Immediate Reactions, they don't interrupt (like an Immediate Interrupt) and waste the action, so the enemy can simply move back in your space if he still has movement left. Right?

I know this armor is only level 2, but it still seems like a fairly useless power to me. And I suppose the opposite could be true, perhaps interrupting him and wasting his movement towards you could be overpowered.

Any thoughts?

 

[tiornys]

Careful positioning helps; if you're exactly the monster's speed away, then the push leaves them 1 square away with no movement.

More relevantly, what the armor is really good for is preventing an enemy from just shifting to you. It's great when you want to be near melee combat but avoid being trapped in melee, or taking on one melee enemy while not picking up too many others. That makes it good for most melee strikers and decent for certain short range characters like laser Clerics and various Invoker, Druid, Bard, and Wizard builds.

It's also possible to increase the distance of the push, which makes the feature more powerful. There aren't a lot of ways to do this, but there are some.

Finally, nothing says you have to push them back into the square they came from. If you're near a character with a strong melee presence (most defenders, some strikers), you can often push the enemy adjacent to them and force them to eat an OA if they want to move back up to you.

t~

 

[Ninja-to]

Now shifting I hadn't considered. That would definitely be a good thing. Ok sold.

 

[hipnotode]

immediate reactions happen after the triggering action, so the enemy moves next to you, finishes thee movement, and then you push them a square away. then they have to spend another action to move adjacent to you. you can do this repeatedly untill you take a short rest or 5 min has past.
i dont recall how often you are allowed to use immediate reactions, but i would guess that it is every turn or round.
basicaly an enamy has to spend two actions to get adjacent to you. this means that either they have to sacrifice there standard action (or be able to move with a minor), charge you (which they canot do from under two squares away), or have reach.
i would get the other conclusion to you, that this item is extremely good. infact, after becomeing aware of it, i am going to change my armor on my item wishlist to this i think.

on a side note, RAW your not alowed to take an OA from forced movement.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

No, in fact, that interpretation would be too good.

immediate actions happen after every square of movement...

 

[hipnotode]

No, in fact, that interpretation would be too good.

immediate actions happen after every square of movement...

IMMEDIATE ACTION
Once per Round: You can take only one immediate
action per round, either an immediate interrupt
or an immediate reaction. If you haven’t taken an
immediate action since the end of your last turn, you
can take one when a trigger allows you to. You can’t
take an immediate action on your own turn.

you can use it only once per round. this means that if it was an interrupt, they would be able to just use the rest of there movement to continue moving next to you, but as its a reaction, it means that they end there movement, and then they get pushed a square, meaning they cannot use that action any more, and must spend another action to move closer to you.

this is one of the few times reaction is better than interrupt.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Sorry to say that, but this excerpt from the "ready an action" entry should clear it up: (bolded the important part)

Immediate Reaction: A readied action is an immediate reaction. It takes place after your enemy completes the action that triggers it.

Interrupting an Enemy: If you want to use a readied action to attack before an enemy attacks, you should ready your action in response to the enemy’s movement. That way your attack will be triggered by a portion of the enemy’s move, and you will interrupt it and attack first. If you ready an action to be triggered by an enemy attack, your readied action will occur as a reaction to that attack, so you’ll attack after the enemy.
Note that an enemy might use a power that lets it move and then attack. If you readied an action to attack in response to that enemy’s movement, your readied action interrupts the movement, and you can attack before the enemy does.

and actually the immediate reaction part of the immediate action entry tells us:

Reaction: An immediate reaction lets you act in response to a trigger. The triggering action, event, or condition occurs and is completely resolved before you take your reaction, except that you can interrupt a creature’s movement. If a creature triggers your immediate reaction while moving (by coming into range, for example), you take your action before the creature finishes moving but after it has moved at least 1 square.

So I was not completely right, but in this case you react to entering a square adjacent and the enemy then goes on with moving...

 

[hipnotode]

oh okay i missed that. seams odd though, the only diference between an immediate interupt and reaction for movement being they have to move atleast one square for a reaction.

can someone look this up on the WotC website to check for errata, im afraid im not suscribed to ddi at the moment, so i only have the origional un-errata'ed phb

 

[UngeheuerLich]

this is from the rules compendium and if you suspect that there is an errata, look it up for yourself under: rules updates... its free

 

[Goonalan]

Much to my annoyance a 3rd Level Swordmage managed to hold off a Kruthik Hive Lord single-handedly using a suit of Repulsion Armour, while his comrades made mince-meat of a bunch of Hatchlings et al.

Believe me the armour is very useful.