A Paladin Problematic

[BobTheNob]

Also, remember that divine sanction is not divine challenge as was pointed out before, and in most cases a challenged monster should be focusing on the paladin. As long as the paladin is included in the attack, the allies don't get to heal.

Also, I would rule its one ally per attack that the paladin is not included that can benefit from the hospitaler ability. Not all allies.

Actual wording from last errata

"When an enemy that you currently challenge makes an attack against one of your allies that does not include you, whether the attack hits or misses, that ally regains hit points equal to one-half your level + your Wisdom modifier"

The use of the wording "one of you allies" as opposed to "an ally" might suggest one (in the case of an area attack), but its splitting hairs a little. Im not actually certain which way this goes. If it was to heal EVERY target of a power, then yea, its pretty powerful surge-less healing (best I have heard of really).

However, here is the text explaining the reason for the nerf

"...and it doesn’t give a monster a good way to use close or area attacks without healing its enemies."

The thing about this is they are saying that a close or area attack will result in healing enemies...plural. So, as much as I dont like it personally, I think the designers intention was that everyone other than paladin targeted by an attacked from a challenged creature is healed, surgeless healed.

Otherwise, its a house rule

The resistance power is nasty, but its epic so it should be nasty. Just bear in mind the 5 square range. If I was DM, I would do my best to slide or move PCs out of range before hammering them.

Yep. Also like the Dracolich idea. There are many ways that this power can fail. I would even try having the Paladin hit with a teleport power, putting him out of range of the party.

There is all sorts of ways to turn this little nugget into a barrel of laughs.

 

[Felon]

However, here is the text explaining the reason for the nerf

"...and it doesn’t give a monster a good way to use close or area attacks without healing its enemies."

The thing about this is they are saying that a close or area attack will result in healing enemies...plural. So, as much as I dont like it personally, I think the designers intention was that everyone other than paladin targeted by an attacked from a challenged creature is healed, surgeless healed.

Otherwise, its a house rule

It seems a little beyond the bounds of RAW to decide how a power works based on what is not the power's actual text, but rather some notes explaining why the power's text was changed.

It's likely that the sentence just sounds better to the guy who wrote it using the plurarl instead of the singular. Since it's just a notation and not a rule, it isn't beholden to the same exacting degree of literalism. Even if it was held to such standards, the writer is referring to attacks (plural) against enemies (also plural), which could simply refer to the monster's attacks against enemies over the course of the encounter, not one round.

Yep. Also like the Dracolich idea. There are many ways that this power can fail. I would even try having the Paladin hit with a teleport power, putting him out of range of the party.

There is all sorts of ways to turn this little nugget into a barrel of laughs.

It's fun to sit around thinking of all sorts of ways to thwart some screwy ability, but at the end of the day if encounters are being designed around one power, that's an indicator that it is exerting way too much influence on the game.

I tell ya, if there's two things that oughta be banned from a campaign it's Dragon Mag artciles...and the PHB

 

[Felon]

Is that 50-60 THP from a one-shot, or the sum of multiple effects? Temp hits don't stack so the largest amount that he gets from a source is all that he'll get.

Well, his lay on hands starts with his surge value, which is at least in the upper forties, and then he adds in more bonuses from other stuff, like that broach (+5 I think) and let's not forget that hospitaler's add their Cha to their lay on hands (+8 for him), and then there's gotta be at least one feat helping him add an ability score again. So yeah, it's like 60 points. Maybe even more.

This is a Cincture of Vivacity that lets him do this, btw. I nade a note of it because I want one too. Good cheap waist-slotter.

At epic level, monsters should be doing some serious damage. Is the DM using the new damage guidelines?

Yes, the DM is quite knowledgable. I used to be a rules lawyer extraordinaire, but 4e's inelegance has kind of taken the fight out of me, so he's now the go-to guy for the state of the current rules.

But enhanced damage doesn't matter when misses heal. Last battle, a volcanic dragon attacked the rogue twice. Missed once and then critted for 41. Net effect? Thanks to the hospitaler, the dragon healed the rogue for 1 HP.

 

[Davachido]

Couldn't the DM just have only one of the enemies (challenged one) attack the paladin and the rest ignore the paladin to kill everyone else. I mean if the paladin kiting the challenged one how much attention is he paying to the other monsters?

Other thing the DM could easily do is have powerful artillery monsters that negate people getting healed when they hit. So the paladin will have to run all the way over there to engage them or only focus on one.

I'm not really sure how he is doing it so well as last time I played a hospitaler I was useful in the healing but loads of enemies just needed to stop paying attention to me. Or the bigger ones just use powerful blasts with me in there. Or even better yet just stun/daze (with non-save end effects) me then move away from me, no more divine challenge. Then just go to town on my friends. Also aura damage can't be healed by the hospitaler's mark either. Also trap damage, falling damage, terrain damage. Or just have a monster swallow an ally and burrow. Yes I know that is being slightly cheap but remember the DM can dish out far more than the players if he's smart about it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Wait a second. Why was the only divinely challenged monster on the battlefield (the Volcanic Dragon) attacking the rogue twice and not as part of an area attack and ignoring the person who'd Divine Challenged him?

 

[Felon]

Couldn't the DM just have only one of the enemies (challenged one) attack the paladin and the rest ignore the paladin to kill everyone else. I mean if the paladin kiting the challenged one how much attention is he paying to the other monsters?

The pally seems to have ways to challenge multiple creatures. He's got some feat that lets him challenge everyone in the area of his breath weapon, for instance (didn't mention he was a dragonborn, did I?).

Wait a second. Why was the only divinely challenged monster on the battlefield (the Volcanic Dragon) attacking the rogue twice and not as part of an area attack and ignoring the person who'd Divine Challenged him?

Not familiar with the critter, but from what I saw, the VD tosses out an area attack and has some sort of poison damage aura that it can expand into a close burst attack. I guess neither are at-will, so the claws are what's left over. And the paladin's a lot harder to hit.

 

[Bold or Stupid]

I'm willing to bet that the breath weapon thing only sanctions the targets which DOES NOT trigger the Hospitilar stuff.

Edit -

Draconic Challenge

Heroic Tier
Prerequisite: Dragonborn, paladin
Benefit: When you use your dragon breath racial power, you subject each enemy targeted by that power to your divine sanction. This divine sanction lasts until the start of your next turn.

Published in Divine Power, page(s) 134.

Bold for effect.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The pally seems to have ways to challenge multiple creatures. He's got some feat that lets him challenge everyone in the area of his breath weapon, for instance (didn't mention he was a dragonborn, did I?).

I doubt that very much. I can't think of a time when you have more than one foe under the effect of a Divine Challenge. Marked and Divine Sanctioned, hell yes. But the power in question specifically works with Divine Challenge - and that's only one target at at time.

Which means that he's using a feature intended to force one foe (the one he challenges) to attack him or else with features intended to make him slightly obnoxious to a lot of foes (Divine Sanction) and incorrectly thinking that they apply to these minor foes as well as the guy he's Challenged.

The one monster he has Challenged should be attacking him or be nerfed through the floor. The ones he only Sanctioned are just (!) taking -2 to hit everyone else and a little damage for attacking other people rather than getting nerfed through the floor.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Yes, it's very difficult to get an actual Divine Challenge onto more than one monster at a time. (Even the poorly named feat Contagious Challenge actually imposes Divine Sanction on enemies adjacent to the DC's target.)

Bradaman's weapon can do it -- it lets you challenge two targets at a time.

= = =

Monsters that don't allow you to heal or gain temp hp are good to use, and scary for the players. I remember fighting some oblivion wraiths and being sure we were all going to die. (We all didn't, but the party's paladin did. Heh!)

= = =

Paladins are also somewhat weak against strong, mobile ranged attackers. (Although I suppose at epic tier, the mobility issues are mitigated by everyone flying and teleporting.)

 

[bert1000]

The pally seems to have ways to challenge multiple creatures. He's got some feat that lets him challenge everyone in the area of his breath weapon, for instance (didn't mention he was a dragonborn, did I?).

I think we just found the culprit. Applying divine challenge riders (including hospitaler benefits) to multiple divine sanction creatures would lead to lots of frustrating situations. Correcting this alone should clear a lot up, if the DM just attacks the paladin with monster that is divine challenged (not sanctioned).