Can you hit yourself?

[BASHMAN]

Is a character allowed to hit themself? I ask because I see this armor "Solar Armor". At will- you can spend a healing surge whenever you take radiant damage. So if I punch myself with my at-will power that does radiant damage, I'd do 1d4+4 radiant. Then I'd heal 17 hit points. Sounds like a great combo. but seems really wonky. Is it legit?

 

[Starfox]

The rules are mum on this, as far as I know, so we immediately enter house rule territory.

In my group, we had a more general discussion about whether you can hit a friend with an attack power to gain some beneficial effect. After a great deal of tought, I (as DM) decided to be generous.

* You can hit an ally with an attack power

* Each part of an attack power is optional, so you can hit for the special effect only, ignoring the damage part - just as you can ignore the knockback a power has if you don't want to use it.

The reason fort his is that my players feel their encounter attack powers are lacklustre; allowing many of them to be used like utility powers on friends gives them more interesting options.

We have not dealt with the idea of attacking yourself, but I suppose I would not allow that.

 

[Jaysue]

I think RAW it depends on the ability, check the TARGET:
if it says on creature, i don't see why you couldn't hit yourself (or an ally).
if its an enemy then you cannot hit yourself or an ally as an enemy is someone who poses a 'credible threat'.

Of course house rules make it all good!

 

[Mort_Q]

That's covered in the DMG, iirc.

[edit]

When a power has an effect that occurs upon hitting a target—or reducing a target to 0 hit points—the power functions only when the target in question is a meaningful threat. Characters can gain no benefit from carrying a sack of rats in hopes of healing their allies by hitting the rats.

So...

Sounds like a great combo. but seems really wonky. Is it legit?

Nope.

[/edit]

 

[tyrlaan]

I'd agree with the idea that if the target is "creature" as opposed to "enemy" that it stands to reason you could hit yourself. I'd enforce that you take the full effects of the power just like an opponent would, and that you could crit just like you could on an opponent.

Ultimately, I'd allow it with the caveat that if things got out of hand, I'd revert or adjust the ruling. As you said, it feels wonky and might open the door to several abuses.

 

[DracoSuave]

Is a character allowed to hit themself? I ask because I see this armor "Solar Armor". At will- you can spend a healing surge whenever you take radiant damage. So if I punch myself with my at-will power that does radiant damage, I'd do 1d4+4 radiant. Then I'd heal 17 hit points. Sounds like a great combo. but seems really wonky. Is it legit?

Any time you have a combo that Rules-as-Written seems to work, but has potential for abuse, the DM has a rule to invoke that allows him to prevent such abuses.

It's called 'Bag-o-rats'. Some take it to mean you can only attack meaningful targets, but the entire section of the rules this comes from informs you that anything that is too powerful but still by the rules can be forbidden by the DM. In this case, hitting yourself to heal is a -lot- of rules-abuse.

You're not playing Magic: The Gathering, abusing the rules in this way is -not good for the game.- Save this kind of thinking for the TCGs which are designed to reward this.

 

[FireLance]

Is a character allowed to hit themself? I ask because I see this armor "Solar Armor". At will- you can spend a healing surge whenever you take radiant damage. So if I punch myself with my at-will power that does radiant damage, I'd do 1d4+4 radiant. Then I'd heal 17 hit points. Sounds like a great combo. but seems really wonky. Is it legit?

I think several posters have already mentioned the general principles, so I won't repeat them. In this specific case, you technically would not be able spend a healing surge after dealing radiant damage to yourself because using the armor in this way is an immediate reaction, and you can't take an immediate action on your own turn.

However, I would not have a problem with allowing you to spend a healing surge after an ally deals radiant damage to you, for the following reasons:

No Out-of-combat Utility: Outside of combat, you can usually just spend a healing surge anyway, without the need to deal radiant damage to yourself.

Action Economy: In order to attack you, the ally will normally need to spend a standard action, and he could achieve more or less the same effect by making a Heal check to allow you to use your second wind (and you don't even need to use an immediate action if he does so). Multi-target radiant attacks and minor action radiant attacks break this action economy, but the former are rare enough that the combination seems more like a clever tactic than an abusive exploit to me, and the latter will usually require the expenditure of another encounter or daily ability (since, as far as I know, there are no at-will minor action attacks) so there is a further opportunity cost to using the armor in this way.