Close Blast 3 question

[Kerranin]

I think we're all agreed that it does not stop the power, however the area of effect should be modified. Exactly how you modify the area of effect is DM choice I think.

In terms of the ordering of actions in this case, since the attack of opportunity is provoked by the attack, that should mean that you have to decide to use it or not when the DM declares the area of the attack, not when he rolls the dice. (Since all the attack rolls are conceptually simultaneous)

1. DM decides to use power
2. DM declares the area of effect
3. Opportunity to use divine castigation now
4. May need to reposition area of effect (if AOO used)
5. Make attack rolls and subsequent damage/effects

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Entire actions can be negated. That's the entire point behind interrupts that do things like this.

However, a shift one isn't going to negate the entire blast unless all players were on the far edge of it. The question is, which targets are legal targets now and which are not?

Legal targets will still be targetted, attacks on illegal targets become invalidated.

Right, with a shift1 from Overwhelming Strike, I couldn't negate the entire blast area, but I was able to move him so that only 1 ally was hit.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Okay, probably need to clarify this a bit more.

The DM did declare that he was attacking all 3 of us. He started rolling and I was the first one actually "hit", almost at the same moment that I announced the OA from Divine Castigation. He said okay, see if you hit and tell me your damage. Now at this point, he just kept rolling on the other 2 targets (to save time I'm sure), so that's how the crit happened on the 2nd ally, even though I was doing the OA. Of course, once I told him that I had hit with the OA, and was then moving the God-Golem, all that changed.

Hope that makes it a little clearer on what happened, and in what order.

PS A lot of times on a multi-attack like that, our DM will roll the number of d20's for the targets. For some reason he didn't do it that time. I'm sure most of save time like that.

 

[Mummolus]

I have a DM who does things like this a lot - he's trying to do something cool and his pacing accelerates as a result, but our group is a ranger, a battlemind, an artificer, and a bard. That's a hell of a lot of interrupts, and pretty much every time he takes a shortcut it screws something up.

 

[S'mon]

I think we're all agreed that it does not stop the power, however the area of effect should be modified. Exactly how you modify the area of effect is DM choice I think.

In terms of the ordering of actions in this case, since the attack of opportunity is provoked by the attack, that should mean that you have to decide to use it or not when the DM declares the area of the attack, not when he rolls the dice. (Since all the attack rolls are conceptually simultaneous)

1. DM decides to use power
2. DM declares the area of effect
3. Opportunity to use divine castigation now
4. May need to reposition area of effect (if AOO used)
5. Make attack rolls and subsequent damage/effects

That seems right.

 

[TheUltramark]

I agree with most on this...poor mechanics by DM

I try not to say too much regarding "behind the screen mechanics" to the players. They don't need to know the size of the cloud, only if they are targreted, imo

 

[Skyscraper]

The rules are not clear-cut on this IMO. With this in mind, I would rule that the breath weapon is emitted from the new golem's position, thus missing some of the PCs, because I feel that in doubt, you need to award your PCs nice effects to their powers instead of finding a way to have the PC power being less effective. As a DM, you'll be able to fire off another breath weapon another day. As a player though, he might not have another opportunity to have his PC interrupt a golem-god's breath weapon and brag about it for years to come!

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I have to say that I think the problem all stemmed from the DM rolling the attacks before the AOO was done so then the players were able to see who got hit and who got critted. This caused meta-gaming to ensue whereas the players took advantage of the situation OOC and moved the golem to a position more likely to do less damage. We all would do this, but what should have happened was the declaration of the DM, what he was going to do and attack, then the AOO should have happened, then the DM declares again what he is NOW going to do as a result of being shifted, then he should have rolled his attack and damage rolls. It sounds like as some of the other posters stated that the DM jumped the gun a bit and the players took full advantage of it to their benefit. As a DM if I did this, I'd have to allow what happened as a mistake on my part to favor the players and remember not to roll prior to the AOO again where they could see it at least (that's why DM screens are nice sometimes).

 

[Kerranin]

It is an easy mistake to make when DM'ing, especially if you're trying to keep the pace of the game up, so if we make the mistake I agree we just have to suck-it-up and carry on.