CustServ on "What is 'an attack'?"

[Hypersmurf]

Can a enemy under the effect of a Divine Challenge cast a Wall of Fire which does not affect the paladin without being damaged?

Well, let's say Wall of Fire is not an attack. He can cast it with no damage.

Let's say Wall of Fire is an attack. He can't cast it with no damage even if he drops it right through the paladin's space, because Wall of Fire has no targets, and thus cannot include the paladin as a target.

-Hyp.

 

[ForbidenMaster]

Well, let's say Wall of Fire is not an attack. He can cast it with no damage.

Let's say Wall of Fire is an attack. He can't cast it with no damage even if he drops it right through the paladin's space, because Wall of Fire has no targets, and thus cannot include the paladin as a target.

-Hyp.

Yeah, whether its an attack or its not an attack, Wall of Fire doesnt target any creature or object. Its a conjuration.

 

[Chen_93]

If we take the opposing argument to the logical conclusion, if a Ranger targets a minion with Twin Strike, and misses on one of the attacks, the minion cannot take damage from the other attack, even if it hits. That is an absurd ruling.

Actually this makes a good point. For any power that has multiple strikes or whatever what is considered the "attack"? Is it each individual strike? Is it the power as a whole. It makes far more sense that each strike would be an attack, but that would conflict with the response that all attack powers are attacks (rather than being composed of attacks and other effects).

What makes the most sense is that any attack would be something that requires an attack roll. This would require rewording a few things (like Seal of Binding) but is otherwise generally consistent with how the rules "should" work, at least IMHO.

 

[James McMurray]

While the question itself leaves me dazed and confused, I wanted to congratulate cust serv on this response:

What is the underlying question you are driving at? What is it you would ultimately like to know?

Cody

I see some posted exchanges with people dancing around a question, not giving the full information, and hoping for a specific answer. I hope the trend of asking what you really want to know is from training and not just one guy trying to do his job right.

 

[KarinsDad]

It doesn't really address the question of whether or not Wall of Fog is an attack to my satisfaction, since the answer seems to be "It's an area attack, but it's not an attack".

CustServ really did not really say that. They said "It's an area attack, opps sorry, it's not an attack."

It wasn't until you drilled down into the rules that they realized that Area Effects without the Attack keyword are not attacks. In the case of Wall of Fog, it's an obstacle.

On the other hand, it seems to give the opposite answer to a previous CustServ response someone received on Seal of Binding, wherein the target was only immune to powers requiring attack rolls.

Yes it does conflict. Wall of Fire is not an Attack Check power (it does not have the Attack keyword and Hit in the text).

It is an attack. It is a Wizard Daily Attack power.

The other rep did not see the Attack keyword in the text, so he thought it was not an attack. This rep is correct. The other rep is mistaken. Seal of Binding makes the target immune to all Attacks, including the Daily Attack Wall of Fire.

All powers that are not Utility powers are Attack powers by definition. Most of the powers in the game are attack powers, even the ones without Attack Checks. Anything else opens up rules can of worms.


If you want to ask CustServ questions and get proper answers, you have to give them all of the details you have and let them make an informed decision.

Asking piecemeal gets you piecemeal conflicting answers.

You know that Hyp.

People in this thread are blaming CustServ on not having the right answer, but it's easy to make a mistake here.


But, it's real simple. Utility powers are not attacks. Utility Area powers are not attacks. At Will, Per Encounter, and Daily Attack powers are attacks, regardless of whether they have an Attack Check or not.


People really are making a mountain out of a molehill here, probably because of the Area Effect Attack section of the rules which forgot about Utility Area Effects. This is a slam dunk.


Note: "Even though these terms are called 'attack types', they apply to utility powers as well as attack powers."

This does not turn Utility powers into Attacks. It means that they can be melee, ranged, close, area, or personal.

Is there really a need to make this complex?

 

[ryryguy]

invisibility

A very simple and actually somewhat important case stems from invisiblity conditions that end when you make an attack. (I don't have an exact example handy but I'm pretty sure there are such cases in 4e, right?)

Does a character under that kind of invisibility lose his invisibility when he uses Wall of Fog? According to the CS answer, yes he would.

I'm not sure I like that. I think I would fall back on the 3e style of saying he only does if he damages an enemy directly. Conjuring a zone wouldn't do it. (Conjuring a damage dealing zone on top of an enemy so it damages him immediately would break invisibility.)

Maybe not exactly RAW, but seems like a fun and highly playable method IMHO.

 

[-Avalon-]

Then we have the somewhat obvious problem:

How does one evade a wall? hmmm

The reason there is no attack is that it is an object being placed into the battle field. You cannot exactly evade something just showing up on top of you, and not taking damage once it is there is a simple matter of NOT walking into it!

As for definition of an attack? How about this: Any power/feature/ability that affects another entity directly through damage or status infliction.

No need for rolls, no semantics really... one could try and bend it, but I think it pretty clearly covers the gist of what needs to be covered. One could argue that stealth is an attack, since it is a check that is made and rolled against by others, and if they lose, effects of this check could be hazardous... same with bluff/insight... you bluff someone, technically, you are making a non-physical attack against them...

but... -anyways-... lets be serious, Wall of Fire affects the people directly, and as such attacks them, it has no chance of missing. But as said before, absence of something does not equal it NOT being such. Because it auto-hits, does not mean that it did not attack them. Sleep has no damage mentioned, but it does slow them, makes it an attack... etc etc

 

[Hypersmurf]

Yes it does conflict. Wall of Fire is not an Attack Check power (it does not have the Attack keyword and Hit in the text).

It is an attack. It is a Wizard Daily Attack power.

The other rep did not see the Attack keyword in the text, so he thought it was not an attack. This rep is correct. The other rep is mistaken. Seal of Binding makes the target immune to all Attacks, including the Daily Attack Wall of Fire.

So your ruling on the Divine Challenge scenario - where the enemy takes damage if he makes an attack that does not target the paladin - is that if the enemy casts Wall of Fire, even if he casts it to pass through the paladin's square, he takes the damage? He's 'made an attack', if we consider any attack power to be an attack, but he hasn't made an attack that targets the paladin.

And the Elemental Maw / Righteous Inferno vs Evasion question? If the initial roll misses, the character takes no damage from the Effect?

CustServ really did not really say that. They said "It's an area attack, opps sorry, it's not an attack."

It wasn't until you drilled down into the rules that they realized that Area Effects without the Attack keyword are not attacks. In the case of Wall of Fog, it's an obstacle.

Turns out, actually, I think he was spot-on... Wall of Fog is an area attack (it has an Attack Type of Area), but it is not an attack, nor is it an attack power.

-Hyp.

 

[hudarklord]

How about Cleave (Fighter 1)? When you hit, you also do damage to an opponent who you didn't make an attack roll against. Wow! By my reading, there's an Attack Power which has a to hit roll, but which does 3 damage to a different adjacent opponent, and that 3 damage is not an attack.

What counts as an attack matters A LOT. Some immediate interrupts and immediate reactions allow you to attack back at a person who just "attacked" you. So, what is and is not an attack is important. I think "Effects" are not "Attacks". I also think that spillover damage onto a 3rd party (as in Cleave) is also not an attack.

Thoughts?

 

[IanB]

This is just the level/level/level issue all over again. Attack does not mean the same thing in every place it is used in the rules and as such, without official errata or clarification, there's not going to be any endpoint for this argument.

I know in my game, the description of a power as say a "Wizard Attack 3" is not going to automatically qualify a power as an attack in the mechanical sense. Likewise, wall of fog is not going to be an 'area attack that is not an attack'. That's clearly a faulty example. It just uses the same rules for deciding how big it is, etc., as an area attack.