Do you remain Stealthed if you attack yourself?

[F700]

I allow players to use some attacks on themselves - situationaly, and depending on the added effect of the attack - simply because I do not find it to be a break in logic or narrative to imagine the bloodcrazed barbarian or frenzied warrior inflicting some sort of mutilation on themselves in order to get some kind of adrenaline rush in battle.

Isn't that what the additional effect is supposed to represent ultimately? The attacker gets jacked over an attack? It's a fairly common scene in fantasy, even in pro wrestling when they come out beating their chests.

Would I allow some divine side effect from a paladin slicing himself with his sword? Probably not. Then again...would that count as a blood sacrifice? Would it make a difference if the paladin rp'ed some blood oath to his diety and was rewarded with a burst of healing or radiant aura?

What about a magic-user? Could it be said that immersing yourself in your own fireball maybe recirculates some of your spent magical energy through yourself to be recycled into some additional effect?

I 100% support the bag of rats rule. Not for game balance reasons, but because its too stupid to think anyone would walk around with a bag of rats conciously intending to evoke some kind of inaccessible super power within themselves and I can't see it being rp'ed in any credible way.

 

[P1NBACK]

It's up to your DM.

And, here we are four pages later.

I say again: "It's up to your DM."

lol

 

[Calzone]

Alright, first off I want to apologize for my absurd post length. I got a bit caught up in writing.

Basically, I'm trying to lay out the scenario where Bag of Rats causes problems, which is in dealing with powers that target creatures. It is my opinion that powers that target creatures do 2 things: allow flexibility in how a power is used, and/or provide greater tactical difficulties in successfully employing them. The Bag of Rats shorthand causes problems with these powers.

What about close or area attacks that target "creatures" and have a hit or effect line? The Bag of Rats ruling states

"When a power has an effect that occurs upon hitting, missing, or otherwise affecting a target, the effect takes place only if the target in question is a meaningful threat."

Would those not target allies because they "are not a meaningful threat"? It seems a straight forward application of BoR leads to the conclusion that any power that targets "creatures" instead targets "enemies", since neither you nor your allies are threats and thus cannot be the target of powers that have "Hit:" or "Effect:" blocks.

Assuming you disagree with the above, how do you handle situations where you target a mixed group of allies and enemies with such a power? If you miss all the enemies and hit the allies, would you allow the hit/effect block to take place? What if you missed you allies and hit the enemies? What if you missed everyone?

To illustrate the above questions, take the Warlock level 3 encounter power, Otherwind Stride:

Standard Action Close burst 1
Target: Each creature in burst
Attack: Cha vs. Fort
Hit: 1d8 + Cha damage, and the target is immobilized until the end of your next turn.
Effect: You teleport 5 squares.
Fey Pact: You teleport a number of squares equal to 5 + your Intelligence modifier.

Assume there are only enemies in the burst when this ability is used. I think no one would argue that the ability should resolve normally, with attack rolls resolving and the warlock teleporting.

Now, assume there is one enemy and one ally in the burst when this ability is used. Even better, say the warlock really wants to use the teleport to hop across a chasm and grab the McGuffin. Would you allow this ability to be used?

• Can the ally even be targeted by this power, even though s/he is not a "meaningful threat"? Or are both the enemy and ally targeted?
• What if the power hits the enemy and misses the ally? Is this acceptable? The warlock used a power, targeted an enemy, and gets his teleport.
• Do you consider it acceptable if it misses the enemy, hits the ally, and the warlock gets to teleport? The warlock used a power targeting an ally, and got to teleport.
• What if it misses everyone? The warlock gets a 'free' teleport!
• What if it hits everyone?

Continuing on, the warlock doesn't care about the possible damage, he wants to be able to hop the chasm and grab the McGuffin to save the day. Assuming he's still next to one enemy and one ally, how do you handle the following:

• The warlock misses everyone because he had a -2 to all attacks imposed by another enemy. Would he still get the teleport?
• The warlock misses everyone because he had a -2 to all attacks due to voluntarily moving through a terrain hazard earlier in the encounter. Does he get the teleport?
• The warlock misses everyone because he had a -2 to all attacks due to changing his implement. Does he get the teleport?

In the same vein:

• The enemy in burst uses an immediate interrupt to shift out of the close burst, such that the enemy is no longer a valid target. Is the ally still a valid target?
• What if the warlock is only surrounded by allies during combat?
• What if the warlock is only surrounded by allies out of combat, but just after a short rest (i.e. his encounter power is available)?

There are dozens of powers that target creatures and have hit or effect lines that spawn these questions. I think it is difficult to draw a delineating line with the strict Bag of Rats ruling in these cases (i.e. stating "you can only use your power when an enemy is in the area of effect" leads to nonsensical situations like "Well, the enemy shifted out of the effect as an interrupt, and now only allies are in the area of effect, so sorry, you can't teleport, Mr. Warlock!")

However, if you drop the whole "allies aren't a meaningful threat" routine, all of the above questions roughly boil down to "Yes, Mr. Warlock, do your thing." I have found that in general, this is not terribly game-breaking.

Even if the warlock was to expend his encounter power to get a free teleport with no enemies in sight, I have no problem with it. Once every 5 minutes, he can teleport 25+ feet. Sounds good to me for a warlock who's shtick is being able to take shortcuts through passages between the realms. Even better, the twisting of his passage will hurt bystanders, so he must choose his strides with care.

In combat, he teleport AND damage enemies, or teleport AND damage allies (or some mix of those two), or teleport AND do no damage. Any of these could be done at the cost of a standard action and the expenditure of a valuable combat resource. The last two options are definitely less beneficial than the first non-disputed option, so what's the harm in letting him take a action that gives less benefit than that actions normal application?

Now, I know this is one specific example, but I believe that it is representative of the general case. I would like to see cases in which allowing yourself and/or allies to be "meaningful threats" results in game-breaking balance issues.

The only issue I can really come up with is at-will surgeless healing on a hit or effect, but that seems more of a problem with at-will surgeless healing in general than a target definition problem.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Okay, just for the record, I've retrained Temple Of Brilliance and informed my DM about it.

I can not find "bag of rats", "target", "targeting", etc in the Online Compendium. I did find "legitimate targets" in the Rules Compendium, which I have. Page 108, at the bottom:

"When a power has an effect that occurs upon hitting, missing, or otherwise affecting a target, the effect takes place only if the target is a meaningful threat."

Now, for the sake of argument, lets try to dissect Temple Of Brillance:

Hit: 2d6 + Wisdom modifier Radiant damage - okay, this is not what activates the Zone, so it seems to be out.

Miss: Half damage - Right, and this isn't what activates the zone either, so it seems to be out.

Now to "Otherwise affecting a target" - and here is the catch, Temple of Brilliance's Zone does *not* affect the target: "Any enemy other than the target that ends its turn within the Zone is blinded until the end of its next turn". So it would seem to be out as well.

Now to the part that to me is highly RAI vs RAW. "the effect takes place only if the target is a meaningful threat" - Okay, since I'm the target am I a meaningful threat? To myself, certainly not, and that's RAI, IMHO. However, I certainly am a threat to any enemies on the field, and that's RAW. I say this simply because its not written: "the effect takes place only if the target is a meaningful threat TO YOU". However, I do believe that is probably what they meant.

The benefit and common sense parts of the RC seem to be concerned with anything from the power that affects your Allies in some way. Temple of Brilliance doesn't directly affect your Allies.

So...please post your opinions on my take on this, and if my logic and reasoning has failed, then politely take it apart and show where. I'm genuinely interested in what everyone thinks on this and I look forward to more stimulating conversation.

Thanks everyone!

 

[keterys]

Temple of Brilliance has an effect of separating an enemy from its allies, because that enemy now blinds the allies.

The Effect should not trigger except when used on an enemy.

And, to go back to the Stealth question, since that's the title of the thread... surrounding yourself in a zone of blazing light breaks stealth. And how.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Temple of Brilliance has an effect of separating an enemy from its allies, because that enemy now blinds the allies.

But they don't know that - not how, or why. All they would know is that they are blind. If the enemies in question had high enough intelligence, I suppose they could figure it out eventually, but it would be at least a couple of rounds before that happened.

The Effect should not trigger except when used on an enemy.

As I stated in the previous msg, I also believe this is RAI.

And, to go back to the Stealth question, since that's the title of the thread... surrounding yourself in a zone of blazing light breaks stealth. And how.

Yes, the flavor text for the power describes it as a "dazzling edifice", but remember - it is a burst 2 - so if you are going to use the flavor text (something that I have been warned repeatedly against doing , on this website), then it would still be trying to figure out which of what, 25 squares you are in?

Thanks.

 

[mneme]

But they don't know that - not how, or why. All they would know is that they are blind.

Er...yes, they do.

The character that was hit by the effect knows what the effect is and what it does, because you are always aware of effects you are under and how they work.

The characters blinded are aware of what blinded them; the flavor is blazing light coming from a single source! And again, you're aware of effects you are under.

 

[Samir]

"When a power has an effect that occurs upon hitting, missing, or otherwise affecting a target, the effect takes place only if the target is a meaningful threat."

[...]

Now to "Otherwise affecting a target" - and here is the catch, Temple of Brilliance's Zone does *not* affect the target: "Any enemy other than the target that ends its turn within the Zone is blinded until the end of its next turn". So it would seem to be out as well.

Now to the part that to me is highly RAI vs RAW. "the effect takes place only if the target is a meaningful threat" - Okay, since I'm the target am I a meaningful threat? To myself, certainly not, and that's RAI, IMHO. However, I certainly am a threat to any enemies on the field, and that's RAW. I say this simply because its not written: "the effect takes place only if the target is a meaningful threat TO YOU". However, I do believe that is probably what they meant.

The benefit and common sense parts of the RC seem to be concerned with anything from the power that affects your Allies in some way. Temple of Brilliance doesn't directly affect your Allies.

So...please post your opinions on my take on this, and if my logic and reasoning has failed, then politely take it apart and show where. I'm genuinely interested in what everyone thinks on this and I look forward to more stimulating conversation.

Thanks everyone!

Per the exact RAW of the Rules Compendium, you could make the argument that since Temple of Brilliance's Effect line does NOT affect the target (rather, it affects all enemies within 2 squares of the target), it is not "an effect that occurs upon hitting, missing, or otherwise affecting a target" and therefore it is not subject to the "meaningful threat" clause.

On the other hand, you could also argue that creating a zone centered on a target is in some way considered affecting that target, and if so, then it wouldn't work.

This of course all assumes a definition for "meaningful threat" that excludes you and your allies, and that's very shaky ground. IMO, a better definition for "meaningful threat" is any creature with a level. That excludes a sack of rats, but doesn't vary depending on how mean your party members are being to you.

 

[Samir]

Would those not target allies because they "are not a meaningful threat"? It seems a straight forward application of BoR leads to the conclusion that any power that targets "creatures" instead targets "enemies", since neither you nor your allies are threats and thus cannot be the target of powers that have "Hit:" or "Effect:" blocks.

I think this point is worth repeating. If you make the assumption that you and your allies are not meaningful threats, then all of your close and area attacks are party-friendly. That's a pretty big ramification.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Er...yes, they do.

The character that was hit by the effect knows what the effect is and what it does, because you are always aware of effects you are under and how they work.

While I agree that anyone hit with blindness would know they are blind, and what blindness does to them, I disagree that they would know, for example, the name of any power that did it, and how it works.

Let's say I'm hit by some monster that uses power x to blind me, until the end of my next turn, and as long as I'm within an aura 2 of him, and end my turn there, it happens.

Now I'm my character...I end my turn adjacent to the monster. I know I'm blind. I know I take a -5 to hit, I don't get OA's, etc, etc, but I absolutely do not know the name of the power that did it, I don't know that its a zone 2 (unless like in the case of Temple of Brilliance, there is a visible manifestation of the power), and I don't know when it goes off, until it does.

Usually the DM will tell you - usually, but its not like the monster that did it is going to say, "Oh, BTW, you're only blind until the end of your next turn"...

The characters blinded are aware of what blinded them; the flavor is blazing light coming from a single source! And again, you're aware of effects you are under.

Not totally disagreeing with you here, but...remember I'm stealthed inside of a 25 square edifice. Also, they would know they are blinded, agreed - but it only happens when they end their turn in the Zone. Not because of any current or direct attack. So while at the end of their turn, they would know they are blind, they wouldn't know it was me, I'm stealthed and they certainly would not be able to say, "Oh I'm blind - must be Temple Of Brilliance"...although after it happens, I would agree that an intelligent monster could guess that it was something to do with the edifice/zone they were in.

Thanks.