Hunter's Quarry: When do you choose?

[Nikosandros]

Warlocks and thieves can wait until damage is rolled before deciding whether to apply their "once per round" thing.

From the description of the ranger it seems to me that hunter's quarry is decided after to hit rolls, but before damage rolls. Is that correct?

 

[KarinsDad]

Yes, this is how it works. However, it does create some issues.

Because the player of the Ranger can choose after seeing the to hit rolls which one he wants to apply Hunters Quarry to, it means that he must do so after he has declared both attacks on the same target and must roll them both first (or on several targets with one of the Paragon Paths).

This means that some situations, especially minions, can screw this up. If he puts Hunters Quarry on a minion and declares both attacks on the minion, and hits with the first attack, the second to hit roll is wasted (and the Hunters Quarry is wasted).

If he attacks with the first attack on a Hunters Quarry foe to see if it takes out an opponent and it does take out the opponent (with or without the extra D6 of Hunters Quarry, e.g. a minion or a nearly dead opponent), then he does not lose the second attack. But, he must declare that he is using the Hunters Quarry on this first attack before declaring and rolilng the second to hit (and hence, loses the ability in this scenario to decide which roll to put Hunters Quarry on, and potentially the Hunters Quarry damage can be overkill and basically lost in this case).

The entire thing is a bit screwy.

 

[DracoSuave]

Not at all. You don't get multiple attacks in the style of D&D3.5. So using that model as the basis of your argument is rather silly.

When you use a power that has multiple attacks, it'll do so using two techniques. Either it'll assign them at the same time through the targeting part of using the power, or it uses secondary (or tertiary) attacks that are part of the hit effect of the primary attack.

In the first case, you chose your targets before you rolled the dice. So those attacks are committed. Whether the attacks hit or not, you've already made decisions on who to target so it's a moot point to say 'Well if Hunter's Quarry kills this monster, the second attack is wasted.'

In the second case, you resolve the damage before you start the secondary targetting, so there's no question of rolling your attacks beforehand.




As an aside, if you're complaining that your Hunter's Quarry is wasted on minion A rather than minion B, I'll put this forth. Hunter's Quarry is a waste on -all- minions.

 

[Nikosandros]

Why would rangers have this difference from other strikers? It seems a bit counterintuitive.

 

[KarinsDad]

Not at all. You don't get multiple attacks in the style of D&D3.5. So using that model as the basis of your argument is rather silly.

I wasn't doing that, so feel free to call some other portion of my point silly.

When you use a power that has multiple attacks, it'll do so using two techniques. Either it'll assign them at the same time through the targeting part of using the power, or it uses secondary (or tertiary) attacks that are part of the hit effect of the primary attack.

In the first case, you chose your targets before you rolled the dice. So those attacks are committed. Whether the attacks hit or not, you've already made decisions on who to target so it's a moot point to say 'Well if Hunter's Quarry kills this monster, the second attack is wasted.'

In the second case, you resolve the damage before you start the secondary targetting, so there's no question of rolling your attacks beforehand.

Precisely. That was my entire point. You find it ok. I find it a bit problematic.

Either one gives up ones ability to assign Hunters Quarry to the better of the rolls, or one potentially wastes an attack. Neither of these is particularly fun.

The game mechanics here are a bit hinky.

Why would rangers have this difference from other strikers? It seems a bit counterintuitive.

Well, it's not consistent.

 

[Lauberfen]

I can't see why it would be an issue- first, as already pointed out, any damage kills a minion, so hunter's quarry is totally irrelevant.

Given that minion's are out of the equation, you only lose out when your target will probably be killed by a hunter's quarry shot, but not by a regular shot.

The only time you 'waste' the extra attack is when the monster dies from hunter's quarry, which would be pretty rare considering the basic 25+ HP of almost any monster, and the fact that hunter's quarry only does an extra 1-6 damage.

Actually, I'm not sure that you choose to sneak attack after rolling for damage. The rules say "an attack you make against that enemy deals extra
damage if the attack hits." Surely this means choose an attack, if it hits, you get extra damage, if it misses you don't. Otherwise they would have said 'a hit deals extra damage' or similar. Having said that, the next bit is confusing: "You decide whether to apply the extra damage after making the damage roll." I had assumed this was if you didn't want to overkill a monster, although now I realise that monsters are probably dead at HP technically.

 

[DracoSuave]

Actually, I'm not sure that you choose to sneak attack after rolling for damage. The rules say "an attack you make against that enemy deals extra
damage if the attack hits."

You decide whether to apply the extra damage after making the damage roll.

The ability explicitly tells you so.

This also matters if you crit, or if you rolled poorly on one damage roll in a multi-target situation and want to bump it up to average out the hurt... or if you want to put the SA damage on the most hurt one to coordinated fire it to death.

There are advantages to declaring late.

 

[Nikosandros]

I'm tempted to rule that rangers also declare after the damage roll. If it's good for the other two strikers it ought to be good also for them...

 

[DracoSuave]

I'm tempted to rule that rangers also declare after the damage roll. If it's good for the other two strikers it ought to be good also for them...

It does make more of a difference with the ranger tho, because multiple hits and secondary attacks are an integral part of many of their powers, whereas warlocks don't get double-attacks, and rogues get very few.

 

[Nikosandros]

It does make more of a difference with the ranger tho, because multiple hits and secondary attacks are an integral part of many of their powers, whereas warlocks don't get double-attacks, and rogues get very few.

That is true and may be the reason for the difference.

Well, I have a warlock and a ranger in both groups that I'm running (group #2 also has a rogue), so I'll observe some more how this rule acts in play...