Interrupt Timing: Unified in Blood

[keterys]

How would you rule the following?

A warlord and avenger are fighting a dragon. The dragon breathes on the two, in a close blast 5, dealing 30 damage to each. The damage from the breath weapon bloodies the avenger, so the warlord triggers his Immediate Interrupt Unified in Blood:
Unified in Blood

Rushing to defend a friend in trouble, you make a bold attack. Your friend then defends himself by your example.
Encounter

Martial, Weapon
Immediate Interrupt Melee weapon
Trigger: An enemy within 5 squares of you bloodies an ally
Target: The triggering enemy
Effect: Before the attack, you can move your speed.
Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: 2[W] + Strength modifier damage, and the bloodied ally can make a basic attack against the target as a free action.


The warlord moves his speed before the attack, per the Effect. He then makes the attack.

1) If that attack kills the dragon, do either of them still take the 30 damage? If the warlord's attack does not, but the free basic attack kills the dragon, does that change anything?
2) If the warlord has moved out of the close blast, does he take damage from the breath weapon?
3) If the avenger's basic attack allows the avenger to move, or moves the dragon, such that either the warlord or the avenger is no longer in the blast, does that change who took damage?

For clarity/reminder, the interrupt rules:
Interrupt: An immediate interrupt lets you jump in when a certain trigger condition arises, acting before the trigger resolves. If an interrupt invalidates a triggering action, that action is lost. For example, an enemy makes a melee attack against you, but you use a power that lets you shift away as an immediate interrupt. If your enemy can no longer reach you, the enemy’s attack action is lost.

Thanks!

 

[Kingreaper]

If the warlords attack kills the dragon, no-one gets hurt by it's breath.
EDIT: misread, thought it stated "before the triggering attack" not "before the attack".
Still, if it wasn't meant to be able to stop the attack, it would be a reaction.

The free action is made the moment it's triggered. However, the free action states "the bloodied ally": so it can't be triggered until the ally is bloodied by my reading.
But that's an unclear one, and they may have intended "the triggering ally" rather than "the bloodied ally"

If the warlord is no longer in the blast, they won't get hit either way.
If the avenger isn't in the blast after they attack, the ruling should be the same as if they had killed the dragon. Which way that should be ruled, I do not know.

 

[FireLance]

I would rule:

1) If that attack kills the dragon, do either of them still take the 30 damage?

No. The interrupt has invalidated the triggering action, so no damage.

If the warlord's attack does not, but the free basic attack kills the dragon, does that change anything?

Yes, I would consider the free action attack to be part of the interrupt, so it can also invalidate the triggering action.

2) If the warlord has moved out of the close blast, does he take damage from the breath weapon?

Again, no. In terms of timing, I consider an immediate interrupt to take place before the triggering action (otherwise, it would not be able to invalidate it). Hence, the warlord would not longer be in the area when (and if!) the blast happens.

3) If the avenger's basic attack allows the avenger to move, or moves the dragon, such that either the warlord or the avenger is no longer in the blast, does that change who took damage?

Yes, for the reasons mentioned above. I would consider the avenger's attack to be part of the immediate interrupt, so it takes place before the triggering action.

 

[pemerton]

1) The interrupt (and the free action it gives rise to) are resolved before the triggering attack. If the attacker (the dragon) is killed, no damage is dealt. That's part of the the point of interrupt attacks!

2) & 3) If the warlord moves out of the blast, s/he takes no damage. Likewise for the avenger. The reasoning is the same as above.

In the "Hit" line of the power, "bloodied ally" has the meaning "ally whose bloodying triggers the interrupt" = "ally who would be bloodied by the attack, were it to take effect".

 

[Ebylon]

Trigger: An enemy within 5 squares of you bloodies an ally


It doesn't say 'if an enemy's attack would bloody an ally'. The ally must be bloodied by an attack.

If this trigger is not fulfilled, you can't do the attack. If the creature's damage is not dealt, it can't have triggered the attack.

It should be changed to an immediate reaction, because if you attempt to treat it as an interrupt, and try to follow the "when your ally is bloodied", what, it bends time? The monster bloodied your buddy, but then, you sprint forward and smack the thing so hard that time bends and shifts to negate the previous damage? It's a Warlord. Not a Chrono... warrior... mage... guy.

 

[keterys]

Thanks for all the responses so far. The attack being a free action possible wrinkle responses especially.

Responding more in depth to the one response that doesn't match the others:

It doesn't say 'if an enemy's attack would bloody an ally'. The ally must be bloodied by an attack.

Technically, autodamage works as well. For example, a Cleave attack or a Volcanic Dragon sustaining its automatic fire zone.

If this trigger is not fulfilled, you can't do the attack. If the creature's damage is not dealt, it can't have triggered the attack.

For clarity, how do you rule on the Wizard's Escape spell?
Wizard's Escape

With a flash, you are gone.
Encounter

Arcane, Teleportation
Immediate Interrupt Personal
Trigger: An enemy hits you with a melee attack
Effect: You teleport 5 squares to a space that is not adjacent to an enemy.

After being hit, you teleport out of range of the melee attack, so that the attack could never have targeted you in the first place. Ergo, you are never hit. By the quoted logic, then you couldn't have used Wizard's Escape?

It should be changed to an immediate reaction, because if you attempt to treat it as an interrupt, and try to follow the "when your ally is bloodied", what, it bends time? The monster bloodied your buddy, but then, you sprint forward and smack the thing so hard that time bends and shifts to negate the previous damage? It's a Warlord. Not a Chrono... warrior... mage... guy.

For the sake of argument, keep every detail of the power identical, but change it to the Chronology power source, as a Chronoshielder power. I'm far more interested in how the rules interact on the power as presented, rather than the flavor or redesigning the power. I just chose this very specific power because it highlighted multiple timing issues that I wanted to examine.

 

[Kingreaper]

It should be changed to an immediate reaction, because if you attempt to treat it as an interrupt, and try to follow the "when your ally is bloodied", what, it bends time? The monster bloodied your buddy, but then, you sprint forward and smack the thing so hard that time bends and shifts to negate the previous damage? .

Or, more in keeping with how Interrupts ALWAYS work: you see that the enemy is about to bloody your ally, and you rush over and hit them, in order to stop them doing so.


Opportunity attacks: triggered by enemy moving, but occur before the enemy moves OMG TIME-BENDING FIGHTERS.

Or, you know, they can see what their enemy is about to do, and they stop it.

 

[FireLance]

Trigger: An enemy within 5 squares of you bloodies an ally

It doesn't say 'if an enemy's attack would bloody an ally'. The ally must be bloodied by an attack.

If this trigger is not fulfilled, you can't do the attack. If the creature's damage is not dealt, it can't have triggered the attack.

It should be changed to an immediate reaction, because if you attempt to treat it as an interrupt, and try to follow the "when your ally is bloodied", what, it bends time? The monster bloodied your buddy, but then, you sprint forward and smack the thing so hard that time bends and shifts to negate the previous damage? It's a Warlord. Not a Chrono... warrior... mage... guy.

Because it's a warlord doing it and not a chrono-warrior-mage-guy, you shouldn't describe it as undoing an event (unless in your campaign, warlords actually are chrono-warrior-mage-guys). Rather, the warlord sees that a buddy is going to get seriously injured (bloodied) by an attack, and this spurs him to take action in the split second before the attack actually hits home.

It's like the halfling's second chance ability. It's also an immediate interrupt and it triggers when an enemy hits the halfling. When an attack hits a halfling, and he uses this ability to turn it into a miss, you don't have to describe it as the halfling bending time to go back to when he wasn't hit if you don't want to. Instead, just before the attack that would have hit the halfling actually connects, something else happens: the halfling instinctively dodges, another participant in the battle makes a noise or does something which distracts the attacker for a split second, something drops from the sky at just the right moment and spoils the strike, etc.

Seriously, take some time to think about how the ability might plausibly work within the constraints of the power source first. If you can't come up with something that you're happy with, you can always make it an immediate reaction. But don't underestimate the power of your own imagination and creativity. That's what this game should be about. IMO anyway.

 

[Ebylon]

I wasn't trying to make beef with the power source. I was trying to make beef of slightly awkward wording in how things should pan out with the power. Because, even with the Wizard's Escape, if you worded it 'When an enemy's attack would hit you" it would make perfect sense. Same with Unified in Blood. "When an enemy's attack would bloody an ally" would make me happy as a babe.

I'm a guy that played a lot of Magic growing up and being extremely critical of how things are said is a habit of mine when it comes to cause/effect based rulings. I know how interrupts work, I understand that they are interrupting the aforementioned trigger, I just think that the 'trigger' lines on a lot of powers (like Unified in Blood and Wizard's Escape) could be reworded a little to make more sense.

 

[keterys]

That's certainly a fair statement and probably a useful guidance for trigger wording.

For what it's worth, I brought this up to fork a discussion from the WotC errata boards, to try and narrow down a discussion of how to fix timings and triggers and what not all of immediates and free actions.