Large creatures attack

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Okay, we had this come up in our session last night., we were fighting 2 Behirs with our level 12 party.

First of all, here is the stats card for the Behirs:

Behir
Huge natural magical beast
Level 14 Solo Soldier
X P J ,000
Initiative see lightning reflexes Senses Perception +12;
tremorsense 10
Lightning Storm aura 5; an enemy that starts its turn in the aura
takes S lightning damage.
HP 564; Bloodied 282
AC 30; Fortitude 27, Reflex 26, Will 26
Resist 15 lightning
Saving Throws +5
Speed 7, climb 5
Action Points 2
© Claw (standard; at-will)
Reach 3; +21 vs. AC; 2d8 + 6 damage.
4 Bite (standard; at-will) • Lightning
Reach 3; +21 vs. AC; 1d8 + 6 damage plus 1d8 lightning
damage.
4 Devour (standard; recharges when no creature is affected by this
power)
Reach 3; +19 vs. Reflex; 2d8 + 6 damage, and a Medium or
smaller target is swallowed. A swallowed target is grabbed
and restrained. A swallowed creature has line of sight and line
of effect only to the behir, and no creature has line of sight or
line of effect to it. A creature that escapes the grab is no longer
swallowed and appears in a space adjacent to the behir. A behir
can move normally while it has a target grabbed in this way.
When the behir dies, the target can escape as a move action,
appearing in the behir's former space. Sustain Minor: The behir
sustains the grab, and the target takes 15 damage.
«£• Lightning Breath (standard; recharge [X] (jj) • Lightning
Close blast 5; +17 vs. Reflex; 3d10 + 6 lightning damage and the
target is dazed. Miss: Half damage.
Thunderleg Stomp (standard; at-will)
Close burst 3; +17 vs. Fortitude; 1d8 + 6 damage, and the target
is knocked prone.
Lightning Reflexes
The behir acts three times in a round, on initiative counts 30,
20, and 10. It cannot delay or ready actions. On each turn, it has
a standard action instead of the normal allotment of actions. It
can use one immediate action between each pair of turns.
Alignment Unaligned Languages Common, Draconic
Str 2 3 (+13) Dex 20 (+12) Wis 21 (+12)
Con 21 (+12) Int 7 (+5) Cha 13 (+8)

Now, the DM ruled that each Behir could devour 2 targets at once, so at any given time during the fight, 3/4 of our 7 man team were "devoured".

2nd, at one point, I was behind a team-mate who was adjacent to one of the Behirs. The Dm said it was attacking me. I asked if it was a ranged or area power and he said ranged, and I said ok, because if it was a melee attack, he couldn't use it. The DM said, yes he can. I told him that I didn't think a foe could hit through an opponent with a melee attack to get to another target. He said yes it can, because I said it can, I'm DM. His further argument was that because the creature was a "huge" class, it could simply reach down *over* the adjacent player, rather than through him, to hit me. I disagreed, although I can understand what he's saying. Seems to me the adjacent player would almost get an OA if something did that.

Anyways, my argument was that it didn't have Line of Effect, as per PHB1, page 274/275:

Line of Effect: You can target a creature or a square
if there’s an unblocked path between it and you—that
is, if you have line of effect to it. If every imaginary line
you trace to a target passes through or touches a solid
obstacle, you don’t have line of effect to the target.
Fog, darkness, and other types of obscured squares

I've always played that you can not attack any foe on the other side of a foe adjacent to you, and vice-versa, that enemies can't attack you through your other players. (this is melee I'm talking about, mind you), even if it does have Reach3.

Can anyone help with this - I'm not looking for "right" or "wrong", but which action would be correct so we'll know how to handle it next time it comes up.

Thanks gang.

 

[Markn]

A couple of quick thoughts:

Devour should only work on one person at a time.

The Behir CAN attack around an intervening ally to attack you although you are considered to have cover so it suffers a -2 to attack. Why? The attacker can choose to draw a line from any 1 square that it occupies to you. Choosing almost any square will result in at least 1 line not being blocked since it is a 3x3 creature. Furthermore, creatures don't provide full cover, just cover. If it was full cover then he could not attack you. Now, is there an OA? No, its a melee attack and not ranged (even though it is reach) and therefore does not provoke.

Hope that helps.

 

[Kingreaper]

You agree it would have line of effect for ranged powers, right?

The rules for line of effect don't change based on ranged Vs. Melee, so if it would have LoE for ranged, it had it for melee.

That's the RAW.

The explanation: your ally doesn't fill any squares, he merely occupies one, which means he's in it, and using it as maneuvering room. The beasty can reach past him (through his square) or over him. With a Huge beasty, reaching over him is easy.

 

[Kingreaper]

btw: was your gm using two minor actions each turn for a behir with two swallowed creatures?

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Okay gang - just what I needed.

Thanks for the information !

 

[Aulirophile]

Having trouble parsing that, but here are the answers to the question I think you're asking.

1.) A single target standard action that recharges when he isn't grabbing anyone can obviously only be used to grab one target. I don't even want to know how your DM came to the conclusion it could grab two people.

2.) DMG, Cover for melee attacks specifically.

Getting Technical: If you need to be extremely precise, choose a square the attacker occupies and a square the defender occupies. Draw an imaginary line from every corner of the attacker’s space to every corner of the defender’s space. If even one line is obstructed, the defender has cover. (A line hat runs parallel right along a wall isn’t blocked.)

Allies provide cover (-2 to hit). Period. That is it. That Behir could reach past your ally and smash your face in all he wanted. Even if you had total cover for some bizarre reason, he could take the -5 to hit and beat you to death with it. None of the Behir's abilities provoke OAs, because they are all melee-with-reach, or close blast, or close burst.

Assuming the a monster used a ranged ability to hit you (not melee-with-reach) your ally would get an OA if he was adjacent and provide cover for the attack. If it was an area burst he'd provide no cover (LoE is determined from origin square of the burst), but he'd still get an OA (ranged area provokes).

Relevant section for Reach, unrelated to the current question, but looking up how Reach works is going to be relevant in Paragon.

Reach: If a creature that has reach attacks through terrain that would grant cover if the target were in it, the target has cover. For example, even if you’re not in the same square as a small pillar, it gives you cover from the attack of an ogre on the other side of the pillar.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

btw: was your gm using two minor actions each turn for a behir with two swallowed creatures?

Nope, and it was only after we looked up the Behir after the session that we realized he wasn't using any minors to sustain (at least, he never said it out loud).

Quick question - should the DM be required to say sustain minor on what he's controlling, just like the players?

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Having trouble parsing that, but here are the answers to the question I think you're asking.

1.) A single target standard action that recharges when he isn't grabbing anyone can obviously only be used to grab one target. I don't even want to know how your DM came to the conclusion it could grab two people.

2.) DMG, Cover for melee attacks specifically.

Getting Technical: If you need to be extremely precise, choose a square the attacker occupies and a square the defender occupies. Draw an imaginary line from every corner of the attacker’s space to every corner of the defender’s space. If even one line is obstructed, the defender has cover. (A line hat runs parallel right along a wall isn’t blocked.)

Allies provide cover (-2 to hit). Period. That is it. That Behir could reach past your ally and smash your face in all he wanted. Even if you had total cover for some bizarre reason, he could take the -5 to hit and beat you to death with it. None of the Behir's abilities provoke OAs, because they are all melee-with-reach, or close blast, or close burst.

Assuming the a monster used a ranged ability to hit you (not melee-with-reach) your ally would get an OA if he was adjacent and provide cover for the attack. If it was an area burst he'd provide no cover (LoE is determined from origin square of the burst), but he'd still get an OA (ranged area provokes).

Relevant section for Reach, unrelated to the current question, but looking up how Reach works is going to be relevant in Paragon.

Reach: If a creature that has reach attacks through terrain that would grant cover if the target were in it, the target has cover. For example, even if you’re not in the same square as a small pillar, it gives you cover from the attack of an ogre on the other side of the pillar.

Okay, thanks for the very specific information.

As to how he got 2 people inside the Behir, he said it was because of the creatures size.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

Taking this in a little bit differnt direction, how would it affect the Line of Effect if the creature attacking was small, medium, or just large and not Huge?

Also, the Behir got 3 initiative positions in each round. Is that considered a complete turn after each attack, or does it have to cycle all the way through attack A, B, C, and then back to A before its considered a complete round and turn?

I've got an Avenger with the Radiant Servant PP, and I dropped my action point and assigned the Behir the 12 radiant damage at the start of his turn - the DM ruled that he would only take that at attack A - not after A, B, and C.

Thanks all.

 

[mneme]

In general, not so much (really, the players don't have to either; it's table rules whether you have people count out what they do dramatically vs only if it looks fishy). But if the GM typically bends the rules against the players -- on purpose or accidentally, it's worth negotiating for a bit more rules transparency. It's easy enough to tell whether the GM is having a creature use "too many" actions, anyway (and worth questioning just in case the GM is making a mistake -- but they could just be using a custom monster).