D&D 4E messy's 4e newbie questions thread

[AbdulAlhazred]

you may only make one free action attack per turn, you may make any number of no action attacks on your turn.

if your stunned, unconscious or dominated you cant take free actions. but you can always take no actions

Ah, yes, I had forgotten they added that "only one free action attack" clause in the wording for Essentials. Free actions have always had a 'DM discretion' clause which I assume was always intended to provide an explicit 'out' to the DM so they could put the kibosh to things like endless cycles of free attacks (which have arisen a couple of times with various combos). That kind of stuff got errated pretty quickly, but I guess now it is REALLY truly and explicitly illegal. Truthfully there are very few 'no action' attacks, and the ones that do exist are at least notionally coming from something outside of the character itself.

 

[captpike]

one thing to note is there are several attacks that have no stated action, like "on a crit you may make on additional attack" that does not say if its a free or no action. it would be best to ask your DM about these if you have one.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

one thing to note is there are several attacks that have no stated action, like "on a crit you may make on additional attack" that does not say if its a free or no action. it would be best to ask your DM about these if you have one.

IMHO they are part of the original action, not separate actions. Just like there can be powers which have more than one target or allow separate attacks against single/multiple targets, in those cases there is only the one underlying action. 4e's terminology surrounding 'Action' vs 'Attack' is a bit unclear and they never chose to resolve that ambiguity. Thus some powers I suppose could potentially present situations where the action is 'unspecified' (that would possibly happen if a follow-on attack was something that took place at a different point in the round than the original power use, which is possible. I'd think such things SHOULD be constructed as separate attacks within the main power, but WotC didn't always do things entirely consistently). Feats are actually the most likely culprits as they don't really have a standardized layout and don't directly deal with actions in any specific way. I think you'll find in practice it isn't a big problem, you can let the narrative logic of the situation inform the players as to what is expected (IE if it was say a power that granted a riposte then logically the PC would need to be able to take a Free action to do it and therefor not be say unconscious, but if a ghostly force is protecting the character then maybe no action is appropriate).

 

[captpike]

IMHO they are part of the original action, not separate actions. Just like there can be powers which have more than one target or allow separate attacks against single/multiple targets, in those cases there is only the one underlying action. 4e's terminology surrounding 'Action' vs 'Attack' is a bit unclear and they never chose to resolve that ambiguity. Thus some powers I suppose could potentially present situations where the action is 'unspecified' (that would possibly happen if a follow-on attack was something that took place at a different point in the round than the original power use, which is possible. I'd think such things SHOULD be constructed as separate attacks within the main power, but WotC didn't always do things entirely consistently). Feats are actually the most likely culprits as they don't really have a standardized layout and don't directly deal with actions in any specific way. I think you'll find in practice it isn't a big problem, you can let the narrative logic of the situation inform the players as to what is expected (IE if it was say a power that granted a riposte then logically the PC would need to be able to take a Free action to do it and therefor not be say unconscious, but if a ghostly force is protecting the character then maybe no action is appropriate).

I was talking more about feats and features then powers, but I agree in practice it will rarely be an issue, the two times it would are when unconscious, or for some loops.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I was talking more about feats and features then powers, but I agree in practice it will rarely be an issue, the two times it would are when unconscious, or for some loops.

Right, it is one of those endlessly debated dark corners of 4e that never quite got cleaned out entirely. I guess given the sheer amount of STUFF in 4e they probably just figured it wasn't worth trying to clarify every possible thing like that. They seemed to be trying back in the early days maybe 4 years ago, but I suspect WotC decided the amount of silly little errata wasn't worth it. I was a bit disappointed that Essentials wording didn't really help much, but perhaps again they were reluctant to 'stealth errata' the whole game and produce some OTHER new bugs vs just leaving it to common sense. The debates on the Q&A forum were entertaining, for a while at least... lol.

 

[Storminator]

The compendium gives 185 No Action powers (out of 9300+ powers). They are often triggered or riders on other powers. I believe you can't take Free Actions out of turn, so those are either No Action or Interrupt powers.

PS

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The compendium gives 185 No Action powers (out of 9300+ powers). They are often triggered or riders on other powers. I believe you can't take Free Actions out of turn, so those are either No Action or Interrupt powers.

PS

Free Actions can happen in ANY character's turn, you can take them basically whenever you want, but only during the 'action portion' of turns, not during for instance the ongoing damage resolution, saving throws, etc portion. There has been some arguments about whether or not you can break into another action to take a free action, but generally it seems that this is the intent. So for instance a PURE free action attack could be done at any time in anyone's turn, friend or enemy. Of course the few powers that do grant attacks and are free actions generally are more restrictive, having triggers or other types of conditions and requirements limiting when they can happen. It is worth noting though that a triggered free action doesn't consume the character's limit of interrupts or immediate actions, and that is sometimes the intent.

 

[pemerton]

I believe you can't take Free Actions out of turn

As others have said, you can. (Unless the wording of the action itself precludes this, eg "as a free action on your turn".)

As others have also said, the main function of "no action" abilities is to circumvent unconsciousness, stun, etc plus other oddities of the action economy, so you seem it on healing/self-res effects, initiative-boosting effects, etc.

 

[messy]

46. when a creatures selects a multiclass feat that grants a once/encounter use of a class ability typically usable a number of times per encounter based on level (like the cleric's healing word or warlord's inspiring word), can he/she use the power once/encounter or multiple times/encounter based on level?

47. are dump stats as much of an issue in 4th edition as in 3rd edition?

toda (i'm running out of languages...)

 

[Herschel]

No multiclass feats gives you an Encounter Heal, it gives you that power as a Daily heal. You can then, however, use a powerswap feat to grab healing utilities, most often Level 6 leader class utilities, to get an Encounter heal.

Define "issue".