Power question: Everywhere and Nowhere

[MwaO]

I'm interpreting it as intending to allow the caster to avoid attacks, and in this specific case working before the resolution of the attack. If it makes you feel better assume I'm using the named exception in that paragraph for my game. YMMV.

It is a clear cut rule and that's not an exception. The power has a very specific effect that's perfectly valid after a reaction. There's no reason for that interpretation unless you want to just change what the power does.

Which is fine, but that's not an interpretation, that's a rewrite.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The only time that happens with free actions is when it would be required to function. As an example, if you have a free action +3 to hit from a power when you don't like the roll, it has to happen then, not after the trigger is resolved.

Right, this was an Essentials-ERA hack that was introduced because of earlier rulings that Free Actions could in fact be invoked in interrupt time, or even during other actions on your turn (this had to do with Wardens). At that point they needed a way to make things sane, so there was this decree that only 'necessary' interrupt speed free actions could work at interrupt speed, effectively downgrading (or not, depending on the side you took in all this) various powers like Everywhere and Nowhere.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm interpreting it as intending to allow the caster to avoid attacks, and in this specific case working before the resolution of the attack. If it makes you feel better assume I'm using the named exception in that paragraph for my game. YMMV.

AAANNNDDDD... this is of course why page 197 was a horrible idea, because it creates a vast area of interpretation about what things were 'supposed' to do and thereby draws INTENT into RAW. This is EXACTLY why many of us argued for a LONG LONG time that Free Actions should not ever work this way at all, going right back to PHB2 days when it first came up. WotC stupidly wrote itself into a corner with earlier rules interpretations and then had to pull this garbage stunt to try to keep the whole mess functioning.