question on a couple of effects with a fighter

[DracoSuave]

Dear lord...I wish they would just errata Iron Vanguard and Draconic Arrogance to fix this issue. It's obviously an "either or" statement and only meant to be applied once, but (supposedly) ambiguous wording has spawned so many threads here and the WotC boards it's ridiculous.

If it were obviously an 'either/or' statement, it would have been worded like an 'either/or' statement. It clearly is not. It's a 'when X do Y' statement. X happens to be an or statement, but it is not an either/or, or xor statement, because it's a trigger, not a bonus.

I don't understand how it's ambiguous. When X, Do Y. Did X happen? Do Y. Did X happen twice? Do Y twice.

Personally, I like to go with the "if there are two interpretations of something, and one is significantly overpowered compared to the other, then the latter interpretation is correct". I find getting +2xCON, +2xSTR on a single attack kind of ridiculous and overpowered personally, which is why I would tend to lean more towards the interpretation that it applies once when either condition is satisfied.

It's a daily power greater than 9th level that only does 4[W]+Str damage + 2X Con damage, and allows a healing surge... and has no effect past that knocking prone.

A daily power that doesn't have a lasting effect or great inherent damage...

Compare to Kensai, 3[W]+Blah+4, 2[W]+Blah+4, 1[W]+Blah+4, knocking everything prone...

It's really not that exciting a daily. But maybe I expect more from them.

 

[Gilwen]

holy cow two pages, and I thought it was a simple question

Seriously though, thanks for all the input. My group and I talked it over and we are going with the "it happens twice model". Our reasoning is it's an encounter power so it's not like it happens every round and it fits the flavor of the class not to mention we like our games a tad bit higher powered than most.

Gil

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, the rogue one is very simple.

'You decide after you've made the damage roll.'

Have you made the damage roll? Yes? Now you decide.

It's that simple.

Sorry, you're wrong DS. Step 5 of resolving an attack is doing damage AND APPLYING EFFECTS. The damage is resolved before the effects are applied or at least simultaneously and thus the effects are not yet active as the damage is done. Thus your examples ALL fail.

The difference between what you are talking about and what the OP is talking about is that his effects are TRIGGERED effects which are not part of the original power and thus resolve asynchronously and instantaneously at the point in time where the trigger condition is met.

This debate has been rehashed several times that I've seen and no clear answer has ever emerged that I know of. I think the tendency is to apply the trigger once per action in general because any number of cheese scenarios emerge otherwise. The Blood Pulse power got errata for this very reason. That doesn't apply to other powers, but it is indicative of the way that CS views this topic.

Honestly I'd play it whatever way seems to work at your table.

 

[DracoSuave]

Sorry, you're wrong DS. Step 5 of resolving an attack is doing damage AND APPLYING EFFECTS. The damage is resolved before the effects are applied or at least simultaneously and thus the effects are not yet active as the damage is done. Thus your examples ALL fail.

Of course they fail, that's the entire point. Simultaneous effects don't work. And there is zero, none, not a word of language to indicate that effects of powers are generally simultaneous, and language that DOES indicate that effects are applied in sequential order.

Son, the PHB2 tells you that you do so. I don't need any more proof than that. Saying that 'step 5 is resolving hits and misses' is not saying that they are resolved simultaneously, only that they are resolved after step 4 and before step 6.

And if they are not simultaneous, then triggered effects occur immediately upon trigger. As -all- triggered effects do.

The difference between what you are talking about and what the OP is talking about is that his effects are TRIGGERED effects which are not part of the original power and thus resolve asynchronously and instantaneously at the point in time where the trigger condition is met.

On this, I agree, and that trigger condition is met twice during that power's resolution. Once, when the target is pushed, and once when the target is proned. (if, of course, the target is actually pushed or proned... preventing these effects prevent the damage of course.)

This debate has been rehashed several times that I've seen and no clear answer has ever emerged that I know of. I think the tendency is to apply the trigger once per action in general because any number of cheese scenarios emerge otherwise.

Perhaps, but we're talking about a path feature interracting with its own power here. And we're only talking about 2XCon damage, not something massively crazy.

And it's on a daily.

Let's not blow this out of proportion here. And some effects DO apply more than once to the same action. The Star Warlock's boon, for instance. The only time they don't is when the ability itself tells you this.

The Blood Pulse power got errata for this very reason. That doesn't apply to other powers, but it is indicative of the way that CS views this topic.

CS doesn't deal in errata. And Blood Pulse -was- crazy and needed to be errata'd to the 'once per round' restriction. However, the Iron Vanguard is not...

And saying 'triggered abilities are once per round' is flat out a house rule. There's no text that indicates this, or even hints at it.

Let's say you have a power that pushes enemies in a burst 1 around you. Do you only apply the damage to one enemy, or to each enemy pushed?

Honestly I'd play it whatever way seems to work at your table.

Indeed. But RAW, it's triggered each time, and immediately when the event occurs, unless the ability states otherwise.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sigh. Its hard to tell where your argument is going there DS. I understand that you were trying to execute an argument by reductio ad absurdum. I'm trying to tell you though that the example you used isn't necessarily relevant. The powers you mentioned are all cases of a condition in the power itself which (absurdly) would apply to its own resolution. The class feature the OP is referencing OTOH is a triggered effect external to the power in question.

Step 5 deals with effects of the power. It doesn't apply to external triggered effects. The point is you haven't actually reduced the "triggered once" argument by reductio ad absurdum because it isn't applied in step 5. Exactly how triggered effects are applied is a bit of a grey area. I think we agree they apply immediately, but the question is then still do they apply immediately when step 5 finishes or do they apply in the midst of step 5 and thus potentially multiple times? This is where the point about Blood Pulse was relevant.

Now maybe the OP's scenario isn't unbalanced. That in and of itself though isn't sufficient to base a decision on which is a fairly general decision about how a broad category of effects is applied to different powers. Some of those effects may well be unbalanced when applied multiple times. Unless we're given some official blanket rule to follow the DM is going to have to decide whether or not to interpret this stuff in a conservative way or a more liberal way and probably the key to that decision is whether or not it produces results that are in line with expected PC power levels.

 

[DracoSuave]

Step 5 deals with effects of the power. It doesn't apply to external triggered effects. The point is you haven't actually reduced the "triggered once" argument by reductio ad absurdum because it isn't applied in step 5. Exactly how triggered effects are applied is a bit of a grey area. I think we agree they apply immediately, but the question is then still do they apply immediately when step 5 finishes or do they apply in the midst of step 5 and thus potentially multiple times? This is where the point about Blood Pulse was relevant.

Blood Pulse was then errata'd because you can have an effect trigger multiple times from the same action.

Regardless, the triggered feature in question is of the 'When X, do Y' variety. As already shown by triggered feats such as Astral Fire, the Y part is done immediately, and often applies to the very triggering thing itself.

If it had to occur after, conditional bonuses like Astral Fire, and Heavy Blade Opportunity simply could not work. But, don't they work?

Now maybe the OP's scenario isn't unbalanced. That in and of itself though isn't sufficient to base a decision on which is a fairly general decision about how a broad category of effects is applied to different powers. Some of those effects may well be unbalanced when applied multiple times. Unless we're given some official blanket rule to follow the DM is going to have to decide whether or not to interpret this stuff in a conservative way or a more liberal way and probably the key to that decision is whether or not it produces results that are in line with expected PC power levels.

Well, as I said before... let's say you're a Starlock. If you use an AoE to kill multiple marked minions, your Fate of the Void boon triggers for each minion, multiple times. This proves you can have a single 'Step 5' trigger the same triggered effect multiple times.

It doesn't matter then if the trigger is resolved during or after the effect, what IS important is if it is triggered multiple times.

Push and prone are distinct things. A push is not knocking something prone, and vice versa. Which means that if a power pushes and knocks something prone, it'll trigger things that trigger on pushes once and things that trigger on knocking prone once.

If an effect triggers on either case, then it would trigger twice. It's already proven a single 'step 5' can trigger the same thing multiple times. And push and prone are different things.

So... does it work by the rules set given, with other precidents backing it up? Yes.
Is it broken? Like -actually- broken, not 'oh god it's a trick that works in the players favor' broken? No.

So... there is no problem.