Question Regarding Power

[Recidivism]

Hey Guys,

I've got a bit of a rules issue that I wanted a second/third/etc opinion on. One of the players in my campaign has the Hunter Power Stalker's Mist. This particular power creates a zone of heavily obscured squares granting full concealment.

My question is: How should this work? I ask because this power essentially ruined a powerful solo fight by granting a multi-attack solo a persistent -5 penalty to all attacks (probably about 50 different attacks all-told). Being a solo, it couldn't effectively move after players started stacking Prone/Slowed/Immobilized effects on it, and there is no way to save against the smoke cloud.

There are a couple different scenarios:

1. Melee Attack from A -> B, where A is in the Zone
2. Melee Attack from A -> B, where B is in the Zone
3. Melee Attack from A -> B, where both A and B are in the Zone

4. Ranged Attack from A -> B, where A is in the Zone
5. Ranged Attack from A -> B, where B is in the Zone
6. Ranged Attack from A -> B, where both A and B are in the Zone


In my opinion, it seems like (in the spirit of how this should work) that the concealment is intended to be on the target of the attack. Concealment on the attacker doesn't seem like it would do much (although you could make the argument that the concealment obscures the attacker's vision, hindering the attack).

In my opinion then the concealment only applies in cases where B is in the zone (2,3,5,6) and not in all cases (1-6). What does everyone else think?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Stalker's Mist is quite nice, but it makes anybody in it sitting ducks for an area attack. It is also key to grok the obscured terrain rules.

Specifically, with Stalker's Mist, only characters in the mist benefit from concealment. From the Obscured Terrain rules:

Concealment: A target in a heavily obscured space but adjacent to you has concealment.

Total Concealment: A target in a heavily obscured space and not adjacent to you has total concealment.

So if the beast is attacking into the obscured terrain from range, then the beast takes a -5 penalty on the attack.

If the beast is attacking into obscured terrain from melee, it's only a -2 (reg'lar concealment, not total), assuming the melee isn't reach or something.

And if the beast is making attack rolls against all party members because they're clustered up tightly and oh-so-tempting targets, he's gotta use some brute force of odds, and some cleverness. Obscured terrain doesn't make the target hidden, so the beast can still tell who is where. So he can casually walk around the mist (since the defender won't follow him), find the squishiest controller or striker in the party (perhaps even the ranger himself!), and let loose.

Sure, that squishy gets a functional +2 to defenses, but that's still probably better odds than trying to hit the party fighter.

As for being a solo, and thus vulnerable to being locked down, most solos have 101 ways of getting out of being locked down. If this particular solo was out of saves and immunities and special actions and his auras and reactions weren't hitting hard enough, and he didn't have an area attack or the ability to force movement on his own, we may be looking at a solo that needs some love, rather than a really powerful LV2 Utility.

Though it is a good LV 2 utility!