Spirit Companions (and other Power Effects) outside of combats

[sfedi]

If you use an encounter outside of an encounter, that counts for the next encounter for that day.

No it doesn't.

You can take a short rest and recover it's use.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I have to agree with you there Capp. Specifically nothing in the rules gives an SC a duration. You could interpret the general "spell effects last 5 minutes" to imply that the SC vanishes after 5 minutes, but so what? As for summoning it before combat, I'd say in 95% of all cases the shaman would want to instead enter the field of battle, decide where the best positioning is, and then summon the SC there directly. There could be some rare situations, like if the party is defending ground, where it might be worth having it in play before combat starts, and the rules fully support that.

As for the general case of OOC use of powers, all powers are explicitly able to be used at any time. Like Capp says though, the rules are designed such that almost any such case simply IS an encounter by definition. It is quite possible some of those encounters could be non-combat encounters, but power use in skill challenges is a well supported concept as well, even if the majority of attack powers probably aren't much use in most such situations.

Also remember that nothing prevents the DM from allowing non-standard uses of powers. The wizard in my game wanted to exterminate vermin in air ducts. OK, spend some time using Arcana to figure out how to make Stinking Cloud go down a hole and fill up an air duct. Admittedly players could try to take that kind of thing too far, but I don't see anything wrong with rewarding them for trying to use their powers to solve arbitrary sorts of problems. Even published material leans in this direction from what I can see. Mostly you'll just want to make sure it doesn't turn into "casters can do anything", so the DM should always make it pretty clear that martial characters can do likewise (maybe something like impressing people with a demonstration of their powers or using them on objects).

 

[Mentat55]

I say let players use their powers outside of combat. Beyond even the context of what the OP described. In particular, let the players do cool stuff with attack powers that aren't covered by skills (or don't necessarily have to be).

Let the rogue with Sly Flourish do cool knife tricks, like juggle a few daggers or go all Bishop on somebody. Let the sorcerer dissolve a lock with Acid Orb. Let the wizard weaken the bars of the jail with alternating applications of Scorching Burst and Ray of Frost. Maybe even let the warlock distract a guard by using Eyebite. These are just examples with at-will powers -- there is even more interesting stuff that could be achieved with encounter and esp. daily powers.

I know that there is a fine line that could be crossed, where players try to gain an advantage when they probably shouldn't, or normally couldn't. But I think that is a small risk compared to the big rewards of encouraging more outside-the-box thinking.

EDIT: Hmm, should have read what AbdulAlhazred posted before me. Basically the same message, but more eloquently put than mine

 

[eamon]

The only power restrictions that I know of are "if a power gives a benefit from attacking an enemy, then the enemy you attack must be a viable threat or the power doesn't trigger" and "powers that target creatures may target objects at the dm's discretion".

First, a disclaimer: I know (and assume everyone knows) that this section is about recommendations, not set-in-stone rules.


You're misquoting the recommendation in question, however, in a relevant (and oft-mistaken, hence this highlight) fashion.

When a power has an effect that occurs upon hitting a target - or reducing a target to 0 hit points - the power functions only when the target in question is a meaningful threat.
​

The purpose of the limitation you're referring to is clear; if succeeding vs. an opponent grants you power, the success must be meaningful. The emphasis on success is important, however: if some rule permits an attack and an incidental effect, or, vice versa, an effect and an incidental attack, and the effect and attack don't require succeeding at some challenge, then the level of "meaningfulness" of that challenge isn't relevant.

For example, twin strike permits shooting two arrows. The second arrow may be shot regardless of whether the first hit, and you should be able to use this power's second attack regardless of the foe (or indeed, even if the "foe" is an apple on a jester's head). Twin strike may seem like an obvious case, but other powers get more complex, and it's easy to lose track of the real purpose of this guideline.

So, it's not that powers don't work against meaningless threats (or outside of combat) - it's thatsuccesses against meaningless challenges are themselves meaningless. If a power requires some success and you don't require the challenge to be meaningful, you might as well not require success in the first place - thus the presumption that effects that trigger on a hit or dropping a creature are written with the assumption that the threat is meaningful.

And it's definitely not a rule, it's just a guideline for interpreting the assumptions of rules. Were it a rule, you couldn't even deal damage to a rat: after all, the effect (namely, deal damage to the target) of the "melee basic attack" power occurs only on a hit, and the target in question isn't a meaningful threat!

The guideline is intended to avoid absurd scenarios like a warlock sacrificing a swarm of flies (each individually cursed, of course) by setting the jar on fire to gain a huge number of pact boons, or by a fighter dealing damage to the unhittable foe by cleaving through after hitting a rat. The rule is not supposed to create absurd situations where effects that have little to do with the target somehow stop working if no meaningful threat is around or where effects that make sense even versus insignificant threats stop working.

The DM should exercise common sense and take into account the setting and world he's trying to create. You can't apply (or ignore) this guideline in an absolute sense without causing ridiculous scenarios. Something that makes sense in one world may not in another; that's OK.

To the OP: Suppose in your world the spirit companion has a will of its own - and only helps the shaman when (s)he's in need, you have a world where you should not allow him to summon the spirit companion outside of combat. Most DM's should just allow it, however: it's clearly not directly related to any target, so there's no intrinsically obvious explanation for why it doesn't work outside of combat.

 

[DevP]

I'm generally loose and improv-y with the rules in any other RPG, so I'm not usually this finnicky. (Chalk that up to me not GMing as much 4E.) I agree with the general thread consensus, and I'll hopefully encourage the players to come up with some neat uses for their powers.

The guideline is intended to avoid absurd scenarios like a warlock sacrificing a swarm of flies (each individually cursed, of course) by setting the jar on fire to gain a huge number of pact boons.

Imagine a Warlock cradling his jar of flies, staring within and cackling about how he will "soon deliver their petty souls to the shadowfell" and "summon unimagined forsaken power from their sacrifice". I think I have a character concept! (It's imperative that said warlock never gets around to testing his theory.)