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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5010854" data-attributes="member: 82106">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).</blockquote>

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