Stupid Question: PHB3 Minotaur Ferocity...

[AbdulAlhazred]

How often is it that you can end up killing a foe with that free attack before he kills you? Seems extremely rare, to the extent that even if I allowed it, the chances of such a scenario coming up would be extremely rare.

Or is there something I am overlooking?

Forced movement or other conditions are the common cases. Its fairly trivial to build a martial character that can sub in a power for the MBA or use one of any number of feats to make it possible to push an opponent with an MBA, or use some item which can do it. It certainly isn't sure-fire as it will require a crit or use of a restricted resource in most cases, but surely if the character was going to go down it would be worth it. Even if the attack wasn't negated entirely a condition could be applied that caused it to miss or reduced damage. I think the idea is these kinds of things are just outside of at least the RAI of a single feat.

 

[DracoSuave]

How often is it that you can end up killing a foe with that free attack before he kills you? Seems extremely rare, to the extent that even if I allowed it, the chances of such a scenario coming up would be extremely rare.

Or is there something I am overlooking?

Well, it starts mattering a great deal once you get the feat that allows you to use an at-will instead of an attack of opportunity.

For example, if you got knocked down to zero by a melee attack, you could use Rune of Diminishment. That could reduce the damage incoming against you by your Constitution. This might save your life. Even if the DM rules it occurs before you're damaged, but not before the attack itself, that means it -must- occur before the damage applies, so Rune of Diminishment would affect that.

Or more, exotic, a minotaur ardent could use Energizing Strike, augmented, to attempt to attack and spend a healing surge. Which, if it's before falling unconcious (and after damage is locked in) will negate you going below zero.

See... not so simple.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, it starts mattering a great deal once you get the feat that allows you to use an at-will instead of an attack of opportunity.

For example, if you got knocked down to zero by a melee attack, you could use Rune of Diminishment. That could reduce the damage incoming against you by your Constitution. This might save your life. Even if the DM rules it occurs before you're damaged, but not before the attack itself, that means it -must- occur before the damage applies, so Rune of Diminishment would affect that.

I think a power like Deft Strike or anything else that allows you to shift away from the attack is actually a problem, because it means "death immunity" if it negates any attack that could kill you (well, at least all where you end up out of range of the attack.)

The problem of "interrupt invalidating the triggering action invalidating the trigger" is ... not a problem. The rules handle this by saying - yes, the initial action is lost and wasted, but the trigger still occured, everything is fine.

But in this particulary case it is important to not that it was not - mechanically speaking - an action that triggers Minotaur's Ferocity. It is "taking damage". So there is no action to invalidate, you can only "invalidate" the damage by healing or reducing it, thereby making it possible to you to avoid to take enough damage to drop to 0 or less - but again, the rules are fine with that.

Ongoing Damage and Zones (or more general, enviromental effects) can all cause damage without any actions.

 

[DracoSuave]

Ongoing Damage and Zones (or more general, enviromental effects) can all cause damage without any actions.

Not relevant to Ferocity tho, seeing as those are either things you either take on your own turn (immediate interrupt), or are placed into as a result of... you guessed it, someone's action.

 

[Obryn]

How often is it that you can end up killing a foe with that free attack before he kills you? Seems extremely rare, to the extent that even if I allowed it, the chances of such a scenario coming up would be extremely rare.

Or is there something I am overlooking?

Make a Minotaur Barbarian. Take Pressing Strike as one of your At-Wills. At Paragon, take the Vicious Ferocity feat.

Now, you can shift 2 out of the way 1/round when you would otherwise drop to zero.

The same trick works with Deft Strike, Nimble Strike, and a few others IIRC.

IMO, damage-taking is a separate step from being hit. You can take damage without being hit, and can be hit without taking damage. For powers like the Halfling's defense, it triggers on hit. For Ferocity, it triggers on dropping to 0 - in other words, being damaged. I'd allow powers which grant DR or temporary HPs to save the Minotaur, but not powers which reduce attack rolls, increase defenses, or shift the cow out of the way.

-O

 

[DracoSuave]

Make a Minotaur Barbarian. Take Pressing Strike as one of your At-Wills. At Paragon, take the Vicious Ferocity feat.

Now, you can shift 2 out of the way 1/round when you would otherwise drop to zero.

The same trick works with Deft Strike, Nimble Strike, and a few others IIRC.

IMO, damage-taking is a separate step from being hit. You can take damage without being hit, and can be hit without taking damage. For powers like the Halfling's defense, it triggers on hit. For Ferocity, it triggers on dropping to 0 - in other words, being damaged. I'd allow powers which grant DR or temporary HPs to save the Minotaur, but not powers which reduce attack rolls, increase defenses, or shift the cow out of the way.

-O

That much is true... but hit AND damage is usually a part of resolving an -action- which is what interrupts pre-empt, not individual parts of the action.

Hard to say tho, the idea of a Vicious Ferocity minotaur stopping incoming damage with at-wills is... disconcerting.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That much is true... but hit AND damage is usually a part of resolving an -action- which is what interrupts pre-empt, not individual parts of the action.

Hard to say tho, the idea of a Vicious Ferocity minotaur stopping incoming damage with at-wills is... disconcerting.

An immediate interrupt lets you jump in when a certain trigger condition arises, acting before the trigger resolves. If an interrupt invalidates a triggering action, that action is lost. For example, an enemy makes a melee attack against you, but you use a power that lets you shift away as an immediate interrupt. If your enemy can no longer reach you, the enemy’s attack action is lost.

Note that there are two different things: Trigger condition and triggering action. These are not the same, and a trigger condition is not automatically also related to a triggering action.

Again, you do not get to interrupt the enemies action. You only resolve your immediate interrupt before taking the damage, not before anything else, like the attack action that caused the damage.

 

[DragonXNIK]

How often is it that you can end up killing a foe with that free attack before he kills you? Seems extremely rare, to the extent that even if I allowed it, the chances of such a scenario coming up would be extremely rare.

Or is there something I am overlooking?

Something similar to this happened 3 times in a group I play with.
The minotaur Ranger in our party was multiclassed cleric, and had the Raven Queen's Blessing divine channeling feat. He also had a lifedrinker bastard sword.

I think the first time, we were fighting a group of imps, and one managed to knock him to zero, triggering the Minotaur racial. He made a melee basic with his Lifedrinker, which killed the imp, thus not only giving him temporary hit points, but a (spend of a) healing surge courtesy of the Raven Queen. The DM ruled that he had to get up from prone since we didn't have this as an Immediate Interrupt by the DMG rules, but that's way cooler then making death saves!

What was really awesome, was when he finished off a Black Dragon in an underground lake like this, while standing on top of it, for lack of non-liquid terrain.

This character was killed off by a bone dragon shortly afterwards, because his tactics were 'run into the middle' and his AC at level 6 was 17 or 18. We were OK with that, because he basically made it impossible to talk to NPCs.

 

[keterys]

For ref, Customer Service has weighed in that you still take the damage, and the feature has an extensive thread on wotc's errata boards discussing a need for clarification and improvement on timing.

So, intent certainly seems to be that you take the damage, then make an attack, and can't cancel out the attack.

 

[Piratecat]

For ref, Customer Service has weighed in that you still take the damage, and the feature has an extensive thread on wotc's errata boards discussing a need for clarification and improvement on timing.

So, intent certainly seems to be that you take the damage, then make an attack, and can't cancel out the attack.

Do you have a reference, by any chance? That doesn't make any sense. An immediate interrupt happens before the action that triggered it; an immediate reaction happens after it. Consistent and straightforward.