Urgrosh/Gouge question

[Tony Vargas]

One of the foibles of exception-based design is that a power or item or whatever does what it says it does, general rules (like actions) be damned. If something says you 'get a extra attack,' and doesn't specify an action you need to use to get that attack, then you get an extra attack and it doesn't require an action. Sure, in theory, you could take that extra attack while dead or whatever -but if you were dead, you're probably /not/ taking the triggering attack in the first place... and, if you die as a consequence of resolving the first attack (to an immediate interrupt, perhaps), well, it could still just be a 'dying swing.'

 

[keterys]

Oh, it's totally possible... it's just that this particular item is lacking rules information. For example, a power could say 'An ally may make an attack' and they'd probably go 'What kind of attack?'. Cause if not, how about Vengeful Parry (Immediate Interrupt) - why or why not? Heck, how about a 1 hour ritual that includes an attack roll?

And the key point is that there needs to be an exception actually stated - allowing you to make the attack without its usual action cost, or restrictions. And in the beginning of the game, they just assumed everything was free actions (and everyone moved on with that assumption) right up until they made a rule that you only got one free action attack... at which point people tried to claim stuff _wasn't_ a free action, without justifying what it actually was.

Hence, you could have a warlord using Commander's Strike multiple times _on a corpse_ to get free attacks from it. Right up until they redid that section of the book and added the word free action, just like they did to _every other attack_ of that sort they've published since

It's decisive enough that I doubt WotC is all that concerned about addressing Rending, because they're really not concerned about people who try to misuse the rules. They already released the free action restriction in response to Rending abuse.