Wizard of Spiral Tower question

[Nichwee]

Under my interpretation, both the Wizard and the Rogue have expended interrupt powers.

Rogue: "It was him!"
Wizard: waves hand "This is no the dude you are looking for."
Monster: "Wha... what just happened?"

Cheers, -- N

But your interpretation seems to invalidate the effect of Shape The Dream. It specifically states the Monster did nothing this action. So how could the Rogue convince the monster to target the Wizard if the monster never even thought of attacking?
By RAW I can see no way to determine things consistantly without a "whichever rollback goes furtherest wins" approach. As otherwise interrupts not only change the outcome of what they react to, they get triggered on non-events.

If an AE goes off vs Will.
It hits a Feylock who reacts to it teleport, doing damage to those around him (Feytouched PP ability).
Then the DM targets the WotST and hits. WotST usdoes the entire power. The Feylock reacted to nothing, and splatted a bunch of minions say.
All because the DM targetted in a given order?

Why I feel you have to go with biggest rollback wins, then decide on the order of other "equal rollback" events so reality doesn't have paradoxes of reactions with no triggers.

 

[Nifft]

But your interpretation seems to invalidate the effect of Shape The Dream.

Interrupts frequently invalidate the triggering event -- teleportation effects in particular. That's a design feature, not a paradox.

The game rules aren't a physics simulation. It would be nice if interrupts were clearer, but until they are, I don't see any need to read more into their effects than is obvious, and than benefits the game.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Nichwee]

I understand invalidating your own trigger.
But invalidating the trigger of another power, seems to me to be a reason why that power couldn't have been used.

You are hit, you interrupt to teleport away = you were missed. Fine. I think of that as you react as the effect of the hit is about to kick in and alter its effect from "damage me" to "knock me through the ether".

But rolling time back to well before your trigger (which is what StD does) shoudl imo roll back all results of the time you rolled back. So that it really is as though the action was skipped and the monster chose not to do anything with that action.

This may be a "specific beats general" issue as it is the only one I know that states an entire action is wiped from the game by an interrupt rather than a single effect that was triggering the interrupt. And it states what the result should be "as if the creature that attacked chose to do nothing with its action". This means no powers interplay should have occured bar the use of StD.
If the monster gets back its power it used I see no reason players shoudln't regain any they used to react to that power. Or do people play it that the monster loses its power (assuming it is restricted use) despite the "it never happened"?

 

[abyssaldeath]

But rolling time back to well before your trigger (which is what StD does) shoudl imo roll back all results of the time you rolled back. So that it really is as though the action was skipped and the monster chose not to do anything with that action.

The Wizard isn't rolling back time for the entire universe. He is rolling back time for just the creature that triggered his spell. Everyone else can still act upon what the triggering creature did. Also, there is no order of events when multiple people have an interrupt triggered. So if a creature triggers the IA's of several people those IA's happen at the same time.

 

[Nichwee]

The Wizard isn't rolling back time for the entire universe.

That is certainly not assured.

"You alter reality slightly" can definately indicate reality (all of it) got changed - and why would I alter reality in a way that hurts my friends (as they burn resources) if I can alter it in a way that simply makes the entire sequence of events "never happen".

IMO, "It never happened" makes all responses to it "never happen" or we hit paradox territory. An normal interrupt is not paradox territory as it simply alters a single event for a single person - effectively a "resolve this trigger in an odd way in this instance" (such as the hit that triggers the interrupt doesn't resolve via the Hit line as the interrupt places a different outcome on it).
I understand you may not agree, but I would like some rules arguement to, at least, back you up before I decide to change my way of doing it.

EDIT: In fact the "only the monster is rolled back" is expressly inaccurate if you consider the monster's power doing damage.
Monster does AE psychic damage vs Will.
Targets WotST last.
Hits all previous targets.
WotST undoes the attack.
Surely the damage was undone - or I just gave the monster a way to do AE damage on the party (minus me) for free. And this becomes a great reason to target your own WotST in PC's vs Will AEs that damage (if you can). Nice to use that Daily vs Wil AE twice for full effect
So surely if I roll back the use of the power I roll back every effect of it, including damage and triggered responses or we open a mayor can of worms for exploiting.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That is certainly not assured.

"You alter reality slightly" can definately indicate reality (all of it) got changed - and why would I alter reality in a way that hurts my friends (as they burn resources) if I can alter it in a way that simply makes the entire sequence of events "never happen".

IMO, "It never happened" makes all responses to it "never happen" or we hit paradox territory. An normal interrupt is not paradox territory as it simply alters a single event for a single person - effectively a "resolve this trigger in an odd way in this instance" (such as the hit that triggers the interrupt doesn't resolve via the Hit line as the interrupt places a different outcome on it).
I understand you may not agree, but I would like some rules arguement to, at least, back you up before I decide to change my way of doing it.

EDIT: In fact the "only the monster is rolled back" is expressly inaccurate if you consider the monster's power doing damage.
Monster does AE psychic damage vs Will.
Targets WotST last.
Hits all previous targets.
WotST undoes the attack.
Surely the damage was undone - or I just gave the monster a way to do AE damage on the party (minus me) for free. And this becomes a great reason to target your own WotST in PC's vs Will AEs that damage (if you can). Nice to use that Daily vs Wil AE twice for full effect
So surely if I roll back the use of the power I roll back every effect of it, including damage and triggered responses or we open a mayor can of worms for exploiting.

Yeah, so it seems to me. The answer obviously is that there is no sensible answer to the whole thing. You roll the whole thing back to the start and it just never happened. It is a paradox in the sense that what didn't happen was what caused it not to happen, but that paradox exists no matter what. I mean if the monster never targetted my WotST then how come his StD got used up? You just have to accept that there are 2 mutually incompatible sets of causal relationships and the final situation isn't compatible with either one of them individually. In the rogue example the rogue gets back his "It was Him" power, the wizard expends a use of StD, and the monster stands around and does nothing. Welcome to time travel, its a blast

At least the end result is in keeping with the rules and doesn't seem to create any problems. I'd say all of this is a good explanation for why II's generally only do very limited and specific things.

 

[Nichwee]

It is a paradox in the sense that what didn't happen was what caused it not to happen, but that paradox exists no matter what. I mean if the monster never targetted my WotST then how come his StD got used up?

This I cover with the concept of "out-of-time". As the WotST is the one rolling time back he puts himself out-of-time to do so. So he, personally, doesn't roll back - he just reacts to the imminent hit (as the trigger indicates he has been hit) by rolling time back/shunting across reality to a version where the monster chose to do nothing. But as he has removed himself from time to do so, he isn't rolled back = StD is used up and he remembers the attack occuring even if everyone else doesn't.

 

[LightPhoenix]

A problem with this interpretation (which I see as totally valid, but still problematic) is that another PC could also do an immediate interrupt on that area effect attack.

Which PC wins?

Basically, the power is poorly worded.

However, your point is valid; what is the order of actions for immediate interrupts? The PHB does not have a rule for this, so it's a DM decision. Personally, I would decide it based on the same provisions for tied initiative bonus. That is, whoever has the highest Dex mod goes first, as a measure of reflexes. It's something that should be addressed.

Furthermore, I would rule that, no matter how you rule it, if the WotST power goes first, then the attack never happened and is no longer a valid target for any other immediate interrupts.

Basically, the power is predicated on the idea that immediate interrupts happen in some sort of order, and not at the same time. If you go with the idea that they are simultaneous, I would turn to the spirit of the power. That is, the creature thinks it used the power, but it didn't... so your allies wouldn't waste resources on it.

I think that the power needs to be reworded to specify the attack roll, and not the attack as a whole. I suspect that may have been the intent of the ability in the first place.