Need a ruling on "Use Vulnerability" power

[Meltheim]

Use Vulnerability (Scholar Utility)
Encounter * Free Action
Personal
Arcane
Trigger: You succeed on a monster knowledge check against a monster that you can see or hear.
Effect: If your check result meets or exceeds the hard DC for the monster level, you gain a +4 power bonus to all defenses against the monster's attacks until the end of your next turn. Additionally, until the end of your next turn, you gain a power bonus to damage rolls against the target equal to your Intelligence modifier, but not when you deal damage that the target resists.
If your check result does not meet or exceed the hard DC, your attacks against the target deal only half damage until the end of your next turn.

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If I have a player who is in an encounter with, say, 4 Orc Ravagers, does the bonus from this power work for all of the Orc Ravagers, or only from 1 in particular? It seems silly that it would only work against a specific single target, but a bit overpowered for it to work against all targets.

What are your thoughts?

[NecroRebel]

Technically, just because you identified one orc as and orc doesn't mean you know that those 3 other things that look just like it are actually orcs. They might be changelings in disguise or something. Perhaps it is a bit silly, but that's the way it works; you get the bonus against only one.

More specifically, by the power's text, you get bonuses against the monster you succeeded on a monster knowledge check for, which is made against a monster you can see or hear. Singular, in other words. You gain the effect against exactly one creature.

[hobbitkniver]

Technically, just because you identified one orc as and orc doesn't mean you know that those 3 other things that look just like it are actually orcs. They might be changelings in disguise or something. Perhaps it is a bit silly, but that's the way it works; you get the bonus against only one.

More specifically, by the power's text, you get bonuses against the monster you succeeded on a monster knowledge check for, which is made against a monster you can see or hear. Singular, in other words. You gain the effect against exactly one creature.

Yeah, he's right. IMO ability description is always more reliable than reasoning. Personally though, if I was DM I'd let him use it against all of them.

[ChaosOS]

RAW: One target

Fluff: Not every Orc Ravager is the same. I mean really, I can build two identical human fighters and then two people would play them entirely differently. Even given the same culture, no two orcs are entirely identical unless they're spawned by some wizard. Basically, the power is noticing a weakness in one creatures fighting style.

[Meltheim]

Yeah, but since it's an "until the end of your next turn" power, I'm just going to rule that the bonus applies to all of that creature type. Best it gets him a nice nova.

[NecroRebel]

Yeah, but since it's an "until the end of your next turn" power, I'm just going to rule that the bonus applies to all of that creature type. Best it gets him a nice nova.

Whether it's overpowered or not depends on what his class and fighting style is. A wizard with a high INT bonus and attacks that hit most or all of the enemies is going to get more mileage out of that ruling than a fighter with only +1 to INT and a focus on single targets, for instance... but treating the power differently for those two characters to compensate for the fact that one gets vastly more out of it than the other is a bad ruling. You should rule for the most restrictive possible case when it's something that can be generalized, otherwise it'll get exploited.

You didn't mention what your player's character is, but really, the scholar is a pretty decent theme and the Use Vulnerability power quite strong even if it's single-target. I'd recommend against that ruling.

[Zaq]

Hmm. I'd always assumed that it applies to all monsters of that type (it's not like you make two separate knowledge checks for Frost Giant A and Frost Giant B, after all, assuming they're both just frost giants and one isn't a frost giant marauder or something), but on closer reading, I can see where it definitely might just be the one monster.

I confess that I'd been letting 3.5 leak in, since let's be honest, Use Vulnerability is totally just a 4e-ified Knowledge Devotion. Hell, I even call it that. If I say "I use Use Vulnerability on the troll," my party doesn't know what that means. I think they think the power is actually called Knowledge Devotion, since that's what I call it. But then, I do that with a lot of my powers.

[Meltheim]

Thanks all for the input. We'll see how it plays out. Either way I think that it's going to have a houserule, regardless of RAW.