Triggered Minor Actions

[kieza]

I'm in the middle of writing some homebrew stuff, and I'm debating how to phrase a power. Is there any precedent for a power which is a triggered minor action, as follows?

Split Spell Wizard Utility
At-Will Arcane * Metamagic
Minor Action Personal
Trigger: You use a ranged arcane power which targets one creature.
Effect: The power targets two creatures, but you deal half damage on a hit and no damage on a miss.

[NecroRebel]

There's no precedent for something like that. I'd suggest you make it instead be something like "Effect: The next time you use an arcane ranged power that targets exactly one creature before the end of your turn, you may choose a second target. If you do, this power deals half damage on a hit and no damage on a miss."

[Ashdate]

That doesn't work, least of which because triggered actions cannot occur on your own turn.

You'd want it to read something like this:

Split Spell Wizard Utility
At-Will Arcane * Metamagic
Minor Action
Effect: The next arcane power that targets only one creature, instead may trigger two creatures that are within range, but you deal only half damage on a hit and no damage on a miss.

(that said, this seems ridiculously powerful, so you might want to impose a to hit penalty or make it a daily power at the very least.)

Edit: Necro's wording is better, although it should specify that the target must be within range of the original power.

[kieza]

Thank you, that was my second thought for wording.

With regard to the power's power level, this is for a very thorough rewrite of 4e; among other things, there are no daily powers, so...no split spell Sleep. Also, there are a lot of things in this rewrite which are higher-powered than standard 4e.

That said, I just realized I need to restrict it so it only works on damaging powers, and I think I might bump it up to a move action.

[Ashdate]

Thank you, that was my second thought for wording.

With regard to the power's power level, this is for a very thorough rewrite of 4e; among other things, there are no daily powers, so...no split spell Sleep. Also, there are a lot of things in this rewrite which are higher-powered than standard 4e.

Well as Sleep is a burst power you probably aren't using it on a single creature anyway :)

[Kurald Galain]

Well as Sleep is a burst power you probably aren't using it on a single creature anyway :)

True, but a few of the wizard's single-target powers are downright nasty. Mirror Sphere comes to mind (which has my personal record of making the most DMs go "it does what?!" :smallamused: ).

[kieza]

True, true :). I haven't played vanilla 4e in a long time.

Here's a list of the metamagic powers I've written, if anyone's interested.

At-Will Utility

Delay Spell Wizard Utility
At-Will Arcane * Metamagic
Move Action Personal
Effect: The next time you cast an arcane power before the end of your turn, the power is delayed. At the start of your next turn, you may use the power as a free action.

Displace Spell Wizard Utility
At-Will Arcane * Metamagic
Move Action Personal
Effect: The next time you cast an arcane power before the end of your turn, you may choose any square within 2 of yours to be the power’s origin square.

Extend Spell Wizard Utility
At-Will Arcane * Metamagic
Move Action Personal
Effect: The next time you cast an arcane ranged power before the end of your turn, the power’s range increases by 5.

Heighten Spell Wizard Utility
At-Will Arcane * Metamagic
Move Action Personal
Effect: The next time you cast an arcane attack power before the end of your turn, the power can bypass resistances and damage incorporeal creatures as though it were cast using a magical implement.

Reach Spell Wizard Utility
At-Will Arcane * Metamagic
Move Action Personal
Effect: The next time you cast an arcane power with a range of melee touch, which targets exactly one creature, before the end of your turn, the power’s range becomes ranged 10.

Split Spell Wizard Utility
At-Will Arcane * Metamagic
Move Action Personal
Effect: The next time you use a ranged arcane power which deals damage and targets exactly one creature before the end of your turn, the power targets two creatures, but you deal half damage on a hit and no damage on a miss.

Encounter Utility

Admixed Spell Wizard Utility
Encounter Arcane * Metamagic
Move Action Personal
Effect: The next time you use an arcane attack power which deals damage before the end of your next turn, you may choose one of the following damage types: cold, fire, force, lightning, or psychic. Half of the damage dealt by the power is of that type.

Empower Spell Wizard Utility
Encounter Arcane * Metamagic
Move Action Personal
Effect: The next time you use an arcane attack power before the end of your turn, the power becomes Empowered. An Empowered spell gains critical threat on all of its attack rolls.

Enlarge Spell Wizard Utility
Encounter Arcane * Metamagic
Move Action Personal
Effect: The next time you use an arcane area or close power before the end of your turn, the power becomes Enlarged. An Enlarged burst power’s burst size increases by 1. An Enlarged blast power’s blast size increases by 2. An Enlarged wall power’s wall length increases by 2.

Persistent Spell Wizard Utility
Encounter Arcane * Metamagic
Move Action Personal
Effect: The next time you use an arcane attack power before the end of your next turn, the power becomes Persistent. Targets of a Persistent spell take a -2 penalty to saving throws against its effects.

Quickened Spell Wizard Utility
Encounter Arcane * Metamagic
Move Action Personal
Effect: You may use one arcane power which can normally be used as a standard action.

Self-Sustaining Spell Wizard Utility
Encounter Arcane * Metamagic
Move Action Personal
Effect: The next time you use an arcane power which can be sustained as a minor action before the end of your next turn, the power becomes Self-Sustaining. You can use a Self-Sustaining power’s Sustain Minor as a free action.

Notes

In the rewrite that I'm doing, you can use encounter powers in any combination, up to a limit of 3 per encounter. So, each of the encounter metamagics takes the place of a regular encounter power. If, for example, you used an encounter power, then Quickened another encounter power, you could get 2 encounter powers off in a single turn, but would then be down to at-wills.

Empower Spell mentions something called "critical threat;" if you have critical threat on an attack, you get a critical on an 18-20 (normally it's just 20). Critical threat is the only way to expand your critical range, and it doesn't stack.

Heighten Spell makes an attack power bypass resistances and incorporeality; some of the monsters written for this system have damage resistance unless you attack with a magic weapon, or use a magical implement to focus a spell. Incorporeal creatures are also damaged normally by magical weapons/implements. In this system, magical weapons don't grant enhancement bonuses, but they are necessary to fight certain creatures (such as wraiths, shadows, some demons or angels).

[Ashdate]

True, but a few of the wizard's single-target powers are downright nasty. Mirror Sphere comes to mind (which has my personal record of making the most DMs go "it does what?!" :smallamused: ).

No disagreements from me! I am curious to see kieza's rewrite, as the power (as written) would be pretty bonkers for most controllers in 4e I suspect.

[Firebug]

That doesn't work, least of which because triggered actions cannot occur on your own turn.

Triggered actions most certainly can occur on your own turn, just not immediate actions (the most common form of triggered action). There are quite a few free and no actions that have triggers. Lesser/Regular/Greater Dimensional Step/Flash of Distraction/Ringing Weapon(bard) and Press the Advantage(rogue) are a few at level one.

In fact, the Bladesinger(wizard) class' main schtick would cease to work (not that its well constructed anyway) if powers could not be triggered on your own turn.

[kieza]

No disagreements from me! I am curious to see kieza's rewrite, as the power (as written) would be pretty bonkers for most controllers in 4e I suspect.

Well, it's a very...extensive rewrite. It started out as a collection of houserules and home-brewed content that my last group used, and after the group broke up I started to think about getting it published, so I've been writing down as much as I can remember and formalizing it. Thing is, the project has kind of grown since then...right now, it's probably sitting at around 150 pages, more if you count the notes on the campaign setting, and I'm nowhere near done.

[allonym]

Triggered actions most certainly can occur on your own turn, just not immediate actions (the most common form of triggered action)

Opportunity actions also cannot be triggered in your own turn.

[Excession]

You might want to phrase it as "arcane attack power" to avoid a Bard using it on Majestic Word, or a Swordmage on their Aegis.

[Ashdate]

Triggered actions most certainly can occur on your own turn, just not immediate actions (the most common form of triggered action).

You are correct! My brain farted.

[tcrudisi]

I'm in the middle of writing some homebrew stuff, and I'm debating how to phrase a power. Is there any precedent for a power which is a triggered minor action, as follows?

Split Spell Wizard Utility
At-Will Arcane * Metamagic
Minor Action Personal
Trigger: You use a ranged arcane power which targets one creature.
Effect: The power targets two creatures, but you deal half damage on a hit and no damage on a miss.

That would be a free action, and yes, such triggers exist.

The one that immediately springs to mind is the Daggermaster encounter power. It has a trigger like: You scored a critical hit on your turn. Then it's a minor action attack power.

As others have said, immediate actions and opportunity actions are impossible to have for triggers on your turn. Note that it's not entirely worthless for Split Spell to be an opportunity action, as it is possible to apply it to an immediate action. But, yeah, mostly worthless.

Make this power a free action and it works fine.