4e -Warlock Elemental Pact - Accursed Affinity Pact Boon Question

[azargoth]

Hi everyone. First post here so nice to meet you everyone :)

Ok. We're starting a new campaign and I have chosen Warlock Elemental Pact. I would like to clarify a question and if someone knows officially how that works.

On the texting it says "When an enemy under your Warlock’s Curse is reduced to 0 hit points or fewer, the next enemy you place your Warlock’s Curse on gains vulnerable 5 to the damage type matching your current elemental affinity."

My question is: How do you define that "next enemy"? I have seen some answers on similar posts but not something clear.
Some say that it is the next enemy within only the given encounter.
Others say it is the next enemy whenever that is (same encounter, same day, even days after).
Others say it is until Warlock falls unconscious and the whole "next enemy" loop is broken since curses are stopped when you fell unconscious.
Others say that the "next enemy" stops when the encounter ends AND/OR when the warlock falls unconscious.

Is there some official of clearer answer to clarify this?

thanks in advance :)

[Lord Haart]

I don't think they've ever intended it to work beyond the current encounter. None of the other pacts do (and two other pacts that have a delayed effect, Dark and Sorcerer-King, both specify that the counter is reset between encounters).

Also, all other interpretations create a problem out of whether "your current elemental affinity" means one you have at the moment of pact triggering, or one you have when you actually lay a curse.

That said, it's a pact BOON. Power in reward for doing The Strikery Thing well in the name of your patron. Being able to claim it whether you've earned it six seconds ago or six days ago has some fluffy implications.
(And some bag-of-ratting ones. And it would fit better for, like, every other pact than for one described as "your magic is wild and random". So it's still a very weak reason to rule that way, unless you change other pact boons as well.)

[azargoth]

I get what you were saying on the first part but I didn't really understand the second one with fluffy implications and bag-of-ratting ones.

So you conclude that it should mean that it works until the end of the encounter, right?


PS: Elemental pact gets no riders and no special extras on any powers like other pacts. Any idea why is that? Could this be a reason to keep the boon active after the encounter ends to balance this out?

[Yakk]

Elemental pact has less support because it was added late in the 4e cycle.

[azargoth]

yeah. I've seen that. it's pity because it is a nice pact. anyway. what do you think yakk about the boon and the "next target" issue?

[Lanaya]

Until the end of the encounter is the most reasonable reading of the effect, things are not supposed to last for weeks. And elemental pact is far and away the best pact boon in terms of raw power, so it doesn't really need any riders to compete with the others. Large quantities of vulnerability (that even stack with other vulns!) are some crazy nonsense.

[Nightgaun7]

Others say it is the next enemy whenever that is (same encounter, same day, even days after).
Others say it is until Warlock falls unconscious and the whole "next enemy" loop is broken since curses are stopped when you fell unconscious.


Who actually says this? Those people should be bopped on the nose with a newspaper any time they suggest it.

[Yakk]

I'd go with that.

Whenever a cursed foe drops, you record your current elemental affinity. The next target you curse gets vulnerability to that.

There is no end condition, and I see no serious balance concerns to having it last indefinitely.

By making it the current affinity at the time the target died, after a short rest your vulnerability is usually going to be less useful anyhow.

[Waddacku]

I don't see any problem with it lasting indefinitely or with it being the affinity at the time the Curse is applied. It doesn't stretch the wording and it's the most playable way of handling it. The only place anything is wonky is that a new character's first Curse won't have it.

[masteraleph]

I don't see any problem with it lasting indefinitely or with it being the affinity at the time the Curse is applied. It doesn't stretch the wording and it's the most playable way of handling it. The only place anything is wonky is that a new character's first Curse won't have it.

It's a very powerful effect if the individual in question takes steps to set the appropriate damage type. It's one of the few ways to apply generic elemental vulnerability- not "your attacks," but totally generic. And it's unusual in that it encourages focused fire but isn't all that useful on the first "nova" turn.

[Lanaya]

There is no end condition, and I see no serious balance concerns to having it last indefinitely.

By making it the current affinity at the time the target died, after a short rest your vulnerability is usually going to be less useful anyhow.

Depends on your frame of reference for what counts as imbalanced, but in most peoples' games it's going to be imbalanced as heck. You can set your affinity to whatever you want any time you like by burning your second wind, so any time you roll the wrong number you just have to switch it over to the right one. At that stage, minor action to paint someone with vuln 10 cold, stack on lasting frost so they're vuln 15 because elelock lets you do that for some bizarre reason and you've got some huge damage boosts, that can also easily be shared with the rest of the party. And that's the really simple stuff, I have a battlemind|warlock who was instakilling standards at level 13 despite being primarily built as a lightning rushing defender, because vuln 10 fire has absurd multiplicative effects with firewind blade. If I'd actually been trying to build a striker, killing elites in a single action without any daily resources spent wouldn't have been unreasonable (maybe it'd be left on a sliver of health, I'd have to run the numbers, but silly amounts of damage either way). If you're playing it in the right environment, sure. Wouldn't be the first striker that can do lots of damage, nor the most impressive. But elelock is a lot more easily accessible and abusable damage than I see floating around in most peoples' games, so I wouldn't recommend that ruling unless you're trying to create a high-op environment.

[azargoth]

thanks everyone for replying. I see still various opinions are discussed so I better settle this with the DM and how to rule it. We'll probably go with the "ends when encounter ends" way :)