Possible problem with the Stalker talent Foe Collision

[Deighton Thrane]

So, I don't know if it's been mentioned before, at least, I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but I think the Foe Collision talent has a bit of a logical problem to it. Say for example you're a stalker with the foe collision talent, and you're fighting a Shadow Demon, and some lowly Dretch accomplices. Now, you happen to not have a magical weapon, but because of the Foe Collision ability, you can use your hidden strike to attack a Dretch, and cause hidden strike damage to the Shadow Demon standing behind it, despite the fact that neither you or the Dretch have any way to hurt the Shadow Demon if you tried to attack it directly.

It seems like there should be some provision for actually being able to harm the creature in the first place to be able to do your Foe Collision damage. As it stands the only limitation is that it's nonlethal damage, which doesn't affect ghosts or other incorporeal undead, but there are other incorporeal creatures that are subject to non lethal damage where this just makes no sense.

Also, I'm less sure of this, but wouldn't you also be able to deal damage against an invisible opponent as long as they were next to the opponent you attacked. Since you don't have to make an attack roll, and it doesn't say you have to target the opponent, it just says you do damage to an opponent adjacent to the original target.

This doesn't really seem like the intent of the talent, as it's an extraordinary ability, not a supernatural ability. I could be wrong though, this might be the intention all along, it just doesn't seem right to me. Am I missing something here?

[Trekkie90909]

The idea is you push the dretch back into something like a shadow demon, and because it's caught off guard you deal an amount of non-lethal damage equal to your hidden strike damage. So hitting things normally outside your range makes sense; the rest of it is a wording issue, and definitely needs to be addressed in some way.

For the nonce if you don't like it as written, ruling that invisible creatures get the 50% miss chance to negate the damage, and incorporeality negates the damage unless the dretch is in some way magical or ghost touch would be reasonable (or was hit with a ghost touch weapon? fling ghosts into each other!).

The invisibility bit seems like more of a fringe case; not many times you're going to know there's an invisible guy standing there and that you need to use foe collision (a work around if you're GMing).

[Deighton Thrane]

I was more so wondering if you had to know the invisible character was beside the original target. It doesn't say anywhere that you have to target it or it's square, simply that if it's there, it takes damage. I agree this mostly seems like a wording problem, but if it hasn't gone to print yet, shouldn't it be changed so the ability actually makes sense.

[Godwyn]

It does need rewording. The problem is that the wording to make Foe Collision make sense all the time might be too difficult.

Replace the Dretch with an Ice Mephit. As the mephit has DR 5/Magic, its natural attacks count as magic. Conceivably hitting the Shadow Demon with the Ice Mephit could work. It would be an interesting use of the ability.

Wording it to allow such an alternative way to bypass DR or Incorporeal. The easiest way may be to reword it to disallow it.

[Deighton Thrane]

So, I though of a couple more problems with the skill. It's entirely possible to capture an opponent, strip them of armor, tie them up, then stick them on the back of a horse to carry them around and position next to enemies you wouldn't normally be able to hit. Since nothing says the opponents have to be active in combat, or that they can't be helpless, you just pile on a couple helpless opponents to a beast of burden, position them next to the Shadow Demon, or Magus with 40 AC and displacement and 8 mirror images, or whatever other enemy you would never be able to hit, and just start going to to on the helpless opponents to cause damage to the otherwise invulnerable enemy.

I mean most of these things could be fixed if the talent allowed an attack roll to cause hidden strike damage, instead of causing automatic damage, but the more I look at it, it seems like the ability is going to need 2-3 times the word count just to make sure it's not abusable or that it actually makes sense,

[Trekkie90909]

Honestly not an issue.

Hidden strike damage is nice, but not superb, and in your above example you're going to a lot of effort to try and abuse it. Besides; the guy you're wailing on to get the 'cleave' effect is going to die quickly given your tactic. Plus most things past level 10 are flat out immune to non-lethal damage or have massive regeneration.

[Deighton Thrane]

The problem I have isn't so much the amount of damage being done, but that it's an ability that completely ignores any defenses an opponent might have, and not only allows, but incentivizes carrying around helpless animals to murder for a mechanical benefit.

Also, you can get a lot more mileage out of this ability by dealing non-lethal damage to the opponent that's triggering the ability.

[ShieldLawrence]

The talent isn't overpowering. It's nonlethal damage and it's a couple d4's or d6's that require enemies to be clustered.

Using animals seems difficult to get much utility or abuse out of. Drop bag of rats, rats run away, etc etc. To be sure, I suppose adding a line like "shoves one foe into its ally" would solve this problem.

As far as damage reduction goes, the talent is basically an automatic hit melee touch attack. You hit the bad guy with another bad guy, their bodies touch. No weapons are or can be involved, it is two bodies colliding with each other. Touch attacks bypass DR; it makes sense in my mind.

Incorporeal and invisibility may need a tweak. The can probably be fixed by adding some more words, so that is what it is.

[Godwyn]

It should probably be a touch attack at least. How do you slam a foe into someone you can't even manage to touch? Makes the most sense as a combat manouvre, but I am not sure it would be worth using at that point.

[M1k31]

on another, "similar" note... should it affect cliffs/fall damage?

I mean you are basically hitting a guy hard enough to damage another by proxy... shouldn't that give enough "oomph" to knock them off a cliff?

[David knott 242]

Deighton Thrane wrote:

The problem I have isn't so much the amount of damage being done, but that it's an ability that completely ignores any defenses an opponent might have, and not only allows, but incentivizes carrying around helpless animals to murder for a mechanical benefit.

Maybe we should bring back the old "No bag of rats" rule from D&D 3rd edition?

[Thrawn007]

I actually had to read this ability a couple times last night, since the word "evil" in it was just throwing me off. Then I understood what magic and evil were.

If you are attacking opponent A to collide into opponent B.

If your attack against A was magical, then it counts as magical against B on the collision as well. However, if your attack was NOT magical, the collision can't bypass DR of 5/magic.

So I think the animal method doesn't go anywhere.

With that said, I had to reread it several times, so that indicates it might need some wordsmithing to be clearer.

[ShieldLawrence]

Under the new wording, the damage is nonlethal bludgeoning and ONLY bypasses DR if the natural attacks of the opponent you hit with your attack bypasses that DR with it's natural weapons.

I was hoping to bypass DR altogether, but alas I forgot that all physical damage is subject to it, save for touch attacks specifically.

[Mike Lindner]

ShieldLawrence wrote:

Under the new wording, the damage is nonlethal bludgeoning and ONLY bypasses DR if the natural attacks of the opponent you hit with your attack bypasses that DR with it's natural weapons.

I was hoping to bypass DR altogether, but alas I forgot that all physical damage is subject to it, save for touch attacks specifically.

This is how I read the ability as well. So if you attack a demon, and use foe collision to shove the demon into an angel, then because the demon's natural attacks are evil they bypass the angel's DR/evil (as the demon has the evil subtype).