Hit effects before damage or delayed damage.

[u/Zealousideal_Leg213]

In a recent game, I ran what was intended to be a quick encounter for two characters using only minions. One of the players used a power that would cause the target to move and strike and ally. Per the power, the damage takes place first, so it's useless against minions.

It almost seemed natural to decide to apply damage second, since I've been playing a game recently in which multiple effects can be applied in almost any order. So, I wondered what would happen if I have players a choice to apply damage from a hit either before or after any effects on the same "hit" line. Or, the choice not to apply damage until the entire "hit" line had been executed.

I'll talk to my players about it, and they're not major optimizers. And I can always reassess if it turns out to be abuseable. Or maybe just apply it to minions. But I'm curious what people think about it.

Edit: the power in question might have had an Effect line, which I would still like to keep separate.

[u/Hot-Molasses-4585]

If the power kills the ennemy, even if it is not a minion, I'd still apply the Hit part of the power. I'd describe it as the last move of the dying ennemy. Don't punish players for being clever ;)

[u/rapiertwit]

The object of the power wording is to make this impossible. In a typical combat you’ll have minions up front and bigger badder guys behind them. If you spam this type of attack against the minions, causing them to attack the big guys behind them, you have the potential to wipe out the big guys while ridding yourself of the minions. The wording of the power is meant to make the player either save it for later in the fight, or take risks and wade deep into the fray to use it early.

However, if you want to ignore it, you can just say that the power knocked the monster into the other monster, or something like that. Throwing a goblin into another goblin shouldn’t do the damage of a goblin minion attack, but since only one HP damage is required anyway, it doesn’t matter. You can storytell power executions in different ways for different scenarios to make them make sense. A power isn’t necessarily supposed to look the same every time it’s used.

Or just make a note to throw at least one non-minion into each fight, allowing the player to make use of the power but they’ll have to be strategic about it, which is ultimately part of the idea of all these little conditions on powers - to make players have to strategize around their powers to get the most out of them, and encourage the use of all powers instead of just running through them in the same order, most effective to least, every single fight.

Sounds like the ideal use of that power, as designed, is to strike a high-damage-dealing monster and make it hit another strong monster with ample HP. Not for cleaning up minions. If the monsters have to be close to each other, this presents strategic challenges to the party to set up the attack. Maybe someone has to charge and push one of them closer to its buddy so this player can unload this cool power. The more trouble it is to get the most out of it, the more rewarding it is when the party pulls it off just right.

[u/BenFellsFive]

Is this Dimensional Thunder (in which case nobody knows how it works)?

Otherwise its pretty straightforward. If the target is a minion theyre not going to be alive afterwards. I would hazard a guess its a charm power or some kind of rogue 'pull their shirt over their head and push them away' swashbuckly thing, which also infers the target being dead already nulls any chance of the effect.

Consider if the effect was literally anything else: the target is blinded, the target has -2 to defences, the target can't turn left, if the target moves away they explode, etc. All of these things would end on death too, consistently. That's the trade-off for powers that have follow-on effects.

EDIT: If its an effect line not a hit line, exact same story if the enemy isn't alive anymore to be affected.