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Oct 4, 2011 -- 8:53AM, Mand12 wrote:

It'd be nice if you read the thread, as there are new arguments this time.  On the "reactions are reactions" side, anyway.  I mean, I'm still pretty sure you won't do so with an open mind, but there's a chance I'm wrong about you, I guess.

I read it. The arguments aren't new, they've been used in other threads. It'd be nice if you read the rules and just accepted they were correct rather then ignoring them. I'm pretty sure that will never happen, but I could be wrong about you I guess.

I would ask Mand12:  Where does it define events as 'attacks or individual squares of movement'?  It does list them as specific examples of times when a reaction can interrupt part of an action and therefore we do know that an individual attack or square of movement is an event; but I haven't actually seen something that says 'an event is a square of movement' or 'an event is an attack'.  Thus Plaguescarred indicating that an immediate reaction can react when 'an event is resolved' has some merit.  Of course, if an immediate reaction was listed as having to wait for 'an action to be resolved' then indeed Instinctive Darkness would have to wait for the entire attack to be resolved.  However, immediate reactions can react to 'events' which are never defined.

Therefore, we have two possible interpretations:  
A) Events can only be the things that WotC has given us examples for (attacks and squares of movements).
OR
B) Events can be any nebulous thing that we can figure out to have some kind of distinctive behaviour from anything happening around it (obvious examples include: being targetted, being hit, being damaged, being healed, etc).

Now, the common response in this thread seems to be 'well, Instinctive Darkness is a reaction - if it reacts to the targetting, then, combined with some other stuff, it seems to act like an interrupt - which it isn't!  how does that work??'.

I point your attention to the targetting rules in many powers - they often say 'One creature you can see' or something similar.  If Instinctive Darkness was an interrupt, then when targetted, you could use it, and your attacker would not have line of sight, and so could not target you; then Instinctive Darkness would cancel the attack all by itself.  

However, as a Reaction, the attacker still has you targetted, and therefore can still roll to hit you (albeit at a -5 penalty for not being able to see you).

Thus, Instinctive Darkness, under Plaguescarred's interpretation (which I strongly feel is the correct one) is a Reaction to being Targetted, and behaves quite differently than it would if it were an Interrupt to being Targetted.

This distinct difference in what happens if Instinctive Darkness were an Interrupt vs a Reaction, indicates to me that at the very least, the possibility occured to the writers.

Finally, I prefer Plaguescarred's interpretation as RAW because it requires reading the least into the rules (note that I am specifically NOT commenting on RAI, as that can only be clarified by the writers, regardless of what seems obvious or not).  Specifically:  In order to interpret events as A) above (events are only attacks or squares of movement) then we have to add in a sentence to the RC, along the lines of 'events can only be individual attacks and individual squares of movement'.  In order to interpret events as B) above (events are some undefined thing) we only have to read the rules and realize that events are never defined.  Of course, this interpretation leaves RAW with a gaping loophole - what the heck is 'an event'? We have some examples, but no definition - so clearly WotC needs to clarify this.  Until WotC does so, I am inclined to NOT put words into the RC, and therefore fall back on the english definition 'A thing that happens'.  Clearly, being targetted is 'a thing that happens', as is being hit, being damaged, and the myriad of other possibilities that occur mid-action, including WotC's examples of 'an attack' and 'an individual square of movement'.

Edit: As a final comment, WotC's example of an 'attack' also specifically makes it so that an immediate reaction to 'being attacked', would have to wait for that entire attack to resolve, even though the attack could be further broken down into smaller events under interpretation B) - you would have to wait for targetting, roll to hit, roll to damage, and effects from the attack before you could react, even if you could react before the next attack (if the action was a multi-attack action).  But it allows for reactions and interrupts to trigger off of those smaller events, if the writer so wishes (as is the case with Instinctive Darkness under this interpretation).


Final Edit:
Pro's for Interpretation A)  We get a definition of event, and there is no loophole in RAW. 
Con's for Interpretation A) We got the definition backwards, by assuming that the examples were the definition, instead of examples being examples.  Assumptions are usually bad.

Pro's for Interpretation B) We don't make any assumptions about the rules.
Con's for Interpretation B) We have a loophole in RAW, where we have to assume that the english definition is good enough.  Assumptions are still bad.

My personal opinion: Assuming the writers were going to use english definitions wherever possible (since we're using english anyway, and this would save space) seems more common sense to me than assuming that an example is actually a definition.

Erm.  That would make that paragraph pretty flawed.  Doesn't invalidate my points, but I'll remove it if I'm wrong about that.  (Might be thinking of a different game since I don't have the RC).

All right, I'll modify the above to indicate that many powers specifically require you to see the target, even if you don't need line of sight in general.

As a minor side note, if you don't need line of sight for attacks, why does it specifically say under area attacks that you don't need line of sight to the target square?