Hey guys, I just wondered if I could double check something that happened in tonight’s session with you - It’s almost 1am here so I apologise in advance if I’m missing something obvious but after tonight’s game I started overthinking something to do with teleport+boon focus.
A PC was about to be attacked by a giant spider, there was one other PC and an NPC accompanying them on their travels. The NPC is built around subterfuge and infiltration, not combat savvy at all, so she was just using her teleport boon to zip around and assist the PCs.
As the Spider went for a huge attack, essentially one-shotting one of the PCs I decided to have this NPC save him using an interrupt action, she teleported him to safety and the Spider’s attack hit nothing but the space where he used to be. Since the NPC had Boon Focus - Teleport, I didn’t see the need to roll for it. It helped the PCs, they appreciated the assist from the NPC who they’re starting to bond with and it progressed the story.
However, that was an incredibly easy way to dodge a potentially lethal attack. This isn’t an issue as far as NPCs are concerned because I bend the rules with them all the time, the issue is if my players want to start using this combo then I want to make sure I understand the rules consistently.
So I suppose what my sleep deprived brain is trying to say is this: Is Boon Focus - Teleport, an instant, foolproof dodge? In my understanding Boon Focus makes your chosen boon an instant success, no need to roll. So if an enemy rolls something ridiculously high that poses a real threat to the PCs, can they just say “Well I teleport with Boon Focus” and auto-succeed in dodging the ability?
I don’t necessarily see this as a problem unless all the PCs start doing it but I want to make sure I’m interpreting the rules correctly so I can be consistent when my PCs are involved. It helps maintain the illusion that I don’t bend the rules for NPCs.
I went back to check the rules and it didn’t say if an interrupt actions would stop the current action, so it is basically up to the GM to decide which way it works the best for their world.
What I see in your example (and would have to remind myself when I met that same situation too) is that the player failed a roll but you’d like it to be a success with a cost, so you have the NPC used her interrupt action and may have put her in danger; however, since you also canceled the spider’s action, this cost is then less significant to the player.
What I may do instead is, not only the NPC spends her interrupt action, the spider either haven’t spent its major action, or even refresh its round (and spend actions are regained, especially the move action) to show its furry of a suddenly disappeared target (food or threats to its babies, whatever make seance to the story).
I have a player who uses this and I just let them make a defend roll with their movement score. Just because they auto succeed the teleport doesn’t necessarily mean they get the teleport off before the attack hits. Defend rolls can also represent your speed in reacting.
You can absolutely do a Teleport to try and dodge.
However, a defend interrupt requires you to MEET or BEAT the initially attack roll. You can only do that by rolling.
So like Rparker10 said, you would still have to do a roll. With Boon focus, that means you would have advantage on the roll (Advantage 2 for Boon focus 1, Advantage 3 for Boon Focus 2, etc)
But you still have to do the roll to beat the attack. Maybe the teleport wasn’t quite fast enough, or maybe you helped move them out of the way so they didn’t take as much damage (the original attack is a 28, you roll a 25, so they only take 3 damage isntead of the 8+ the would have)
To note the Defend Interrupt allows you to move an ally up to half the movement, so you don’t get to move them as far as you might have hoped, but that is the trade off with allowing them to not take the damage.
A GM could rule to allow the full movement of the teleport, however, b/c of the unique nature. All up to the GM and the story/moment.
First off thanks to everyone for chipping in, some great ideas on how to handle it and balance it for that specific situation or similar in future.
This^ is ultimately where my confusion came from, Defend Action requires a roll vs the attack, Boon Focus is an auto success with no need to roll, I didn’t know which rule to give priority to - I’m liking the idea of giving them the advantage from the feat though, that doesn’t completely negate the feat but it implies that their reaction time is a factor.
This is all hypothetical at the moment of course as none of my PCs have attempted this yet, but I thought after seeing the NPC do it they might try and emulate.
When you do a Defend Interrupt Action you are doing an Attribute Action Roll. So in the case of describing it as you teleporting someone, you actually are rolling Movement, not the teleport boon, but Flavor wise (and as an argument for why you can use the movement attribute to do the defend action) you are describing it as teleporting the person out of the way.
It is up to the GM whether or not to allow the advantage you gain from Boon Focus to apply to this action or not (personally I would as a GM). Flavor wise it becomes whether you were fast enough to teleport them out of the way or partially out of the way.