what stinking cloud can do

Here's the text:[sblock]Stinking Cloud Wizard Attack 5You call forth a thick cloud of bilious yellow vapors. The foul fumes overwhelm any creature within.Daily Arcane, Implement, Poison, ZoneStandard Action Area burst 2 within 20 squaresTarget: Each creature in burstAttack: Intelligence vs. FortitudeHit: 1d10 + Intelligence modifier poison damage.Effect: The burst creates a zone of poisonous

I have searched many pages and haven't found much about stinking cloud, and what people think of this power. I'm sure there's more out there, but the most recent thread tends to be focused on whether or not it grants partial or total concealment. Just to give some questioning DMs (and newbie wizards) some more information, here is an example of how stinking cloud can work in a real game.

Here's the text:
[sblock]
Stinking Cloud Wizard Attack 5
You call forth a thick cloud of bilious yellow vapors. The foul fumes overwhelm any creature within.
Daily ✦ Arcane, Implement, Poison, Zone
Standard Action Area burst 2 within 20 squares
Target: Each creature in burst
Attack: Intelligence vs. Fortitude
Hit: 1d10 + Intelligence modifier poison damage.
Effect: The burst creates a zone of poisonous vapor that blocks line of sight until the end of your next turn. Creatures that enter the zone or start their turns there take 1d10 + Intelligence modifier poison damage. As a move action, you can move the zone up to 6 squares.
Sustain Minor: The zone persists.
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Here's what that means: you create a 5x5 cloud of death that you can move all over the place and can keep until the end of battle. Anyone who starts their turn in the cloud takes damage. That's right: there's no attack roll, they just take damage. In other words, all minions are dead, because you don't even have to roll an attack to hit them. It also says that "creatures that enter the zone" take auto-damage as well. There are basically three ways something can enter the zone: they move into it, something moves them into it, or the zone moves over them. For all those who nay-say the third part of that statement, I'm sorry: if the cloud envelopes you, you have entered it. However, just about any reasonable person will agree that this last point is moot because it is also insanely overpowered and quickly houserule that it does not work the way it is written. This is because as-written, you could move the cloud on, off, on, off, and on to a single creature 3 times in a single move action; sack your standard action for another move: 3 more times. That's 6d10 + 6 x int AUTO damage every round, and you didn't have to do anything. Even level 29 dailies can't do that, so as-written, you can't really play it that way. Most people seem to either say the power only affects a target once per turn, or that moving the cloud onto something doesn't count.

It also says that the zone blocks line of sight. It's up to you to determine what this means, but the simplest conclusion is that all squares in the zone give total concealment, and a more complex conclusion says that anyone on the edge of the zone has concealment, and anyone next to someone else in the zone only has concealment, but otherwise you have total concealment. Check other threads for the details and arguments.

So:
I had just hit level 5 and decided to take stinking cloud because I didn't really like the other level 5 powers and this one sounded ok. (Seriously - I had no idea.) After one random encounter, we decided to houserule the wording to effectively say "any creature that moves or is moved into" the zone gets hit, because - as I said - otherwise it's way past broken. Honestly though, even if you dial it alllllll the way back to "only creatures who voluntarily move into the zone" are affected, it really doesn't make much difference. Sure, it sounds like an awesome combo to thunderwave someone back into the cloud (and it is) or use a slide power to push someone in and out and in again (and it totally is), but that's not going to happen more than once or twice, and who cares when you can just move the cloud to them every round. Those hits really aren't the issue anyway.

We also decided that any creature in the zone has total concealment. This ruling is technically the "worst" for the players since it keeps them from targeting anything in the zone - effectively giving the poor zone inhabitants who have just taken damage a "move around for free" card without getting pelted at range as well. It also helps the DM tactically, although depending on how they rule someone moving around effectively blind, it can also hurt somewhat. I believe our monsters moved at full speed without penalty - another "minus" for the power.

The situation was beyond tactically perfect for the use of the cloud. We were in a long room that was only 8 squares wide, and the enemies were bunched up on one end in huge groups about 10 squares away. There were ranged guys up on platforms and melee guys coming through a narrow area in the middle of the room. I think the GM added like 3 extra guys just because it was so lop-sided... In the end, we fought 4 minions, about 5 ranged guys, 3 brutes, 3 or 4 solider-types, and a mage - all about our level, with some maybe slightly lower. (Climactic finish.)

I opened with the cloud and sustained it the entire encounter - and frankly, I am kicking myself even now for forgetting to combo it with the shadowfell gloves (adds 1d6 to all damage rolls), but it wasn't necessary. The cloud not only shut down half the ranged attackers (they couldn't see us) and killed all the minions before their first turn (did I mention I went first?), but it forced the remaining ranged attackers to bunch up in a tight group... Which I then pelted with scorching burst with each standard action. After that, I just moved the cloud around each turn, enveloping as many enemies as possible, which was easy because everyone was bunched up and couldn't move very much (our melee guys got out front early and assisted perfectly) while also throwing around at-will powers. In the end, I killed all the minions (duh - wizard), ranged attackers, and the mage by MYSELF. (Note: I am not spec'd for damage.) I don't think I've ever killed a non-minion by myself before in 5 levels. I also took a chunk out of the melee guys and the brutes, but not much. The rest of the party handled all of them. However, all this is not that remarkable, until I went back and mentally counted all of the damage I did with the cloud. All total, I had hit about 25 times - and 22 of those times did not require an attack roll. We never managed to push/slide anyone into the cloud once, and I still did 22d10 + 22 x Int (and darn it, it SHOULD have been 22d10 + 22d6 + 22 x Int) of AUTO-damage with a level 5 daily power. I'm seriously considering picking up some veteran's armor (daily power: spend an action point to recharge a daily power).

Again, this was a "perfect storm" of tactical situations that came together beautifully. There was a narrow corridor and gobs of mobs. I won initiative and took advantage of it. My teammates also were completely responsible for this success, as they kept the high-HP melee enemies from getting back to my highly immobile self while I just killed everything. And I also had just picked up a cloak of distortion (ranged attacks > 5 squares away take a -5 penalty to hit), so it was REALLY hard to hit me at range. I don't know that I could have planned the whole thing better, except for forgetting the gloves.

However, it does go to show you what one level 5 daily attack power can do - and again, this is after taking the "no, they seriously could not have meant this when they wrote it this way" out of it already. All of this is just a little more information for any 4.0 DMs or wizards who are wondering, "so what's all this fuss about a silly cloud that doesn't do much damage?"

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