4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

I stumbled across an situation in game play that I didn’t know how to handle and I was hoping for a second opinion.

My PCs fighting a slightly higher level creature that they were gangging up on.

My Wizard cast Icy Rays and immobilized the target (granting combat advantage against him).
My Cleric cast Spiritual Weapon and attacked (this spell grants combat advantage as well).
Finally the creature was flanked.

now...is that a +6 to attack??  Or do these not stack because they are all combat advantage?

I erred on the side of my PCs and gave them the +6

They overlap and do not stack. What this means is that the baddie grants combat advantage for three reasons in this case and as long as at least one remains in place, he still grants combat advantage.

This works for others conditions as well. For instance, if a baddie were to be dazed by multiple PCs, he would have to save against each one, but the effects would overlap.

Combat advantage never stacks.  You either have it (+2) or you don’t.  Conversely you either grant it, or you don’t.  With combat advantage you can never have more than +2.

Regards,

Kalex the Omen

I see.  That makes sense to me.  I just find it strange that being dazed, immobilized and flanked isn’t more of an advantage than simply being 1 of these things.

I was thinking that since dazed, immobilized, flank, etc. are different conditions that grant combat advantage that it would stack so long as the source was differnt.

ex.
player 1 dazes baddie
player 2 immobilizes baddie
player 3 dazes baddie too
player 4 immobilizes baddie too

in my mind there are 2 different sources of combat advantage here and they would stack because they are from different sources. So players would have a +4 to hit the baddie.

Does that make sense? I know the bonus is technically from the same source but that doesn’t make game sense to me…

If you have trouble accepting non-stacking CA, I suggest giving only +1 (cumulative) to the total after each instance of CA after the first. That way it gives some benefit but does not get out of hand. This is a house rule obviously.

So, with this rule, 3 different conditions giving CA would give +4 (and not +6).

That’s actually not a bad idea...i like that…
Thanks Rothe