D&D 4th Edition RulesAsk questions about 4th-Edition rules and the like in here. General discussion about 4E or any other game belongs in General RPG Discussion, above.
Okay, so I have a group of fellow players who have all selected strikers as characters. In order to fill the gap of both Leader/Healer and Defender/Tank, I'm thinking of creating a bard with the Spirit Talker multiclass feat.
Here's what I'm thinking:
A Cunning Bard, that makes a strong utilization of the "Misdirected Mark" At Will Ability. The wording is such that you can mark a target by an Ally with a successful hit of this power.
With the Spirit Talker Multiclass feat, you have the ability to Conjure a Spirit.
Now, the question that remains is: Is the Spirit you summon considered an *Ally*? i.e. Can you summon a spirit ally, then use Misdirected Mark to place a mark on a target, with the Spirit being the "giver" of the mark?
Nothing in the new conjuration rules on p. 220 specifically says anything pertaining to that question.
It might be suicidal, but it also might save those fragile strikers I have to heal. Just thinking up possibilities...
Spirits are not summoned creatures. They are conjurations, and do not qualify as allies, enemies, or even creatures. They have the same status in the game as spell effects like Mage Hand and Flaming Sphere.
More to the point, what is the benefit of allocating a mark to an ally? Unless the ally has some sort of feature/power of some kind which provides an explicit benefit from the mark then the mark is just an empty thing.
Lets say hypothetically your spirit can be allocated a mark. It has NO feature which lets it DO anything to a marked enemy. Within the core classes there are only 2 which can benefit from a mark, paladin and fighter. Warlocks and Rangers have "mark like" features, but neither of them IS a mark, so they cannot benefit from a misdirected mark.
So, basically the bard's misdirected mark at-will is of no value in a party without either a fighter or a paladin (or I guess a swordmage perhaps if you are using those).
As an aside, the feat Student of the Sword seems to suffer from the same problem. Except for the case of a paladin taking this feat I can't see anything in RAW that would give a character ANY benefit from SotS' marking mechanic. Maybe there is a FAQ entry on this subject or something. I have to ASSUME that the intent was that the feat grants the same benefits of the mark as those granted by the Combat Challenge feature of the fighter class, but they did fail to mention that in the feat text.
A mark still applies the -2 penalty to attack rolls for attacks that don't include the "marker" as a target. Misdirected Mark is essentially a debuff, and used properly it can be an effective tactic even without an ability that triggers on an attack by a marked enemy.
My Beast Protector beast master ranger would love the ability to have his beast mark opponents... not sure I can justify the feats and the charisma bump to get Misdirected Mark though... likely not worth it.
Hah, ok. Thanks for all the replies! Yes, the effect does feel a little "mashed in", so I suppose I'll have to figure out another way to keep the damned fool strikers in my party alive (without a defender! *Sigh*).
We'll see...
Oh, and to AbdulAlhazred: Duelpersonality is right on the money as to what I was thinking for the Misdirected Mark Ability... I've been in campaigns where the defender wasn't doing his duty to mark targets, and the leaders and strikers got pounded on by "boss" monsters. It wasn't pretty. *Any* debuff I can use to hinder that from happening again is welcome.
Plus, I'm starting up another campaign where everyone was told to "play what they want"-- it seems as though everyone but me has chosen to play a striker. I can imagine certain fights aren't going to be too pretty...
The bard could just as easily use the power that gives a -2 to all attacks. It's basically the same as marking it, except that the summoned spirit would also be harder to hit (and you are doing 1d6+ instead of 1d8+).
The bard could just as easily use the power that gives a -2 to all attacks. It's basically the same as marking it, except that the summoned spirit would also be harder to hit (and you are doing 1d6+ instead of 1d8+).
No, the key with a mark is that the target DOESN'T have -2 to hit ONE PERSON.
A creature with -2 to hit just does less average damage. That's not as valuable as a creature's damage being redirected to the right place.
Which would you rather? 4 foes who each hit a different party member for 20 damage each, or 4 foes who all hit the same party member for 18 damage each?
Not to mention that in this particular case, the spirit can turn any amount of damage under 10+level into 0 damage, and any amount over that into 5+level... That can potentially be a massive amount of mitigation.
As for whether it's legal? I think it probably is: the spirit can, after all, be targeted with attacks, and it's definitely an ally.
A mark still applies the -2 penalty to attack rolls for attacks that don't include the "marker" as a target. Misdirected Mark is essentially a debuff, and used properly it can be an effective tactic even without an ability that triggers on an attack by a marked enemy.
I don't know what -2 penalty it is you are talking about. Show me ANY rule in the game that says that a target marked by a rogue has any effect put on it at all. Only misdirected mark or some similar power can create such a mark, and there is no rule for what that mark does. The -2 to hit anyone else thing is a part of the fighters class feature, Combat Challenge. A rogue has no such feature, and thus any mark he creates has NO effect. It doesn't give a -2, it doesn't do anything. Unless there is some generic rule for what marks do, which I don't find anyplace in the PHB.
Thus it is worthless for a bard to allocate a mark to a rogue (or a cleric, or a wizard, etc) because they can't DO anything with it. It is only meaningful if the mark is allocated to a fighter or a paladin (and it is a bit murky with paladin because his mark comes from a power). I would have to read swordmage to know about that one, but I don't recall ANY class from PHB2 that lays a mark either.
I don't know what -2 penalty it is you are talking about. Show me ANY rule in the game that says that a target marked by a rogue has any effect put on it at all.
Please open up your PHB and turn to page 277.
"Marked: You take a -2 penalty to attack rolls for any attack that doesn't target the creature that marked you"
You realize monsters mark as well? It's the same thing. Combat Challenge and Divine Challenge both mark and have a special ability that occurs as well. "Marked" is a generic condition that gives a -2 debuff to a creature.
I don't know what -2 penalty it is you are talking about. Show me ANY rule in the game that says that a target marked by a rogue has any effect put on it at all. Only misdirected mark or some similar power can create such a mark, and there is no rule for what that mark does. The -2 to hit anyone else thing is a part of the fighters class feature, Combat Challenge. A rogue has no such feature, and thus any mark he creates has NO effect. It doesn't give a -2, it doesn't do anything. Unless there is some generic rule for what marks do, which I don't find anyplace in the PHB.
Thus it is worthless for a bard to allocate a mark to a rogue (or a cleric, or a wizard, etc) because they can't DO anything with it. It is only meaningful if the mark is allocated to a fighter or a paladin (and it is a bit murky with paladin because his mark comes from a power). I would have to read swordmage to know about that one, but I don't recall ANY class from PHB2 that lays a mark either.
This is a common misunderstanding of what a "mark" is. Look up the conditions table in the PHB and you'll see that there's a "marked" condition that grants a -2 to hit against anyone other than the person that marked the target. This is the "generic" rule that you were looking for.
All Defender abilities (Combat Challenge, Aegis, Divine Challenge and the Warden powers) key off a mark, but are not marks in and of themselves. They have ways to apply a mark, and then a feature that works against enemies that have been marked. This is why you don't apply the Divine Challenge to the Paladin abilities that mark additional opponents, that's just a generic mark. The only enemy that gets the DC damage is the one that the Paladin spent a minor action applying Divine Challenge to.
So, that being said, anyone can "mark" an opponent with the generic "marked" condition providing they have a way to apply that mark. The Bard's Misdirected Mark power is one such way, while multiclassing to get a power from another class is another way (some Paladin powers and Fighter dailies apply a mark as part of the power). However it's done though, if someone is "marked" by the Rogue, they simply just have a -2 to their attack rolls to anyone other than the Rogue. That's all.
I don't know what -2 penalty it is you are talking about. Show me ANY rule in the game that says that a target marked by a rogue has any effect put on it at all.
If you also have the Player's Handbook 2, turn to page 218 (the page entitled "Appendix: Rules Update"), look at the little box on the bottom right of the page, entitled "The Marked Condition."
It states pretty clearly there that any creature with a mark on it suffers from a -2 penalty to attack whenever it attacks something that did not put the mark on it.
But back on topic, if the rest of the players wanna be strikers, why are you trying to do everything else?
Some strikers are already good at buffs ... so rather than needing any sort of defender, just play a buffing leader, bonus-stack, and make "kill stuff quickly" the party motto.
I reckon a valorous bard is awesome in a group of strikers.
You'd be granting temp hp just about every round ('cos ideally strikers bloody & defeat foes often), so you'd be dishing out a lot more survivability than just your majestic words.
Mix up your powers between melee and ranged (since they're all cha based), ideally with a songblade.
I particularly like Stirring Shout for the anti-boss beatdown, Song of Courage for quickly mopping up a large fight ..
Shout of Triumph is an obvious choice, but Blunder and Inspiring Refrain are decent choices too.
And never mind your ranged at-wills, guiding strike + striker-gang-circle-bash = hilarious. Ok, fine ... it only works if the party are targeting the same defense .. but hey ... it can help you hit next turn, too.
I'm looking at it, and I'm tempted to build this bard for myself ..
Hmm .. dire radiance as a dilettante power ...
__________________ The Passion of Lovers is for Death
I don't know what -2 penalty it is you are talking about. Show me ANY rule in the game that says that a target marked by a rogue has any effect put on it at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Player's Handbook, pg 277, under Conditions
Marked:
* You take a -2 penalty to attack rolls for any attack that doesn't target the creature that marked you
Easy enough to miss, since that's about the only place it's spelled out.
No, the key with a mark is that the target DOESN'T have -2 to hit ONE PERSON.
A creature with -2 to hit just does less average damage. That's not as valuable as a creature's damage being redirected to the right place.
Which would you rather? 4 foes who each hit a different party member for 20 damage each, or 4 foes who all hit the same party member for 18 damage each?
.
Well I'm not sure I agree. Marking your opponent is the same as giving them -2 to hit, except that they have an option to negate it. Presumably the only times they will take that option is when it works out best for them. Thus I'd rather not give them the option in the first place.
Well I'm not sure I agree. Marking your opponent is the same as giving them -2 to hit, except that they have an option to negate it. Presumably the only times they will take that option is when it works out best for them. Thus I'd rather not give them the option in the first place.
This isn't like brash assault where the numbers are straightforward and easy to run, and therefore giving the choice to a foe is outright bad. At worst you steer the foe towards the resolution you want (except in the single situation that the monster can hit every single member of the party). Remember - the DM isn't supposed to be springing 'trap' abilities on the party, and if he's going to, then he can easily set you up to fail anyway.
As for whether it's legal? I think it probably is: the spirit can, after all, be targeted with attacks, and it's definitely an ally.
1) Misdirected Mark wouldn't be targeting the Spirit Companion.
2) It is definately not an ally. An ally is a creature. Conjurations are powers. Powers are not creatures. Please refer to 'Conjuration' on page 220. The Spirit Companion description says nothing to override this.
3) Unless you are using a power that -explicitly- targets conjurations (or the spirit companion itself) -only- attack damage can affect a conjuration, and -only- if some extra rules text outside of the game allows for it. The spirit conjuration -does- say it can be targetted by melee and ranged attacks, and then goes on to say -only- damage can affect it. Being the recipient of a mark is -not- damage, and therefore cannot affect it.
Please note: The game treats spirit companions as effects, not as creatures. No text in the game treats them as creatures. Everything a shaman does that is flavored as a spirit or spirits is either a conjuration or a zone power, and everything a shaman does that is flavored to affect their spirits affects conjurations and zones.
A spirit companion follows the same rules for Flaming Sphere.
Also: For whoever said being marked to a Ret-Avenger is good: Oath of Emnity does more DPR than either of the Censures. An Avenger'd rather have their oath target incentived to attack them, while their other opponents are incentived to stay away.
Last edited by DracoSuave; 24th March 2009 at 01:20 PM..
Linear Mode
And yet another word from our sponsors
