Marking via Dragon's breath

scadgrad

First Post

• Jul 12, 2008

• #1

Hey Gang,

A recent disagreement in our group over the Dragonborn fighter's ability to mark large numbers of foes via combat challenge. By the RAW it appears that using his feat-enhanced breath weapon, he can mark up to 25 foes (5X5 breath weapon). Now granted, it's often the case that most of these guys are minions and will be killed by the breath weapon and it's extremely unlikely that he'll ever get that many foes conveniently grouped together like that, but he can still mark a butt-load of dudes. This seems like complete nonsense to me (and all of our players other than the guy playing the Dragonborn fighter, but hey, who could blame him). Is there are a FAQ that I've missed or is this how y'all are playin' it in your campaign.

Opinions and thoughts greatly appreciated.

 

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G

generalhenry

First Post

• Jul 12, 2008

• #2

did he attack them?
did he choose the mark them?

if yes, then he's marked them. Though only for one round.

 

Branduil

Hero

• Jul 12, 2008

• #3

They're marked, if he wants them to be.

 

K

Korror

First Post

• Jul 12, 2008

• #4

As far as I know, that's exactly how it's supposed to work. Any opponent that the fighter attacks is marked and this include burst and blast attacks as well. If it was otherwise, the close burst powers that the fighter has would be not very useful. Marking targets hit by your breath weapon is a nifty trick for dragonborn fighters but not overwhelming or anything.

 

F

Foxen

First Post

• Jul 12, 2008

• #5

Ditto...

By the rules, he can mark all of them.

As a DM of a extended breath dragonborn fighter...I allow it...he takes the risk of marking multiple mobs, but he'll do it to save the party if needed...but rarely does he catch "that" many non-minion monsters gathered together in one lot.

Fox

 

H

hailstop

First Post

• Jul 12, 2008

• #6

Well, if those 25 enemies were minions, they're all dead. If they're not dead, then they're probably close to the PC's level. If there are 25 monsters close to the PC's level...they're in big trouble.

 

C

Crazy_Dragon

First Post

• Jul 12, 2008

• #7

I agree with Hailstop cuz if they are minions they drop dead, but if they dont that means unless they have super loot the are in for some hurt anyway

 

S

Stalker0

Legend

• Jul 12, 2008

• #8

Well....the minions are only dead if the fighter actually hit them. Else, they are very much alive....but still marked.

 

T

theNater

First Post

• Jul 12, 2008

• #9

Marking all of the enemies on the battlefield for one round is a completely reasonable thing for a fighter to do. Remember that the attack granted by Combat Challenge is an immediate action, so the fighter can only do it once per round.

 

Kzach

Banned

Banned

• Jul 13, 2008

• #10

There are times when I think you have to incur the DM fiat encounter power called, "Common Sense".

I feel this is one of those times.

By virtue of his role, the fighter is a melee based character. It makes a certain sense that he can 'mark' adjacent targets because he can interfere with their attacks against targets other than himself and if they move, he is in range of affecting them immediately.

Sure, if you use RAW, then you can mark every target attacked by this ability, however I strongly suspect this was an oversight on the part of the designers and we will see future errata on the marking ability to include, "...in melee..." or "...adjacent targets..."

The spirit of the rule and basic common sense dictate that you can't mark foes with area, blast, or ranged attacks. I think it's fairly clear it was never meant to work this way and that quoting RAW is abusing a hole in the system for purposes of power-gaming.

What next? Dragonborn fighters multi-classing into wizard to get multi-target marking capabilities five or so times an encounter?