Divine Challenge at the end of your turn

[MeMeMeMe]

The only question this leaves in my mind is how marking works between the likes of a fighter and a paladin. My first read through things leads me to believe that you cannot mark a target already marked - which makes things a tad difficult if the fighter and paladin in close proxmity and engaged on the same set of creatures.

The line of text in Divine Challenge that causes me grief here is "A new mark supersedes a mark that was already in place." It doesn't make sense to apply this logic to Divine Challenge as "you can't place a divine challenge on a creature that is already affected by your or another character's divine challenge" and a DC stays in place as long as your engaged. But by the same token, I can't fathom that a fighter marks a target, and then I mark a target, then the fighter, etc.

Thoughts?

It's best to think of the Divine Challenge as a mark, which has extra benefits.
This exactly the same as the fighter's mark: it is a mark, with the additional benefit of allowing the fighter to get an extra attack under cirtain circumstances, for instance.

So, if the Paladin marks an enemy, the Fighter can still attack that enemy perfectly okay. But if the fighter marks that enemy (and remember it's optional), the paladin's challenge ends.

 

[Hypersmurf]

It's best to think of the Divine Challenge as a mark, which has extra benefits.

Yeah. I started to describe how ending the mark does not necessarily end the challenge, only the -2 and the potential radiant damage... but then I realised that the power only contains wording for how and when the marked condition ends, not how and when the challenge ends.

If we consider the two to be separate, then once the paladin challenges a creature, that creature can't be challenged again by any paladin, because even once the marked condition ends, he is still 'affected by the challenge'.

Thus, we must assume that the circumstances which end the marked condition also cause the creature to be no longer 'affected by the challenge'.

-Hyp.

 

[Maxim Machinery]

I concur with Hypersmurf, AcerageTable and Bagpuss; i would not have thought that the mechanics were so hard to grasp for some. I can only assume at this point that LokiDR is either so emotionally invested in his view he is unable to listen to the arguments of his opposition, or is a troll. Either way, I'm not going to waste my virtual breath spelling it out for him again.

And, as Hypersmurf demonstrated, the radiant damage is linked to the mark - remove the mark, remove the damage (cheese: have an allied fighter throw a rock at you and mark you with his challenge, removing the paladin's mark - you still take a -2, but no longer face radiant damage)

 

[kevinha]

Gotcha re: DC and it's mark being linked.

Can I assume that the mark provided by Piercing Smite does nothing more than set the target up for additional damage from something like Holy Strike? i.e., a mark applied by Piercing Smite does not cause a -2 to the creature's attack role if you are not the target (since there is no specific description other than "enemies ... are marked until the end of your next turn."

What I fail to understand is what real value this provides? Piercing Smite is an encounter power and its marking effect lasts "until the end of your next turn." If we assume that a Paladin has a minimum of a +2 to his Wisdom modifier, that can yield up to 3 marked targets (the original targeted creature + 2 adjacent.) However, the Paladin has no ability to take advantage of this number of marks, other than to target one creature next round and use Enfeebling or Holy Strike. Why then, allow you to mark multiple targets? To what end and what value?

 

[Black Knight Irios]

Marked is a condition you can find in the PHB P277. It wields a penalty to hit if you don't target the marking creature with an attack. That penalty applies regardless of the source of the marked condition, the penalty is inherent to the marked condition.
All of your marked targets face the potential threat of taking damage because they don't know to whom you are going to apply the damaging part of DC.
-So they all might attack you instead of going after one of your allies.
Sounds pretty much like a good goal for a defender to achieve.

And you can use Piercing Smite as a set up power for the power Just Radiance, but there are better set up power for sure.

 

[Pielorinho]

This thread is still going on?

Huh.

At any rate, "marked" is a condition in part because there are a fair number of monsters who mark their targets but don't have any cool bonus effects to the mark except for putting that condition on the target.

We've long since settled the issue in our game: the paladin player agreed that you gotta fulfill the challenge in the same round that you issue it, even when this is inconvenient, and we all agreed that the challenge and the mark are inextricable from one another.

Daniel

 

[Oliviander]

My Vote for Loki

Since I have wasted way too much time reading this thread, I may as well give my interpretation.

I think it is important to note that there are 3 paragraphs describing the effect of this power and that each paragraph serves a different function.

Paragraph 1: Tells you that you mark the target and how long this mark remains.

Paragraph 2: Describes the effect of the mark.

Paragraph 3: Describes the conditions that lead to the paladin not being able to use divine challenge on his next turn.

The problem with Loki's interpretation (as I understand it) is that it attempts to use both paragraph 1 and paragraph 3 together to determine when the mark ends, when paragraph 3 is not concerned with how the mark ends. The only part of paragraph 3 that should be used in interpreting paragraph 1 is the definition of engaging the target because it is specifically referenced.

Thus, read in this way, paragraph 1 contains all of the operative language for this argument. The mark ends (along with its associated effects) when the paladin uses the power against another target or fails to engage the target (meaning to either attack the target or to end his turn adjacent to the target.)

The language quoted from paragraph 3 that "On your turn, you must engage the target you challenged or challenge a different target" has nothing to do with when the mark ends. It only concerns when the paladin should be punished by not being allowed to use his divine challenge on his next turn.

I think you're quite right jeriatric, but in my opinion your'e Interpretation of the
text rather leads to the same conclusion as Loki's.

Because in the first part of the text there is nothing written that limits the engagement to the very turn when the DC was cast, you cannot assume that it automatically ends at the end of the turn when it was cast and the condition is not fulfilled.

Because if you implicate that "failed to engage or attack"
means "failed to engage or attack until the end of his turn"
without the "end of its turn" actually written in the rules,
you actually read it as "failed to engage or attack at any given time"

I'm sure if this was really meant by the rules in this way, it would have been written completely different.

IMO you only can read it as:

If the paladin "fails to engage or attack" means fails to engage or attack the target with his next possible action. (and I wouldn't count a free action as I don't know a use of a free action to actually engage or attack someone).

So if the Paladin uses DC at the end of his round the enemy cannot lose his mark before the beginnign of the Paladins next turn.

I'm quite aware that this interpretation leads to other contradictions.

And I'm sure there is no contradiciton free interpretation of that given text possible.

But in Gaming terms I prefer the possibility to use DC in this way.

 

[icarusfallz]

I believe that's called threadcrapping, and is frowned on around here. Anyway, don't assume that because people are discussing this at length here, that means that they also argue it at length during a roleplaying session. That doesn't follow.

Calling the guy a threadcrapper is kinda rude. He was stating a valid opinion (one that I share) about the conversation at hand. Granted, his opinion was about the conversation, and not about the TOPIC of the conversation, but at least he weighed in politely.

Am I now threadcrapping for defending a dude for having a damn opinion?

To me, this response was just as rude as telling someone that they need to go play in a different sandbox. We're only building castles here, and don't care about building villages.

 

[MeMeMeMe]

Calling the guy a threadcrapper is kinda rude. He was stating a valid opinion (one that I share) about the conversation at hand. Granted, his opinion was about the conversation, and not about the TOPIC of the conversation, but at least he weighed in politely.

It may be hard to believe, but I wasn't using 'threadcrapping' as a perjorative. I apologise to the original poster if it came across as rude, and to anyone else who was offended.
I was just stating that discussion about whether the entire thread itself was valid within the thread was a pointless distraction, since the people taking part obviously do think the discussion is valid.
Also, I can't see how my comment was seen as more impolite than the comment which prompted it, which was:
"If you guys are argueing this much about it I am glad you aren't in my games because I don't like my sessions slowing to a crawl." I think everyone involved in the discussion in this thread has reason to feel slighted by that comment, for the reason I stated in my original post: just because people are discussing it at length out of the game doesn't mean they would do so during the game.

Am I now threadcrapping for defending a dude for having a damn opinion?

Not for having an opinion, no. Threadcrapping is, I believe, diverting a thread from the topic onto other matters (like, say, causing those involved in the thread to defend it's reason for existence) and getting other people to join in and taking over the thread with such discussion, thus ruining the thread for those who originally started it.

 

[icarusfallz]

Thanks fer clarifying your position here, "Me to the 4th". I see what you meant.

Perhaps he could have said "I hope you guys DON'T argue like this in game."

personally, I think Smurfy, Loki, and most of these guys seem to be the types to save these discussions for the afterparty. I love these types of discussions among the people that play in my games, but I (like you, I'm sure) don't have time to mess with them at the table. If that was to break out in my game, I'd suggest they "take it outside, I'm running a game here", and make a ruling. Later, I might be convinced that my ruling was wrong, or just misguided, and I might rule differently in the future.

Anyway, thanks fer the intelligent argument. These things make us all smarter.