D&D 4E Hate or aggro rules in 4e

[pawsplay]

My bet is that the Knight challenge abilities become a Warlord Talent tree.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

This is incorrect. A simple Intimidate check can take control of an NPC away from the DM. Actually, any of the social skills can take control (or at least seriously curtail) of the NPC from the DM. It does not take magical effects at all. And, note, that none of these things work on PC's.

True. But for the most part the point is the same - players always control their PC's, the DM controls everyone else. REMOVING that control is not casually done, or should not. For example, as a DM I don't care WHAT the Diplomacy roll is - _I_ am the one who determines if the King still wants to go to war (exactly as even when I DID occasionally use morale rolls I did NOT let the dice DICTATE to me what the enemy would do - which rather invalidated the purpose of a morale roll).

Yes, the DM can ignore the rules. But, that's considerably different than not having any rules in the first place. If the DM ignores the rules, the player can certainly challenge that. As it stands, there is no mechanical argument that a player can make if the DM decides that all creatures fight to the death.

There shouldn't NEED to be. The DM deciding that all creatures always fight to the death is silly on its face. Players should not and do not need rules arguments to pursuade the DM to end such practices. Nor SHOULD the DM need such rules to get it into his head that such practice might not be the best way to go about running the game.

It's simple enough to make exceptions to rules within adventures - "These cultists are fanatical and believe that dying in defense of the cult guarantees them a place at the right hand of Pazuzu, they fight to the death."

Which I take as a proof that morale rules are not necessary, and/or are freely ignored when desired making them purposeless in the first place.

I'd much rather see a fairly simple mechanic, similar to some sort of saving throw, that NPC's have to make under certain circumstances. If you choose not to use those rules, that's fine. But, I'd rather have them in.

As I may have stated earlier, I don't have a problem with that except that I don't want to HAVE to ignore rules that I think are genuinely unnecessary. Should it be that I am genuinely outnumbered by people who think that Morale is the chocolate sauce on the RPG sundae, then let it ride. But I still object to it as misspent design time and rules paper.

 

[hong]

Yet another thing for which Mearls could theoretically consult his Iron Heroes design notes. The armiger's combat magnet ability works this way.

The crusader is the new armiger, mang.