Is dominated ally still an ally for purpose of powers?

[Saeviomagy]

I think you may have missed the point. Suppose you have the rule "mutual consent" makes someone an enemy/ally. A power says "+2 damage for every enemy in the area of effect" (there are powers which do this), then it would obviously be advantageous to have the guys on your side that happen to be in the AoE decide they are your "enemy" for this purpose.

Only if you are an idiot. WOOT! I did +2 damage to my foes because I hit my ally with the full force of a spell that would have otherwise left him unscathed!

If you're stupidly allowing someone to be an ally for SOME parts of a power and an enemy for other parts of the same power, then no wonder you've got problems.

 

[DracoSuave]

I completely disagree. An ally is only an ally if the person considers him such. For instance you can be a jerk and OA your buddy if he moves away from a square threatened by you, and if you have a power that excludes allies you can leave a monster out of the effect if you feel like it.

And if the monster feels like it. The definition for 'ally' is -very- clear on that. The monster also has to be willing.

Otherwise, Dark Pact warlocks would consider EVERY monster except their target an ally for obvious reasons.

Could the fighter, who (for the sake of argument) stands adjacent to the dominated creature also make an OA at the start of this gauntlet run - and use CS to stop him before trying to move more than 1 square?

I suppose he could, but he'd have to make his decision pretty quickly.

And the dominator would probably not complain -too- much, seeing as the alternative would have been to have the dominated foe make an attack anyways. The fighter's not exactly a weak punch.

 

[eamon]

Only if you are an idiot. WOOT! I did +2 damage to my foes because I hit my ally with the full force of a spell that would have otherwise left him unscathed!

If you're stupidly allowing someone to be an ally for SOME parts of a power and an enemy for other parts of the same power, then no wonder you've got problems.

What Saeviomagy says and further: that power is asking for bag of rats troubles anyhow. Clearly (however unfortunately) some DM ruling will be requires to limit the targets to a reasonable number. Since it's a power on a monster, that shouldn't be a problem; but allies vs. enemies isn't the core issue with that power anyhow - if you can "break" it by considering friends enemies, you can certainly break it by considering all those ants enemies.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What Saeviomagy says and further: that power is asking for bag of rats troubles anyhow. Clearly (however unfortunately) some DM ruling will be requires to limit the targets to a reasonable number. Since it's a power on a monster, that shouldn't be a problem; but allies vs. enemies isn't the core issue with that power anyhow - if you can "break" it by considering friends enemies, you can certainly break it by considering all those ants enemies.

I don't know where anyone got the notion I was suggesting that someone would be considered an enemy for part of a power and an ally for another part. Obviously in the example given there's a certain price in that you MAY hit and damage your "ally that you've decided to treat as an enemy" but it can be a good trade-off if it means increasing damage output on a bunch of other targets.

The point is you cannot leave it up to a PC to decide who is and isn't his ally at any given instant, nor can you even leave it to mutual consent in all cases. The DM IS going to have to be willing to get involved and put a stop to hokiness at times.

I don't know where these "ants" are coming from either, lol. That would be an entirely different issue and is already pretty obviously not going to fly in any real game. I don't recall any DM ever considering resident vermin to be part of the game. I mean come on, there are how many gagillion microbes floating around? Its silly.

 

[eamon]

I don't know where these "ants" are coming from either, lol. That would be an entirely different issue and is already pretty obviously not going to fly in any real game. I don't recall any DM ever considering resident vermin to be part of the game. I mean come on, there are how many gagillion microbes floating around? Its silly.

It's not a different issue. In that specific monster power, you can't let the user choose the targets based on maximal effectiveness anyhow because it runs into bag of rats issues. In short; the power isn't well-designed and is not a good example both because it has this bag-of-rats issue concerning targets and because it's a monster power that's presumably (though perhaps unfortunately) held to a lower standard. The mechanics don't make much sense; that's a weakness in the power, not the rules.

The generalization that "mutual friendship" is an imperfect rule based on this one example monster power is thus misleading; this example has more general targeting troubles (so choosing a different ally/enemy rule won't fix those).

In any case, I'm pretty sure that in general mutual friendship is the most reasonable simple rule for adjudicating confusing cases. As you say though, there are always cases where a DM needs to excercise common sense. I hope (particularly for player powers) that those are very, very rare, however. And I expect powers where that's the case have more general bag of rats issues anyhow - when it's unreasonably effective to consider an ally an enemy, you're dealing with a weird power anyhow.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I don't know where anyone got the notion I was suggesting that someone would be considered an enemy for part of a power and an ally for another part. Obviously in the example given there's a certain price in that you MAY hit and damage your "ally that you've decided to treat as an enemy" but it can be a good trade-off if it means increasing damage output on a bunch of other targets.

Except that you're trying to amp up the damage of a power by making that power hit a bunch of allies. It's just not going to be a significant beneficial tradeoff unless the damage bonus is massive and the chance of hitting your allies is incredibly slim compared with hitting monsters, in which case there is something else going wrong with your game.

That's why I assumed you were splitting the power, because that's the only time it's going to be a significantly powerful tactic. In any other situation that's within the parameters of a normal game, you can feel free to snigger behind your screen as the players blast themselves to bits for 10 extra points of damage.

 

[Mengu]

Another couple situations came up in our last game about domination that had me pondering what to do.

If a dhampyr dominates our wizard, can the wizard use "enlarge spell" for a large scorching burst and dump it on all of us including himself? My gut reaction was no, but thinking about it more, I'm not sure. Similar question could be asked about using power attack, or other feat modification to an attack.

Second question, since Lay on Hands is at-will, can a dominated paladin use lay on hands on the dominating creature? It seems like a brutal abuse, but I don't see anything against it.

 

[DracoSuave]

Another couple situations came up in our last game about domination that had me pondering what to do.

If a dhampyr dominates our wizard, can the wizard use "enlarge spell" for a large scorching burst and dump it on all of us including himself? My gut reaction was no, but thinking about it more, I'm not sure. Similar question could be asked about using power attack, or other feat modification to an attack.

Yes. Using a feat with a power is perfectly legitimate. That's all tied up on controlling a single action. Within the context that single action, the dominator has complete control.

Second question, since Lay on Hands is at-will, can a dominated paladin use lay on hands on the dominating creature? It seems like a brutal abuse, but I don't see anything against it.

Technically yes, unless they've errata'd Lay on Hands to be the same as its replacements in Divine Power (those are dailies).

Also, I've houseruled Lay on Hands to be a daily, for no other reason than it prevents players from thinking blowing it every round is a great idea.

However, do bear in mind, that's using the Paladin's only action that turn; he IS still dazed. So, while that IS nasty for the Paladin, it's not necessarily as nasty as OA gauntlet running.