Nytmare
David Jose
9 times out of 10, I ignore what the characters know, leave it to what the players know, and worry about explaining why things happen after the fact?
knowing you're marked
9 times out of 10, I ignore what the characters know, leave it to what the players know, and worry about explaining why things happen after the fact?
DracoSuave
First Post
Every encounter that's ever had an eladrin, and they ain't exactly a rare or exotic race.
But that's why I mentioned a reasonable access to knowledge.
I mean, how many fights do you need to get into to hear some guy say 'I heard dem faerie elves can teleport.'
Zero.
If access to the knowledge is reasonable, I see no reason why a monster would be blissfully ignorant.
Doctor Proctor
First Post
Hmmm, I guess I tend to play the monsters much as I described my monsters reacting to the players, too.
In other words, the monster applies the "Marked" condition, and the player knows they're marked ... but if the monster has a special attack it can do if its Marked target ignores it, the players learn that "the hard way".
We alternate DM's on alternate weeks, though, and my players call me the "evil" DM, so YMMV!
Yeah, well, the problem comes when the DM's monsters know that your Fighter has Combat Challenge and Combat Superiority, but you don't know when you're marked that the monster marking you will smack you upside the head for 2d8+x (or whatever their damage is) if you ignore it. But, that's more of a DMing issue, and not a true rules issue.
DracoSuave
First Post
You DO have the chance to know.
That's fully covered under monster knowledge checks, under 'powers'.
The rules are actually pretty blunt on that issue.
Prestidigitalis
First Post
Sure, but an Eladrin is relatively easy to identify. How do you recognize a Swordmage as distinct from a Fighter or a Ranger or an Avenger? And how can you tell that the Swordmage's mark will allow him to teleport to your side and bonk you? RAW, maybe you just can. But I don't have to like it.
Again, I want to stress: I'm okay with game-ist explanations on most all of 4e, and I can accept a lot of stuff like "Bards hit hard with their swords because their awesome Charisma makes the target all googly-eyed and confused". There's just something about this mark business that makes me want to strike off into house rule territory.
When I see artwork for a character, the first thing I try to figure out is, what class is this character? It's conceivable monsters are trained with a good eye for that sort of thing. The gelatinous cube will keenly observe the power source you're using when you show your hand with greenflame blade, and since you marked him, knows you can only be a swordmage, and based on your fullblade, the genius cube deduces you must be an assault swordmage who will teleport and smack him if he ignores the mark.
Whatever...
Really it doesn't matter too much which way a DM prefers, I'll gladly play under either interpretation of marks. When I DM, half the time I don't even think about it. I know what the monster needs to do, I know the effects of the mark, I'm not shy about triggering those effects when I need to. I doubt a DM who tries to play without prior knowledge of mark mechanics will trigger them considerably more or less often.
The object of the mark is that a majority of the time, monsters should attack their marker. This is how defenders draw attacks. A minority of the time the punishment mechanism will come into play either because monsters are playing some predetermined gambit, or playing dumb. If needed, any action can be justified with some creativity.
DracoSuave
First Post
It's obvious I'm talking about -intellegent- monsters here.
Which said gelatinous cube would qualify as if it had +10 to Arcana and +12 to History, as an example.
DracoSuave
First Post
Here's a non-gamist example.
Let's say the monster in question is a Human Mage.
He might know about it because he -studies magic-.
Monsters should have a -reasonable- chance to know stuff like that... the afformentioned gelatinous cube wouldn't because that's not -reasonable-.
A dragon might, because dragons KNOW stuff like that.
To think the extreme of 'never, no, clearly Aegis is a secret, how can they possbily know' is giving -way- too much secrecy and credit to the Arcane powersource.
Aegis shouldn't get to be more secret than a Magic Missle, Eldritch Blast, or Majestic Word. They are all on the same order of 'basic level stuff arcane characters of the various classes get' unless Swordmages are somehow a really well kept secret.
If they aren't, Aegis isn't, being that all Swordmages have one. You could say it's one of the ways you identify a swordmage.
Also, how do you identify a swordmage?
He casts spells. With swords. Be my first guess.
Right: the DM has to be good enough to separate "What this monster knows" from "What I know".
But that's a given for the game, in general.
The same is true for just about anything role-playing-wise: the player has to be able to identify what he knows but his character doesn't, the DM has to provide means of getting information to the player that his character knows but the player doesn't.
Thus:
Which makes me think that a similar, inverse check would be required for the monster to recognize anything beyond the basic "I'm marked" condition.
I don't think there's anything that supports a strong argument either by RAW or by RAI to settle the issue "Do you know everything that can trigger by ignoring a mark, or do you only know that the marked condition has been applied to you?"
. .
The argument "if any Level 1 character can ..." is a bit of a straw man, because it assumes Level 1 player characters are very common. By RAW, the player characters are actually unique: an NPC of the same class isn't built by the same rules, so the chances of the monster having encountered an actual PC before? Probably fairly rare, unless the DM thinks "Yes, Level 1 player characters are common in my world."
Then there's also a question of how much interaction there are between the races: if you're DM'ing a world where Eladrin are considered a myth, a forgotten race from an earlier time .. but somebody's playing an Eladrin, well, monsters should really have no idea what he's capable of. Even if the Eladrin are simply sequestered, typically keeping to themselves, the typical orc may not know much about them .. while if there's a long history of warfare between orcs and Eladrin, then, yeah, pretty much every orc should know about the whole teleport-y thing.
The same question applies for your Swordmage example. Yes, every swordmage has an Aegis. But if there are only fifty living Swordmages, it may not be likely that every intelligent monster out there can recognize one right off the bat.
Addressing class-specific marks: if I'm wearing chain mail, long sword, and small shield .. what class am I? I could be just about anything - I've seen a paladin in that get-up, as well as warlord, fighter, and a few others. The idea that the monsters automatically recognize the class of the enemy, and therefore all of their powers, feels a bit .. off .. to me.
Which may be why the RAW is intentionally vague on this issue, as discussed by Gruns and I on page 1 of this thread.
And why I'll play marks much more the way Prestidigitalis seems to want: some monsters may recognize things pretty quickly, some monsters will learn from experience, and some monsters will be too dumb to ever learn.
Really, that's no different than other powers: some monsters know that magic is more dangerous if they cluster together, some monsters need to learn that from experience, and some monsters will be too dumb to ever learn.
If all monsters refuse to cluster together, that really sucks for the arcane casters, your Wizards, Warlocks, and Sorcerers especially. If all monsters always know everything that a player can do on a mark, that really sucks for the defenders.
Ahh, simulpost. We're saying much more the same thing than I thought we were.
I don't want all monsters to know the effects of all marks, all the time ...
But similarly, I don't want all monsters to not-know the effects of any mark, ever.
Sorry for belaboring the point unnecessarily, above.
