Marking

[Aulirophile]

Actually it says it immediately before the sentence I started at. I could have extended the quote to include that as well if it would have made you feel better.

The "marked" condition I do not disagree with you on. However, the condition is only a part of the ability that placed it.

See latter comment, source is outdated.

 

[Dracorat]

The errata states:

Combat Challenge
Page 76: In the second paragraph, replace “a marked enemy that is adjacent to you shifts or makes an attack” with “an enemy marked by you is adjacent to you and shifts or makes an attack.” In addition, whenever an enemy marked by you is adjacent to you and shifts or makes an attack that does not include you, you can make a melee basic
attack against that enemy as an immediate interrupt.

Or has it been superseded by a non-errata source?

 

[WalterKovacs]

Not quite - a creature knows what a power has done to it. It knows about imposed conditions such as the mark condition - it does not (by RAW) know about effects of the power which don't affect it.

So, it certainly does not automatically know that a swordmage aegis grants the defender extra abilities - those are effects on the defender, not the marked creature. It also certainly would not know about a fighter's combat challenge (barring in-game exceptions).

The paladin's mark isn't quite as clearcut. Certainly, the paladin's mark punishment affects it, and it knows about it if it is affected. However, a paladin's punishment doesn't necessarily kick in at all, so the argument could be made that it knows of the effect (the damage) once it is affected; i.e. at the moment it is damaged, and not before. However, a probably more reasonable interpretation is that the conditional damage is itself an effect applicable to it; the monster thus knows about it.

But in general, affected creatures don't know the effects of powers, they only know the effect the power has on them. Note that this is also a practical distinction; a player (including the DM) needs to know how to resolve an effect on his PC/creature, so making that information explicitly available to the PC/creature avoids a class of metagame headaches. By contrast other effects are just a distraction - sometimes a tactically interesting distraction, but usually not.

E.g. in the case of marks; it is fairly reasonable to assume there's some extra penalty, and the creature doesn't really need to know the details to want to avoid the risk, if possible.

The thing is though, that while a fighter or battlemind or warden marks a creature, a paladin subjects it to a divine sanction or divine challenge and a swordmage subjects it to an Aegis. They put an effect on the creature which puts a mark on it, as well as imposes the punishment.

Consider, for example, the warlock at-wills. Dire radiance, if you move closer, you take the damage a second time. Do monsters hit by the power know they'll take damage if they move closer?

Certain effects, like the Aegis and Divine Challenge/Sanction, let the monster know the consequences as a deterent. While others, like the fighter's various abilities, are meant to suprise the monster (they thought it was safe to shift or make a non-ranged attack ... they thought they cold just eat the OA and move away). The analogy was, I believe, the spider vs. the snake. Certain defenders (and a lot of control type powers) give the enemies information as deterent, while powers that interupt and react which are hidden from enemies hide the information in order to trap the enemies. The former may not trigger as often, an enemy would rarely trigger it unless the good outweighed the bad, while the latter powers don't work as well as deterent because, as Stranelove taught us, a deterent isn't very good if no one knows about it.

The distinction between "normal" marking and powers that trigger off it, and special types of marks, like divine sanctions which have the punishment "baked in" is the difference between deterent and trap.

 

[Colmarr]

The distinction between "normal" marking and powers that trigger off it, and special types of marks, like divine sanctions which have the punishment "baked in" is the difference between deterent and trap.

Which is fine in theory, but somewhat hard to take full advantage of when the DM is sitting across the table from you and knows exactly what the "trap" abilities do.

 

[eamon]

The thing is though, that while a fighter or battlemind or warden marks a creature, a paladin subjects it to a divine sanction or divine challenge and a swordmage subjects it to an Aegis. They put an effect on the creature which puts a mark on it, as well as imposes the punishment.

There are several powers in the game that are entirely pointless if the target of the power knows its effects. I don't think that's the best way to play. Certainly RAW is explicit - creatures only know of the effects on them, not the of the power itself.

Consider, for example, the warlock at-wills. Dire radiance, if you move closer, you take the damage a second time. Do monsters hit by the power know they'll take damage if they move closer?

I think they should know. As I mentioned in the paladin example in the post you replied to, the more reasonable interpretation is that the threat of punishment itself is an effect they should know. I merely noted that it's not as clearcut as might seem; you could interpret that rules blurb differently.

Certain effects, like the Aegis and Divine Challenge/Sanction, let the monster know the consequences as a deterent.

Your phrasing is misleading: the powers themselves do not let the monsters know any such thing. However, the effects the power impose are known - which means the creature knows. The distinction matters for other powers.

In general, it's pretty hard to play dumb. You just get used to certain effects, because the PC's use them again and again. So it's entirely natural for a DM to do play defensively against such abilities even if the creatures in this combat haven't yet seen the abilities. That's just unavoidable. Indeed, your entire combat strategy will habitually grow depending on the party abilities. If a party has a bunch of large burst/blast users, you'll avoid bunching up. It's just habit... As a general rule, when in doubt, assume the creatures don't know what's going to hit them. Not only is that more reasonable, it will compensate for the inevitable tactical DM knowledge leaking into the monsters. It's also more fun; although deterrent is effective, after spending all that character juice on abilities it's disappointing to almost never see them in action - even if in some cases the deterrent effect is actually more powerful than the punishment.

 

[Sorry_Charry]

PHB, pg 57 (Paladin's divine challenge is expressly used as an example) Basically, you're marked... you know it.... and you know that some amount of damage will result from an attack that does not include the marking paladin. Now... how much damage? Press your luck and find out.

 

[mkill]

I personally prefer to run the game in the spirit of the rules, not the wording. If something gets in the way of the fun, I handwave it. Of course, it's possible to try to deduct how much exactly a monster would understand of a specific mark, and there might be some differences between classes.

However, I run a game, not an exam in D&Dology.
You're on the safe side if you handle it this way:
* monsters know that they are marked
* monsters know what the punishment effect is after it was triggered the first time in the combat
* smart monsters are able to make a tactical decision between attacking the defender and triggering the mark (this should be done at face value - e.g. the monster won't know that it missed the defender four times because it rolled badly, rather than his high AC)

 

[Sorry_Charry]

D'oh... hit submit before finishing the post.

So, basically... I'm thinking that this would apply to any power / class ability that has some sort of if x then y clause.

Talking about the use of a different power, or a feat that amends the base power? Maybe the target would be unaware.

 

[eamon]

D'oh... hit submit before finishing the post.

So, basically... I'm thinking that this would apply to any power / class ability that has some sort of if x then y clause.

Talking about the use of a different power, or a feat that amends the base power? Maybe the target would be unaware.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Take the swordmage aegis example someone brought up earlier. That includes and if x then y clause for the defender. Do you think this option should be known by the target?

If so, take the rogue's Dance of Death Power. This includes an effect that if the target attacks the rogue, you can make it attack another creature instead. The power is pointless if the target knows of this trap. By RAW, it doesn't know of it, since this option is not an effect on the target, but on the rogue. Do you think it should know of the trap?

Or take the warlords Brash Assault at will. This includes an effect letting the target attack the warlord - but if it does, the warlord can grant an ally an attack. This power is worse than a melee basic attack if the target knows how the effect works. By RAW, it doesn't - it only knows of the effect on it - namely that it can choose to attack - not the other effects of the power. Should it know of the trap?


RAW works well in this case. I'm all for alternative interpretations when they make the game work better, but I don't see how that's the case here. Creatures should know what's affecting them, but not the parts of the power that don't affect them (including if x then y effects when those conditional powers apply to others than the target).

 

[shamsael]

In my opinion, given awareness of even the -2 to attacks, the monster will always opt to attack the marking opponent if possible.

If you want to make this a question of creature intelligence, even a predatory animal such as a wolf would be aware that the marking opponent is probably more vulnarable than other opponents, and therefor unlikely to go for an apparently more difficult target.

Sorry to quote myself, but it seemed easier than quoting the replies, which I understand and agree with. I only cited the wolf example since I was typing at work and typed as much as I could while waiting for a compile to finish.

To expand, I would also say that the more intelligent a creature is, the more likely it would be to ignore the mark. I usually assume that any opponent with combat experience will assume that violating the mark will probably result in 1[W] or more of damage, depending on the tier, coming at them, unless he has more information from the power effecting him (swordmage aegis or divine challenge).

If an enemy can negate the mark with combat advantage, or if an unbloodied opponent can get a shot at a bloodied leader or striker, he will weigh the consequences of the damage they're going to take against the benefit of eliminating a dangerous enemy.

For less intelligent or experienced enemies (peasants, beasts), the mark decides everything, though.