Monster Auras That Mark

[Xyrlove Woodsoul]

If a monster has an aura that marks enemies at the the start of an enemie's turn, and if a character starts his or her turn within multiple aforementioned auras, then how does one decide what monster actually marks the character? Is it the DM's call?

 

[ThirdWizard]

Yeah, I'd say the creatures get to choose who gets the mark benefit.

 

[nogray]

I think that the creature that is starting its turn gets to choose which order to apply the auras, meaning they could choose which was the last mark. This seems in line with there being no particular order to the start-of-turn events, and that the creature starting can choose whichever order they want for things like regeneration and ongoing damage. At least, I think that is the common interpretation of start-of-turn events.

Another option would be to treat them like the Essentials defender auras -- as long as the creature is attacking one of the things with the aura, they can avoid the -2 penalty.

On the whole, though, I think it's a situation that the monsters would try to avoid. (The only one that I found in the compendium with this is the Fire Archon Flameshield, and they would definitely use tactics to the best of their ability, being intelligent creatures literally made for battle.)

Edit to add: Oh, yeah. There are more with "aura marked" as compendium search terms. I'd limited myself to "aura mark" before.

 

[Xyrlove Woodsoul]

Well, the creatures in questions are, "Prison of Mual Tar" from MM III, which have that type of aura in an aura 5, thus, there is considerable overlap when there are a few of them.
I do like the idea of running it like the defender aura in Essentials; it seems like a simple and efficient way, and way less convoluted than trying to figure exactly what Mual Tar is doing the marking.
Thanks