Who are "Allies" or "Enemies" when dominated?

[mwiedmann]

I had a cool situation today. While looking to rescue some slaves, the party barged in on some Legion Devil minions who were apparently looking to have their way with a few slave women. I described the scene as the women were sort of laying on the floor in tattered clothes looking a little roughed up while the devils drooled over them. The party was just in time. There were a few other monsters in the room as well. Ok..enough setup.

The Cleric immediately dropped Moment of Glory on one of the devils (really just to get the resist 5 damage):

Target: Each enemy in blast
Attack: W i s d om vs. W i l l
Hit: You push the target 3 squares and knock it prone.
Effect: You and each ally in the blast gain resist 5 to all​

damage until t he end of your next turn.
Sustain effect with a Minor Action.

Here is the twist (and first debate). The women were not slaves. They were in fact a pair of Succubui using their polymorph ability to appear to be slaves. Since the players did not know this, the Cleric demanded that the resist 5 damage apply to the "women" as well. I of course happily agreed to this. Once the first succubus showed who she really was, there was a small debate as to whether or not they were truly an "ally" of the party when the spell was cast and should they have the resist 5 damage. Everyone agreed the resist 5 should stay and we moved on.

Next debate - A round or two later, a succubus dominates the Cleric and forces him to use his at-will power Astral Seal on the party's Goliath:

Standard A c t i o n Ranged 5
Target: O n e creature
Attack: W i s d om +2 vs. Reflex
Hit: Until the end of your next turn, the target takes a -2
penalty to all defenses. T h e next ally w h o hits it before
the end of your next turn regains hit points equal t o​

​

​

​

2 +​

your Charisma modifier.

The Goliath gets hit and I state that the next monster to hit the Goliath would regain hit points as stated in the spell text. Of course this sparked another debate about who is the Cleric's "ally" when he casts the spell. This one I can see both sides because the Cleric is dominated and is acting against his will. He may be somehwat aware that he is attacking the Goliath and therefore his "allies" would still be the party. I of course ruled that the monsters could get the hit points.

What do you think about these 2 situations?

 

[Squizzle]

There was a rules clarification on this literally yesterday.

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Rules of the Game)

Even after its revision, the current definition remains silent on a point that puzzles some groups: Do a dominated creature’s allegiances change? Do its allies become its enemies; and its enemies, its allies?

The answer is no. A dominated creature’s allies remain its allies; and its enemies, its enemies. This means a vampire can’t dominate an enemy cleric and then command the cleric to use his sacred flame power and give that power’s temporary hit points to the vampire (as sacred flame grants temporary hit points only to an ally of the cleric).

 

[Amaroq]

We've skirted that one a couple times, too - I've got a convoluted, Japanese-manga-inspired plotline going where at any given moment, most conflicts have three, four, or even five sides in them. I'm certain that the question of who is an "ally" and who is an "enemy" is going to come up in a multi-side battle .. especially one in which two or three parties have begun combat but the battle lines haven't been drawn for the fourth or fifth ones yet ...

Still not sure how to answer it, though I'm thinking I may approach it as your Cleric did: "You (the caster) specify a set of 'allies' at time-of-casting based on your assessment of the situation."

 

[MarkB]

We've skirted that one a couple times, too - I've got a convoluted, Japanese-manga-inspired plotline going where at any given moment, most conflicts have three, four, or even five sides in them. I'm certain that the question of who is an "ally" and who is an "enemy" is going to come up in a multi-side battle .. especially one in which two or three parties have begun combat but the battle lines haven't been drawn for the fourth or fifth ones yet ...

Still not sure how to answer it, though I'm thinking I may approach it as your Cleric did: "You (the caster) specify a set of 'allies' at time-of-casting based on your assessment of the situation."

There is some clarification on how to define allies and enemies in the PH1 (page 57, Target). Basically, "allies" are your team mates, and must be willing recipients of the effect, whilst "enemies" means everyone else, even if they are innocent bystanders.

Obviously, the helpfulness of this definition depends a lot on how you define "team mates". For a conventional game, it's easy enough to limit it to full party members, but in a more factional setting it might be more difficult.

 

[eamon]

I generally define creatures to be enemies unless both agree otherwise. Dominate is complex wrinkle; apparently the clarification WotC suggests that dominated creatures don't really change sides. That's fine, but the opposite is probably too, so long as you're consistent. It's just a slightly different style of domination; I doubt it'll make much difference.

 

[babinro]

Based on Squizzle's response, I as a DM would have allowed the cleric to use Moment of Glory on the targets with the implication that it was working as intended.

However, in actuality, because the monsters were in fact enemies to the party, I would not have granted them the damage reduction for combat. This being evident upon the first time they take damage from the PC's.

From a gaming standpoint, it doesn't seem fun to have to tell the PC's that your power is ineffective because that's actually an enemy in disguise. Or just as bad would be the opposite. You couldn't touch that 'enemy' because he's actually your 'ally' in disguise.

 

[keterys]

Moment of Glory isn't omniscient - it decides who are allies and enemies based on who you tell it. You can't, for instance, use an allies only power to look for who might be a doppelganger or assassin.

The new ruling prevents getting a lot of mileage out of Astral Seal or Commander's Strike from a dominated creature, and I'm not sure that's really 'as intended', but it prevents a couple other oddities like your allies being unable to grant you extra saves to end the dominate or throw you heals because the enemy is beating up the dominated guy.

 

[Kingreaper]

The new ruling prevents getting a lot of mileage out of Astral Seal or Commander's Strike from a dominated creature, and I'm not sure that's really 'as intended', but it prevents a couple other oddities like your allies being unable to grant you extra saves to end the dominate or throw you heals because the enemy is beating up the dominated guy.

But can't those problems be solved simply by saying "An ally is someone you wish to aid, an enemy someone you wish to harm."

If your ally is dominated, they may wish to harm you (and so won't be able to heal you) but you're probably going to want to help them still.

 

[keterys]

Sure - but apparently people were doing weird things like having a warlord use Commander's Strike on their dominated ally, to give him a free attack against the guy dominating him. That's a major twisting of intent there

Anyhow, I've personally never really had any problems with such things, but that's why it recently got changed and why they had the article about you always counting as an ally and them an enemy... which I think unnecessarily screws up using certain at-wills like a dominated warlord helping out his dominator with opening shove or commander's strike.

 

[Kingreaper]

Sure - but apparently people were doing weird things like having a warlord use Commander's Strike on their dominated ally, to give him a free attack against the guy dominating him. That's a major twisting of intent there

I think that's more a problem with Commander's Strike (it should really say "a willing ally" otherwise you can cause your committed pacifist, catholic, ally to try and hit the pope if you come across him.) than anything else.