What a creature knows question

[DarkLord Of DForce]

I'm having a bit of trouble resolving this in my mind. What I've been told is that whenever you use a power on a creature, it knows everything that's being done to it. For example, the marked condition. It knows that if it attacks someone other than whoever marked it, it takes a -2 to the attack.

All well and good.

However, let's say you use a power that says something like, the next time this creature attacks you, it does half damage...or its ally takes half the damage it inflicts.

Now according to what I'm being told, the creature that has this effect on it knows it, and will NEVER attack you then. Knowing the effect, it will automatically turn and attack another creature, effectively making this particular power *useless*.

How does everyone deal with something like this? Just seems odd to me. It seems like creatures shouldn't be aware of somethings a power does until it happens. <shrugs>

Thanks.

 

[d2OKC]

I don't know about the rules, to be honest, I just know how I typically adjudicate these matters in my own group. They're probably not RAW, so careful using them.

I usually take it case-by-case, and it depends on the intelligence or wisdom scores of the monster in question. Intelligent humanoids and dragons and beholders and such will not attack if something dangerous will happen to it, opting instead to find other ways to harm their enemies. Beasts and constructs and undead and whatever will almost always attack, regardless of the consequences. Usually, I try and have some of both in a combat, so that particular powers are not rendered useless like you mentioned.

Also, it depends on whether enemies are bloodied or not, and how I interperet their bloodied state. An orc goes into a frenzy, so it will probably attack in those circumstances. A lich would take it as a warning to be more cautious, and will probably try to avoid those attacks even moreso than before.

All in context, which, admittedly, makes it much more difficult to judge...

 

[Unwise]

In a similar way to d2OKC I tend to run things on a case by case basis, though with one overriding guideline.

What the creature knows is dependant upon your roll. If you are a defender or controller, the creature always knows what you are doing to it. If you are a striker, it generally does not.

This is done to make the powers useful. Defenders' or controllers' powers should force or coerce a monster into a particular choice of action. As a result, it is necessary for the monster to know the effect that is on it. A striker however is meant to do damage, so by default the monsters will not know enough to avoid taking more damage.

A classic example of this is "The enemy takes 5 additional damage if they move towards you" not knowing about it stops this being a controlling power and makes it a damaging power. It has no effect on the creatures actions without forewarning. On a controller/defender the intent is assumed to be control, on a striker the intent is assumed to be to do 5 more damage.

(In the above example, I would likely make an exception, but just wanted to show my general guideline)

Another example is Dragon Tail Strike (high paragon rogue), when it hits, the next time the enemy attacks you, you get a free attack on it. Since it is a Striker power, I assume the enemy does not know this. Defenders get plenty of similar abilities to attack people that attack their friends, in those cases I assume the monsters know that.

It helps having players know the basic assumption, they can make a case for any of their powers to be different, however the power will stay like that, they can't chop and change. Other than that, I run it just like the poster above me.

 

[Zaran]

The power you describe would be a controller power. The controller is basically controlling how that monster attacks. When I am GM I basically decide how a monster inteprets the condition given them. When a swordmage places an Aegis on a creature it knows that it should probably deal with the swordmage or something bad will happen. It might not know that if it strikes someone else that the swordmage will teleport next to them and stab them.

A good GM should always let the monster make bad decisions or at least decide that it's worth a strike from the fighter to kill the rogue that just jabbed it in the spleen. This keeps encounters fun and gives the player that dropped the condition some gratification that they did something useful.

I listen to the Major Spoilers: Critical Hit podcast and I get annoyed when the GM never ever breaks the mark of the fighter.

 

[Will Doyle]

Yeah, pretty much as above. For me, it's a mixture of how the enraged the creature is, how stupid it is, how important the encounter is, and how much fun the players are having.

If it's a mook I'll let it trigger these effects - then rule they're aware of them. That doesn't stop them triggering again if they get enraged (or more typically, if I forget). If it's a smart enemy, or a big bad, then I'll generally rule they're aware of these effects from the start. Similarly, if it's intended to be a tough encounter, I may make all enemies play a little wiser.

Overall though, I hate nerfing player powers - and that overrules all the above. For instance, I may rule that a deadly drow assassin recognises these effects right away, but in an adventure populated solely by deadly drow assassins, they'd be triggering them all the time.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Yes, the monsters know what can happen, but doesn't know about follow-up powers. He knows about the mark, but doesn't know that the warden can do some other things (for example). However, as DM I frequently have my monsters violate the conditions. This does several things:

1. It tends to speed up combat by allowing the PCs to do more damage or impose even more penalties on the monsters.
2. Makes the player happy because their character gets to do some more cool stuff.
3. Makes all the players a little more engaged because it proves that the monsters don't make perfect choices.
4. Shows that as DM I don't have the monsters have perfect tactics, therefore there's no requirement that the players have perfect tactics. This tends to speed up combat as players don't hem & haw over every decision because they know I won't do my best to "outwit" them.
5. The game is simply more fun!

 

[SnowleopardVK]

However, let's say you use a power that says something like, the next time this creature attacks you, it does half damage...or its ally takes half the damage it inflicts.

Now according to what I'm being told, the creature that has this effect on it knows it, and will NEVER attack you then. Knowing the effect, it will automatically turn and attack another creature, effectively making this particular power *useless*.

Use the power then have your allies back up. They can continue attacking at range from places that it can't get to in one round, or where it would have to put itself at a big disadvantage to reach. Basically control the battle so that after you use this power the only options it has are attack the one it doesn't want to attack or waste a round trying to move into position to attack one of the others.

 

[Riastlin]

However, let's say you use a power that says something like, the next time this creature attacks you, it does half damage...or its ally takes half the damage it inflicts.

Now according to what I'm being told, the creature that has this effect on it knows it, and will NEVER attack you then. Knowing the effect, it will automatically turn and attack another creature, effectively making this particular power *useless*.

Well, this really depends on how you look at the power. To me, this type of power seems designed to let you attack the monster without fear of it hitting back. This is particularly good for the squishier PCs who generally do not want to be hit all that often.

Similarly, the purpose of a defender's mark is to encourage the monster to attack the defender (even though it doesn't generate the "cool" effects when it does). After all, defenders generally have higher defenses and more hit points and are as such better able to take a beating. To put it another way, if the monsters aren't attacking the defender, the defender isn't really doing his or her job.

Now all that being said, I again tend to take a look at the intelligence of the monster and then natural ebb and flow of the encounter. If the fighter marks the dragon and then the ranger lights the dragon up for 100 points of damage, the dragon may very well determine that its better to give the fighter a free shot if it might mean taking the ranger out.

Similarly, mindless zombies will generally attack whoever is closest, regardless of any marks. In another example, in my last session the shielding swordmage marked the displacer beast packlord and then ran away while the rest of the party hemmed it in. Basically, the pack lord could have provoked a bunch of AoO's to try to get to the swordmage, or it could take multiple swings at those that were around it (realizing that a lot of the damage would simply be negated by the swordmage's mark). It chose to fight the ones that were actually hurting it.

To put this more concisely, there are a lot of powers that have controllerish effects (even though the class is not a controller). The purpose of controllery powers is to encourage the target to act in a certain way (or to not act in a particular way). It is not to simply add more damage to the power.

 

[Mengu]

Now according to what I'm being told, the creature that has this effect on it knows it, and will NEVER attack you then. Knowing the effect, it will automatically turn and attack another creature, effectively making this particular power *useless*.

It's not useless, it's called control.

There are many conditions that influence a creature's decisions. Perhaps the PC has me marked, and I'll have penalties and take damage if I attack someone else. I'm bloodied and the damage might kill me, or I already have a -2 to hit from a controller effect, and don't want to take further penalties. Or my moving to attack someone else will provoke an opportunity attack, and I currently have vulnerable 5 all damage, so I don't want to do that. Or perhaps the other nearby PC that I could attack, is currently invisible to me, and I don't want to take the -5 penalty.

Control is all about putting monsters into situations where they have to make hard choices. Attack the easy to hit already hurt striker but do half damage? Or attack the hard to hit mostly fresh defender and do full damage? If the striker is bloodied, and the monster's allies are all attacking the striker, he might decide to suck it up and hit the striker anyway for half damage.

However, having said that, such control powers in the hands of inexperienced players can indeed become useless. A bit of system mastery is required. Using a power that causes the creature to do half damage, right after it's turn is probably not smart, your 4-5 allies that go after you might drop that monster and that half damage will never come into play. Similarly, inflicting a save ends condition that benefits your allies, right before an enemy's turn is also a bad idea, since he might save on his turn and none of your allies will benefit. You need to know to hold your action till after the creature goes, so all your allies get the benefit for at least one round. It's important to be aware of which powers with what timing work well together.

 

[Pentius]

Now according to what I'm being told, the creature that has this effect on it knows it, and will NEVER attack you then. Knowing the effect, it will automatically turn and attack another creature, effectively making this particular power *useless*.

I don't really want to get into the rules bits here, but if I had a power that guaranteed I wouldn't be attacked for a turn, I would not at any point consider that power useless.