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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eldritch_Lord" data-source="post: 5870943" data-attributes="member: 52073">That's exactly my point, that you shouldn't treat marking as a purely metagame mechanic, because it creates more problems than it solves.The creature knows it's marked, which means it knows it's going to have a hard time hitting something besides the fighter.  If it knows this because "the fighter is harrying your movements, preventing you from striking his allies without exposing yourself," that's fine; if it knows this because "the fighter hefts his axe and glares at you, and you don't think you should turn your back on him," that's fine; if it knows this because "...because," there's a problem.I'm not insisting that creatures see game mechanics, I'm insisting that the argument "Just treat it as a metagame thing, you don't have to explain it" is a bad one.  There should be some in-game rationale, however tenuous, for anything that happens in game, and anything that a creature can tell about another creature should be a result of in-game actions/knowledge.For instance, if Joe the Fighter readies an action to strike Bob the Rogue when Bob comes through a door because Joe's trying to protect Sam the Wizard behind him, there are several possible logical ways to handle it:--Joe is trying to look nonchalant and not give away his plans, in game; in game, Bob has no special information about Joe's actions, and when Bob decides to go through the door he gets hit.--Joe is obviously preparing himself to hit Bob, in game; in game, Bob can see that Joe's doing something dangerous-looking but doesn't know exactly what, so Bob decides not to go through the door.--Joe is obviously preparing himself to hit Bob, in game; out of game, Bob's player is told that Joe has a readied action to hit Bob, so Bob decides not to go through the door.Which of those you use depends on whether Joe wants to dissuade Bob from coming in or try to surprise him, and whether you describe effects in IC or OOC terms.  What is not a logical way to handle it is this:--Joe is trying to look nonchalant and not give away his plans, in game; out of game, Bob's player is told that Joe has a readied action to hit Bob despite that, so Bob decides not to go through the door for no good in-game reason.That's the issue with treating marking as a metagame mechanic.  Cause and effect don't follow in-game, and players and monsters have to make decisions based on OOC information.So it's okay for the PCs to bust into the villain's throne room to find him buffed to the gills with all his remaining spell slots full of combat spells and have him use every last slot because he knows it's the climactic fight and he doesn't have to worry about anything besides the PCs?  It's one thing for the villain to scry the PCs, determine them to be a threat, and make some preparations which may indeed include unloading tons of combat spells, but having the villain do that only because the DM knows he's the main villain of the plot and he wants to make it a challenging fight whether the PCs surprise him or not is another.  Again, it's all a matter of acting on IC versus OOC knowledge.Once again, "I'm going to walk up and smack the king because I'm a badass and think I can take his guards" is different from "I'm going to walk up and smack the king because I somehow know that Fate is going to automatically make 5 attacks of my choice miss me for contrived reasons before I have to worry about being hit" is another.If you'll recall, the statement that prompted this tangent was the following comment by Hussar:My point about marking, and the examples I used to illustrate it, was that you can't have a "purely metagame" mechanic that affects absolutely nothing in the game world that then explicitly informs the target of the ability what happened to it the way marking does.  Purely metagame abilities should stay purely metagame--no giving or using OOC knowledge in game--and any abilities that are not metagame abilities should have some discernable cause in game.That's all I'm arguing.  OOC plot control abilities are OOC plot control abilities, and IC intimidation abilities are IC intimidation abilities, and never the twain should meet.</blockquote>

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