Damaging Allies in Combat - Is it acceptable?

[babinro]

I'm curious on people's takes on this. Is it justified to attack your allies as part of an attack in order to maximize effectiveness of powers?

If so, would the ally ever consider this attack an act of aggression against them?

My party almost entirely avoids friendly fire whenever possible. However, there are times when the paladin mass sanctions and lures creatures in. At which point the AOE powers are highly tempting to hit 3+ enemies even if one of the targets is the PC's Defender. Naturally the cleric follows this action up with immediate healing on the Defender...but does this make the actions right? Personally, as a DM and a player, I can see no justification to attack my party members.

Do people do this in your groups? Is it just considered good tactics?

 

[Infiniti2000]

We do it frequently in the game I play in. Last Saturday, the warden jumped into the middle of 5 ettercaps, who all surrounded him. My bow ranger launched a thunderburst arrow because hitting one ally and ALL 5 enemies for 1d10+7 was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Of course, I have the warlord multiclass feat so I immediately healed him of the damage I caused. Then the warlock and invoker did a similar thing. A healing by the cleric and usage of his armor kept the warden alive.

Keep in mind that it's not really appropriate to use real-world logic in D&D. Knowing that we're damaging our buddies in D&D is not the same thing as, say, spraing bullets from a semi-automatic into your buddies in the real world. In one case, there's a good chance they'll die. In the other (D&D) you KNOW they won't die. Period, you know it. The tactical aspect of it should be no different than, say, a web. Would you web your friend if it also meant webbing all the bad guys? It's the same thing because in both cases you know your friend won't die and you can simply heal him back up with absolutely zero side effects.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I have been killed by my brothers fire balls more than once...

There are times when it is acceptable to attack an ally. Maybe to force move him out of danger or to kill minions around him. This tactic seems reasonable in desperate situations. It should not be used on a regular basis. I would point out to my player that attacking your allies means hurting them. And it can potentially cause the death of him.

 

[Ryujin]

Depends on your party. The Darklock has a whole schtick that revolves around damaging his allies in order to increase damage against enemies.

We had a player who used a Wizard in our campaign. on two separate occasions he Thunderwaved a party member without warning moving both him and some opponents, which both isolated the defender and kept him from doing his job. As a result I said that I was maintaining a curse on him constantly, through the next 6 encounters.

 

[N8Ball]

I'm curious on people's takes on this. Is it justified to attack your allies as part of an attack in order to maximize effectiveness of powers?

If so, would the ally ever consider this attack an act of aggression against them?

My party almost entirely avoids friendly fire whenever possible. However, there are times when the paladin mass sanctions and lures creatures in. At which point the AOE powers are highly tempting to hit 3+ enemies even if one of the targets is the PC's Defender. Naturally the cleric follows this action up with immediate healing on the Defender...but does this make the actions right? Personally, as a DM and a player, I can see no justification to attack my party members.

Do people do this in your groups? Is it just considered good tactics?

The Wizard in our group developed a nasty habit of including my character and the other Dragonborn in his area of effect blasts in order to maximize enemy damage. Sometimes he would catch other characters, but mostly just the dragonborn.

Above game it was humorous and not a huge issue since he didn't do it in really tough fights, and in-game he played it as a secret fascination for the dragonborn ability to gain attack ability when bloodied. He has been grooming his character to be a bloodmage, studying the "power of blood" since early on and this was part of his character development. Eventually, through better "enemy only" effects and a few in-character threats from other characters, he has grown out of it (mostly), attributing it to "greater control of his magic."

Your question, "Would the ally consider this an act of aggression?" has everything to do with the player playing that ally and not DM adjudication.

If the player decides his character gets ticked off about it then he does, if he doesn't then he doesn't. If it causes player vs player anger then that's a new issue, but in our case it was defiinitely ONLY characters who got ticked (only only after several superfluous events), not players.

In particular, my character plays a hardened DB Taclord who would gladly take a hit while surrounded by enemies to maximize the attack. I've even considered taking Multi-fighter and "Come and get it" to maximize such tactics. If taking some damage will enable other 3 enemies to take the same damage then it's totally worth it.

Also, "War Wizardry" is a GREAT feat for the more draconian (pun intended) wizards who use these tactics. -5 to hit allies and only 1/2 damage.

 

[Mengu]

I've seen sorcerers and wizards fry party members. It can be painful. But sometimes the rewards are worth it, especially when the party member has some resistance to the element used, and the enemies around him don't.

I also know some defenders don't care if they are targeted while they have temporary hit points, resistances, crazy defenses, something they want to trigger when hit or damaged, etc. I've seen Shifters, Dragonborns, and Hellocks, ask to get hurt.

 

[sfedi]

I wouldn't have a problem in receiving friendly fire IF there was no choice.
But as far as I saw, all firnedly fire scenarios I was in, were because of poor tactics, and unwillingness to coordinate.
So, for me, based on this experience, it's not acceptable to lazily throw an AoE while I'm there.

Been a Wizard, I also had the same problem, sometimes I had a great opportunity to blast enemies and an ally, but I first tried to coordinate a fallback so he gets out of the AoE zone. Failing that, I would rather pass the opportunity rather than hurt my comrade, after all, he was hurting himself more by not allowing me to blast all those enemies.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Tactically I wouldn't do it without War Wizardry.

If you want big AoE, go for Invoker with Covenant of Wrath. You then select the biggest enemy-only AoE powers you find. (There is one encounter power for level 1,3,7 at least).

 

[Storminator]

Last session I charged into the midst of the goblins, and the hobgoblin commander shifted all his allies around me. I had 8 goblins around me, the commander w/spear 2 squares away, and another skirmisher 2 squares away. The dragonborn fighter breathed and marked 8 of them (and me), then the dragonborn sorcerer breathed on 6 (and me - 2 were dead) and encounter powered the remaining 4 (2 more dead), plus the commander and the skirmisher (Staff of the Warmage) and me...

I dropped to 0 hp, but our Warlord popped me back up, and the dragonborns dealt out some serious piles of damage.

PS

 

[RigaMortus2]

I see two ways to run this. Either you can play that your characters know in advance if an attack will hit an ally or not with 100% certainty, or you can play that your characters have a good idea/feeling they might hit an ally, but its not 100% and thus the reward for possibly hitting is worth the reward.

If you play the first option and you don't discuss strategies in advance with your group, and you hit an ally w/ friendly fire, they will assume you did it on purpose w/o regard to their life. If you do discuss the strategies, and they are OK with getting hit (good of the group outweighs the good of the individual), then you have an interesting tactical strategy as a party.


Now, if you play the second option, it opens interesting interactions. "Sorry, I didn't think that would hit you." and the like. Of course, the player (not the character) could get away with more this way "pretending" as if they didn't know an attack would hit. My group tends to lean towards this way of playing. We try not to count squares or measure out exact area of effects. We pick our intended targets or the intended area, and hope we get it right.

Ramifications of this include:
You charge an opponent and come up a square or two short.
You hit an area with an AE spell and accidentally hit your ally.
Your bow shot doesn't make it (target is past the 30 square range)

But that's our fun I suppose...