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<blockquote data-quote="webrunner" data-source="post: 4989505" data-attributes="member: 63727"><p>Marks are, at their core, the monster having some reason to attack one person over the other: A magical compulsion, them being in their face, them making faces, singing off key, whatever. There can be other reasons to attack OTHER people who outweigh that of the mark, but in most cases the monster is ANGRY at the defender, or annoyed, or something, and wants to get through that plate armor if they can. There is a point where it's foolhardy, but marks are meant to mess with otherwise tactical decisions.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Your average monster who hates the defender over the squishy, isn't going to rationalize "Well I can't defeat the defender so I'll go after the squishy". If the squishy is back there hurling lightning bolts then the monster might thing "Lightning man is making it harder for me to focus on metal man! MUST KILL LIGHTNING MAN"</p><p></p><p>There's lots of ways to rationalize both as a DM, saying one is wrong or the other is just folly.</p><p></p><p>That said, combat challenge and it's ilk, you actually want to break it sometimes. You want the defender to feel like that entire section of their character sheet has meaning. Give them the extra attacks, give them the radiant damage, even do it when the monster would die and make the action moot. You're not there to try to beat the PCs, and there's plenty of believable ways to not act like that. </p><p>A really smart, or calm enemy could say something like "Hah, you think your goading will distract me from the true threat?".</p><p></p><p>How many times in a movie did you see the monsters go for the tough guy? Usually they throw themselves at the tough guy 1 or 2 at a time, and then a few minutes into the fight there's a tense scene where the weak guy is about to get attacked, so the tough guy rushes in to stop the attacker. This has happened a lot, the average mook doesn't usually run past Schwarzenegger even if it's tactically sound to do so.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="webrunner, post: 4989505, member: 63727"] Marks are, at their core, the monster having some reason to attack one person over the other: A magical compulsion, them being in their face, them making faces, singing off key, whatever. There can be other reasons to attack OTHER people who outweigh that of the mark, but in most cases the monster is ANGRY at the defender, or annoyed, or something, and wants to get through that plate armor if they can. There is a point where it's foolhardy, but marks are meant to mess with otherwise tactical decisions. Your average monster who hates the defender over the squishy, isn't going to rationalize "Well I can't defeat the defender so I'll go after the squishy". If the squishy is back there hurling lightning bolts then the monster might thing "Lightning man is making it harder for me to focus on metal man! MUST KILL LIGHTNING MAN" There's lots of ways to rationalize both as a DM, saying one is wrong or the other is just folly. That said, combat challenge and it's ilk, you actually want to break it sometimes. You want the defender to feel like that entire section of their character sheet has meaning. Give them the extra attacks, give them the radiant damage, even do it when the monster would die and make the action moot. You're not there to try to beat the PCs, and there's plenty of believable ways to not act like that. A really smart, or calm enemy could say something like "Hah, you think your goading will distract me from the true threat?". How many times in a movie did you see the monsters go for the tough guy? Usually they throw themselves at the tough guy 1 or 2 at a time, and then a few minutes into the fight there's a tense scene where the weak guy is about to get attacked, so the tough guy rushes in to stop the attacker. This has happened a lot, the average mook doesn't usually run past Schwarzenegger even if it's tactically sound to do so. [/QUOTE]
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