"Domination" Domination

[Chris Knapp]

our party of 5 is scattered out a bit (nothing unusual there!) so only 3 of the 5 can actually get OAs against the dominated creature. Then, only 2 of the 3 actually hit, and one of those was the pacifist cleric who does darn near single digit damage.

I have seen this almost exclusively, both at my regular table and LFR. Unless your party is melee heavy (which ours is definitely not!) it can turn out to be a pretty ineffective power. The last thing my party wants is for the bad guy to be within shift or easy movement range of the squishies; assuming he survives. Moving the bad guy anywhere near the majority of our party will get the dominating player a quick smack to the head.

 

[Argyle King]

I've found that it's usually a better tactic to tell the dominated target to throw away their weapon -- especially against some of the higher level foes who have special attacks based around a specific weapon.

 

[Grabuto138]

True, but I expect the DM to be fairly evenhanded. State flat out 'There's a limit to OAs you're gonna get on this guy, so don't try to push it.'

Then the DM rarely has to worry about such issues, and doesn't have to introduce a bunch of house rules that really only handle corner cases if the group practices the proper amount of restraint that rpgs often require in their social contracts.

We completely agree. When the DM wants to give the character a big, fun win the ogre charges through the party provoking OAs right and left. But not always. It helps if the DM describes the monsters actions in an exciting, plausible way, but the DM should make it clear that he or she will not allow cheez-ball tactics.

Or, to put it another way, the DM and the players should trust each other enough that that the DM is free the run his monsters in the most appropriate way to serve the overall game.

Edit:
I was running a Dungeon adventure. It was a really good adventure with lots of RP opportunities (especially if you added stuff here and there) but the ending was a bit lacking. Long story short, they were looking for a nobleman who was, unknown the them, a demon. The nobleman appeared in the end fight and was intended to be one of the combatants. He had a power where he kissed the player and gained some sort of mechanical advantage. (They took damage instead of him, or couldn't attack him, or something.) Essentially, it was trying to evoke a charm-like effect. First round he rushed forward thanking the characters for saving him, threw his arms around a character and kissed him. I told they player who was hit, straight out, "Here is the exact mechanical effect. But you know the intent is to kind of charm you. So you can play the mechanics straight or you can roleplay the logical consequences." The player defended the nobleman (and the rest of the party played along) and, in the ad-libbed return to the nobleman's castle, actually protected him and trusted him to the point that he escaped. The party really, really hated this long term enemy. Success.

I guess my point is, mutual trust trumps house rules. (And, tangentialy, I often find that too many capricious houserules is an indication of a lack of trust.)