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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5534948" data-attributes="member: 996">Ah, so the same basic idea as a higher-level knight knocking an enemy prone (or whatever) with a Power Strike tacked onto an MBA.In the sense that it's easier to eat the auto-damage than the OA.  I get it.There is an interesting difference in what's worse.  If a Fighter has manged to mark a couple of enemies, and they decide to beat on one of his allies, he can mark-punish at most one of them, and the mark punishment is just an MBA, which is not particularly fearsome.  If one ignores the mark, the other might as well do so, also.  Walking away is a bad option, since it's an MBA with a bonus that stops movement.  With the Knight, the mark-punishment is a stance-enhanced MBA that damages on a miss, and both enemies must face it, so taking a stance-enhanced MBA, without the damage on a miss for running away from him, before attacking the ally is slightly less painful.  If the two enemies go for the path of least resistance in both cases, the Knight makes two enhanced MBAs against them, and the Fighter makes one ordinary MBA - but both are at -2.  Of course, if the fighter has only attacked one of the enemies in question, only one takes the -2 - and, if he's attacked a different enemy entirely, they're not marked.  But, none of that matters, because taking a Knight's enhanced MBA, that can be further buffed with power attack, is no incentive whatsoever.  While taking a -2 from the fighter, and at most 1 ordinary MBA is terrifying.Each defender is different, and the way DMs react to their marks (or auras) can certainly highlight different aspects of how they defend.  It sounds like, in Aegeri's game, Knights are basically psuedo-strikers who are constantly handed lots of OAs, because no one wants to stand next to them, and defenders in general are nothing but punching bags that get shoved around and dazed every single round, and never do anything more than hand out a -2 to hit, because mark punishment never, ever happens.  Not how I generally see the Defender role playing out, but different play styles emphasize different things.</blockquote>

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