[Game Theory] Viability of the "Hostage Defender"

[Estlor]

Quick background: I'm prepping a deliberately "old school" vibe campaign for when the current one finishes/goes down in flames and I'm looking at using Essentials classes only (because of their old school themes). But there are certain concepts that are missing. One of which is the berserker, which I envision as a primal defender that can shrug off damage and effects.

In an effort to come up with a unique mark punishment effect for a defender, it got me to wondering, would a "hostage defender" be mechanically viable in 4e?

What I mean by "Hostage Defender" is this - instead of having a class feature that punishes mark violation by inflicting damage/conditions on the monster violating the mark, what if a defender could inflict damage/conditions on other monsters when one violates their mark? Essentially, holding that monster's allies hostage and threatening them harm if ignored. Does the ability to make a basic attack/charge another creature and cause damage/forced movement/prone/slow/something provide a satisfying fulfillment of the defender role's mark/punishment mechanic, or does the fact that it places the punishment on another creature, even potentially taking the defender away from the originally marked creature, make it less desirable than the sort of punishment a Fighter or Paladin can dish out?

Thoughts?

 

[Kinneus]

Main issue I see: a Defender styled in this way would be useless against solos. Or against the last monster standing in any given combat.

 

[knightofround]

I think its really tough to imagine a marking mechanism that would fit what you're suggesting. Lets say the Zerker marks a goblin, and he gets to charge when his mark is violated. Why would he be unable to hit the violating goblin with the charge? Why would he not charge if the goblin attacked him instead of an ally? What happens when the enemy isn't even allied with other monsters on the grid?

If you want to make a primal defender that is not a warden, why not yank some class features from the fighter and mash it with some class features from the barbarian? Ez-peaz, no need to re-invent the wheel =)

For the record, even though the barbarian is technically a striker, in reality they make a really good defender even without a marking mechanic. They even have several powers that let them mark opponents.

Going back to your idea of "hostage" mark, I think a cool way to do it would be with a monk defender using "exploding runes" like the Artificer. So when this monk defender hits an opponent they mark it, which places a temporary tattoo on the opponent skin. The next time the marked opponent attacks an ally, the tattoo explodes, inflicting burst damage and/or status effects.

Another idea would be a necromancer defender who casts spells to shield his allies. He'd mark opponents by attacking them, which would put them under his death watch. Whenever the death watched opponent attacks someone other than the necromancer, after the attack is completed the ally can choose to use an immediate reaction to emit burst necrotic damage in retribution.

Obviously those doesn't fit with your primal defender theme, just wanted to throw it out there.

 

[Estlor]

Yeah, solos are definitely a concern under that model.

My thought was this would be an e-Style class, so it would have the Defender's Aura rather than a true marking mechanism so in order to trigger the punishment the creature would need to be in the aura anyway. I was trying to come up with a punishment mechanic that felt different from the Knight (MBA as an opportunity action, Str mod on a miss) and Cavalier (shift + radiant damage as an opportunity action) and model the fact that the Berserker was a dangerous opponent not because of his martial training or the power of his faith, but because he was always slightly out of control and a force of chaos on the battlefield.

I kind of like the idea of the burst damage. Maybe the best way to model a defender that "shares the wealth" when his mark is violated is to structure it where he gets a MBA against the violating creature, then hit or miss deals Str mod psychic damage to any other enemy in his aura. That has the added effect of making an enemy think twice because if he ignores the berserker, all his minion flanking buddies go up in smoke.

 

[DracoSuave]

It wouldn't be effective against certain monster personalities.

Unintellegent? Won't care.

Drow Priestess leading her Drow goons into the fight? Take a hostage? Yeah, that'll stop them. The priestess will probably provoke your challenge just to remind her minions not to get caught, and the minions will provoke just to be rid of their priestess!

It doesn't really work for many monster tactics.

Also, aren't PCs supposed to be the good guys?

 

[Vaslov]

I think the fluff could be worked to take care those situations. The Drow priestess and her followers so the original idea could work. The "damage" could be that in their moral the are unsure why their big leader won't take on the big guy threatening them. Perhaps she is scared? Etc...

That aside, I would probably take the idea in a different direction. Instead of the others taking damage if they fail to attack how about a mechanic that gives the PC a bonus based on the number of foes faced, with the bonus going down for every one that attempted to attack him in the past round.. For example, if fighting 5 marked foes the player would get +5 damage. If 3 of them attack him the bonus goes down to +2. You could cap max bonus and add feats to bump up the minimun bonus to taste.

It still suffers from some of the drawbacks vs. solo's, but to me gives more of a berserker like flavor to the power. Hope that helps your musing.