How would you fix the Paladin's Mark?

[Wystan]

Divine Challenge made it's debut this weekend at the D&D Experience and was roundly criticized for being overpowered. What would you have the mark do that kept the general idea, but did not seem so overblown?

For reference:

Divine Challenge (Paraphrased): Select one enemy in a five square radius of the character and mark it. If the marked creature attacks a character other then the Paladin it gets a -2 to hit and takes 8 points of Radiant damage.

 

[Shroomy]

I thought it was criticized because the paladin could mark an opponent and then run away, making it impossible for the target to attack him. This has been fixed, as confirmed by James Wyatt. Is there anything else?

 

[RandomCitizenX]

Honestly this is the first I heard about it being over powered or broken other than the run from your enemy tactic which was fixed, but not in time for DDXP

 

[Cadfan]

How would I do it?

I'm evil. So I'd do it this way.

Whenever the marked target makes an attack that does not include the Paladin as one of the attack's targets, the marked target takes 5+charisma modifier damage.
Whenever the Paladin makes an attack that does not include the marked target as one of the attack's targets, the Paladin takes 5+charisma modifier damage.

Voila. Challenge someone and you'd better be prepared to fight them. The gods reward valor, not gamesmanship.

 

[Stonesnake]

Chris Perkins explained it to us in a lot more detail at DDXP.

First, marks don't stack. So you can't have the fighter's mark AND the Paladin's mark on the same creature (and other PCs also have the ability to mark). And don't forget there were other marks that the Paladin could use which we didn't see at DDXP.

Second, the Paladin's challenge only works if the creature marked can see you and can get to you. For example in the delve that Chris ran for us we marked a creature and then blocked the path so that the creature couldn't get to us. So Chris had the creature leave the room to run around the hall to get to him instead. The creature took no damage while it was outside of visual range. This also prevents the paladin from challenging a creature and then running away, the mark simply won't work if you do that.

However we did ask Chris if we marked a monster and them put up a wall of fire would the creature try to go through the fire to get to the Paladin. He said yes it would, it would do whatever it could to try to get to the Paladin, as long as he could see him. Plus the creature could use ranged attacks or special abilities (such as a breath weapon) to attack the Paladin.

Also remember that you only get a limited number of Exploits that you can slot. So the challenge might seem good and overpowered now, but in a few levels 8 points of damage won't be much and I'm sure there will be other marks which will be better than the challenge. Chris said that the challenge was working as intended and was meant to force a monster to fight the Paladin ... but the Paladin couldn't issue the challenge and then run away! They had to stand and try to fight the monster as well!

 

[Wystan]

Well, the problem that I saw in the games that I played was the paladin would mark something and then the fighter would corner it, or the mage would be a more tempting target, the general question is how would the enemy know it was marked until it had taken damage?

 

[vagabundo]

I thought it was criticized because the paladin could mark an opponent and then run away, making it impossible for the target to attack him. This has been fixed, as confirmed by James Wyatt. Is there anything else?

Someone mentioned, in another thread, marking someone and then the wizards casting Resilient Sphere.

This could already be covered by some caveats of the challenge. It might only affect attacks relating to living (undead/construct) targets, but the wording in the phb is going to have to be tight.

 

[Darkwolf71]

Personally, since they said it had already been fixed, I would wait and see how they changed it and not worry for the moment.

 

[boolean]

I'd make the damage dealt relative to the distance between the Paladin and his mark.

If you're right next to the mark (at the beginning of the mark's turn), 8 damage.
Two squares away (one empty square between you), 6 damage.
Three squares, 4 damage.
Four squares, 2 damage.
Five squares, 0 damage, but the -2 to hit still applies.
Six or more square, and the mark is broken.

I'd base it on the Mark's location at the beginning of it's turn, so the mark can't do too much to reduce it's effectiveness by moving before it attacks. If it does move, the Paladin can move to follow it on his turn (or switch targets).

 

[Fifth Element]

Voila. Challenge someone and you'd better be prepared to fight them. The gods reward valor, not gamesmanship.

I quite like that. Very flavourful.