How would you fix the Paladin's Mark?

[Wormwood]

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

Dude---with one simple rule change you just made the 4e paladin a *must* play for me.

 

[Mephistopheles]

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

That's got the right flavour but the paladin could still mark an enemy and then avoid it. Worse still if circumstances permit the paladin to force the marked enemy to fight through allies to get to him, or if he can close a door between himself and the marked enemy and let it kill itself trying to bash it down or cut through it (although this depends on what constitutes an attack for the purposes of the mark conditions).

 

[Quantarum]

All it says is that if the marked creature attacks another creature it suffers the damage. I my judgment that means if the creature attacks no one it suffers no effect. I agree that the power should have either no or a negative effect if the paladin tries to avoid his mark, which seems to be the intent.

-Q.

 

[jaelis]

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.

I quite like that too. And it's clear that if either party doesn't attack at all, they take no effect, so things like resiliant sphere aren't a problem. With this though, you would probably want to make sure the paladin has the ability to remove his mark.

I might even be inclined to make it "If the paladin does not make an attack that includes the marked target on his turn, he takes 5+Cha damage." Doesn't seem right for the paly to hang back and heal or something while the party keeps the monster away from him. (Again of course with the caveat that the paly could remove the mark if he wants.)

 

[Cadfan]

You could go further- make the Paladin's mark unremovable, except through 1) death of the marked target, 2) death of the paladin, 3) a one minute long prayer in which the Paladin makes penance and begs for forgiveness for failing in his duties.

Edited to add: You're right. There should be a way for the Paladin to remove the mark in case his opponent runs away. But I like the idea of a cost, it makes the Paladin a little more... hardcore. One standard action to apologize to his god?

And also to add: I don't think the Paladin's mark NEEDS this nerfing. I just think that this is the sort of nerfing that is often fun for a player, and I might enjoy having.

Mephistopheles- While technically the Paladin could game the mark a bit even with my rules edit, it makes things much less likely. A Paladin who marked a target and then in some way refused to fight would be depriving the party of the rest of his contributions just to put a single enemy in a conundrum.

 

[Wormwood]

You could go further- make the Paladin's mark unremovable, except through 1) death of the marked target, 2) death of the paladin, 3) a one minute long prayer in which the Paladin makes penance and begs for forgiveness for failing in his duties.

Dammit, now I want a Samurai class.

 

[Kraydak]

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

Wall of Fire, a fighter with massive movement based extra attacks, a front line that you can (eventually) bull rush your way through, no difference. You can't prevent someone from getting to you, which means that people being unable to get to you is an irrelevant condition.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

If it were up to me, I would mandate that if you mark an opponent, he only stays marked as long as your able to engage them in combat / attack them. No Marking opponent X as important and ignoring him. Not for the Paladin. Not for any class.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Tuft]

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.

Why?

If I played the thing wargame-ish, looking at actual benefits rather than what you are supposed to do by the "script", I'd keep bashing at the Wizard rather than go off chasing the Paladin.

• Even with -2 to hit, it is still easier to hit the Wizard than the Paladin. (Going by the published character sheets for "typical" numbers.)
• The wizard has less HP than the paladin, so I'll kill him quicker than I would kill the Paladin.
• Inhibiting the Wizard's spells by keeping him in melee will probably save me more damage than the Paladin's mark is causing me.
• By keeping away from the Paladin, I'm denying him healing smites that can be used to heal both him and the wizard. The wizard has no healing smites.

The monsters have smarts too, and I've seen nothing to indicate that the Marks have any kind of "feeblemind" built into them...

 

[Rugger]

Either Mearls or Heinsoo mentioned at one of our tables that they thought the 8 damage thing was a misprint, and that it was supposed to be d8...which puts it in line with other powers we saw.

-Matt