Invisible Paladin

[Kobu]

IMO, for a challenge to stand, you must offer what the challenge requires, i.e. the paladin must offer himself as a target.

I agree that that ought to be the intent which is why I am considering houseruling that the paladin cannot move away and cannot hide using total concealment or improved cover. While these things may be good tactics, it rubs me the wrong way when the challenge is to play a game of hide-and-seek.

 

[SJay]

Divine Challenge is a challenge. A challenge is a dare, a test in a competition, an invitation to do something that must be reasonably possible to accomplish if the challenge is to have any value whatsoever. To become invisible or teleport or phase through the wall or transform in gazeous form and move out through an arrow slit defeats the purpose of a challenge. It's like challenging another team to a hockey game but not showing up at the rink. IMO, for a challenge to stand, you must offer what the challenge requires, i.e. the paladin must offer himself as a target.

Yes the challenge is "a dare, a test in a competition"... however that competition may mean different things to different paladins.

Some (say paladins of Bahamut / Kord) may take the challenge to be a challenge of strength, to stand toe to toe and battle it out. With the purpose of either killing the foe or die trying. He's a paladin of honor and won't hide in the shadows.

However some (say paladins of Sehanine / Corellon) may see the challenge to be one of wits, to use ones cunning to confuse the opponent. Here the paladin wishes to have the target commit to attacking them while keeping them off balance. To have the opponent scared of the shadows.

Then others (say paladins of Melora / Avandra) may see the challenge of survival, to see who can last the longest. Here I think of a Rambo type, appear to them now and then to get them riled up (shoot them) but otherwise use you skill in survival to keep them busy hunting you as you pepper them with arrows.

Different paladins will use there challenge in different ways. We're not talking about the old paladins who were all Lawfull Good and would never sneak up behind someone and stab them in the back. Now there are many paladin orders, one for each god, and they fight in the way their god would approve of. There is no way a god of stealth and darkness is going to want a paladin who walks up to an enemy shouting "Here I Am" and then stand next to said enemy and take a beating, this god would not encourage making yourself an easy target.

Cheers,

 

[mellack]

I would like to point out that a similar situation can come about, with no action on the part of the paladin at all. Take this as an example:

The party comes upon the Big Bad Guy. The paladin wins initiative, moves up, attacks, and puts on a Divine Challenge on the BBG. Next, the rogue does a Blinding Barrage, making the BBG blind until the end of the rogue's next turn. Then the warlock notices that due to the way the room is, the fighter will not have room to engage the BBG in melee. So the warlock does a Summons of Khirad to teleport the BBG next to the warrior. The BBG did not see this teleport, and would probably not have much of an idea of his position in relation to any of the PC's.

This (admitidly unlikely) situation has now made the paladin effectively invisible, along with everyone else. The BBG has no idea where he is, as he could not see his teleport. Do people think this is an unhonorable act by the paladin? Is he expected to direct the BBG to where he is so that he can swing in the proper direction?

 

[FireLance]

The argument that attacking "thin air" constitutes an attack doesn't go far enough as far as intent is concerned IMO. Indeed, once the paladin marks and becomes invisible, the target could move wherever it wants and swing at thin air, declaring "to believe that the paladin might be there" (which might well not be true), while in fact positioning himself strategically next to a warlord or a rogue. It is too vague a resolution of this rule for my taste.

There's nothing to stop the target from doing this whether the paladin is invisible or not. If all he wants to do is to position himself strategically, he isn't going to take damage, and can even trade in his standard action for another move action since he isn't going to attack.

 

[Danceofmasks]

There is an issue with that .. if he takes an OA, he burns.

 

[FireLance]

There is an issue with that .. if he takes an OA, he burns.

I was responding to the apparent point that attacking "thin air" is somehow advantageous to the marked opponent. In any case, the marked opponent that takes an OA would take damage whether or not he attacked "thin air". Either he would have taken damage when attacking "thin air" (if the DM adopts the interpretation that attacking "thin air" is an attack), or he would have taken damage when making the OA.

 

[SJay]

I'm sure this would have come up in testing... I mean every time a Paladin used Corona of Blinding Radiance there would have been a good chance of the marked character being blinded. As such I am fairly certain that by both the RAW and RAI a marked character can't just ignore the mark because he can't see the guy marking him... (can't just hit another character because he can't see the paladin)... I just can't see how the enemy not seeing you would invalidate the mark.

Also seems silly in the extreme that a character that's trying to hit an invisible paladin but picks the wrong square takes damage (he just missed by over 5 feet instead of the few inches he may have missed by if he picked the right square)...

If the character DOES hit another invisible character then it should trigger... they attacked another character, even if they did so unknowingly. They knew this was a risk they took when they started swinging wildly... they might hurt someone else.

 

[ObsidianCrane]

Wow 5 pages....

The point to the challenge is if the enemy is not trying to attack the Paladin, but trying to attack someone else they are going to get burnt.

If the paladin is invisible or whatever after legitimately starting the mark if the marked opponent tries to attack anyone else they get burnt. If they are making an ineffective attack that is trying to hit the paladin they are not going to get burnt, even if they have to pick some random square and hope the paladin is there.

As long as they intend to hurt the paladin they don't get hurt, attacking the wrong square is just a bigger miss than attacking the paladin directly and missing with the attack roll.

 

[DracoSuave]

Besides, all this talk of invisible paladins is rather moot... it's not like paladins can spend a long time invisible, with the nerfs to invisible being as they are.

 

[DracoSuave]

Sorry for double post