Marks "Attack that does not include you..."

[sigfile]

Check out the Compendium entry for "Melee Attack."

Targeted: Melee attacks target individuals. A melee attack against multiple enemies consists of separate attacks, each with its own attack roll and damage roll. Melee attacks don’t create areas of effect.

Seems pretty clear.

 

[Locutus Zero]

Ah, thanks, I hadn't seen that.

I still don't agree that it's clear. It seems to go against step 6 of Making An Attack in the RC, and the RC phrases Melee Attacks differently. It seems like the RC is trying to clarify toward my position, but the PHB more supports yours. For whatever reason, the passage from PHB for Melee Attack is what appears in the Compendium, as opposed to the one from the RC.

So yeah, I can see the reason for the disagreement now. I've been googling around for an answer on this and can't find one (though I can find people asking the question). Has Wizards really not come out and clarified this? That's pretty crappy.

Correction: The rules for Melee Attack appear in Heroes of ______, not the RC.

 

[keterys]

RAW seemed to favor melee/ranged as separate, though RAI was very much not so clear, until the rules compendium changed the language and muddied RAW up a lot.

I can say that I've DMed for someone who works at WotC, and been told that the "Draconic Fury" power I was using to split attacks around was not several separate attacks for mark purposes.

Which also matches my own opinion on how WotC monster design works. Especially the newer (one or two creatures) format they've been using.

 

[Neubert]

I do like keterys and the Jester. Another (better?) option for defining the way we do it may be to say "any action that has an attack has to include the defender"?
Don't know if this creates any new confusion.

 

[Locutus Zero]

A problem there is that you could have an action that lets you attack, move, attack. If you make the first attack against the Striker, you don't yet know who is getting the second attack.

 

[keterys]

You can do that with a close or area attack too, and the answer doesn't need to be any different.

 

[Locutus Zero]

Going forward, I think I'm going to treat each melee or ranged attack with multiple targets as either a close attack or multiple attacks, depending on the intentions (of me in the case of monsters, of designers in the case of PCs). Since we all know how close works, and the errata on Twin Strike spells out pretty well how two attacks works, that should answer all questions.

Basically, it seems like we have three tools (close, single melee or ranged attack with multiple targets, and multiple attacks with one target each) to solve two problems (did the attacker do one thing to several people or several different things?).

Thankfully, in the case of PCs, almost every melee and ranged power with multiple targets tells you in the attack section to treat it as two attacks. It seems like the power designers see the muddyness in the rules and simply clarify in the power itself. One exception to this is Thri-Kreen Claws. I guess based on flavor, I'm going to treat that like a close.

 

[keterys]

Sounds like an excellent plan.

 

[eamon]

There's two aspects to consider here. One is balance; and there's a sense that it's too strong to have marks trigger on each individual melee attack when they're part of a single attack power.

I find that intent to be entirely reasonable, but also to be a terrible line of reasoning to follow. You're not making the game any easier to run by mixing up balance and plain interpretation. As far as I can tell, there's only one way to reasonably interpret RAW; and that's that each individual melee attack is an attack - it's printed clear as day, and not even in some descriptive text, but in the short definition of a melee attack (and similarly for ranged attacks) Also note that this separation aligns naturally with damage rolls, and works well with interrupts (each attack can be interrupted separately).

Note that there is no meaningful ambiguity conerning the word attack in this context: You may well consider an attack power an attack, and additionally or instead of that consider a melee "multiattack" an attack; it doesn't matter for marks! Marks trigger when you make an attack that excludes the marking creature. Whether or not an attack power is itself an attack or not, and whether or not the group of melee attacks is an attack thus makes no difference at all to the functioning of a mark if the individual melee attacks are also attacks. The concept of "attack" does not need to be exclusively one of either a power, a group of melee attacks, or each individual attack. It can perfectly consistently (and quite reasonably) be all three. It's just that for the purposes of marking, the only one that matters is the one that makes attack rolls and is the most fine-grained.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt each individual melee attack is described as an attack; it says so terribly plainly on PHB 270. What else is an attack doesn't matter!

As a practical matter, many contend that solo's and elites need all the help they can get; and that further, whatever RAW the monster designers got confused and interpreted it differently. However:

• Nowadays solo's don't need every helping hand they can get; many have anti-marking abilities built in so as to not make this a huge quandary.
• Violating a mark isn't so serious nor a defender so invulnerable that attacking one is terrible as to be a generally big problem. If this discourages you from using poorly designed solo's, even better.
• An ineffective monster isn't a huge problem; a pointless PC role is. A much more common scenario than solos are common monsters and elites; and if the sole requirement is to point one of many multiattacks at the defender, the role becomes largely redundant; a striker would have the same effect but better damage.

The marks should be annoying to the monster; that's kind of the point. Reinterpreting rules to mitigate PC abilities like that is just poor form.

Unfortunately, you may encounter some monsters where multiple melee and ranged attacks truly need to be considered one to make a monster work properly. Fortunately; you're the DM: no problem! Just reinterpret those attacks as close and area attacks and there's no problem. That doesn't require you do it as a general rule.

Whatever the RAI; it's extremely annoying that this hasn't been errata'd and made crystal clear. The OP isn't exactly the first person to stumble over this, and it's not like WotC aren't churning out enough errata as it is; and this one would actually be useful... (and if they're reading this, make sure you consider attacks that reference other attacks e.g. "make two claw attacks" and be clear about that case too...)

 

[the Jester]

As far as I can tell, there's only one way to reasonably interpret RAW; and that's that each individual melee attack is an attack - it's printed clear as day, and not even in some descriptive text, but in the short definition of a melee attack (and similarly for ranged attacks) Also note that this separation aligns naturally with damage rolls, and works well with interrupts (each attack can be interrupted separately).

Note that there is no meaningful ambiguity conerning the word attack in this context...

Given the general lack of consensus on the issue, I have to disagree.

Yes, there are multiple attacks made with (f'rexample) Draconic Fury. The question is, do they count as separate attacks for marking purposes? Does marking trigger when you use an attack power that targets the marker, even if it also includes attacks that don't target the marker?

How about a power where the marker was the primary target, and on a hit, you make a secondary attack on an adjacent enemy? Would you have the secondary attack trigger the mark?