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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Unwise" data-source="post: 5587068" data-attributes="member: 98008">Yes, your right, the example I was thinking of was the Battleminds Mindspike. It simply makes attacking other people very seldom worth it, as you take 100% of the damage that you do to them back onto yourself. Barring bezerkers, it is hard to visualise a monster deciding to do that. Many mark mechanics and many situations are less absolute than this. It seems that most people here are on the same page with the distinction on attacks being who is in their target information. The issue I have is that I don't really have Locutus Zero's faith in the monster designers. I really doubt that this is well thought through on many monsters. Even amongst the same types of monsters, some will say "2 targets" some will say "2 attacks", seemingly arbitarily. I just can't shake the feeling the designers have just randomly copied and pasted whichever mechanic they had on hand first. This is of course a subjective opinion and not something I would house rule anything on. After all, frustrating defenders should really just be the role of skirmishes and the occassional lurker. At the moment, I just let the chips fall where they may, some monsters will arbitarily be able to hit the defenders friends as well (without much punishement), some won't. The defenders in my group are rightfully confused by this though, which is why I brought up the topic. I think that a defender should be able to see the logic behind the rules distinctions, not just randomly find that the flanking rogue has been hit and the GM telling them they don't get their basic attack/mindspike/radiant damage. Do you folks find this to be an issue too? I imagine I would if I were a defender. To that end, I am considering modifying the monsters in my games to be a little more consistent. At its simplest:- People that use two weapons will have "makes two attacks" powers- People who are attacking multiple people because their weapons are huge eg Dragon's Tail. Ettin's sweeping club. Will have "targets 1 or 2 creatures" attacks.There would of course be a lot of exceptions and magical stuff that can be case by case. Do you think that it would help to make things a little clearer and keep defenders happier?</blockquote>

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