Massive changes to marking?

[DSRilk]

Marking just seems like a big pain in the behind to me. The goal is good - allow fighters and paladins to protect the smooshy guys in the back, but I was thinking that there must be an easier way to do this.

I'm thinking of changing marking to:

Mark: Any creature that begins its turn adjacent to you suffers a -2 distraction penalty to attack any creature that has not marked it.

Fighters and paladins may choose to mark or not at the end of your turn. Other characters may not mark targets unless a power states otherwise.

Paladins lose the ability to use Divine Challenge and instead gain the fighter ability (which would be SLIGHTLY modified to) "attack a creature if it shifts or attacks someone who's not marking them."

Certain powers that mark a target (like one of the cleric's encounter abilities) just automatically turns on marking for that character at the end of their turn.

Because the penalty is typed, it doesn't stack, so there's no problem there.

Yes, this eliminates the differences between how paladins and fighters mark, but I think there are more than enough other differences to make up for it. When a power causes a character to "mark" at the end of their turn, just think of it as all the creatures around them going, "hey, that guy just did WHAT?" and focusing more on that person.

On the plus side, this is MUCH easier to keep track of. Basically, as a DM, if I move a guy that's next to a fighter or paladin I just know that they'll get a free swing at him and that the critter will be -2 to attack anyone but those two. Simple.

Thoughts?

 

[Rafe]

Personally, I like how marking works currently. The fighter can mark multiple targets, while the paladin can only mark one. The fighter's mark can be more easily ignored at less penalty to the creature, but applies to more enemies, potentially reducing a group's ability to inflict damage on his/her teammates. The paladin's is less likely to be ignored because of the damage associated with attacking another target, but applies to only one creature at a time, which seems in keeping with the paladin feel: an against-the-odds, single-target focused class.

I dunno. I like how that works so far in games.

Also, I think your rules would then preclude a paladin from taking (or wanting to take) the fighter multiclass feat which I believe gives access to the ability to mark on top of having Divine Challenge. (Don't quote me on that last bit, though... I don't have the multiclass feat info handy.)

I suppose you could give the paladin the option to mark vs using divine challenge, but I don't see why many paladins would opt for marking when divine challenge bestows more benefits, so to speak.