Monsters and Marked

[Mesh Hong]

Just out of interest what is the party composition and level?

I am guessing that their arn't any other defenders or the DMs head would explode!

 

[Stumblewyk]

Party (all level 11)

• Human Storm Warden/Storm Sentinel
• Warforged Tactical Warlord/Longarm Marshall
• Halfling Trickster Rogue/Halfling Quickblade
• Eladrin Illusionist Wizard/Wizard of the Spiral Tower
• Elf Archer Ranger/Battlefield Archer

Also, I apologize for hijacking this topic...I didn't intend for it to become a discussion on my minor gripes with a tactical decision my DMs made.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I'm not sure I follow how the others are necessarily easier targets. Doesn't everyone essentially have the same defense, probably even higher for some squishies? Thus, a -2 penalty on those makes them more difficult targets. In fact, the DM would necessarily need to justify attacking anyone else, not the reverse. I would definitely go out of my way to avoid a -2 penalty, particularly if its an encounter or high-recharge power.

 

[Stumblewyk]

Easier to get to without provoking OAs. Who, in the middle of a melee, is going to say, "Sure, that chick over there looks menacing, so I'll definitely race right past this big dude with a huge spear, and the shifty looking fellow with all those fast-moving daggers in order to take a swipe or two at her. After all, it's not like it's the least bit appealing to maybe go take a whack or two at that squishy looking dude standing in the back with the wand."?

Seriously though...aren't we just beating a dead horse at this point?

 

[eamon]

It is what it is. I didn't even set out in this topic to really complain about how my DM handles this...I was just commenting on the differences between the Warden and Fighter marks from Defenders like Paladins and Swordmages.

The rules
There's a difference between the aegis and the divine challenge here too - the affected creature is presumed to know the effects of a power on itself, not necessarily any other abilities and benefits that power may grant. A power that targets an enemy and gives it a -2 to defenses and grant an ally a +2 to defenses would not necessarily impart to the affected enemy knowledge of which ally was granted a defense boost nor even that a defense boost was granted at all.

In other words, it is not obvious that the creature marked by the aegis knows of the subsequent ability the swordmage has when the mark is violated - I'd say the creature should not have this information - unless he's aware of the PC being a swordmage (and knows of the aegis - basic swordmage stuff, so if you know what a swordmage is, you'll probably know that too). Now, for the swordmage this isn't all that important - it's common for marks to have extra enforcement, so some sort of extra punishment should be expected anyhow by the affected creature. Other powers can be much more severely affected, however.

Why this rule makes sense
There's a good meta-game reason for playing like this, and thus a likely motivaiton for this rule in the first place. When a creature is affected by a power and the imposed effect requires tracking or calculation, doing it this way means that the player of the affected creature can include the effect himself. That means you don't get effects that make a creature sluggish and leave the player guessing what that means and the DM scrambling to include the effects behind the scenes. However, that motivation does not support making indirect effects public. The combat challenge attack doesn't require the target to track anything and so it doesn't need to know.

Having said that, I'm convinced this rule is just a good baseline, and players and the DM should deviate from it liberally. Despite the rules, I don't think it's unreasonable for Combat Challenge to have a visible component - perhaps the monster can see that you're keeping a close eye on it. It doesn't need to know the details (i.e. exactly what triggers you're looking for). Similarly, I assume that if the fighter has polearm gamble and a polearm, it's possible for the monster to see this. It should at least see the big spear pointed at its chest when it steps toward the fighter.

What I see most commonly, however, is that this kind of information imbalance is generally played unreasonably to the PC's detriment. The DM forgets to mention that the tentacle monster has threatening reach, or indeed forgets to mention that it has long tentacles in the first place - and yet still avoids shifting next to the fighter. That's just natural, not a sign of a petty DM - but it's not reasonable or fun and should be avoided. Most abilities aren't supposed to be gotcha abilities and the players should be aware of them when they see the monster or at least pass even easy knowledge checks. They won't know the details anyhow - and neither should the monster, even though the DM obviously does.

Playing it that way also gives extra dramatic tension for those combats against prepared opponents - say, a group of assassins hired to kill the PC's and prepared to avoid the PC's common tricks, or a returning villian having a deus ex machina save against the key power of the previous combat.