Monsters that mark: A pain for DMs

[Nebulous]

I think it is likely that this is going to come into the same kind of problem area. As other people have expressed in this thread, yes you can do it - but it is additional work which wasn't there before. It is adding a complication, and added complications, uh, add up.

From my own, admittedly limited, game design experience I've often produced rules which seem like a good idea in principle but eventually have to be ditched because in the long run they fail a "cost-benefit" analysis. "Marking" strikes me at the moment as something which seems like a good idea in principle but at the moment 'cost' is outweighing 'benefit' from my point of view.

I've run two playtests, and my complaints are leaning toward what others are saying. It is a minor, yet additional, complication that doesn't "feel" right. Maybe with the full rules and more practice i'll come to really like the mechanic. But right now, tentatively, I'm wondering what would happen if we just dropped Marked rules completely from the game?

 

[Xorn]

I've run Raiders of Oakhurst six times, Return of the Burning Plague twice, and Second Son once. I'll be running Raiders of Oakhurst reloaded (starting it) this weekend, and I'll probably run Return of the Burning Plague again on Sunday. I have a standard play group of 5-6 people that play every Saturday, and I have a rotating group of people (from a pool of around 15 so far) that participate in the Sunday/Monday games.

I'm mentioning this to establish that I've been DMing 4E fan demos with the rules we know since the weekend following DDXP. I think this gives me a position to comment on the marking rules with a pretty thorough working knowledge of what I'm describing. So on to the topic, marks.

I'll just restate my previous post mentioning that while I did not find keeping track of marks to be difficult at all (as a DM, you have some way to track which HP total on your scratch paper matches which token on the playmat, so I just write that indicator next to the player affected), I do think it's the clunkiest mechanic I've had in 4E fan games. To be clear, I don't think it's a clunky mechanic--I just think the rest of the rules are even more elegant, so Marking becomes the "most difficult" by proxy.

By "most difficult" I mean "simple" as the rest of the mechanics are "really simple".

The biggest problem I saw with Marking was the potential for exploitation--and the 4E dev team have mentioned they've changed Marking repeatedly--and it's not in the current state that it was at DDXP. As the ultimate changes to Marking are not clear to us, I've started using the following with my last game, and enjoyed the mechanic.

If you do not make a melee attack on the marked target by the end of your next turn, the mark fades.

There. Paladin can mark from range, but not exploit by "kiting". The warrior can't keep something marked from 10 squares away with throwing axes.

In the first game I used it, the young black dragon was marked by the paladin, while the ranger was DRILLING her, unanswered. With a tail slap pushing the paladin back, The dragon jumped into the air and glided over her lake to the ranger (charging), attacking (taking 8 damage) with a -2 penalty--and actually missed. The next turn the paladin couldn't reach her for a melee attack, and was too far away to re-mark her (she moved moved 14 squares over deep water!), so for the next round she could would have been able to attack penalty free--with great effort she got away from the paladin's mark. Of course the fighter dove off a ledge and attacked her (charging), and marked her, and that -2 penalty was a meaningful difference in her attacks.

Point is here--this mechanic may be what WotC is going to settle on, but until then, this is all speculation.

And if you have 4 marking NPCs in a battle, then just tell your player, "THAT one marked you." and point to the mini. Even if you don't make a note on your combat tracker sheet, I'll bet the player remembers. If you don't use a steno pad, scrap of notebook paper, or Big Chief™ tablet (with and oversized pencil) to jot down initiative, HP, conditions, AND marks--I think you've discovered the problem!

And a bloodied creature has half HP. If a player says, "Is that one bloodied?" you look at their health, and if it's at half or below--say, "Yes." Again, if this mechanic is too complex, DMing just might not be for you! (That's meant to be tongue-in-cheek.) This reminds me of a funny occurence a couple games ago: I have a player that is a pretty good artist, and is always sketching the party when it's not his turn, and the other day I said, "Erais," as I use character names, "your turn!" He replied, "I'll Lance of Faith the Bloodied one!" Which met some weird glances as there weren't any bloodied creatures on the board (the last was killed). "Oh sorry," he admitted, "I kinda wasn't paying attention, so I just say, 'Attack the bloodied one!' when I'm not sure what I missed..."

We noticed that he said, "Attack the bloodied one!" like 8 times total that game. I'm going to have to ban him from drawing at the table or something.

My topic statement? This should have been at the top of the post, but oh well--The most complex parts of 4E mechanics feel way ahead of the typical mechanics in a 3.5 fight.

 

[Jhaelen]

My topic statement? This should have been at the top of the post, but oh well--The most complex parts of 4E mechanics feel way ahead of the typical mechanics in a 3.5 fight.

Well, if that's truly the case, I'll be happy

 

[JohnSnow]

This description breaks down in the face of certain scenarios.

For example, in one of my playtest encounters a hobgoblin solider attacked the ranger, marking him. The hobgoblin's mark lasts until the end of his next turn. The ranger on his turn used his teleport. He is now a full 5 squares away, yet he still takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls against anyone but that hobgoblin. That's....a stretch.

Well, maybe you think so. I would argue that your ranger who teleports five squares away might still be looking over his shoulder and wondering if that damn hobgoblin who cornered him was going to throw a dagger into his back - enough that he's a bit distracted if he tries to attack someone else.

Basically, as far as I'm concerned, the -2 penalty is the price of having to worry about defending yourself from two targets. Obviously, when you attack someone, you're worried about them attacking you back. But if some other guy has "targeted" you, simply moving out of range doesn't mean he can't strike you at range, or that he won't close the distance and attack (sequential initiative is an abstraction, remember?). That concern prevents you from focusing entirely on attacking another character, resulting in a minor attack penalty.

Just my thought.

 

[Wormwood]

My topic statement? This should have been at the top of the post, but oh well--The most complex parts of 4E mechanics feel way ahead of the typical mechanics in a 3.5 fight.

I feel a little better now. Thanks for your post!

 

[Andre]

From my own, admittedly limited, game design experience I've often produced rules which seem like a good idea in principle but eventually have to be ditched because in the long run they fail a "cost-benefit" analysis. "Marking" strikes me at the moment as something which seems like a good idea in principle but at the moment 'cost' is outweighing 'benefit' from my point of view.

Why D&D had rules for combat but not for role playing:
“I further posit that the decision of what to codify with resolution mechanics and what to leave fuzzy is not based on some logical analysis of mediating factors, but on what the designers think is fun to roll dice for, and what they think is fun to improvise.”

Seems to me that applies to a lot of rules in game systems. If the rule adds to the fun, keep it. If it doesn't, toss it. If marking doesn't bring enough fun to balance the work, out it goes.

 

[Pbartender]

Well, maybe you think so. I would argue that your ranger who teleports five squares away might still be looking over his shoulder and wondering if that damn hobgoblin who cornered him was going to throw a dagger into his back - enough that he's a bit distracted if he tries to attack someone else.

Basically, as far as I'm concerned, the -2 penalty is the price of having to worry about defending yourself from two targets. Obviously, when you attack someone, you're worried about them attacking you back. But if some other guy has "targeted" you, simply moving out of range doesn't mean he can't strike you at range, or that he won't close the distance and attack (sequential initiative is an abstraction, remember?). That concern prevents you from focusing entirely on attacking another character, resulting in a minor attack penalty.

Just my thought.

Good call... Looking at it that way, it's almost like a variant on flanking.

 

[JohnSnow]

Good call... Looking at it that way, it's almost like a variant on flanking.

That's the way I see it, at least for martial characters.

Flanking is a way of making it easier for fighters working in concert to land a blow, but it doesn't do the other part, which is to make it harder for the flanked (or threatened) opponent to effectively counterattack two opponents.

Looked at this way, being "marked" by multiple attackers would be realistic. Although I can easily see how it would get quickly unbalanced, and I think in that instance "game balance" won out over realism, the result being that you can only be marked by one person at a time.