Monsters that mark: A pain for DMs

[Evilhalfling]

Marking looks like a pain, I am currently planning on subbing out those monsters, especially at first until I can get a better feel for 4e combat. Keeping track of the large number of changing conditions and the target and source of marks looks like a lot to worry about in the larger combats frame of 4e. Yes 3.5 could require a lot of tracking of buff spells, but those could be figured once, and handwaved

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It seems to me that a cleaner way of doing it would be for a fighter to force a -2 penalty on attacks against anyone other than himself from someone he threatens (or automatically grant +2 power bonus to the AC of his chosen allies who are next to him).

I could imagine, that it was handled this way for a time in playtest, but it breaked when 2 or more fighters where flanking one opponent. Then the opponent would be -2 (or more) against each of them and on top of that granting combat advantage.

Although this may be quite realistic if you are surrounded by 2 or more fighters, it could eb a bit cruel...

 

[HP Dreadnought]

So far the best solution I've heard is that you're marked as long as you've been attacked by a crunchy monster that marks, and you remain marked until all crunchy monsters with that mark are dead.

Sure, not exactly the same as tracking each individual monster and its marks, but a lot simpler and easier.

 

[Dave Turner]

Why not just write down the name of the marked character next to the hp total of the monster who did the marking? I assume that the OP keeps a tally of each monster's hp? If that monster can mark opponents, write the name of the marked character next to the marker's hp. If the mark changes, use your pencil eraser and write a new name down.

Is this really any harder than keeping track of a monster's hp?

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

It's the players burden (and not much of one) to remember who marked them.

If a monster mark a PC, I'd toss him a token, tell him who marked him and move on.

When it's his turn to act, I see he got a token so I know he's marked and if I don't remember which monster gave it to him, he should.

 

[Mr. Teapot]

I will say this was my least favorite part of 4e monsters in the playtest I ran. The monsters that did marks was annoying in many cases.

Further, we used poker chips to note status conditions. So if the paladin marked a monster it got a blue chip. If the fighter, it got a green. But when my hobgoblin solider marked someone, I used a white chip. Next round, which hobgoblin was dong the marking, hobgoblin A, B, or C?

The problem here doesn't seem to be in the marking rules, but in that your notation system is losing important information.


Here's a way to record marks that is easier than all the other suggestions thus far in the thread:

When you have three hobgoblins A, B and C that can mark, write "Marked by Hobgoblin A', Marked by Hobgoblin B", etc on index cards. When a hobgoblin marks a PC, hand that card to the appropriate player. Obvious visual reference for when they make attacks. Keeps track of who marked who. And if you hand them a second card, they hand the first back. When the mark wears off, they hand the card back.


NPCs marking PCs and PCs marking NPCs need noted differently. Why? Because there's only one GM, so the index card system noted above wouldn't work. But the color coded chip system established in the "Save My Game" article -or just trusting your player to remeber who they mark - solves that problem.

 

[Pbartender]

It is a major additional complication (much more complicated than simple status effects since you've got to remember who caused the mark). I'm not yet convinced that it offers anything really worthwhile to the game.

Now, while I don't consider this to be a major complication -- from my perspective at the moment, it's only a minor annoyance -- I do agree that the worth of the mechanic as it is currently implemented in monsters is suspect.

 

[DM_Blake]

As I see it, not especially. Each character can never be marked by more than one enemy at a time. In each of those situations, the DM will never have to keep track of more than one mark for each character -- typically four to six. For that matter, each round, he tells each player which enemy is currently marking him, so that the players can keep track themselves.

In all likelyhood, on the player's turn you'll hear either, "I attack the skeleton who's marking me," or "I shift away from the skeletons, and attack the necromancer (who obviously isn't marking me)."

Simpler yet, the other option is to not worry about it so much... If a PC is threatened by three skeletons, who all attacked him last round, does it really matter which one marked him? Only one of them can at a time. When the players asks, "which one is marking me?" just choose one and get on with it.

This gets to the crux of it.

Why not just have the PC track it? My players are rational. They are contributing to the story. I've never had one deliberately ignore things and hope I have forgotten, just so they can survive regardless of the story.

I tell a player "that skeleton marked you" and he's going to remember it. On his turn, he will either attack the marking skeleton or he won't.

If he was facing several marker skeletons, then those skeletons probably all marked him, and only 1 of those marks stuck. Even though the skeletons might all be on the same initiative, the reality is that one of them is probably a few nanoseconds behind his buddies, so he landed his mark last (by nanoseconds) and that is the one that superceded the others and stuck. I can arbitrarily pick one, or randomly roll to see which one, and tell my player "it's that one".

If it comes to the player's next turn and he has forgotten, and I have too, we can still just pick one (there might be just one who could have marked him, there might be several).

None of this will take much time or much thought or be much of a problem. Less of a hassle than trying to remember the difference between fatigued and exhausted.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It seems to me that for everything they simplified in 4th edition, they added 2 more things to keep track of in combat.

Some of the double-standard logic in this edition tweeks me out.

"1-2-1 diagonals may be realistic, but they are too complicated, so we're simplifying! Ease of play over realism! But here's Marks, which force you to remember subjective monster-PC relationships that might change every round! And also, we didn't think it was very realistic to have halflings be so tiny, so now they're 3/4lings, because, you know, realism is important?"



I dunno, not having given marks a whirl, I'm not sure if they'd be much of a problem for me personally (I think I could handle 'em. ), but they obviously are for some folks, and they certainly run counter to the "better faster stronger easier" D&D that 4e is trying to be.

If they ARE a problem, I might just make it some sort of constant effect: the last person you attacked takes a -2 penalty to attack anyone else until it's next turn. I think that's true to the intent of them without keeping some of the complications.

 

[SmCaudata]

As others have pointed out.... does it matter which hobgoblin did the marking?

Text based battlefield:

..........Warlock Wizard

....................Cleric

.............X Fighter X Rogue :Fighter marked by one of 3

........................X <--- marked by fighter


......................Artilery Caster


So, in the above scenario does it matter which did the marking of the fighter? The Fighter says "I attack the brute that marked me", "I attack the brute with the lowest HPs", or "I run through the mess to attack the caster".

As a DM I would make it so that my monster with the HIGHEST hps is always doing the marking to try to spread damage from the PCs. The PCs on the other hand will likely want to cocentrate their power to eliminate numbers fast. If the fighter is having a hard time hitting he may specifically ask to attack the one that marked him, which as a DM you always have as the one with the highest HPS at the beginning of the round. The whole point to 4e is that your monsters will fight with tactics. If you as a DM use tactics that make sense to yourself, you will have no trouble remembering.

In the picture above you could have one of the monsters marking the rogue too. I would make that one the one that is NOT flanked since the flanked one is in trouble and make the other non-flanked guy mark the fighter. This would negate the flanking bonus to some degree. Again, good tactics as a DM means that you will remember who did the marking without the need for chips or extensive notes or whatever.

If you still want to use chips or something else... let you 3 hobgolins use red, white, and blue chips. PCs won't be marking eachother, so who cares if the chip under the fighter matches the color that the fighter uses. Then place 3 chips off of the battlefield in relative location to the monster markers so that everyone knows which hobgoblins is red and which is blue. Easy.

I could probably come up with 3 or 4 other ways to make it easy to remember.