Monsters that mark: A pain for DMs

[DM_Blake]

4E really looks like it will play well if people create the equivalent of MtG cards and hand them out to various players mid-game. Half RPG, half card game.

I tap a mountain and and island put a -2 token on the Orc Marauder until its next untap phase...

 

[Intrope]

Given that Marks are one to a customer, I'm thinking of buying some small laundry clips (in assorted colors) and when I mark something, I'll just latch one onto it's head.

For the DM, I'd number my clips; for players, pick a color.

 

[Andre]

...This is an archetype that is strong in MMOs in particular...

This is my problem with the marking mechanic - it feels like something that a computer is perfect for tracking, but this isn't a computer game. Jut because something works well in an MMO, doesn't mean it translates to tabletop (or vice versa). I'll wait to see the full rules, hoping for the best, but what I've seen in virtually every playtest report is that marking requires a lot of effort. (Heck, WOTC had an entire article on how to track conditions, and at one point, the guy was putting little skull helmets on miniatures...I have better things to do when running a game, thank you very much.)

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.

First off, I have players who can't remember their initiative order, much less which specific creature marked them the round before.

Second, I don't want my players focusing on a fiddly bit like this. I want them roleplaying the fight. One of my biggest gripes with 3E is that it requires players to focus on the rules so much, it's hard to focus on the game. People can only focus on a few things at a time. In 3E, too often their focusing on AoO's, addition (what's my final to hit now?), and so on. In 4E, it looks like marking and other situational modifiers will eat up a lot of focus.

My prediction: marking will be house-ruled as often as AoO's are in 3.x

 

[KarinsDad]

Given that Marks are one to a customer, I'm thinking of buying some small laundry clips (in assorted colors) and when I mark something, I'll just latch one onto it's head.

For the DM, I'd number my clips; for players, pick a color.

Clips on heads? Yuck.

Maybe different colored poker (or other round) chips that go under the miniatures.

I'll wait to see the full rules, hoping for the best, but what I've seen in virtually every playtest report is that marking requires a lot of effort. (Heck, WOTC had an entire article on how to track conditions, and at one point, the guy was putting little skull helmets on miniatures...I have better things to do when running a game, thank you very much.)

I was really disappointed when I read that article as well.

After all of the hype and videos about how much smoother and faster 4E was going to run, they then put out an article explaining how new techniques are needed to make 4E run smoother. WT???

However, I have to admit something. My group has used "artificial coins and gems" of differing denominations for years now. Last year, I decided to remove them because it was taking up game time counting them out. It's a lot faster to just write numbers down on character sheets. But, my players asked me to re-institute them. They enjoyed using the props a lot more than they were bothered by using the props. It didn't matter to them that it might take a minute or two to figure out how much money their PC had, they enjoyed "paying" for things with "cash".

I think with a good set of props for 4E, it will probably run fairly well. In this case, I think the props will be much faster than writing marked PC names on a sheet of paper. For example, I hand the "Marked by Monster 1" (MtG-like) card to Joe when his PC is marked by it. Joe's PC marks the monster, so we put his Blue PC Mark chip under the monster miniature, etc.

A red poker chip under the miniature means bloodied. I'm hoping that Combat Advantage will be obvious just by looking, but maybe a different colored poker chip for it.

 

[Jhaelen]

I'm very dubious about the idea of marking in general and I am doubly dubious about marking monsters. I'm actually not interested in buying poker chips for my D&D game or stick pins into my minis.

I've already been wondering when someone who conducted a playtest would mention that this requires a lot of extra effort.

On a slightly different topic, do the PCs automatically KNOW who has marked them in combat immeditely? I ask as the only way "marking" makes sense is if one of the monsters is concentrating on restricting the mobility and distracting the PC from attacking anyone else. So how would the PC know this until he tries to attack someone else?

I just ask because marking becomes much more effective (at least for one round) if the PC doesn't automatically know he has been marked, because then he is much more likely to attack the "wrong" monster and suffer the -2 penalty.

I believe it should be completely obvious to anyone involved in the combat who is marking whom. I imagine the characters will actually call out their marks. Anything else smacks of meta-gaming to me. A DM not pointing out which enemy marked whom is in the same category as a DM not pointing out if a monster's (damage/spell) resistance or immunity negated a player's attack - IMHO, of course.

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?

Is this supposed to be a trick question? Isn't it obvious to you that it requires additional effort to note down anything in addition to the current hp total?

I'd also like to mention that I'd never bother using a pencil eraser for keeping track of a monster's current status. If something I wrote down no longer applies I cross it out - this is A LOT quicker.

This is also why I'd never note down conditions in the same line as hp. I'd always use at least two lines for every monster, one for the hp and one for conditions.

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.

Umm, yeah, so I'm going to prepare hundreds of index cards - one for each of the different monsters in my adventures? Very easy indeed.

A creature that "marks" you is basically committing to attacking you.

Hmm. Have we seen an example of a monster that can mark a different target than the one it is attacking? If the only way for a monster to mark a target is by attacking the target, it might be easier to track than I initially assumed.

But what about monsters with class levels?
From a tactical point of view it would make more sense to mark a target you cannot easily reach that is threatening one of your squishy allies.

I like pretty much everything I've seen so far about 4E except marking and the assumption you'll take on the gods in the later stages of your adventuring career.

 

[Spatula]

The skeletons aren't soldiers. They're minions. They're not going to have any marking abilities, because that's not part of their role.

The skeletons are soldiers, and have marking abilities:

Skeleton Warrior, Level 3 Soldier
Medium Natural Animate (undead); XP 150
Initiative +6; Senses Perception +3, darkvision
HP 45; Bloodied 22
AC 18; Fortitude 15, Reflex 16, Will 15
Immune disease, poison; Resist 10 necrotic; Vulnerable 5 radiant
Speed 5
M Longsword (standard, at-will) * Weapon
+10 vs. AC; 1d8+2 damage, and the target is marked until the Skeleton Warrior’s next turn; see also Speed of the Dead
Speed of the Dead
When making an opportunity attack, the Skeleton Warrior gains a +2 bonus to the attack roll, and deals an extra 1d6 damage.
Alignment: Unaligned; Languages: none
Str 15 (+3); Dex 17 (+4); Wis 14 (+3);
Con 13 (+2); Int 3 (-3); Cha 3 (-3)
Equipment: Chainmail, large shield, longsword

(that skeleton does, anyway)

Personally, if I was only using soldiers, I wouldn't bother with the marks AT ALL. As another poster mentioned, the mechanic is a way to try and get the hardies to protect the squishies but if you have no squishies, why bother using it at all?

To protect the "hardies" with the fewest hp remaining.

I don't have a problem with the concept of marking, but the execution does seem very fiddly. I imagine that simpler versions were tried and discarded for various reasons, but that's cold comfort for the DM trying to keep track of all the little conditions being thrown around in a fight.

 

[Iron Sky]

I like pretty much everything I've seen so far about 4E except marking and the assumption you'll take on the gods in the later stages of your adventuring career.

When did they say that? I thought I'd read all the official WotC material, but I don't remember seeing them state anywhere that the game was designed with the intention that the PCs will take on Gods... Do you have a link to that somewhere? I'm assuming you're not talking about(italics mine) this:

"...taking out a greater power is probably something you only do once, and even then, you only do it if the DM decides to make it the theme of the last big adventure your characters have as mortal heroes."

I sense no assumption there, just qualifiers and a statement of a possibility that it may be done if your DM decides you can.

As for marking, has anyone who has actually playtested one(or more) of the adventures found it a challenge? I've read most of the playtest reports out there, but might not remember it being mentioned in them.

I found it trivially easy (I thought not even worth mentioning except that it seems to be an issue with people who haven't run them) when I ran a couple of playtests, just a quick jot on the usual scratch sheet I use to keep track of initiative, monster hp, etc...

 

[Jhaelen]

I'm assuming you're not talking about(italics mine) this:

"...taking out a greater power is probably something you only do once, and even then, you only do it if the DM decides to make it the theme of the last big adventure your characters have as mortal heroes."

I'd like to point out the quote refers to a 'greater power', i.e. a greater god like Moradin. I don't like the concept of killing any kind of god, no matter what divine rank it has.

But I was remembering something from a much older source. After some searching I found one reference I remembered, but it turned out wasn't from an official source, it was from someone paraphrasing the information in 'Races & Classes' about epic tier play:

Epic level game is much about slaying gods and clearing the Nine Hell (I made the last up).

The other reference was either from a designer blog or a design / development article, but I can't seem to find it. It said something to the effect of:

"we fully expect characters of level XX to decorate their fortress with the heads of several lords of hell...".

As for marking, has anyone who has actually playtested one(or more) of the adventures found it a challenge? I've read most of the playtest reports out there, but might not remember it being mentioned in them.

How about looking at the OP of this thread?

 

[arscott]

The skeletons are soldiers, and have marking abilities:

Skeleton Warrior, Level 3 Soldier
Medium Natural Animate (undead); XP 150
Initiative +6; Senses Perception +3, darkvision
HP 45; Bloodied 22
AC 18; Fortitude 15, Reflex 16, Will 15
Immune disease, poison; Resist 10 necrotic; Vulnerable 5 radiant
Speed 5
M Longsword (standard, at-will) * Weapon
+10 vs. AC; 1d8+2 damage, and the target is marked until the Skeleton Warrior’s next turn; see also Speed of the Dead
Speed of the Dead
When making an opportunity attack, the Skeleton Warrior gains a +2 bonus to the attack roll, and deals an extra 1d6 damage.
Alignment: Unaligned; Languages: none
Str 15 (+3); Dex 17 (+4); Wis 14 (+3);
Con 13 (+2); Int 3 (-3); Cha 3 (-3)
Equipment: Chainmail, large shield, longsword

(that skeleton does, anyway)

Oh, I know that the Skeleton Warrior has a marking ability. But DM_Blake talked about the necromancer raising up "an army of skeletons" to swarm the party. If you're dealing with an "army" of anything, then they should probably be minions.

The rules we've seen say that a minion is 1/4th as powerful as a normal monster, an elite is twice as powerful, and a solo is five times as powerful. There's an unstated implication there: a minion is 1/4th as complicated, an elite is twice as complicated and a solo is five times as complicated. And the monster stats we've seen bear that out.

For instance, the XP guidelines dictate that five young black dragons are an appropriate foe for a 13th-level party. But in play, that would be a horrible encounter. So if DM_Blake is running a combat that pits 12 skeleton warriors against 4 10th level PCs, then tracking marks is going to be complicated. But the complicated marks are a symptom, not the cause.

 

[Pbartender]

So if DM_Blake is running a combat that pits 12 skeleton warriors against 4 10th level PCs, then tracking marks is going to be complicated.

It will be no more complicated than pitting 4 skeleton warriors against 4 PCs.

To re-iterate, each target can only have one mark on him at a time... So even if 4 PCs are fighting 100 skeletons, only four of those skeletons can be marking the PCs at any given time. All you have to do is decide which four skeletons were the last to successfully attack each of the PCs.