Monsters that mark: A pain for DMs

[Iron Sky]

How about looking at the OP of this thread?

Ah, there was supposed to be an 'else' in there. As in, "has anyone else who has actually playtested". Hooray for late-night posting.

It's just interesting to me that something that seemed simple in my experience was so different for others. My group won't playtest anymore since playtests replace my 3.5 campaign for the night, so my experience with marks is admittedly limited (a couple encounters). Maybe things just happend to go exceptionally smoothly when I did it and it's typically more complicated...

As for the God thing, I don't think they'll force you to kill Gods, I think they're just trying to give you a gist of the PCs power level. I've personally never had a game go to epic or played in one (and many of my campaigns had no gods), so I've never dealt with the equivalent in 3.5E. *Shrug* If you don't like the concept, don't use it. That's what I've done with things that I didn't like in my games anyway.

 

[Stalker0]

A creature that "marks" you is basically committing to attacking you. Put another way, it's keeping an eye on you. That skeleton warrior has decided to focus on one target, in its simple-minded way. You can't simply ignore it, because it will harrass you, making it difficult for you to attack another target. In other words, the creature staring intently at you and poking its weapon in your direction is the one "marking" you. That takes care of how you describe it to the players and how their character's perceive it.

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.

I'm running another playtest tomorrow and I will keep marking as is. However, in the long run I may just simplify it to say that marking monsters that hit you simply give you a -1 to attack rolls on your next turn. Its clean, easy to keep track of, and it makes perfect sense. The creature simply gave you a dazing blow that knocked the wind out of you, tripped up your timing, whatever. It doesn't matter if you just teleported away or if your still right next to that monster, the effect of that harsh blow is there, causing no flavor problems. It takes you a few seconds to get over it, and your fine again.

I would let the player's keep their marking abilities of course, they are the ones keeping track of those for the most part. But so far, I do agree that monster marking is more trouble than its worth.

 

[Jack Colby]

I don't see a problem with marking per se, although it does seem unnecessary to have rules for this situation.

Yeah, it will help keep enemies away from the caster... that's a good tactic, obviously. I just don't see why the player can't say "I'm going to try and draw the monster's attention away from the caster" and the DM can't respond accordingly by having the monsters either fall for it or not based on consideration of the monster's motives, intelligence, temper, the situation, etc. In other words, the DM makes a call, based on considering the player's wishes and intent.

Marking is a purely mechanical way of achieving this, seemingly designed to remove DM ruling from the situation (ideal in a computer game, not needed in a "real" RPG). If the players and DM have a friendly relationship and communicate with each other there's not going to be any problems.

Maybe I'm unusual in that I never play D&D with people who aren't my friends, and we will cooperate to make sense of the game situations without rules reinforcing things. Do rules like this tend to originate from people being screwed over by their DMs? That's fine, but for me personally it's "protecting" players from DM cruelty that isn't going to pop up in my games anyway.

Still, marking isn't necessarily bad, and I'm sure I'll use it in 4E. I can see it's going to be more of a tactical game though, with tactical rules, so I will approach it that way.

 

[Jack Colby]

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.

What's to keep you as DM from ruling that such an obvious stretch in logic doesn't end the hobgoblin's mark for that round? Were you afraid the hobgoblin would feel cheated? The DM's job has always included making rulings when the written rules don't cover a situation adequately.

I don't mean that as an attack on your DMing either, just as a friendly reminder that the rules are not the ultimate master of the game.

 

[arscott]

I don't see a problem with marking per se, although it does seem unnecessary to have rules for this situation.

Yeah, it will help keep enemies away from the caster... that's a good tactic, obviously. I just don't see why the player can't say "I'm going to try and draw the monster's attention away from the caster" and the DM can't respond accordingly by having the monsters either fall for it or not based on consideration of the monster's motives, intelligence, temper, the situation, etc. In other words, the DM makes a call, based on considering the player's wishes and intent.

Marking is a purely mechanical way of achieving this, seemingly designed to remove DM ruling from the situation (ideal in a computer game, not needed in a "real" RPG). If the players and DM have a friendly relationship and communicate with each other there's not going to be any problems.

Maybe I'm unusual in that I never play D&D with people who aren't my friends, and we will cooperate to make sense of the game situations without rules reinforcing things. Do rules like this tend to originate from people being screwed over by their DMs? That's fine, but for me personally it's "protecting" players from DM cruelty that isn't going to pop up in my games anyway.

Still, marking isn't necessarily bad, and I'm sure I'll use it in 4E. I can see it's going to be more of a tactical game though, with tactical rules, so I will approach it that way.

I occasionally play D&D with people who aren't my friends.

But I also play D&D with people who are my friends but still try to get as much mechanical advantage from their actions as possible, in defiance of character motivation and common sense. My friends are not perfect people, and for that matter, neither am I. And it's not bad game design to recognize that.

You say that a monster should respond "based on consideration of the monster's motives, intelligence, temper, the situation, etc." But when a monster chooses it's actions, then on some level it's always thinking "what are the advantages or disadvantages to taking this action". An marking provides an easy mechanical answer to that question without compelling a specific action.

MMO Aggro is just the opposite. Aggro is a set of algorithms that determine what decisions the NPCs make. But marking says, well one thing might happen if you choose option a and another might happen if you choose option b and so forth, but the choice is ultimately up to you.

You can certainly argue that marking is not needed because the GM can just decide who a monster attacks based on intuition. But that's no different that the GM deciding whether or not your character can cross a narrow ledge based on his gut instinct instead of a balance check. Neither one is bad, but they both describe a different style of gaming that D&D aims for.

 

[Stalker0]

What's to keep you as DM from ruling that such an obvious stretch in logic doesn't end the hobgoblin's mark for that round? Were you afraid the hobgoblin would feel cheated? The DM's job has always included making rulings when the written rules don't cover a situation adequately.

I don't mean that as an attack on your DMing either, just as a friendly reminder that the rules are not the ultimate master of the game.

Fair enough, but if I'm going to have to make conditional rulings on it, isn't simply easier to provide a blanket penalty to attack rolls, one I don't have to conditional rule on?

 

[Li Shenron]

We only had 1 playtest game so far, but it did make us worry a little about marking abilities. I know we'll get used to them, just like we learned how to keep track of spells durations in previous editions. And I know I'm looking forward to a second playtest soon, to see if it already gets better.

But at the moment it has indeed left a bitter aftertaste.

First because 4e design has been explitictly targetted at making things easier. They removed spells duration so it's a piece of cake, but why introducing marks? Not because they add en extra tactical layer: spells duration did, what would be the point of removing a tactical option to introduce another? Probably because they thought it can be exciting. I guess we first need to get past the early difficulties and then let's see.

Second because... I'm sorry to say, but once again markings seem hard to describe in-character. It's the same stretchy explanation as 3ed Dodge: you're "focusing" on someone to get an advantage against / give a penalty to him; except that you can effectively "slap the mark" on top of him and then do something totally different, like fighting another character. How do you still focus?

I think it would have been simpler, better and more believable, to have all these marking abilities automatically work on the target you're currently attacking.

That would spare us any tracking, at the cost of a tactical layer which I am afraid it may been more abusable than really interesting.

 

[Pbartender]

except that you can effectively "slap the mark" on top of him and then do something totally different, like fighting another character. How do you still focus?

I think it would have been simpler, better and more believable, to have all these marking abilities automatically work on the target you're currently attacking.

You're aware that, unless I've missed something, all the marks we've seen have been activated by successfully attacking an enemy, and that marks only ever last for a single round?

Thus, they currently work almost exactly as you suggest... A kobold attacks a PC, and the PC is marked. At the end of the kobold's next round, the mark goes away and he has to has to continue attacking said character if he wants the mark to stick for another round. If the kobold shifts to attacking a different character, then the mark shifts to the new target, since the kobold can only mark one target at a time.

 

[The Little Raven]

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.

Except that, with one exception (paladin), every single "mark" causing ability we've seen has been predicated upon you being able to engage the target and attack them before a mark can be placed.

 

[Plane Sailing]

You're aware that, unless I've missed something, all the marks we've seen have been activated by successfully attacking an enemy, and that marks only ever last for a single round?

Well, the fighters mark doesn't have that restriction, although the various soldier monsters do... perhaps a nod towards making 'marks' less onerous for a DM to manage for his monsters?