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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Syrsuro" data-source="post: 4447429" data-attributes="member: 58162">The language is somewhat vague and there are two interpretations, depending on how one reads the paragraph. Either is valid and both are flawed. Interpretation One: On your turn, you must engage the target you challenged or challenge a different target. To engage the target, you must either attack it or end your turn adjacent to it. If none of these events occur by the end of your turn, the marked condition ends and you can’t use divine challenge on your next turn. The two parts of the paragraph are read separately and the word 'events' refers only to attacking or ending adjacent. By this reading, if you fail to attack or engage the mark, your mark fades and you lose the ability to mark next round. Interpretation Two:On your turn, you must engage the target you challenged or challenge a different target. To engage the target, you must either attack it or end your turn adjacent to it. If none of these events occur by the end of your turn, the marked condition ends and you can’t use divine challenge on your next turn. The two parts of the paragraph are read together and the word 'events' refers to challenging a different target as well as to engaging or adjacent. You would only lose your ability to mark in the next round (suffered a penalty) if the mark was carried over from a prior round and you had neither engaged nor attacked that target for the entire last round. There really IS no way to resolve this by referring to the RAW, it depends on how you read that paragraph and interpret the word 'events'.  However, lets look at something else:  What is this? This the version of the Paladin's Divine Challenge that was used at D&DExperience and it is evidently the version they intended to use until (unexpectedly to them) many of the Paladin's started marking and running away, exploiting this version by making themselves unable to be attacked.As a result they instituted a last minute, emergency, fix to eliminate the ability of the Paladin to run away leaving marked targets who were unable to attack the paladin but would take damage if they attacked anyone else. Specifically they wanted to make the mark expire if that tactic was used. What can we infer from this? First, the clumsiness of the second sentence came about because they just added the phrase "or if you fail to engage the target (see below)." to existing text rather than doing a full rewrite of that paragraph.Second: The entire paragraph starting "On your turn..." in the new version was written to be the explanation of how the effect is maintained. And thus is can all be considered relevant to the maintenance of the mark, possibly favoring interpretation 2 (else why the redundency when compared to the second sentence - which already mentions the option to mark a new target).But Third: The original intent was for marks to be persistant and they changed it to prevent Paladin's running and leaving non-expiring marks. However, there is no evidence to suggest that they also wanted to prevent Paladin's marking targets at the end of the round. Marking at the end of the round would have worked just fine under the previous version and marking at the end of the round is not part of the behavior they were trying to address (Paladin's fleeing so that they could not be attacked).Because a target marked by the Paladin at the end of the round CAN (and probably WILL) attack the paladin following that mark there is no reason to infer that they intended to prevent such actions with their emergency fix. And thus there is no reason to infer that they prefered interpretation 1 to interpretation 2. And interpretation 2 is closer to the original implementation. Therefore, I think that - although the language (RAW) is vague, an intent (RAI) can be inferred and interpretation 2 is the better choice as it allows the mark to be used as marks are intended to be used. That is, it gives the Paladin a way to attract the ire of their opponents and thus draw their attacks away from their companions.Now if I could just figure out a way to deal with the Paladin in my group who multiclassed into Warlock and keeps marking and then using Eyebite on targets (once per encounter)....Carl </blockquote>

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