Paladins mark "fix" a plazebo?

[ltbaxter]

As I understand it, the paladin can only mark one foe anyway (despite it being an aoe) So a lot of your example situations wouldn't have worked anyway.

I'm aware of that, that doesn't change any one of my examples. The paladin will frequently be battling one foe that choose to stay engaged with him, while he would like to influence another foe to attack him. (Can I say "draw aggro" without opening up a new can of worms?!)

Two issues.
First, I think you are expecting the Divine Challenge to be something its not. Its not intended to draw nonadjacent foes to the paladin. Its intended to keep melee foes engaged with the paladin.

Well, I can't rule out misinterpretting it. But when I read the fluff: "You boldly confront a nearby enemy, searing it with divine light if it ignores your challenge." I have to disagree - that sounds a whole lot like more getting a nearby guy to engage you (or face the consequences) than to force someone already committed to fighting you engaged. In fact, for a foe that has willingly chose to come up and attack you, the Divine Challenge is nearly pointless.

Second, you can't write rules for "common sense". That way lies madness... I think one of WotC's goals is to provide a stable framework for D&D so that all players can play the same game and expect it to be played the same way.

Those are valid and important points. No argument on those.

To be clear though, my problem was not that they tried to have a clear concise rule, but rather that for the sake of being clear and concise they came up with a 'fix' for exploitative behavior that crushes several common and legitimate applications of the power.

Writing clear concise rules does lead to some rules lawyering, but its better than endless table arguments and it helps protect DMs from abusive players and helps protect players from bad DMs.

True for the most part, but if they're clear it should reduce lawyering. As the rule stands now there is really no arguing about it. We can not like it, whine, or house rule it, but it no longer lends itself to a debate on the interpretation of the rule.

Thanks for the feedback...

 

[malraux]

So he fights that monster in melee while the other monster gets automatically damaged by the mark. Why is that ineffective?

Cuz the mark would disappear. If the pally is attacking the other monsters, he's not attacking the marked creature, and the whole discussion assumes he's at range. Thus, the mark goes away.

 

[Samhaine]

1) Tough battle, Paladin and Wizard are the only ones left, vs two brutes.
<...>
3) Paladin is trying to be a forward-deployed bottleneck.
<...>
4) Speedy on-the-go ranged attacker loves to move faster than the party

If I'm reading the fix correctly, these will all still at least be marginally useful, since you can use your minor to mark on the end of your turn and don't have to make an attack or lose the mark until the next round when you have both a marked enemy and a chance to move near or attack. So you attack the foes you're in melee with, then challenge to try to reel in a target off the squishies. Until your next turn, it's marked. It gets shocked if it takes its attack against anyone but you for its turn that round, and may even get shocked again if the squishy tries to run and it makes an OA (I'm not sure whether the damage is on any kind of attacks, or just main attack). Particularly if it got shocked for making an OA, and the squishy is now at range, the monster is going to have a hard decision whether to chase the squishy and get another shock, or move up to the paladin.

Next turn, if the monster chose to keep going after the squishy despite the damage, then the paladin has to decide whether to really focus his attention on it, or let the mark lapse and wait until the next turn to mark something else. Even if the paladin stays engaged, he's able to keep marks on roving monsters at least half the time.

 

[Korgoth]

As an aside, I fail to see the point of all this "marking" crap in the first place. Where does it come from? What does it represent? It seems very artificial and not something I imagine when I think of heroes going to battle.

 

[Wormwood]

You know, normally I love D&D.

D&D is great.

Gamers, however, suck.

 

[Wormwood]

As an aside, I fail to see the point of all this "marking" crap in the first place. Where does it come from? What does it represent? It seems very artificial and not something I imagine when I think of heroes going to battle.

At the risk of agreeing with Korgoth . . . I agree with Korgoth.

Marks are a little kludgy for my tastes.

 

[Greg K]

At the risk of agreeing with Korgoth . . . I agree with Korgoth.

Marks are a little kludgy for my tastes.

Add me to the list.

 

[AllisterH]

As an aside, I fail to see the point of all this "marking" crap in the first place. Where does it come from? What does it represent? It seems very artificial and not something I imagine when I think of heroes going to battle.

That's because it's trying to instill a feature that turn-based play usually doesn't allow. Namely, the "attack me first mechanic".

In a real-time game, there are two methods of playing "bodyguard". The widely despised aggro mechanic (which itself was in response to the turn-based RPG experience) and actual movement. The former is literally too hard to track (calculating aggro on the fly is definitely a computer-based solution) while the latter simply doesn't work in turn-based (in turn-based games, there's really no reason for the monster simply to just walk around the fighter).

I suspect many DMs didn't actually "cheat" by having their monsters simply exploit their speed by simply walking around the fighter to get to the target...

 

[cdrcjsn]

Strange that nobody's commented on the fact that the Fighter can also Mark at range (albeit no auto damage to foes if they attack someone else).

 

[two]

Can somebody explain how a paladin's radiant damage from a mark can kill?

I'm just having trouble with the concept and in-game explanation.

I don't have a problem explaining much. But this one gets me.

"You mark enemy X, and enemy X ignores it, and attacks your friend. Enemy X keels over and dies as a result of this."

So marking is like (in game)... er... you point at the enemy... you um, let the enemy know you want to engage it... this does not require communication apparently since it works across languages cultures (it's magic, ok), so the enemy magically knows you want to hurt it and that you are asking for a fight, and if you don't fight the paladin the paladin's god will kill you for being a coward. Yea, that's it.

Or something like that?

You can mark a blind enemy in theory, right? A blind, deaf, mute, leprous evil enemy... somehow knows they are "marked"...I just am having trouble here folks.