Paladins mark "fix" a plazebo?

[Jer]

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

If that's really all that marks do then I'll be pretty disappointed. It seems like a lot of overhead for what is, essentially, a "taunt" mechanic. We've been using that for years:

Player: I taunt the ogre
Me: What do you say to him?
Player: He has bad breath and his momma dresses him funny. Oh, and his cave smells vaguely of lemons. Ogres hate lemons, right?
Me: Why would... you know, nevermind. That's great, make your Taunt check.
[clattering dice as whatever Taunt mechanic the game we're playing uses plays out - player succeeds]
Me: Yeah, he's peeved. [scribbling sound of me making notes that the ogre is going to attack the player that taunted him next round]
Player: Hah! How do you like THOSE lemons? Suck on that, you stupid ogre!
Me: [seeing Player reaching for dice] That doesn't count as another taunt.

I mean, I guess there's an entire class of stuff that might deserve a keyword like "mark" to indicate a relationship between opponents, but if it's just an "attack me first" mechanic it seems like a bit much...

 

[AllisterH]

If that's really all that marks do then I'll be pretty disappointed. It seems like a lot of overhead for what is, essentially, a "taunt" mechanic. We've been using that for years:

Player: I taunt the ogre
Me: What do you say to him?
Player: He has bad breath and his momma dresses him funny. Oh, and his cave smells vaguely of lemons. Ogres hate lemons, right?
Me: Why would... you know, nevermind. That's great, make your Taunt check.
[clattering dice as whatever Taunt mechanic the game we're playing uses plays out - player succeeds]
Me: Yeah, he's peeved. [scribbling sound of me making notes that the ogre is going to attack the player that taunted him next round]
Player: Hah! How do you like THOSE lemons? Suck on that, you stupid ogre!
Me: [seeing Player reaching for dice] That doesn't count as another taunt.

I mean, I guess there's an entire class of stuff that might deserve a keyword like "mark" to indicate a relationship between opponents, but if it's just an "attack me first" mechanic it seems like a bit much...

1. That's VERY videogamey even if you've been using it before WoW. I think this is why many people despised the Knight (from the PHB2).

2. It has its own limitations in that the target has to not only hear you and understand you but it has to fail its taunt check...

 

[Dragonblade]

Thanks for the feedback...

No problem.

I reread my post and it sounds a bit snarky which I didn't intend. So my apologies.

Honestly, I like your concept of the paladin that can draw attackers to him. I think it would be hard to write mechanics for that that wouldn't be abused though.

 

[coriolis]

Where does it come from? What does it represent?

I suspect that it's trying to emulate the effect of paladin judgements in WoW (in that game, paladins can cast seals on themselves -- short-duration spells that give them something back when they hit. Seals can also be judged on an enemy to transfer a lower version of the bonus to any ally hitting the judged target).

Personally, I would change this ability to be like a reverse sanctuary: Cha vs. Will, failure means the target ignores everyone except the paladin until the target is attacked by someone else, reroll save every round.

 

[The Little Raven]

Okay, so let me get this straight.

The paladin can use Divine Challenge to mark a target, then retreat to bow range and plunk the target with a single arrow each round, dealing relatively minimal damage. He forsakes the use of 95% of his class powers, since they rely on melee weapons and melee attacks, and makes himself relatively ineffective, since he's doing very little damage and not really doing much to defend his allies.

If someone wants to actively be useless, like a wizard running in with melee attacks and not using his spells, then that's his choice. I don't see how this is an exploit, since exploits are supposed to be beneficial and this is anything but.

 

[Kraydak]

It seems to me that this tactic would most often be ineffective. As has already been pointed out, if there is more than one enemy, the extra enemies can go after the paladin and render his ranged strategy ineffective.

This isn't an indictment of the striker paladin, it is an indictment of the entire striker role. If you believe the above, don't bother with rogues/rangers/warlocks, either.

 

[Kraydak]

Okay, so let me get this straight.

The paladin can use Divine Challenge to mark a target, then retreat to bow range and plunk the target with a single arrow each round, dealing relatively minimal damage. He forsakes the use of 95% of his class powers, since they rely on melee weapons and melee attacks, and makes himself relatively ineffective, since he's doing very little damage and not really doing much to defend his allies.

If someone wants to actively be useless, like a wizard running in with melee attacks and not using his spells, then that's his choice. I don't see how this is an exploit, since exploits are supposed to be beneficial and this is anything but.

Divine challenge *has* to do a lot of damage to work as intended. Divine challenge does, in fact, do a *ton* of damage. The flat 8 damage from the DDXP, *by itself* matched or outdid striker damage. Add in modest thrown damage and you are sitting pretty on the DPS charts. Of course, the improved math of 4e makes secondary attacks relevant, so the ranged damage won't be negligible.

 

[Jer]

1. That's VERY videogamey even if you've been using it before WoW. I think this is why many people despised the Knight (from the PHB2).

So - wait. Mechanics that videogame RPGs basically stole from RPGs are "videogamey"? That's an interesting definition of videogamey in my mind.

Seriously - I know that I've been using a "taunt" mechanic like this since around 1990 - because interaction skills in combat were integral to Torg and I started playing Torg in 1990. And we were doing something like this in Basic D&D without any mechanics at all long before that - player taunts the dragon, DM decides whether dragon thinks player is funny or angrify-ing, dragon react appropriately. Perhaps if a mechanic was actually needed a "Morale" check would be made. Regardless, there's nothing particularly "videogamey" about taunting a foe with the hope that it will drop what it's doing and attack you instead - in fact, a lot of action movies have fight scenes that hinge on that very tactic. (I'm sure when we started doing this in D&D it was because we were trying to emulate something we saw in Raiders, or Aliens, or some other action/adventure flick).

2. It has its own limitations in that the target has to not only hear you and understand you but it has to fail its taunt check...

Those are features, not bugs. If you taunt a creature who can maintain composure, you should have a chance that it will fail. You're supposed to taunt creatures that you can peeve off and get to react against you. That's a feature of a "taunt". The mechanic works for things other than taunts - taunting was just the example of "interaction in combat" that is easiest to outline - but if you want to make it a "challenge to your honor" or a "wave the red flag in front of the bull" or "rub yourself in beef tallow so that the Tyrannosaur attacks you instead" the underlying mechanic can be the same, with a few modifications.

But the point wasn't that this particular mechanism is superior/inferior/whatever from a "mark", just that if that's all that a mark does then I don't really see the need for a keyword for it. I'm hoping that "marks" are more general than an "attack me first" mechanism. But I'll wait to see how they play out at the table - if they're just a formalization of something I'm already doing, I guess it won't be that hard to pick them up anyway.

 

[Derren]

Okay, so let me get this straight.

The paladin can use Divine Challenge to mark a target, then retreat to bow range and plunk the target with a single arrow each round, dealing relatively minimal damage.

No. The paladin marks the target, then retreats to bow range and plunks the target with a single arrow each round, dealing the same damage as he would do with his melee at will powers in addition to the 8 automatic damage from the mark.

 

[Fanaelialae]

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.

The way I see it, it's a limited form of the Geas spell. Do this or else. In this case, attack me or suffer divine punishment. Seems reasonably paladin-like to me. Basically the holy version of a curse.