Problems with marks?

[djdaidouji]

I personally don't see the difficulty of keeping track, as long as you have a little bit of time beforehand to set it up. I'm sure a lot of ideas have come up before about how to show marking, but these are the first that popped into my head immediately.
Each Fighter and Paladin get little paper hats. Simply have them make a little pyramid shape, preferably with coloured paper. When they mark something, they put their hat on the marked mini.
Another idea is putting character sheets in plastic page protectors (I do this in my game), and simply writing in erasable marker "Marked by Jim" or "Marked: Orc with mace" over your attack option.

Speaking of marking, my friend has chosen Paladin for my campaign, only because his name is Mark and he wants to "mark" people. This is good, because he never plays defender roles.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I don't find "marking" any less of a problem then it was in previous games having to remember which enemy has a level-drain or ongoing damage, etc.

In many regards it is easier since, the player is the one who has to remember. Not the DM like with those other things, so the player simply concentrates on his own character, and whatever monster is marked.

A easy way to do this too would be to cut a strip of the coloured sticky notes and have a colour for each character that can mark. This strip is simply put on the mini/token/whatever by the player till it dies or they switch marks.

 

[Digital M@]

Marking completely changed the combats my characters went through. The Paladin was able to use the mark to draw opponents from other characters having their asses handed to them. It was a nice strategic option for the game and in the end cost the poor Paladin his life. He over estimated his Armor class

I was not a fan of Marking during my solo tests of the first two encounters in KotS, but when the combat was live with players, I really liked it and can't wait to use it as the DM to more advantage.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Mark doesn't seem like an issue for PCs -- one token per PC should suffice, and it's no big deal. As long as each PC (and the DM) remembers their token color, who cares?

Enemies marking is a whole different ballgame, as you need to have some sort of clear way to tell who marked whom. Oh, and this can change every round, or multiple times within a round if you've got a few Soldiers in the fight.

I'm really interested in losing monster marks, and here's my thought so far, riffing off of another idea earlier up.

Engaged(condition): You cannot use a move action to shift.

Instead of marking(which requires the DM players to keep track of the marker and the markee), you just say, the kobold dragonshield hits, you're Engaged and can't shift this round - it's no harder than any other basic status condition, since you don't care which monster instigated it.

This doesn't make it impossible to hit other targets (if they're still next to you), but it does mean you won't be able to follow them - or step back for a ranged attack - unless you're willing to take an AoO from the Soldier.

 

[Piratecat]

I love the concept, but tracking is a pain. Here's what we're doing, and it works wonderfully (and painlessly, thank goodness).

1. Get several pads of the 2" Post-It notes, the small ones, in really bright colors.
2. Cut each into 3 strips.
3. Give one color to each player.
4. They tuck a sticky strip next to anyone they've marked.

Not perfect, but too bad.

 

[Kunimatyu]

I love the concept, but tracking is a pain. Here's what we're doing, and it works wonderfully (and painlessly, thank goodness).

1. Get several pads of the 2" Post-It notes, the small ones, in really bright colors.
2. Cut each into 3 strips.
3. Give one color to each player.
4. They tuck a sticky strip next to anyone they've marked.

Not perfect, but too bad.

What are you doing about monsters who mark, PC?

 

[Mort_Q]

What are you doing about monsters who mark, PC?

Tell the players that their character is marked and just write it on the NPCs card/sheet?

The initial of PC or players name in a specific place seems easy enough, and with the players knowing, they can remind you.

 

[weem]

For about $3 you could get a small dry erase board (on amazon, search "White 9" x 12" Plain Dry Erase Board ")-- when combat arises you can list the pc's and creatures (in initiative order even) down the left side, then have a column for marks (you could number the creatures and use the number as a reference). This makes it easy to track/see and also reminds everyone of the initiative order.

Just a thought. I have one of these but have only played a little bit of KotS - not enough to pull out the dry erase board yet - but that's probably what I will do.

 

[Herodotus]

So he can continue to battle it the rest of his life

I haven't laughed that hard in a while. Thanks!

 

[Plane Sailing]

So I'm kinda hoping ya'll would brainstorm a bit with me on the pros and cons of marks and ways to replace them.

For this reason I've moved it into the house rules thread.

Cheers