D&D 4E SRM Marking Marked and Other 4Eisms

[olshanski]

Umm, that doesn't work. The dominated Warlord is no longer an ally.

Do we honestly need the game to define ally vs enemy? Ally is anyone I say they are. Enemy is anyone I say. And, yup, that's open to abuse, but, if you have players abusing that at your table, then no amount of mechanics is going to save your game.

Good guy paladin has the binding smite mark, which prevents an opponent from attacking anyone else. He intends to use his binding smite to prevent the Herzau demon from demolishing the rest of the party that has succombed to paralysis poison.

Herzau demon has a minor toady follower that has the minimal mark that causes 1 point of damage every time you attack someone that is not the markee.

When the Herzau demon is marked by the paladin, the demon delays for his toady to perform the weaker but still over-riding puny mark, which gives the demon free reign to stomp on the vulnerable PCs.

 

[Simplicity]

Well I understand the real world mechanics... Marking is the equivalent of providing suppressive fire. You know, when people in the movies shout, "Cover me!"... The person doing the covering is "marking" target(s). It makes sense to me.

As for the "only one mark" thing... well, it's a balance issue, but the main point of suppressive fire is to make someone feel seriously threatened... Maybe being seriously threatened by two people just isn't any worse.

 

[Lizard]

People keep mentioning this. I will be absolutely dumbfounded if the PHB does not contain text to the effect of "You cannot mark an ally."

I will be dumbfounded if it does, because it's...uh...dumb.

Whatever a Fighter does to 'mark' an Orc, he can do to a friend -- even more easily if the friend is willing. I can perhaps see that a Paladin could only mark people opposed to his alignment/god/cause/whatever Paladins do in 4e, but why would martial powers -- the result of training and discipline -- be so discriminating? Presumably, back at Fighter School, newbie fighters had to practice these arts on their fellow students (using training swords and padded armor, I'm sure). It's hard to imagine not being able to use a power which explicitly relies on extensive practice until your first real life-or-death fight.

The more times I have to say "You can't because the rules say you can't, that's why!", the more broken the game is. I still don't know how invisibility knows to end when you attack someone...non-magical stealth, sure, but why would a spell end when you attack someone directly but not cause them harm indirectly? But that's another thread...

 

[FadedC]

Good guy paladin has the binding smite mark, which prevents an opponent from attacking anyone else. He intends to use his binding smite to prevent the Herzau demon from demolishing the rest of the party that has succombed to paralysis poison.

Herzau demon has a minor toady follower that has the minimal mark that causes 1 point of damage every time you attack someone that is not the markee.

When the Herzau demon is marked by the paladin, the demon delays for his toady to perform the weaker but still over-riding puny mark, which gives the demon free reign to stomp on the vulnerable PCs.

Which is exactly the sort of thing that will not work if you can't mark an ally....which you almost certainly cannot.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I guess, well this is how I run my games if using a particular rule in-game doesn't make sense in the context of an actual situation of that type it doesn't work.

So the whole, ally using his mark to get rid of enemies mark, I would simply vouch doesn't make sense so doesn't work. Since why would (in-game) concentrating on your ally make the enemy stop concentrating.

Now, this being said with the other ally mark overpowering the previous allies mark on monster depending on how powerful it is, if I got two Defenders I may house rule it.

 

[Lizard]

Which is exactly the sort of thing that will not work if you can't mark an ally....which you almost certainly cannot.

But WHY not?

Never mind "game balance". What's the in-game-world reason?

Hell, what's the in-game-world reason marks trump each other?

 

[hong]

But WHY not?

Never mind "game balance". What's the in-game-world reason?

Hell, what's the in-game-world reason marks trump each other?

Make it up! Are you a computer, that you lack all creativity? Must you be force-fed everything?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I'm going to just take a wild guess here and predict that you can't mark an ally.

AD

Based on the comments regarding the fighter's Thicket of Blades ability, I'm going to guess that you can only mark a character if you attack it first.

 

[malraux]

Marking a target, like the rogue's ability to move a character, probably involves making an attack against the target. So yes, it strikes me a plausible that your fighter could mark his friend the wizard to remove the mark of the other person. But I doubt it'll happen much like that in game. First, I'd guess the defender needs to spend an action to do it (or more likely it rides on an action that he takes). Second, I can't see this marking also not force the defender to attack his mark. So if your melee guy wants to spend a round not defending but instead attacking the party, that seems like a legit choice, if suboptimal.

As for such a thing making sense, Regdar notices that Krusk is focusing entirely on the fighter at the other end of the room, ignoring all the attacks from the goblins surrounding him. To get the fool's attention, Regdar slaps him hard with the flat of his blade. Krusk "wakes up" and begins to focus on the goblin hoard before going after the fighter. Does this not make sense?

 

[hong]

Do we honestly need the game to define ally vs enemy?

It would appear that at least a few people were happy with 3E's philosophy of taking the DM out of the picture. 3E is so videogamey.