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

[TheArcane]

My opinion from a slightly different angle, I think this will create unnecessary tension between the DM and players. I'll explain -

All DMs here, no matter how good or bad, you know that deep down inside, you hate to see the players tear through a nicely crafted encounter. Sure, the game is your prime interest, but you want to keep the challenge up for the players, and eventually your own ego settles in and you start taking combat just slightly personally. Now add this mechanic to the equation. Each "side" now has a way of slightly (well, depends on the exact magnitude of these powers' effects) forcing the others hands. Now, as a DM, to which lengths will you go to save an encounter? Will you play dumb monsters smart? Will you play smart monsters dumb? Or even worse, will you plan ahead (assuming there are ways to make yourself immune to marking)? All this also applies to the players' angle, and for many players the game is competitive enough.

That's my opinion at least...

edit - By the way, I have no problem with the players creatively breaking my encounters on occasion, but this in not creative, this is round-to-round mundane abilities...

 

[Michael Morris]

I going to play GURPS 4E instead. More flexibility and less expensive. No rogue with small blade and thievery if you don't want to. corporate greed. FTW

[bq]When you've let yourself get worked up to the point of getting censored by the system it's time to take a break. Calm down, do something soothing, then come back to the thread.[/bq]

 

[small pumpkin man]

To wit, on average human beings can temporarily recall 7 random facts on a short term basis. Now some individuals can do better, some worse, but the average is 7.

This is may or may not be true (probably is, although I wouldn't put much money on the exact number).

This is the reason there are 7 digits in a phone number

This is full of crap.

Just sayin.

 

[MaelStorm]

[bq]When you've let yourself get worked up to the point of getting censored by the system it's time to take a break. Calm down, do something soothing, then come back to the thread.[/bq]

I'm sorry.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Yeah that is quite false for phone-numbers, all the phone-numbers around here are 10 digits (not including 1-800).

 

[WyzardWhately]

You guys remember a few updates back, when they had the following problem: The fighter had a power that let him pick a bad guy, and if that bad guy attacked anyone else the fighter got an opportunity attack + The paladin could pick a guy to get -5 to all attacks that weren't against the paladin = Hey, those are really way too powerful if they do it to the same guy, we need to fix that....

The generic Marked condition, where you can only be marked by one person, is the fix.

It's not a bad, fix, either, because to my brain the name marked doesn't feel generic. Kind of like being a "marked man."

Sorry if this got called out earlier, it's late and I'm not going to read all seven pages.

 

[Kraydak]

There are several errors in logic here. First, all that the paladin's defending abilities have to do is provide some additional incentive to attack the paladin over other targets. This does not mean that they have to be particularly effective as a directly offencive abilities. Second, even if these techniques are as effective as directly offencive abilities, they seem to be designed to go into effect if the target does not intend to attack the paladin. Thus the paladin must both provide incentive to be attacked and provide incentive not to be attacked. Third, even this seems to be ideal defender behaviour, not aberrant defender behaviour.

One given example of a paladin mark was one that hurt the markee if he attacked someone other than the paladin. If the mark does little enough damage that the markee doesn't care, it won't protect the rest of the party. If it does enough damage that the markee cares, you can use it to *kill* the markee (but only if you avoid combat).

I'm not sure if this is even a coherent English sentence. I certainly don't understand the meaning.

Lemme try to explain more clearly. Suspension of disbelief is aided by simulationist rules. Conversely, inadequately simulationist rules endanger suspension of disbelief. Once you lose suspension of disbelief, people will give up any semblance of treating rules as intended as opposed to RAW. Now, while gamist design is not strictly exclusive of simulationist design, a gamist design approach does generally lead to a reduction of simulationism.

I don't get it. A system that is designed to facilitate gamist play is bad, in principle, because people who play in a gamist mentality will... will what? Play gamist? And people who play for some other reason will... will what? Use the rules for some other purpose?

As noted above, if you have suspension of disbelief, people will tend to metagame against RAW in favor of RAI. If you lose it, people will tend more strongly towards RAW because, after all, without suspension of disbelief it isn't a fantasy world, but rather it is *just* a game. The mark system threatens to strongly divide RAI and RAW which in turn threatens DnD's existence as a roleplaying game as opposed to a rollplaying one.

 

[Campbell]

Let's examine strategic marking in detail. Now, in order for strategic use of marking to be of value the affect of the mark currently in place on an ally needs to be more dire than the impact of the power you are using to mark your ally. For this to be true the following needs to occur:

• Removing the mark must be worth the Defender's action.
• Your ally must not want to attack the enemy that has them marked.
• The effect of the enemy mark must be powerful enough to make it worth all opportunity costs.
• Damage dealt in the course of the marking must be worth it. Note that the power used to mark your ally might have weapon restrictions and it looks like powers will do a fair job of scaling.
• Initiative order must shake out so that your ally isn't simply marked again before his turn is up.
• There must not be more efficient ways to remove the marking.

 

[hong]

Lemme try to explain more clearly. Suspension of disbelief is aided by simulationist rules.

No, it's not. Suspension of disbelief for people _who think too hard about fantasy_ is aided by simulationist rules.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Hmm... Just throwing this out there but what about this secondary rule for Marking.

When a Defender "Marks" a ally he disrupts any attack a enemy Defender would have while Marking that target. (In Game Reason: The Defender by keeping close watch on his ally can block and fend off attacks from the enemy Defender).

This also enables said ally to not be affected by Combat Advantage. (In Game Reason: Since the Defender is paying close attention to his ally, all incoming Combat Advantage attacks could be reasonably assumed blocked of fended off by the Defender).

I dunno what you people think, but I think this could make sense.