Summoned creatures identifying friend or foe

[Li Shenron]

So if you are facing two ranks of orcs, and you charge up to the first rank, you can declare the second rank to be your allies, and thus gain flanking bonuses against the first rank?

You're making a melee attack, and your opponent is in the threatened area of your ally on the opposite side (the second-rank orc)...

-Hyp.

The flanking situation is actually something that made me wonder before: is one flanked because he has to enemies at 180' and must keep an eye on each, or because two allies are sinchronizing their movements against him?

The SRD seems to lean firmly toward the need of being friendly to each other, so eventually I would rule that you flank the defender only if the other attacker is willing to provide you the flanking bonus. That is, you don't get the bonus if he doesn't want.

What do you think?

 

[Madfox]

The SRD seems to lean firmly toward the need of being friendly to each other, so eventually I would rule that you flank the defender only if the other attacker is willing to provide you the flanking bonus. That is, you don't get the bonus if he doesn't want.

What do you think?

Sounds logical - then again, if that second layer of orcs is hostile to the front layer then why should they balk at the oppertunity to flank (even by an enemy)?

 

[Flyspeck23]

Seems like the rules are made for two-sided combat. If there are three or more groups, all of which are hostile to each other, it might get complicated, and the rules won't really help you there.

So (back on topic) normally you've got two sides. A summoned creature joins the side of the caster. Easy as that. At least that's the way I run it...

 

[Hypersmurf]

Sounds logical - then again, if that second layer of orcs is hostile to the front layer then why should they balk at the oppertunity to flank (even by an enemy)?

No, the orcs are all on the same side.

Li Shenron stated "I see no problem in letting anyone deciding by will who's an ally and who's an enemy"... so the PC decides "the front orc is an enemy and the back orc is an ally". That satisfies the conditions for flanking, if you can decide who is an ally.

If it actually requires friendly feelings on the part of the other person for you to be allies, though, then the doppelganger who's secretly replaced your friend so he can kill you will not be affected by a Bless spell, even though you think he's an ally, because you don't individually select targets for a Bless; it affects all allies within the area.

So which is it? Can you declare "That person is my ally", regardless of their feelings towards you, or is it dependent on whether they consider you an ally as well?

Likewise for "enemy" - is it a one-way or a two-way relationship?

-Hyp.

 

[dedstuff]

Upon summoning, the monster is imparted with the knowledge of the caster - ie who's an enemy and who's not. Furthermore, this information is fixed at the time of casting. If you can't communicate with the summoned, you can't change your target information.

My interpretation of an 'enemy'? Whoever the caster (or otherwise initiator of the action) selects to be an enemy at the time of casting. If you really want to select only a single target or group of targets for your summoned monster, then fine - I don't really care. However when that target/targets dies, the creature will just sit patiently by.

I agree with this with an addition. The identities of the caster's enemies are imparted at the time of casting based on the perception of the caster at that time. If new enemies show up later then the summoned creature will not attack them unless the caster can order them to or, my addition, they actually attack the caster.

 

[Li Shenron]

No, the orcs are all on the same side.

Li Shenron stated "I see no problem in letting anyone deciding by will who's an ally and who's an enemy"... so the PC decides "the front orc is an enemy and the back orc is an ally". That satisfies the conditions for flanking, if you can decide who is an ally.

If it actually requires friendly feelings on the part of the other person for you to be allies, though, then the doppelganger who's secretly replaced your friend so he can kill you will not be affected by a Bless spell, even though you think he's an ally, because you don't individually select targets for a Bless; it affects all allies within the area.

So which is it? Can you declare "That person is my ally", regardless of their feelings towards you, or is it dependent on whether they consider you an ally as well?

Likewise for "enemy" - is it a one-way or a two-way relationship?

-Hyp.

For the purposes of spells effects, I second my own opinion above, with which I by the way agree...

Then I checked the flanking descriptions and it really looks like it's something which requires will and focus by both the flankers, so it sounds like you cannot just declare that a creature is your ally for a round to gain a flank bonus. In other words, flanking takes two.

I really think for spells you can freely designate who is your ally or foe. If you were a foe in disguise, and you cast bless, I would see no problem in freely deciding who should get the benefit, if your fake allies or the real ones. At the same time, if you cast bless on the party and there's a fake ally in it, but you don't know, if you choose to bless him too he gets the benefits.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Then I checked the flanking descriptions and it really looks like it's something which requires will and focus by both the flankers...

What's your rationale?

It just says an ally directly opposite threatens the creature. "Threaten" is a defined term in 3E - "to be able to make a melee attack, even when it is not your turn".

Will and focus is not referenced.

-Hyp.

 

[Allanon]

For the purposes of spells effects, I second my own opinion above, with which I by the way agree...

Then I checked the flanking descriptions and it really looks like it's something which requires will and focus by both the flankers, so it sounds like you cannot just declare that a creature is your ally for a round to gain a flank bonus. In other words, flanking takes two.

I really think for spells you can freely designate who is your ally or foe. If you were a foe in disguise, and you cast bless, I would see no problem in freely deciding who should get the benefit, if your fake allies or the real ones. At the same time, if you cast bless on the party and there's a fake ally in it, but you don't know, if you choose to bless him too he gets the benefits.

But wouldn't this addition make the spell line-of-sight again just like mass inflict light wounds? I mean how can you know who is you're ally if you can't see them?

For Example:
You're party including the doppelganger assasin walks into a room. Suddenly the torches are blown out and the human cleric is effectively blind. The doppelganger then proceeds the strike the cleric who survives the attack and proceeds to cast bless to bolster his allies.

Would the Bless spell still target the doppelganger eventhough he just attacked the caster?
The cleric doesn't know about the doppelganger assassin and still thinks he's attacked by a random enemy.

 

[Li Shenron]

But wouldn't this addition make the spell line-of-sight again just like mass inflict light wounds? I mean how can you know who is you're ally if you can't see them?

For Example:
You're party including the doppelganger assasin walks into a room. Suddenly the torches are blown out and the human cleric is effectively blind. The doppelganger then proceeds the strike the cleric who survives the attack and proceeds to cast bless to bolster his allies.

Would the Bless spell still target the doppelganger eventhough he just attacked the caster?
The cleric doesn't know about the doppelganger assassin and still thinks he's attacked by a random enemy.

How would you play that if you were the DM?

If the Cleric didn't notice that it was his former ally to strike him, he still believes it's an ally. He says "I can bless on my party" (I assume that Bless works without needing to see...), since he still thinks the DG is in his party I think the Bless affects him too.

 

[Li Shenron]

What's your rationale?

It just says an ally directly opposite threatens the creature. "Threaten" is a defined term in 3E - "to be able to make a melee attack, even when it is not your turn".

Will and focus is not referenced.

-Hyp.

Mah, I ws just reading the SRD:

FLANKING
When making a melee attack, you get a +2 flanking bonus if your opponent is threatened by a character or creature friendly to you on the opponent’s opposite border or opposite corner.

...

Only a creature or character that threatens the defender can help an attacker get a flanking bonus.
Creatures with a reach of 0 feet can’t flank an opponent.

It's very poor quantity of words to base my adjudication upon, but if I have to adjudicate, I adjudicate as I wrote before. Here it only says that the other flanker must be friendly to you, nothing more.

I accept that I am adjudicating (that is, the rules may not clearly say I am right ). What I don't understand is why are you so sure that I am wrong?

The two flankers must be "friendly" to each other to "help" the other get the flanking bonus. You cannot say that the second orc rank is friendly if he doesn't want to be, but maybe if he wanted to be, why can't he give you the flanking bonus? If there were a devil, a demon and a celestial fighting, why couldn't 2 of them "ally" for a round? Obviously it takes 2, and it's not a thing that would easily happen (definitely not in this example), but in any case I don't think that the demon should get +2 only because on the other side of the target there's a devil.
At first I thought that flanking was a condition on the DEFENDER (having 2 emenies on opposite sides) but from the words it changed my mind that it is a condition on the ATTACKERS, and that's maybe why it grants them +2 to attack and does not instead give the defender a -2 to AC (and in fact a 3rd attacker doesn't get +2 ionly because other attackers are flanking).

I understand that there is weak support to my opinion, but I don't see a stronger support to the other way around...