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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stalker0" data-source="post: 4631917" data-attributes="member: 5889">I think WOTC created marks specifically to stop the self defeating principal of the tank. You have awesome defense, but without some method to get people to attack you, that defense is wasted.The question becomes....do the marks do an effective job?There's a big factor that's important to consider here: The PC/NPC divide. NPCs have a lot of hitpoints and they do alright damage to a PCs much lower hitpoints.In a nutshell: If a monster takes 20 damage a round and is dealing out 20 damage, the monster is normally winning.This is my problem with the paladin's mark, its damage isn't always that good of an incentive. As others have mentioned, if the paladin's AC is high enough, its still well within the monsters best interest to attack someone else. If a monster can hit a squishy wizard for 15 damage and provide some nasty afteraffect (while still having a better chance to hit the wizard than he had the paladin), does it care if it takes 6 or so damage from the mark?EDIT: But on the other hand, a paladin can use his lay on of hands to heal his buddies, in this way he is defending them by keeping their hitpoints high, no matter what the monster does. If the paladin has a very large AC, he never gets hit, and so has more lay on hands to give to his allies.With the fighter, his defenderishness revolves less around his mark and more around movement control. He also can do some very good damage with his mark attacks, but the fact that he can stop movement on his OAs forces the monster to stay close, even if the monster has no incentive whatsoever to attack the fighter. The swordmage has 2 marks, but I think the shielding mark is flat out the best one...and is the best mark among all the defenders. The swordmage mage's mark doesn't attack the monsters boatload of hitpoints, it attacks his much more moderate damage. This is defending personified, if you attack my buddies, I don't care, they simply won't be harmed that much. If you attack me and my high AC, you won't hurt me much. In other words, I have just shut down your offense.All of this said, the bottom line is a DM can always set up fights to screw his party, its his job to make the players feel good and useful. If a monster misses a buddy because of that -2 attack from the mark, the DM should mention that once in a while to make teh defender feel good. He should announce that he was going to pulverize the rogue...but he just can't take the risk of that mark damage...etc.</blockquote>

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