The defender's masochism

[Kingreaper]

You can't use the benefits provided by an ability to justify its inclusion.

Without the attack penalties and free opportunity attacks provided by the marking mechanic, is the defender a bigger threat than the striker?

If the answer is no then marking exists to justify something that isn't true.

Marking doesn't justify something that isn't true.

It MAKES IT TRUE.


By your logic, sneak attack damage is a way to justify the false idea that a rogue kills people faster than a cleric.
Because it's only true with sneak-attack, and so it's false, so sneak attack is justifying a falsehood.

Whereas, by real-world logic, sneak attack damage makes the rogue kill people faster than the cleric.


By your logic, Majestic Word is a way to justify the false idea that a bard is better at healing people than a fighter.
Because it's only true with Majestic word, so it's false, so majestic word is justifying a falsehood.

Whereas by real world logic Majestic Word makes the Bard better at healing people than the fighter.

 

[DEFCON 1]

You can't use the benefits provided by an ability to justify its inclusion.

I can.

I look at the class as a whole, not its individual parts. And the Fighter is designed in its completeness to be the "dangerous" one that is the BBEG of the party. That's the whole premise of the the defender classes. And I accept that as the convention of the 4E game.

If you choose to look at what the "most dangerous" individual part of any class is (and in your case, it appears to be whomever can do the most damage in a round), then sure... your belief on who should be focused on first would be different.

But that doesn't mean that what you believe is what the game should be.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You can't use the benefits provided by an ability to justify its inclusion.

On the contrary. That is the only justification for including an ability. That it has benefits.

Without the attack penalties and free opportunity attacks provided by the marking mechanic, is the defender a bigger threat than the striker?

If the answer is no then marking exists to justify something that isn't true.

No. Marking makes something true within the rules. It wouldn't be true if there wasn't the marking mechanic. But this makes about as much sense as saying "The fighter would be more able to affect the world than the caster if the caster couldn't cast spells". And by your logic you can't then argue that the caster could cast spells - that would be justifying the rule by the benefits of its own inclusion.

Fighters aren't the most dangerous combatants because they hit hardest. It's because they are most alert and best poised to take advantage of any opportunity they get. That is what marking provides.

Edit: A better analogy would be to use really old D&D rules. Old enough rules that every weapon rolled a d6 for damage. So a dagger is as dangerous as a greatsword. By using different damage dice for different weapons you have different threats, and this is, by your logic, based on a lie.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

If you GM a game of 4e, and have all your monsters ignore the fighter, the fighter will dish out FAR more damage than a striker would.

I'm not sure this is true past Heroic tier. I can see how you could build to achieve this, but if you're a standard sword+board Fighter, you only get one extra attack for everyone ignoring your mark.

The reduction in the number of hits scored on your party though, that definitely adds up. This is the part that's most difficult to justify without slightly strange monster opinions on the Fighter though, as the penalty applies however far away you might be. The defending aura thing sounds 'more real' to me (whatever that means).

 

[Bluenose]

Marking is a lame way to try and convince a target that the defender is a bigger threat than the others who are actually ripping him to shreds.

Marking is a mechanic that reflects the fact - one that cannot be contested by anyone wishing to be taken seriously - that having someone trying to kill you affects your ability to take any action you want. This is a basic fundamental of military tactics, usually expressed in the form of suppressive fire. That someone else may be a larger threat does not mean you can disregard the person attempting to suppress you.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

What if the fighter actually was the biggest threat in a fight? (What a concept) There wouldn't be any need to mark because enemies are pretty good at identifying real threats. If they ignore the fighter, then they get slaughtered in short order.

Alternately, how about giving the mark more teeth? (In the 3E context, you can say the same thing about AoO.) This accomplishes the same thing, but doesn't ignore the "I'm in your face" part of the equation. You could then leverage similar mechanics for "covered by a crossbow"--separate issue, I know, but same problem of working around a turn-based game trying to more accurately model speed and movement.

The nature of threats is that they are varied. The more varied they are, the more interesting the roleplaying can be in the DMs hands. It's not required, but it is helpful to the DM--in the same way that you can build a house with nothing but hand tools if you want to, but it will generally go easier with some power.

 

[Kingreaper]

I'm not sure this is true past Heroic tier. I can see how you could build to achieve this, but if you're a standard sword+board Fighter, you only get one extra attack for everyone ignoring your mark.

If you're a two-handed fighter, or a two-weapon fighter, you can be dishing out some quite major pain on that extra attack.

And, importantly, at higher levels it becomes less a case of "ignore me and I'll hurt you" and more a case of "ignore me and I'll cripple you" if you pick up feats to make the defendery attacks more effective.

Of course, Rangers, with Twin Strike, are able to be pumping out almost as much even without the provocation. But that's mostly because optimised rangers are just a bit silly. (not exactly gamebreaking, but certainly a very good option)

The reduction in the number of hits scored on your party though, that definitely adds up. This is the part that's most difficult to justify without slightly strange monster opinions on the Fighter though, as the penalty applies however far away you might be. The defending aura thing sounds 'more real' to me (whatever that means).

I actually think the defending aura is more realistic too.

Marking is a nice mechanic, but the defender aura is a fitting implementation for Fighters imo. Not sure about the balance, as I've never played with a knight.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

However, another point that you made also tends to go unspoken and unacknowledged:If you're talking about building a consensus 5e, it becomes rather important to consider that many if not most 4e players played 3e for years as their game of choice, but most 3e/PF stalwarts rejected 4e either before or after trying it.

To wit, most 4e players have played a game where fighters did not have defender powers and been pretty happy with that game; it's hard to justify changing these kinds of things.

If 4E had not arrived, our group would still not be playing 3E much. We were playing it, but playing high level 3E was leading to total DM burnout, due to prep--even with cutting all kinds of corners. So no 4E, we are restricting our 3E games to under 11th level--or more likely--playing something else. Since the majority of the players specifically and enthusiastically requested that we play some higher powered games for awhile--that meant no 3E. This decision was reached before 4E was announced.

It's true that there are tons of things I like about 3E, or we wouldn't have enjoyed it so long. I'd be quite happy to see some of those things in 5E. Making fighters competent via illusionism is not one of them.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I actually think the defending aura is more realistic too.

Marking is a nice mechanic, but the defender aura is a fitting implementation for Fighters imo. Not sure about the balance, as I've never played with a knight.

I've not played with a Knight either, but I can see the appeal. Just having that defined area of protection creates an amusing tradeoff between defense and avoiding that fireball..

 

[ExploderWizard]

By your logic, sneak attack damage is a way to justify the false idea that a rogue kills people faster than a cleric.
Because it's only true with sneak-attack, and so it's false, so sneak attack is justifying a falsehood.

Exactly that. You get it now.

Sneak attack, as defined in 3E is something that, if it exists at all, should be the province of the most competent master of arms, in other words-the fighting classes.

The rogue in 3E is a reale morale builder for the fighter. The fighter is weapons specialist (which grants a couple points of bonus damage) while the street rat is practically rolling fistfulls of d6's on nearly every hit.

It makes the fighter seem like not so competent a weapon user.

Backstab for the old thief OTOH, made a bit more sense. First it was (in 4E terms) a limited damage expression. The target and circumstances had to be right and then there was still a chance of detection.

Backstab gave the thief some limited potency without taking the fighters lunch.