Who are "Allies" or "Enemies" when dominated?

[Destil]

I think that's more a problem with Commander's Strike (it should really say "a willing ally" otherwise you can cause your committed pacifist, catholic, ally to try and hit the pope if you come across him.) than anything else.

Cleanest fix would be to only allow it on targets that can make an opportunity attack.

 

[MarkB]

I think that's more a problem with Commander's Strike (it should really say "a willing ally" otherwise you can cause your committed pacifist, catholic, ally to try and hit the pope if you come across him.) than anything else.

As I mentioned earlier, the PHB's rules on targeting state that "willing" is an essential component of the term "ally". Anytime you try and use a power that affects allies to make someone do something they don't want to do, they cease to be an ally for purposes of that power.

 

[Kingreaper]

I had assumed ally meant "willing ally" until I noticed some powers specified "willing ally" while others did not.

I guess it's just a case of excess redundancy confusing me...

 

[mneme]

Actually, Commander's Strike should specify "as a free action" (that way, a dominated ally can't receive the benefit). As it is, though -- sure, it works; the Warlord barks out an order and the dominated ally reacts on instinct. It's not that hard to make the chrome match the rules.

 

[Amaroq]

But can't those problems be solved simply by saying "An ally is someone you wish to aid, an enemy someone you wish to harm."

If your ally is dominated, they may wish to harm you (and so won't be able to heal you) but you're probably going to want to help them still.

Sure - but apparently people were doing weird things like having a warlord use Commander's Strike on their dominated ally, to give him a free attack against the guy dominating him. That's a major twisting of intent there

Anyhow, I've personally never really had any problems with such things, but that's why it recently got changed and why they had the article about you always counting as an ally and them an enemy... which I think unnecessarily screws up using certain at-wills like a dominated warlord helping out his dominator with opening shove or commander's strike.

Exactly. I think this is the sort of issue that didn't need Errata, so much as it needed a "Allow the DM to use his or her judgement in those cases."

I mean, as a DM, I want the flexibility to run the following encounter:

Fighter, Warlord, and Bard vs: Dominating Controller, Soldier w/ Aura that benefits allies, 2 Skirmishers

Init 25: The Dominator dominates the Fighter.
- The fighter loses the Warlord's bonus to Initiative while dominated

Init 21: The Warlord tries to use Commander's Strike on the Fighter
- It doesn't work because the fighter isn't operating under his own power.

Init 19: The Soldier advances on and attacks the Warlord.

Init 18: The Dominator makes the Fighter charge the Warlord
- Fighter gains a + to hit from the Soldier's Aura of Command
- He fails the saving throw against ongoing Dominate

Init 16: The Bard casts a Daily area burst effect which affects "all enemies in burst"
- The Soldier, Fighter, Warlord and Dominator are in the burst
- The power affects the Soldier and the Dominator.
- The power does not affect the Warlord
- The Bard chooses whether the power targets the Fighter.
- This time, the Bard chooses not to have it affect the Fighter.

Init 15: The Skirmishers circle around the back end of the group to harass the Bard.

Round 2:

Init 25: The Dominator tosses out a close blast which affects "all enemies in blast"
- The Soldier, Fighter, and Warlord are in the burst
- The power doesn't affect the Soldier, does affect the Warlord ..
- The Dominator chooses whether it targets the Fighter or not.
- This time, he chooses that it does affect the Fighter.

Init 21: The Warlord uses Inspiring Word to grant the Fighter a Healing Surge and a Save
- The Fighter gets the Healing Surge
- The fighter gets to use the granted saving throw
- The fighter makes the save.
- The fighter gets +2 to his initiative from the Warlord

Init 20: The Fighter gets to go, whirls around, and attacks the Soldier.

. . .

For that combat to work as described, the DM needs to decide on the fly whether the Fighter is an ally, an enemy, or potentially both, for any power.

Regarding the PC's, he chose that the Fighter was an "Ally" for purposes of Inspiring Word and Granted Saving Throws .. an "Enemy" for purposes of the Warlord's Initiative Bonus .. and "either" for a burst power.

Regarding the bad guys, he chose that the Fighter was an "Ally" for purposes of the Soldier's Aura .. an "Enemy" not at all .. and "either" for a blast power.

...

"Why make the area power targeting a choice? Wouldn't your friends always choose not to affect you, and the bad guys always choose to hit you?"

No, not necessarily.

The players might choose not to target you with a high-damage, low-status effect ... but might actually want to target the Dominated creature with a low-damage, high-status effect that might result in him being Restrained, Immobilized, or Weakened: the classic "I don't want to hurt you!" spell or other effect.

An NPC necromancer might choose to hit you every time, because really, if he kills you, he can brings you back on his side more permanently. An NPC dragon might hit you because he's fought many adventuring parties before and is wise enough to know that he has to exploit his advantage. On the other hand, an NPC seductress who is trying to pry the handsome Fighter away from the party might not want him hurt if she can help it .. and of course, that might turn around and bite her if he can break free of her spell.

 

[bardolph]

Interesting topic.

As a DM, I'd rule dominated allies as allies and dominated enemies as enemies, for simplicity's sake. This means:

• A Warlord can use Commander's Strike on a dominated ally.
• An "all enemies in burst" attack does not affect a dominated ally.
• The Dominator's aura does not grant an attack bonus to the dominated enemy.
• etc.

In the succubus case, I would rule the same way you did. In the goliath case, I would not grant the Astral Seal bonus to the bad guys. However, if another PC was dominated, that PC would gain the bonus.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Once again, I'd like to suggest replacing the current, murky, stupid definition of ally that 4e has with that of mutual alliance:

ie: if both you and the target agree that for the purposes of this power you are allys, then you are. Otherwise you are enemies. The target knows the details of the power that is about to hit him before he makes his choice.

This rule doesn't touch upon the bucket-of-snails rule in any way: if you choose to stab your buddy to trigger your "hit: all allies in range regain all their hitpoints" power, then the DM is well within his rights to tell you to sod off.

 

[DracoSuave]

From a gaming standpoint, it doesn't seem fun to have to tell the PC's that your power is ineffective because that's actually an enemy in disguise. Or just as bad would be the opposite. You couldn't touch that 'enemy' because he's actually your 'ally' in disguise.

From the rules standpoint, if that 'enemy' is pretending to be your 'ally' then he's a willing recipient of your powers, and is therefore an ally under the rules.

I do not understand how one could interpret the rule to mean that powers could discern traitors for you under any circumstance. It's a non-issue unless it's the DM using 'this guy is obviously suspicious of you' style portrayal of the character in question.