Willing Targets

[Ebylon]

Best answer: Houserule it as you see fit. I don't think there really could be much more discussion needed.

 

[Saeviomagy]

A willing target of an attack is not closing her eyes, plugging her ears, and tying herself up. She's going to stand mostly still, make herself as big a target she can, and do her best to get in the way of THAT attack. It doesn't mean she can't dodge or block other attacks she is aware of. It's the kind of thing where you might just give a flat +5 to hit and call it a day.

The idea was that someone can't be any easier to hit with a power than helpless: if a power requires a hit roll, then it's actually difficult in some way to get it to work.

Furthermore, if you want to achieve that same level of bonus, it's through the same mechanic: you're standing still and letting the attacker do their thing.

As an analogy: even if you were the greatest surgeon that ever lived, you're not going to help people perform surgery on you by wriggling about on the table.

Now, such a tactic MIGHT be good to have a feat for. It sounds like the sort of teamwork thing that one might train and practice. Something like "you may take a minor action to grant an ally a +5 to hit you with their next attack".

 

[Azarin]

I think you've had some thoughtful responses. You just need to house rule something and "make it so number one" (Cpt Picard)

 

[DragonXNIK]

After reading through the responses in this thread, I've formulated an idea for a houserule that I believe to be fair and realistic for the situation described, if not entirely desirable for the power you listed.
1.)
Allies can grant combat advantage to other allies if they are willing targets without penalty.
2.)
An ally can designate himself a completely willing target and be automatically affected by an attack as a free action, but this provokes Opportunity Attacks as if the ally was moving in threatened range.

My reasoning for the second houserule is that if you drop your guard to get hit by an ally, you're dropping your guard to everyone. Stand still in battle, and someone will introduce you to their favorite sword/fist/teeth. Automatically successful ally attacks has been a common houserule in most D&D campaigns I've participated in or heard of. But it probably doesn't make as much sense as you might feel at first if you consider the entire battle.

That said, I think a more swift solution would be to just houserule the power in question to automatically hit Allies; you might consider submitting that power to customer service for review. You might not get a useful response, but it could cause the power to be revisited in a future update.

 

[Ferghis]

The idea was that someone can't be any easier to hit with a power than helpless: if a power requires a hit roll, then it's actually difficult in some way to get it to work.

I agree that in practice there needs to be a hit roll that is modified in some way. I just don't think there should be any real action required taken to make the character easier to hit. But I think reasonable folks can disagree with that.

Now, such a tactic MIGHT be good to have a feat for. It sounds like the sort of teamwork thing that one might train and practice. Something like "you may take a minor action to grant an ally a +5 to hit you with their next attack".

I think there are already too many feats in 4e. But I'd love to see a party that's so synergized that one or two of them actually took that feat.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I think there are already too many feats in 4e. But I'd love to see a party that's so synergized that one or two of them actually took that feat.

I'd agree on too many feats, but I'd prefer to remove some of the static all-the-time bonus granting ones and make room for interesting things like this.