DMG Marking

[Kane0]

Do you like it? Why/why not? Does it do its job, or work at all? Would you change it?

[Cheesegear]

Do you like it? Why/why not? Does it do its job, or work at all? Would you change it?

For the most part it does nothing, because Opportunity Attacks simply don't come up often enough for the bonus to be worth it.
Sentinel isn't good because it prevents movement, sometimes...Rarely.

Sentinel is good because it allows extra Opportunity Attacks, before the target makes an attack. That is, it causes off-turn attacks to proc, earlier, more often.
Sentinel is good because it hard-counters Disengage. That is, it causes more off-turn attacks to proc, more often.

Marking a target makes Opportunity Attacks marginally better, when they happen normally...Which they don't. Because DMs don't just walk targets away from you. They use Disengage or Flyby hostiles. Therefore...Marking a target is relatively meaningless. All's you're doing is providing another disincentive for the DM to make mistakes.

I attack...Miss...But I Mark the target.
Great. The Goblin Disengages as a Bonus Action and dives at the Wizard.
But I Marked...
Cool beans. It does nothing.

In conclusion;
Sentinel doesn't need the free buff. Please don't buff Sentinel even more.
Everyone else could use the free buff...But Opportunity Attacks are so rare (basically they only happen if the DM is incompetent or desperate) that who cares?

...It also buffs Melee characters with the Shield spell. Effectively allowing two Reactions per round...But again, it's still only more like one Reaction per round because Opportunity Attacks still don't happen. But IMO, I also feel like that Eldritch Knight should maybe just have the option to cast the Shield spell as a Bonus Action on their turn.

[Dork_Forge]

It's not for me personally, but if making notes directly on your DMG helps why not, maybe use some of those skinny sticky notes too!

As for the rule, I've never seen a reason to use it, just a needless extra thing to remember and, if anything, encourages grabbing Shield.

[JonBeowulf]

I've been playing 5e since it was released and I honestly forgot marking was even a thing.

[Kane0]

Hmm. What about instead of the advantage on the OA it instead let you make OAs against enemies that stand from prone or make ranged attacks within your reach?

[Cheesegear]

What about instead of the advantage on the OA it instead let you make OAs against enemies that stand from prone

...Are you talking about creating a homebrew Feat, with an opportunity cost?
Or are you talking about adding a global rule to the game - including for hostiles - that has no cost?

What if it made lots of the best spells even more better than they already are?
What if it made Shield Master even more better than it already is?
...No. Don't do that.


make ranged attacks within your reach?

Instead of giving them Disadvantage...Or as well as? :smallconfused:

...I can only think from a DM perspective how badly this would hurt players. A dungeon-dwelling hostile with a reach of 10 ft., would ruin a lot of casters. Would that be the intent?

Are you trying to figure out how you can attack hostiles, on their turn, so that they don't get to do anything, ever?
"Any time a hostile does anything, I want to attack them."

If so...There's a reason Sentinel is so good, and there's a reason it's a Feat, and not something you just get for free. And even then, Sentinel still has a few limitations.
Mage Slayer sits in a similar position, but with even more restrictions...And it's still a Feat - something you have to pay for.

"How do I get more Opportunity Attacks?" ...You pay for them using Feats and acquiring Class abilities.

[Kane0]

...Are you talking about creating a homebrew Feat, with an opportunity cost?
Or are you talking about adding a global rule to the game - including for hostiles - that has no cost?


I was thinking as an addition to the Fighter specifically, but wanted to see if anyone actually used it as an optional rule as is.

[KorvinStarmast]

Everyone else could use the free buff...But Opportunity Attacks are so rare (basically they only happen if the DM is incompetent or desperate) that who cares? This is false.

I've been playing 5e since it was released and I honestly forgot marking was even a thing. We have never used it. Too fiddly.

[Theodoxus]

I literally read the option on Saturday, and I'm away from book now and have no idea what it actually does... I do recall thinking 'well, this is a serious downgrade from how marking worked in 4E' but I can't for the life of me remember the specifics...

Let's see what the interwebs state: "Whenever a creature makes a melee attack, it can choose to Mark its target (whether the attack hits or not).If the Marked creature provokes an Attack of Opportunity from the attacker that Marked it, the Attack of Opportunity does not consume the attack's Reaction. This Attack of Opportunity can only be performed once. That is, a second AoO will consume a Reaction.
Any AoOs made by the Marker against its Marked target, whether the special non-Reaction one granted by Marking, or the regular one that uses a Reaction, has Advantage." (Per Reddit, from 7 years ago, hence the 'AoO' rather than 'OA' language.

Ok, yeah, interesting. Granting a free OA that doesn't burn your reaction... that's a pretty progressive stance for a game that takes a very strong 'no additional reactions'. But it still isn't replicating Marking from 4E, which made the Mark have Disad when not attacking the Marker. This is less of a 'look at me' option, and more of a 'I might be very sticky, maybe.'

If you're looking at making it a Fighter only ability, I don't see anything wrong with it, though it would definitely encourage Sentinel builds (which from my experience don't get as much love as I personally think it deserves - so such an update would make me happy. Even better would be adding the marking to Sentinel itself - although I can certainly see where doing so would make the feat nearly a tax for any frontliner (not that I think that's a bad thing, but it does start down the slippery slope of 'well, if we're giving it for free, why not 'X Y & Z' too'). (Basically, it's a Catch-22 solved by combining the options into one, but if you're gonna do that, why make it feat at all, just drop it into the Fighter chassis wholesale, amirite?)

Personally, I think 5E is way too light on OAs and OA triggers. It makes combat pretty boring and repetitive when basically anyone can sit on top of another and cast or shoot, with the only negative being disadvantage; easily solved all kinds of ways. For some reason people (WotC) think that removing the Move Action as a thing meant that OAs should be pared down to just moving out of someone's threat (or into, or casting next to, both with feats). But since OAs are not interrupting, but rather inconveniencing (outside of a PAM Sentinel build), there's no legit reason that a 3.x/4/PF style OA system couldn't be used. Yeah, it potentially hurts to run past the warrior... it kinda should.

[TurboGhast]

Ok, yeah, interesting. Granting a free OA that doesn't burn your reaction... that's a pretty progressive stance for a game that takes a very strong 'no additional reactions'. But it still isn't replicating Marking from 4E, which made the Mark have Disad when not attacking the Marker. This is less of a 'look at me' option, and more of a 'I might be very sticky, maybe.'


As someone who's played a fighter in 4e, I agree. How being marked makes it harder to hit those who didn't mark you is key to its feel.

To me, 5e fighter lacking an ability that makes it harder for their enemies strike their allies makes them fail to fulfill their class fantasy, so it's even more disappointing that adding the DMG marking rule doesn't fix that problem.

[Silly Name]

Honestly, I've never tried it out, but I don't really like it, not because of what it does (having a "free" once-per-turn Opportunity Attack is pretty neat), but because of how it goes about it. There's no cost or strategic consideration to Marking this way: if you are gonna attack a single creature on your turn, you just mark them. It doesn't cost an action or an attack, it doesn't really provide any new insights or ideas into how a melee duel goes.

[stoutstien]

It fails two tests IMO. It's a meta currency which I loathe and it adds special conditions to actions that need to be tracked separately for not only a single person's actions but per target.

[Kane0]

As someone who's played a fighter in 4e, I agree. How being marked makes it harder to hit those who didn't mark you is key to its feel.

To me, 5e fighter lacking an ability that makes it harder for their enemies strike their allies makes them fail to fulfill their class fantasy, so it's even more disappointing that adding the DMG marking rule doesn't fix that problem.

So, copy from the guardian artificer and amcestral barbarian? Creatures you attack have disadvantage to attack anyone that isnt you for a turn?

[Cheesegear]

To me, 5e fighter lacking an ability that makes it harder for their enemies strike their allies...

wat.

The Protection Fighting Style does exactly that?
The Interception Fighting Style kind of does this.

Goading Attack from Battle Master does exactly that.
Menacing Attack from Battle Master does this - but with extra steps.

Unwavering Mark from Cavalier does exactly that - and then some...Is Cavalier the Fighter Subclass OP is wanting to make?
...Hell..."Mark" - it's in the name.

Psi Warrior has Protective Field.

The Rune Knight's Cloud Rune is amazing...Not to mention Runic Shield.

Again... wat.


...I think the main problem with 5e, is that "Protecting Your Allies" is simply a "suboptimal" way to play the game. Protecting your allies isn't worth doing. At least; The best way to protect your allies is to kill the hostile. Do more damage. Worry about healing later.

[Kane0]

wat.


The achilles heel of all these are usually your reaction, you only get one no matter how many or how good these options are

Edit: either that or youre only imposing disadvantage to attack which can be circumvented a couple ways.

[Cheesegear]

The achilles heel of all these are usually your Reaction, you only get one no matter how many or how good these options are

Feels like a feature; Not a bug.
Acting on someone else's turn should be real special - and it is.

Trying to find - or straight up engineer - extra ways to act on someone else's turn is almost exactly what the system tries to prevent. Probably why you're finding it so difficult.


either that or youre only imposing disadvantage to attack which can be circumvented a couple ways.

If a hostile can circumvent Disadvantage...What would they be doing if you didn't impose Disadvantage at all? Attacking straight up with Advantage?

Advantage is better than Disadvantage because Critical Hits have a significantly bigger impact than Critical Misses. If I can give a hostile Disadvantage, I'll do it.

[TurboGhast]

After a brief look at the PHB, I'm changing my position to "To me, 5e Fighter's options for protecting others aren't reliable or accessible enough to allow them to fulfill their class fantasy."

After all...



...I think the main problem with 5e, is that "Protecting Your Allies" is simply a "suboptimal" way to play the game. Protecting your allies isn't worth doing. At least; The best way to protect your allies is to kill the hostile. Do more damage. Worry about healing later.

...if the explicit options for protecting others are weak enough that the best defensive option is doling out damage, then aren't those defensive abilities underpowered?

[Cheesegear]

...if the explicit options for protecting others are weak enough that the best defensive option is doling out damage, then aren't those defensive abilities underpowered?

No. If your DM is playing fair, then most appropriate hostiles simply aren't that strong against a reasonable party. D&D just isn't that hard. It just isn't. It isn't that "Defense is underpowered." It's that;

"Defense doesn't mean anything beyond early Tier 2 because bounded accuracy and the entire game design, says it doesn't. Action economy says enemies don't have actions when they're dead. So that's the game-state to aim for."

For this not to be true, the DM has to make encounters where dropping the hostiles to 0 hit points isn't a win-state...And just isn't how D&D works. Especially because a player dropping to 0 isn't even neccessarily a lose-state.

Then, if your DM isn't playing fair, and sending you inappropriate hostiles, then no defensive measure you bring is gonna be worth it, because the DM is stacking the encounters against you, and most likely takes your abilities - whatever they are - into account when doing so.