[4e] Powers that Mark

[LibraryOgre]

Ok, something came up last night that didn't turn out to matter, but I wanted some clarification on.

If a Paladin uses a power which marks people (e.g. Piercing Smite, which marks the target and two adjacent enemies), does this count as their Divine Challenge, or is there some other category of Mark that they use?

[ShaggyMarco]

It is NOT Divine Challenge. It simply creates the marked condition on the monster (-2 to attack rolls when making an attack that doesn't include the one who marked you).

However, powers/abilities that key off of the target being marked, key off of any mark. Powers/abilities that key off of the target being affected by Divine Challenge, don't.

[LibraryOgre]

It is NOT Divine Challenge. It simply creates the marked condition on the monster (-2 to attack rolls when making an attack that doesn't include the one who marked you).

However, powers/abilities that key off of the target being marked, key off of any mark. Powers/abilities that key off of the target being affected by Divine Challenge, don't.

Where's the reference for this?

[Doug Lampert]

Where's the reference for this?

For what? The power says it marks not that it divine challenges.

Do you need a reference that not all marks are divine challenges? Even when NOTHING says the mark is a divine challenge.

The rules reference isn't needed for something to NOT be a divine challenge. If you seriously think you need references for a power NOT doing something then where's the rules reference saying that divine challenge does NOT cause the target to be slowed, fall prone, or give combat advantage? The rules reference is needed for the power doing something, not for it not doing something.

Divine challenge includes marked (that's in the rules), marked does not imply divine challenge (not in the rules, since the rules don't tell you everything a power doesn't do). But if you seriously think marked does imply divine challenge even when the rules don't say so then why wouldn't every fighter's mark would also be a divine challenge.

[Tadanori Oyama]

The status effections section of the PHB (p.277). "Marked" is a status effect ((or to use the proper game term, a 'Condition')) which some Powers, such as the Paladin's "Divine Challenge" Power, can inflict upon targets.

The text of the Divine Challenge Power (p.91 of the PHB) refers to the "target", rather than "the marked creature", implying that only the creature hit by the Power is effected rather than any creature which is currently suffering the Marked condition.

[Yakk]

Mark is a general term.

Divine Challenge is a specific term that includes Marking.

As Divine Challenge doesn't say that all Marked opponents suffer from the Divine Challenge penalties, ... well, what reference do you need? Read Divine Challenge. Read the Mark rules in the combat chapter. They are distinct effects (but Divine Challenge includes a Mark).

Note that a given creature can only be Marked once -- the second Mark overrides the first[1].

[1] If you want a balanced way to change this, you can reword powers like Combat Challenge and Divine Challenge to read "if the target makes an attack against someone who has not Marked them, they (take damage, can be immediate interrupt attacked, etc)". And change Mark text to "If the Marked creature attacks a creature who had not Marked them, then they take a -2 penalty to attack."

The reason they made Marks override each other was that a Fighter/Paladin duo would double-mark something, resulting in a "damned no matter what I do" condition on the critter. So they made them overwrite each other.

Instead, you can make them ... weaken each other, by giving the monster strictly more freedom. In essence, the Divine Challenge does not burn the target work if someone else has sufficiently Marked the target as their opponent.

This can still be good for players, because a Fighter + Paladin mark on the same creature makes attacking a non-defender even more painful. You could imagine 4 Fighters marking the same monster: that monster would really probably not choose to attack the Wizard. On the other hand, that monster now has the freedom to pick which Fighter to attack...

[LibraryOgre]

The status effections section of the PHB (p.277). "Marked" is a status effect ((or to use the proper game term, a 'Condition')) which some Powers, such as the Paladin's "Divine Challenge" Power, can inflict upon targets.

The text of the Divine Challenge Power (p.91 of the PHB) refers to the "target", rather than "the marked creature", implying that only the creature hit by the Power is effected rather than any creature which is currently suffering the Marked condition.

This is what I was referring to; I had forgotten that marked was a general term, not necessarily tied to one of the challenge powers.