# Armor Specialization (Plate)



## Lord Pendragon (Apr 24, 2009)

Is there an identifiable reason why this is the only Armor Specialization without an additional bonus other than +1 to AC?  Each of the others either lowers the armor check or speed penalty, along with the +1...?


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## hong (Apr 24, 2009)

They probably figure that if you're in plate, you value AC more than anything else, so +1 to that should keep you happy.


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## Solodan (Apr 24, 2009)

That's the price of being focused on AC.


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## Dice4Hire (Apr 25, 2009)

Man, people who wear plate are never satisfied .


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## Lord Pendragon (Apr 25, 2009)

Oi.  Sometimes you get useful responses, sometimes not I guess. 

Would folks consider it unbalancing to add the speed penalty reduction from scale to Armor Specialization (Plate)?  They're both heavy armors, so this doesn't seem out of line...


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## Larrin (Apr 25, 2009)

If you feel you must add something, reduce the check penalty by one.  Plate Mail is supposed to be cumbersome even at its best, so making it faster than chain mail isn't really in-line with its purpose.


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## cignus_pfaccari (Apr 25, 2009)

Yeah, reducing the ACP shouldn't break it.

Brad


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## Garthanos (Apr 25, 2009)

Larrin said:


> If you feel you must add something, reduce the check penalty by one.  Plate Mail is supposed to be cumbersome even at its best, so making it faster than chain mail isn't really in-line with its purpose.




Different interpretations of cumbersome... reducing agility or reducing speed... 
Actual historic plate was easier to wear than chain... it just plain hung better its weight easier to handle...its was all around considered better, historic people were known to leap on the back of horses while wearing it so I would say do whatever suits your sense of game balance. The stuff is not currently "realistic" and what amounts to legends in real life of very mobile knights are quite definite.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 25, 2009)

Lord Pendragon said:


> Would folks consider it unbalancing to add the speed penalty reduction from scale to Armor Specialization (Plate)?  They're both heavy armors, so this doesn't seem out of line...




Yes.

It's called getting your cake and eating it too.

AS Scale does have more of a benefit, but it also has a greater prerequisite as well. 15 Dex for a PC that does not need Dex or Int is a serious ability score drain.

So, if one gives the speed penalty reduction to the Plate user, nobody would ever take Scale. Instead, they would take Plate and AS Plate, regardless of whether they need an extra feat to gain Plate.

There is a game balance as written there.


I also think that the super tank is supposed to be less mobile as part of the concept.


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## Lord Pendragon (Apr 25, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> AS Scale does have more of a benefit, but it also has a greater prerequisite as well. 15 Dex for a PC that does not need Dex or Int is a serious ability score drain.



I'm still far from rules mastery, so forgive me if there's an obvious rebuttal to my thinking here but...with the way hit points work, while Con may be better, Dex seems to be less onerous than you insist, considering that with Dex or Int you also increase your Reflex Save.







> if one gives the speed penalty reduction to the Plate user, nobody would ever take Scale. Instead, they would take Plate and AS Plate, regardless of whether they need an extra feat to gain Plate.



Shouldn't an extra feat garner an extra benefit?  I don't see the reason why spending an extra feat for plate garnering more benefit is a negative?







> I also think that the super tank is supposed to be less mobile as part of the concept.



Interesting.  You are suggesting that the feat is written to be clearly less powerful than all the other feats of its kind, because "tanks aren't supposed to move fast"?


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## KarinsDad (Apr 25, 2009)

Lord Pendragon said:


> I'm still far from rules mastery, so forgive me if there's an obvious rebuttal to my thinking here but...with the way hit points work, while Con may be better, Dex seems to be less onerous than you insist, considering that with Dex or Int you also increase your Reflex Save.




It's all a matter of choice.

Sure, one could have Plate and a good Dex for Reflex. In fact, many sword and board PCs would do this so that they could garner Shield Specialization.

But, how does one get both the best AC and the best movement?

Answer: One cannot. It's one or the other.

The best AC is Plate and Plate (or Shield) Specialization and Heavy Shield.

The best movement with a good but not best AC is Scale and Scale (or Shield) Specialization and Heavy Shield.

You are proposing to combine the best movement with the best AC so that there is never any reason to take Scale Armor Specialization.

And you do not see that as imbalancing?



Lord Pendragon said:


> Shouldn't an extra feat garner an extra benefit? I don't see the reason why spending an extra feat for plate garnering more benefit is a negative?




One does garner extra for Plate Proficiency (better AC) and Armor Specialization Plate (better AC).


The reason Armor Specialization Scale works the way it does is because otherwise, nobody would take that. Everyone would be in Plate.

It's a balance issue. With your proposed rule, nobody would take Scale. With AS Scale not having the extra bennie, nobody would take Scale.

It's written the way it is to incentivize players to use Scale armor. Yes, the feat is better than the Plate feat. But, there is a definitive game balance reason for that.

Who said that all feats must be equal?


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## Lord Pendragon (Apr 25, 2009)

It should be noted that I'm approaching this from the perspective of a class that does not begin with plate armor proficiency.  So a ranger or cleric.  Let's take a ranger.  You're looking at:

Armor Prof (Chainmail) +3 to AC
Armor Prof (Scale) +1 to AC
Armor Prof (Plate) +1 to AC
Armor Spec (Plate) +1 to AC

Or

Armor Prof (Chainmail) +3 to AC
Armor Prof (Scale) +1 to AC
Armor Spec (Scale) +1 to AC, +1 speed

So you're paying one extra feat to get plate, for +1 AC.  If we tack on +1 speed to Armor Spec (Plate), how does that kill Scale?  At the end of the day, you'd still be paying an extra feat for an extra +1 to AC.  This brings the feat in-line with all the others of its kind.

No, I do not see how this would be imbalancing.  The written version makes plate spec weaker than all the others.  My version makes it exactly the same as the others.

That said, I wouldn't have a problem with the -1 to ACP either.  It just seems odd and unnecessarily for Plate spec to be uniquely weaker than the other armor feats of its kind.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 25, 2009)

Lord Pendragon said:


> It should be noted that I'm approaching this from the perspective of a class that does not begin with plate armor proficiency.  So a ranger or cleric.  Let's take a ranger.  You're looking at:
> 
> Armor Prof (Chainmail) +3 to AC
> Armor Prof (Scale) +1 to AC
> ...




WotC is not looking at rangers or clerics (who are less extreme). They are looking at Fighters.

Armor Prof (Plate) +1 to AC
Armor Spec (Plate) +1 to AC

Or

Armor Spec (Scale) +1 to AC, +1 speed

In this case, we are only talking 2 feats. 2 feats (as opposed to your example with 4 feats or the less extreme cleric with 3) is a snooze for most people.

Almost every Fighter would take the 2 feats instead of the 1 feat.

I absolutely understand what you are saying, but you do not appear to understand why WotC balanced it the way they did.

The change you propose is to make Plate the best at two things: AC and speed. You are trying to justify this Cheese by saying "Well, if AS Scale is entitled to this, AS Plate is also entitled to this".

The balance point here is: You want the best AC, you take Plate. You want the best speed with a good AC, you take Scale.

WotC is making it a choice. You are making it a no brainer.


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## FireLance (Apr 25, 2009)

In addition, as MadLordOfMilk points out in this thread, each additional point of AC is worth more than the last. Given that plate is already the best armor there is in terms of base AC, an AC bonus on top of plate is worth more than an AC bonus on top of scale. 

That said, I don't think that a minor ability in addition to the AC bonus would unbalance the feat too much. Perhaps the feat allows the PC to turn a critical hit into a normal hit with an Endurance check equal to the attack roll?


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## -Avalon- (Apr 25, 2009)

My question is... how comes we have to make a feat to balance things, or change a feat to balance things...

Why not bring back Field Plate?  It was supposed to be as protective as real plate, but less cumbersome and constricting...  Make it, with 1 less ACP involved to represent the lesser constriction implied in the actual item in RL.

Make it cost around 75 gold, so people, theoretically, CAN start with it, but it is mighty pricey to just grab and go...

Just a thought


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## Lord Pendragon (Apr 25, 2009)

This isn't about cheese, KD.  And it doesn't make plate the best at AC and speed.  You have to pay an extra feat for extra AC.  It just makes the endcap equivalent.

But as I mentioned in my previous post, I don't even care of it's speed.  It could just as easily be the -1ACP the other two feats have.  Or something else thematically appropriate, as FireLance suggests.

I just see (or saw, more below) no reason why the plate feat should be weaker than the others of its ilk.  Plate wearers already must pay additional feats for the additional AC.







			
				FireLance said:
			
		

> In addition, as MadLordOfMilk points out in this thread, each additional point of AC is worth more than the last. Given that plate is already the best armor there is in terms of base AC, an AC bonus on top of plate is worth more than an AC bonus on top of scale.



Now this intrigues me, and is something I never would have arrived at on my own.  If this is indeed true, then I will concede the point entirely.  The plate feat would have equivalent value to the others, it would just be a "hidden" value, buried in the math.


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## Goumindong (Apr 26, 2009)

Lord Pendragon said:


> Now this intrigues me, and is something I never would have arrived at on my own.  If this is indeed true, then I will concede the point entirely.  The plate feat would have equivalent value to the others, it would just be a "hidden" value, buried in the math.




It is both true and not true. In some ways its better than the last, in other ways its not[i would argue there is a pretty clear bell curve for value, with the highest coming right in the middle of where the enemy can hit and just a bit over(since you're more likely to deal with people with higher bonuses rather than lower bonuses)]. For the most part, at the ranges you're going to be operating at, each point is going to be better than the next.


There is also the issue of players who choose con instead of dex[can't get armor spec scale] or who choose to play dwarves[their speed is 5 regardless]


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## UngeheuerLich (Apr 26, 2009)

no bell curve here...

armor is always getting better and better... except when it starts beeing redundant because of the forced 5% chance that you are hit.


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## Goumindong (Apr 26, 2009)

UngeheuerLich said:


> no bell curve here...
> 
> armor is always getting better and better... except when it starts beeing redundant because of the forced 5% chance that you are hit.




No, that is not true. There are efficiency barriers you run up to before that.


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## eamon (Apr 27, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> No, that is not true. There are efficiency barriers you run up to before that.




Part of those "efficiency barriers" is that you accept a higher ACP and a lower speed than for scale.

4e's heavy armor balancing is great - both plate and scale have their pro's and cons (and chain has it's pros for many specific builds that can't easily wear heavier armor).  However, for a typical defender type, the higher AC is generally worth the sacrifice.  Removing that sacrifice would make it a non-choice.


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## Drakhar (Apr 27, 2009)

Forget the fighter for the moment as they would require a feat to gain Plate armor but instead concider the Paladin who is proficient with all armor. As it stands right now, you have a choice between +1 speed (SAS) or +1 Armor (PAS), with your adding +1 speed to PAS, why would any paladin ever take scale?


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## CapnZapp (Apr 27, 2009)

I don't understand the speed comments - both Scale and Plate carries a -1 penalty to Speed, right? (Removing this penalty for either would be far too good, btw).

I think the current set-up is fine. I think it's hard to give Plate Prof. anything without that choice immediately becoming clearly superior to Scale.


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## Lord Pendragon (Apr 27, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> I don't understand the speed comments - both Scale and Plate carries a -1 penalty to Speed, right? (Removing this penalty for either would be far too good, btw).



 Along with +1 to AC, [Armor Specialization (Scale)] also removes the -1 speed penalty.  The plate version does not.







> I think it's hard to give Plate Prof. anything without that choice immediately becoming clearly superior to Scale.



In a vacuum, I argue that the plate feat is significantly weaker than the scale feat.  Adding something to the plate feat would make them equal.  Others have argued (quite effectively, IMO) that practically speaking, without some kind of additional benefit, a +1 on top of plate is actually stronger than a +1 on top of a weaker armor, so while plate's "extra" may be hidden in the math, it is nevertheless present.



			
				Drakhar said:
			
		

> Forget the fighter for the moment as they would require a feat to gain Plate armor but instead concider the Paladin who is proficient with all armor. As it stands right now, you have a choice between +1 speed (SAS) or +1 Armor (PAS), with your adding +1 speed to PAS, why would any paladin ever take scale?



This is an interesting point.  My viewpoint in this discussion assumes the ranger as the main point of reference, as that's what I'm dealing with in my game.  A ranger spends 3-4 feats to boost armor up to plate.  And it seems strange to me that a character making that kind of investment should be denied the little rider bonus that, say, a mage bumping up to chain would enjoy.

However, I agree that for the paladin, adding anything to the plate feat does indeed make the issue a non-choice.


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## frankthedm (Apr 27, 2009)

I say giving diminishing returns on maximizing anything is a good thing. If you insist on bringing your AC to the max, the last few steps cover the least distance. If you have to have the AC of plate ASAP, then you get less out of taking the Armor Specialization (Plate) feat. If instead you stick with scale, you are one feat ahead and later can take the Armor Specialization (scale).

Think of it like a bartender watering down your drinks the more you order when you have had too much.

4E is rigged to keep PCs from getting unhittable, making plate inefficient for what you have to put into it is one of those ways.


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## Goumindong (Apr 28, 2009)

eamon said:


> Part of those "efficiency barriers" is that you accept a higher ACP and a lower speed than for scale.
> 
> 4e's heavy armor balancing is great - both plate and scale have their pro's and cons (and chain has it's pros for many specific builds that can't easily wear heavier armor).  However, for a typical defender type, the higher AC is generally worth the sacrifice.  Removing that sacrifice would make it a non-choice.




Kinda and kinda not. You actually run into diminishing returns without looking at your opportunity cost.

Consider for a moment that a defenders job is basically to absorb attacks. The more attacks he absorbs the better. But, each day, there are only so many attacks that he can absorb. Once you get over this, being able to absorb more attacks doesn't make much of a difference to how good you are.

For instance going from enemies hitting you on a 19 to a 20 more than doubles the number of attacks you can absorb each day. This is more than the difference between 18 and 19. But if you only needed to get enemies to a 17 in order to outstrip the number of attacks you're likely to get in a day, then the extra AC above that isn't doing much.


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## Lauberfen (Apr 28, 2009)

The ultimate question is, do people still take plate specialisation?

I imagine they would happily take it. Not much of a balance problem therefore.


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## Dice4Hire (Apr 28, 2009)

Lauberfen said:


> The ultimate question is, do people still take plate specialisation?
> 
> I imagine they would happily take it. Not much of a balance problem therefore.




That is my experience also. If you are looking for AC, you take what you can get.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 28, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> Consider for a moment that a defenders job is basically to absorb attacks. The more attacks he absorbs the better.




This is an assumption on your part. The defenders job is to slow up enemies in order to give the rest of the party time to deal with the threat. Not to just stand there and take damage. One could argue that a BRV Fighter's job is to absorb attacks, but not most other defenders. They are not given the proper tools for that.

A Mark, for example, does not just influence enemies to attack the defender. It also penalizes the enemy for attacking anyone else. In fact, very few defender abilities FORCE the enemy to attack the defender.


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## Goumindong (Apr 28, 2009)

:roll:

The defender makes it better to attack him than others. He then gets attacked. The amount of attacks he can take per day is basically his rating as the amount of his job he can do. 

At some point even though the amount of job he an do is increasing at an increasing marginal rate the limits of what he needs to achieve make those margins lower than they would be otherwise.

It doesn't matter what you call it.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 28, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> The defender makes it better to attack him than others. He then gets attacked. The amount of attacks he can take per day is basically his rating as the amount of his job he can do.




Which is why he should want the best possible protection.

When we had a Fighter in our group, we always gave him the best defensive magical items first. Other PCs got his hand me downs.

The concept of not doing so, just to encourage enemies to attack him more often is silly.



Goumindong said:


> At some point even though the amount of job he an do is increasing at an increasing marginal rate the limits of what he needs to achieve make those margins lower than they would be otherwise.




Not in this game system. Foes never need an 18 or 19 or better to hit the Defender as per your example.

If one dropped the margins so that he never took damage, it would be a good thing for the party. One less PC to heal. One less PC to have his action economy decreased due to conditions.

Obviously, the defender never getting hit will never happen. But, the best defense for the defender should be a very high priority goal for the party, just like the best to hit for the striker should be a very high priority goal.


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## Wulf Ratbane (Apr 28, 2009)

Dice4Hire said:


> Man, people who wear plate are never satisfied .




Uther, _Excalibur_, 1981.

Can't speak for Igrayne.


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## Goumindong (Apr 29, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Which is why he should want the best possible protection.
> 
> When we had a Fighter in our group, we always gave him the best defensive magical items first. Other PCs got his hand me downs.
> 
> The concept of not doing so, just to encourage enemies to attack him more often is silly.




No, no one is giving him a lower defense so that you would encourage enemies to attack him more often. Stop reading your bias into what I type.

What i was saying was that once you get above the amount of protection required to get you through the day, more than that runs up against your efficiency barriers.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 29, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> What i was saying was that once you get above the amount of protection required to get you through the day, more than that runs up against your efficiency barriers.




Show some real numbers.

This is an interesting claim, but where is its basis in fact?


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## Goumindong (Apr 29, 2009)

Well that depends on how many attacks you can expect to take in a day.


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## Saeviomagy (Apr 29, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Which is why he should want the best possible protection.
> 
> When we had a Fighter in our group, we always gave him the best defensive magical items first. Other PCs got his hand me downs.
> 
> The concept of not doing so, just to encourage enemies to attack him more often is silly.




Since the end of the adventuring day and the point at which any party member reaches zero surges are so closely correlated, any party is best served by attempting to spread damage around in proportion to each character's effective hit points per day.

If the fighter is significantly more well-defended than the rest of the party, then any foe who isn't tactically deficient will simply ignore him. Additionally - if you're making your fighter a powerhouse of defense, then he's likely to be offensively weak compared with other party members, meaning that his combat challenge counts for little.

Apart from that: the fighter simply cannot pin down every threat in a fight.

All that adds up to make always pumping your fighter's defenses suboptimal. Heuristically you want to pump the defenses of whoever runs out of surges first each day.

Real numbers: Your fighter and wizard are facing a ranged foe. The fighter cannot close with the ranged for for some reason (terrain, distance, other combatants, whatever - it's pretty common). The fighter throws a javelin and marks the foe.

If the fighter's defense against the foe is more than two points better than that of the wizard, a foe with any tactical sense will never target the fighter. At that point, the ability of the fighter to spread damage around has been nullified, and the adventuring day will end that much sooner because of the wizard running out of effective hitpoints first. No matter how much better the fighter's defenses get, he will not change that point.

If, on the other hand, the fighter's defense is one point better than that of the wizard, he can switch in and out of marking the foe in order to split damage, muddying the tactical waters. There will be a sweet spot for ideal damage splitting versus mitigated damage, and it's very hard to work out where it falls as it varies with monster, wizard and fighter stats.

If the characters were all in melee, the same factors matter, but the entire equation is changed by the damage the fighter causes via his combat challenge. On the first such scenario each round, the monster must take the fighter's potential attack into account, meaning that the defenses can have more disparity before the same point is reached where attacking the wizard becomes the only tactically sound choice.


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## Goumindong (Apr 29, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> If the fighter is significantly more well-defended than the rest of the party, then any foe who isn't tactically deficient will simply ignore him.




This is not true. E.G. Lets take a level 12 Human Pit fighter, 18+3 str, 15+3 wis, 14+1 con. plate, plate spec, armor spec.

He will have, at level 12 assuming a +3(Githzeri) Plate an AC of 10[base]+6[lvl]+8[plate]+2[gith]+3[enh]+1[spec]+1[pit fighter]+2[shield]= 33 AC.

Now lets take a level 12 Wizard, 20+3 int, wand. He has an AC of 10[base]+6[lvl]+6[int]+3[enh]+1[special cloth]= 26

That is a pretty big differentiation[no leather armor, no staff mastery etc etc] for a total difference of 7.

Anyway, the fighter lays his mark down[without the -3 mark feat and without distracting shield AND without shield push] and that makes the difference now 5 points of AC. Assuming that the monster hits for an average of 20 damage[so, 1d10+15 damage], this will mean that he will gain 5/20 x 20 = 5 damage per round if he attacks the wizard as opposed to the fighter.

Anyway, the fighter does, at level 12 with a longsword, 1d8+8 damage on a hit and hits on average 60% of the time.[longsword bonus proficiency, one handed weapon mastery] Lets still assume for the sake of ridiculousness that he doesn't have any feats that increase his DPR with a heavy blade.

Anyway, he does an average of 12.5 damage on a hit[26.5 on a crit] and an average of and hits a normal hit about 55% of the time. So his average damage per swing is going to be about 8.2.

So if an enemy decides to attack the wizard as opposed to the fighter, he will take in an average of 8.2 damage each time he does so and his DPR increases by 5 damage per round.

For the most part, its still a raw deal to attack the wizard, on an individual level per attack. And we are looking at the extreme case here. In reality, a fighter is going to also have effects that further decrease the difference in AC[-3 mark, distracting shield], give him the ability to negate attacks entirely[shield push], and increase his average damage[weapon focus, weapon expertise, superior weapon proficiency, vicious weapons, etc], the person being defended is likely to have a higher AC and we're looking at pretty much the top end of AC for the fighter. 

Now, this examination isn't perfect, and I am assuming that the enemy is not a perfectly tactical genius that knows everything that is going on. I am assuming that the enemy is playing for "this fight and this fight only" rather than "this fight and the next fight". Since knocking out a hero's healing surges is the smart way to go if you're being tactical in the long run [I.E. gang up on the guy with the amount of total health and don't stop until he is down, move on to next guy with lowest amount of total health and don't stop until he is down...] that would skew your results, and frankly most DM's don't play that way and should not play that way[it doesn't make sense in the context of how your NPC's are likely to think and act]


In short, no, you're not likely to ever have a situation where the fighter has an AC so high that he is going to make it better for someone to ignore him. The only time he will be ignored is if he is unable to hit the target of his mark for some reason. The issue of AC efficiency is almost always an issue of "how many healing surges do i have left at the end of the day, how many should i have left at the end of the day?"


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## CapnZapp (Apr 29, 2009)

Wulf Ratbane said:


> Uther, _Excalibur_, 1981.
> 
> Can't speak for Igrayne.



Can't remember her wearing plate in that scene though.


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## Goumindong (Apr 29, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> All that adds up to make always pumping your fighter's defenses suboptimal. Heuristically you want to pump the defenses of whoever runs out of surges first each day.
> 
> Real numbers: Your fighter and wizard are facing a ranged foe. The fighter cannot close with the ranged for for some reason (terrain, distance, other combatants, whatever - it's pretty common). The fighter throws a javelin and marks the foe.
> 
> If the fighter's defense against the foe is more than two points better than that of the wizard, a foe with any tactical sense will never target the fighter. At that point, the ability of the fighter to spread damage around has been nullified, and the adventuring day will end that much sooner because of the wizard running out of effective hitpoints first. No matter how much better the fighter's defenses get, he will not change that point.




Monsters can use basic heuristics too. This is not something that is relegated only to your players and because of this your assertion falls apart.

E.G. Lets say your fighters AC is 7 points higher than your wizards. That is a pretty big deal.

However, lets say a single monster is in melee, and that single monster makes the decision that the extra damage that they do against others per turn is not offset by the extra damage that others do.

E.G. lets say you hit for 8.2 average/attack and the enemies do 40 Damage per attack/round with a hit rate of 50% against you and 85% against your allies with another 10 damage per attack/round at 50% against you and 75% against your allies since he is marked. Well, that makes a total of 16.5 DPR at the margin for them all attacking you.

But, if they aren't splitting their damage they save the DPR against themselves extending their ability to fight. AND they reduce the ability of players to spread healing around[second winds, etc] with self healing powers. The entire encounter has to have no ranged enemies because once the decision to attack the fighter is made[and its likely going to be at the beginning of the fight], attacking others becomes strictly inefficient. Interestingly however, as the fight goes on and enemies DPR drops, attacking the fighter becomes a better and better deal, possibly even negating the advantage of starting to attack someone else.

In short, even with such a massive difference in AC, and such a weak average damage on your combat challenge, you're still going to make enemies think twice about simply having everyone gang up on you.[this also ignores your ability to toss out multiple marks with other powers, and the ability of enemies to target other defenses, like reflex which might be low, the ability of other players to have effects that change their AC or negate attacks]


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## KarinsDad (Apr 29, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> Since the end of the adventuring day and the point at which any party member reaches zero surges are so closely correlated, any party is best served by attempting to spread damage around in proportion to each character's effective hit points per day.




This does not need to occur. The Fighter could have 8 surges left over and the rest of the party can have 0 to 2 surges left over and it could still be good. There is no way that a party can balanced this out completely, so it makes sense to have the PC attacked the most be the most heavily defended. If the Fighter never or rarely uses a surge in a given day, it just means that the Leader can spread his healing across 4 party members instead of 5. That's actually a good thing.



Saeviomagy said:


> If the fighter is significantly more well-defended than the rest of the party, then any foe who isn't tactically deficient will simply ignore him.
> 
> ...
> 
> If the fighter's defense against the foe is more than two points better than that of the wizard, a foe with any tactical sense will never target the fighter.




If foes ignore the Fighter, they will take a beating.

Also, even if the Fighter has an AC of 6 higher than the Wizard (unusual in the game, but it could happen), the DM would have to metagame the foes to have them take a swing from the Fighter in order to take a 4 better swing on the Wizard.

How does a foe KNOW that the Fighter has AC 3 higher than the Wizard without the DM metagaming the info?



Saeviomagy said:


> Additionally - if you're making your fighter a powerhouse of defense, then he's likely to be offensively weak compared with other party members, meaning that his combat challenge counts for little.




A Fighter is not a Striker. Having a decent attack is good enough. It's not as if that's difficult with little effort.


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## Lord Pendragon (Apr 29, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> How does a foe KNOW that the Fighter has AC 3 higher than the Wizard without the DM metagaming the info?



Considering that the fighter is wearing solid steel and carrying around a ginormous dinner plate in one hand, while the wizard is wearing pajamas...I'd think this would be the standard NON-metagaming assumption to start with...?


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## jonshaft (Apr 29, 2009)

Let's just make a feat where fighters can use any other stat they want to add their modifier to their AC while not wearing heavy armor. Then everyone can wear hide armor and put the armorers out of business.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 29, 2009)

Lord Pendragon said:


> Considering that the fighter is wearing solid steel and carrying around a ginormous dinner plate in one hand, while the wizard is wearing pajamas...I'd think this would be the standard NON-metagaming assumption to start with...?




Level 1:

Fighter with Scale Mail, AC 17
Staff Wizard with Int 20, AC 16 (in fact, my Staff Wizard had AC 18 at level one with Leather Armor)

Even if the Fighter has a 3 better AC, is it really worth it to risk a free attack by him to get a 5% better chance to hit? Sometimes. But, the game world environment is set up where those smart (but not necessarily agile) Wizards jump out of the way of attacks nearly as easily as those tanking Fighters glance an attack off of their armor. That's the physics of the game world.

So, NPCs should think that Wizards are not necessarily much easier to hit. Unless of course the DM is metagaming the exact numbers.


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## frankthedm (Apr 29, 2009)

_Whoever is is back is easier to hit_ is a reasonable assumption. Even animals make it a point to move the softer squishier young behind the more durable adults.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 29, 2009)

frankthedm said:


> _Whoever is is back is easier to hit_ is a reasonable assumption. Even animals make it a point to move the softer squishier young behind the more durable adults.




Nobody is disputing that as a general rule of thumb, this basic assumption is reasonable.

The point is, is it worth a -2 to attack the squishier targets when there is also a fair chance that the Fighter is also going to get a free hit on you?

If it were just a matter of -2, it would be a squishier PC no brainer decision, even with the game world physics where a Wizard in the back can sometimes have one of the best ACs in the group. Enemies might not know that. Challenged enemies do know that they are both penalized for attacking squishies and the Fighter gets a free swing if they try.

An enemy should be disincentivized to ever attack the Wizard if the enemy is challenged and attackable by the Fighter unless there are extenuating circumstances. As an example, the Wizard is sustaining a Flaming Sphere (or the situation is one where the Wizard can easily attack multiple foes with area effects on multiple rounds). In that case, killing the Wizard might often be the best course of action for most of the NPCs, regardless of the Fighter getting in a free swing. But, this should be the exception instead of the rule unless the DM just feels like giving a lot of free swings to the Fighter in order to shorten the encounter. Some DMs are like that. They play the encounter not with the best tactical interests of the monster, but in the best interests of the players (note: players, not PCs).


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## Goumindong (Apr 30, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Challenged enemies do know that they are both penalized for attacking squishies and the Fighter gets a free swing if they try




Only if they've observed the fighter before. The fighters mark is just a plain old mark. His combat challenge ability is a separate immediate interrupt ability that is not part of his mark. Its not until he uses it on someone [they then know the details of the CC attack] that they understand the extra consequences of ignoring a fighters mark. Not to be confused with the paladin's special mark which lets the enemies know.

Initially, marked enemies are only aware of the mark and not that they're going to get beat on for ignoring it.


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## Saeviomagy (Apr 30, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> He will have, at level 12 assuming a +3(Githzeri) Plate an AC of 10[base]+6[lvl]+8[plate]+2[gith]+3[enh]+1[spec]+1[pit fighter]+2[shield]= 33 AC.
> 
> Now lets take a level 12 Wizard, 20+3 int, wand. He has an AC of 10[base]+6[lvl]+6[int]+3[enh]+1[special cloth]= 26
> 
> So if an enemy decides to attack the wizard as opposed to the fighter, he will take in an average of 8.2 damage each time he does so and his DPR increases by 5 damage per round.




The wizard has ~68 hitpoints. The fighter has ~133 hitpoints. That carries over to how much they heal when they spend surges. All that adds up to mean that every point of damage that the foe does to the wizard effectively counts for twice as much as if he'd done it to the fighter, because it comes that much closer to downing a foe, and uses up that much more in terms of healing.

So, the monsters DPR adds 5 and then effectively doubles. That's a lot more than the 8.2 damage that he's taking back.



KarinsDad said:


> This does not need to occur. The Fighter could have 8 surges left over and the rest of the party can have 0 to 2 surges left over and it could still be good. There is no way that a party can balanced this out completely, so it makes sense to have the PC attacked the most be the most heavily defended. If the Fighter never or rarely uses a surge in a given day, it just means that the Leader can spread his healing across 4 party members instead of 5. That's actually a good thing.



The fighter using surges or not has little to no bearing on how much the leader heals: leader heals are restricted per encounter. The daily resource here is surges (with some powers being notable exceptions). If the fighter is ending on 8 surges while the rest of the party is on 0 to 2, then assuming each extra surge worth of damage he takes is equivalent to removing a surge worth of damage from another character (which isn't true: defender surges tend to be larger than those of others), the party could have gone another encounter before running out.


> If foes ignore the Fighter, they will take a beating.
> 
> Also, even if the Fighter has an AC of 6 higher than the Wizard (unusual in the game, but it could happen), the DM would have to metagame the foes to have them take a swing from the Fighter in order to take a 4 better swing on the Wizard.
> 
> ...




The fighter's counterattack is usually only enough to make the decision between low-hp and high hp targets even, assuming close defenses. Once the defenses start to shift, you need to make up for that AS WELL.

As the fighter's damage dealing ability goes down, he not only becomes less effective at counterattacking: his value as a target goes down as well. So not only does the wizard have less hitpoints, but each hitpoint holds more value.

As a totally non-muddy example: we have two combatants. One has 5000 hitpoints and does 1 point of damage per attack. The other has 1 hitpoint and deals 5000 points of damage per attack. Which do you kill first to maximise your chances of winning?



KarinsDad said:


> Wizards jump out of the way of attacks nearly as easily as those tanking Fighters glance an attack off of their armor. That's the physics of the game world.
> 
> So, NPCs should think that Wizards are not necessarily much easier to hit. Unless of course the DM is metagaming the exact numbers.



Personally we and our DMs reveal defenses when you attack them. It just makes the game flow that much quicker.

Even if you don't do that though, defenses get pinned down pretty quickly. And if you're talking about large differences (ie - the sort that will result from prioritising defense on a fighter and giving him all the best defensive gear vs prioritising other roles) then is it really metagaming?


KarinsDad said:


> The point is, is it worth a -2 to attack the squishier targets when there is also a fair chance that the Fighter is also going to get a free hit on you?



Usually it comes pretty close, but a good deal depends on how hard the fighter actually hits.


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## Elric (Apr 30, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> The wizard has ~68 hitpoints. The fighter has ~133 hitpoints. That carries over to how much they heal when they spend surges. All that adds up to mean that every point of damage that the foe does to the wizard effectively counts for twice as much as if he'd done it to the fighter, because it comes that much closer to downing a foe, and uses up that much more in terms of healing.
> 
> So, the monsters DPR adds 5 and then effectively doubles. That's a lot more than the 8.2 damage that he's taking back.




The fighter will have much less than 133 hit points.  A fighter who started with 18 Con and boosts it (so he now has 21 Con), and has taken Toughness has 112 HP at level 12.  

If the wizard has 13 Con and doesn't take Toughness he's at 67 HP; with Toughness he's at 77 HP.  If the percentage increase in HP is what matters for the worth of Toughness (as your reasoning assumes is true of damage; its value is based on the percent of HP it does) then the wizard should be at least as likely to have Toughness as the fighter, so let's give it to him.  That's a difference of +45% HP for the Con-based fighter (+58% if the Con-fighter is a Dreadnought).  +36% if the fighter has 14 Con instead.  It's not even close to double- even a 21 Con Dreadnought with Toughness vs. a 13 Con wizard without Toughness, about as extreme of a comparison as you can get, is only +82%.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 30, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> Only if they've observed the fighter before. The fighters mark is just a plain old mark. His combat challenge ability is a separate immediate interrupt ability that is not part of his mark. Its not until he uses it on someone [they then know the details of the CC attack] that they understand the extra consequences of ignoring a fighters mark. Not to be confused with the paladin's special mark which lets the enemies know.
> 
> Initially, marked enemies are only aware of the mark and not that they're going to get beat on for ignoring it.




This is only true with one interpretation of the rules.

There is another interpretation that people might be unaware of.

Here is what Combat Challenge does:



> Every time you attack an enemy, whether the attack hits or misses, you can choose to mark that target. The mark lasts until the end of your next turn. While a target is marked, it takes a –2 penalty to attack rolls for any attack that doesn’t include you as a target. A creature can be subject to only one mark at a time. A new mark supersedes a mark that was already in place. In addition, whenever a marked enemy that is adjacent to you shifts or makes an attack that does not include you, you can make a melee basic attack against that enemy as an immediate interrupt.




By definition, CC changes any attack power that is used with it to allow the Fighter to both Mark the creature AND to allow the Fighter an additional attack. The power itself effectively is modified to correspond to this effect.

This is no different than the Weapon Focus feat that adds +1 damage to any attack power used with it for the specific weapon group. The power is slightly modified to do more damage.

Combined with the rule:



> Whenever you affect a creature with a power, that creature knows exactly what you’ve done to it and what conditions you’ve imposed. For example, when a paladin uses divine challenge against an enemy, the enemy knows that it has been marked and that it will therefore take a penalty to attack rolls and some damage if it attacks anyone aside from the paladin.




it allows a foe to know what will happen if he violates the CC mark.

In this case, the "*exactly* what you've done to it" clause is the kicker. The CC modification of the attack power used is known. Even a basic attack is a power. Even an Opportunity Attack uses a power.

Every attack in the game system (TMK) uses a power in some fashion. Therefore, CC must be used with a power and directly affects how the creature is affected.

If one were to go with your stricker more literal interpretation, then the creature should not even know that it is marked if CC is not part of the attack power. Can't have your cake and eat it too. 


Side note: If a DM does not use this interpretation, then he has to have a special exception to the rule above for things like Combat Challenge, Warpriest's Challenge, and a bunch of other feats and abilities in the game system. This means that the DM also has the headache of figuring out not just what the creature should do, but also what the creature should accidently do and when the creature is able to figure out what is going on, etc. This appears to be against the intent of making life easier for the DM as per this rule in the first place.


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## Goumindong (Apr 30, 2009)

Your second interpretation would make sense if fighters were not able to use combat challenge on marks they do not create[that still belong to them, ala bards "misdirected mark" at will] and on marks that are created by other powers.

fake edit: also, if you have access to the compendium, the Combat Challenge is clearly listed as a separate power[at will, immediate interrupt, with an effect of "*Effect*: Whenever an enemy marked by you is adjacent to you and shifts or makes an attack that does not include you, you can make a melee basic attack against that enemy."]

For fighters, its very clear they do not know until you hit them with it


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## KarinsDad (Apr 30, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> Your second interpretation would make sense if fighters were not able to use combat challenge on marks they do not create[that still belong to them, ala bards "misdirected mark" at will] and on marks that are created by other powers.




Nothing you said here invalidates my interpretation. A power is still being used on the foe.



Goumindong said:


> fake edit: also, if you have access to the compendium, the Combat Challenge is clearly listed as a separate power[at will, immediate interrupt, with an effect of "*Effect*: Whenever an enemy marked by you is adjacent to you and shifts or makes an attack that does not include you, you can make a melee basic attack against that enemy."]
> 
> For fighters, its very clear they do not know until you hit them with it




You are not making sense.

WotC changed CC within the Compendium to a Combat Challenge POWER. Obviously, they want it to work via my interpretation and want the monsters to know how CC works once they are affected by it.


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## Dice4Hire (Apr 30, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> WotC changed CC within the Compendium to a Combat Challenge POWER. Obviously, they want it to work via my interpretation and want the monsters to know how CC works once they are affected by it.




I did not know about the compendium, but the CC seems one of the clearest 'Enemies know hte consequences of their actions' in the game.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 30, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> The fighter using surges or not has little to no bearing on how much the leader heals: leader heals are restricted per encounter. The daily resource here is surges (with some powers being notable exceptions). If the fighter is ending on 8 surges while the rest of the party is on 0 to 2, then assuming each extra surge worth of damage he takes is equivalent to removing a surge worth of damage from another character (which isn't true: defender surges tend to be larger than those of others), the party could have gone another encounter before running out.




Note the word you used: assuming. The fact is that this is not necessarily true. If the Fighter just gets missed because he has a few extra bonus to AC, NOBODY in the group would have taken the damage and no healing surge would have been needed.



Saeviomagy said:


> The fighter's counterattack is usually only enough to make the decision between low-hp and high hp targets even, assuming close defenses. Once the defenses start to shift, you need to make up for that AS WELL.
> 
> As the fighter's damage dealing ability goes down, he not only becomes less effective at counterattacking: his value as a target goes down as well. So not only does the wizard have less hitpoints, but each hitpoint holds more value.
> 
> As a totally non-muddy example: we have two combatants. One has 5000 hitpoints and does 1 point of damage per attack. The other has 1 hitpoint and deals 5000 points of damage per attack. Which do you kill first to maximise your chances of winning?




A first level Fighter can easily do an average of 8.5 points of damage on a successful hit. How much can that really be increased with feats? Maybe 1 for a superior weapon. 1 for Weapon Focus. Certain races can get a slightly higher damage bonus, but wouldn't both the offensive and defensive fighter of that race often take those types of feats?

Fighters already do decent damage. If they concentrate on defense, sure they might have a slightly lesser offense. But, it's not 1 vs. 5000. You are exaggerating well beyond what is reasonable for discussion. Show real numbers. What percentage of damage can a Fighter lose if he concentrates on defense?

If one Fighter averages 10.5 points of damage and another averages 8.5 points of damage, how does the monster know without metagaming that one averages higher if they both hit the monster for 9 points of damage?



Saeviomagy said:


> Personally we and our DMs reveal defenses when you attack them. It just makes the game flow that much quicker.
> 
> Even if you don't do that though, defenses get pinned down pretty quickly. And if you're talking about large differences (ie - the sort that will result from prioritising defense on a fighter and giving him all the best defensive gear vs prioritising other roles) then is it really metagaming?




If the DM is making NPC decisions based on PC defenses before the PC is even attacked, of course it is metagaming. Even after it attacks, the monster should often have little extra knowledge. For example, missing on a 3 or hitting on an 18 should effectively tell the monster nothing.



Saeviomagy said:


> Usually it comes pretty close, but a good deal depends on how hard the fighter actually hits.




So, the monster KNOWS that the Fighter rolled a 1 when he did 12 points of damage?

The monster can gauge how hard the Fighter hits, but it should not be able to do so until it gets hit a few times. The first hit at 20 points might be a weak attack, or it might have been a critical. How would the monster know the difference? Of course the DM knows, but if the DM uses that information, he is metagaming.


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## DracoSuave (Apr 30, 2009)

The proper comparison isn't Spec: Plate to Spec: Scale.  A more accurate comparison is for Spec: Plate to Spec: Shield.  The reason is because if you're -in- plate, then, by default, you're going high defense Fighter, or are a Paladin.  If this is the case, then the comparison of characters is between Sword and Board Defender, and Two-Hander Defender.

So, the Sword and Board Defender gets the better defensive feat to support the better defensive build.  The Two-Hander gets the second tier one.


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## Regicide (Apr 30, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> So, the monsters DPR adds 5 and then effectively doubles. That's a lot more than the 8.2 damage that he's taking back.




  If the monsters are counting DPR but ignoring the fact that they're pretty obviously going to die or are very likely to lose the fight then the PCs are fighting Rain Man.

  Anything beyond "attack the closest target" is too much for a monster that doesn't "run and get help as soon as they spot the party."


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## Saeviomagy (Apr 30, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Note the word you used: assuming. The fact is that this is not necessarily true. If the Fighter just gets missed because he has a few extra bonus to AC, NOBODY in the group would have taken the damage and no healing surge would have been needed.



But if the fighter has the extra points of AC because the cleric doesn't, then the fighter would have been hit more and the cleric less, which is an improvement.


> Fighters already do decent damage. If they concentrate on defense, sure they might have a slightly lesser offense. But, it's not 1 vs. 5000. You are exaggerating well beyond what is reasonable for discussion. Show real numbers. What percentage of damage can a Fighter lose if he concentrates on defense?



The 5000 to one example was merely to illustrate the concept, and even then you seem to have missed my point: the two guys with 5000 hp and 1 damage vs 5000 damage and 1 hp are more representing "someone big and tough and offensively weak" and "someone small and squishy and offensively strong". As you reduce the numbers and difference, the conclusion stays the same: kill the squishy dangerous guy first. Everything that a defender does should be aimed at making that a bad choice.

Real numbers? By not using a shield, using dual strike as your at-will, choosing a PP, ED and multiclass that focus on damage, and boosting wisdom and strength (and a bunch of other things), you end up with an average damage per round of at least 150 points. Fighter A does around 30 points of damage in a round, while optimised-for-damage fighter B does 180. If you want breakdowns, just go visit the WoTC optimisation forum.

On a more practical level, you can trade +2 ac and +2 reflex to boost your [w] from an average of 5.5 to 7 (or from 4.5 to 5.5, depending on what weapons you like). You can trade 4 hitpoints and 1 hit point per surge for +2 to hit with opportunity attacks. You can trade +1 ac for +1 damage (per tier).


> If one Fighter averages 10.5 points of damage and another averages 8.5 points of damage, how does the monster know without metagaming that one averages higher if they both hit the monster for 9 points of damage?



It seems bizarre to insist that there is no way to tell that fighter A is wielding a warhammer and a shield while fighter B is wielding the larger maul.

I'll admit that there may be some game statistics that are not so easy to quantify, but it's not an across the board thing. And, of course, once the NPC has been hit, he can make a decent judgement.

You can of course argue that a given NPC can't get an accurate reading from a single hit: but that's irrelevant. The responses of NPCs to being hit will average out over time (ie - if each NPC bases his behaviour off of the first time the fighter strikes him, then less NPCs will provoke subsequent attacks from the more powerful fighter on average)


> If the DM is making NPC decisions based on PC defenses before the PC is even attacked, of course it is metagaming. Even after it attacks, the monster should often have little extra knowledge. For example, missing on a 3 or hitting on an 18 should effectively tell the monster nothing.



So it's never possible to guess at a foe's defenses from observable parameters?


> So, the monster KNOWS that the Fighter rolled a 1 when he did 12 points of damage?



The fighter does... But as I pointed out, it doesn't matter: on average the fighter who hits harder will have foes less likely to provoke.


> The monster can gauge how hard the Fighter hits, but it should not be able to do so until it gets hit a few times.



Which doesn't matter: a monster who gets hit hard will be less likely to provoke in future.

Do you, as a player, get hit by a foe for, say, 30% of your hitpoints and then go "oh well, I have insufficient data to decide that I shouldn't provoke an AoO". Or, for that matter, get hit for 3 points and hold off on provoking next round, just in case the monster rolls a d100 for damage?

You don't say "oh well, this monster has only hit me very hard twice, but that's an insufficiently large sample to make any tactical decisions off of". You work with what you know so far.


> The first hit at 20 points might be a weak attack, or it might have been a critical. How would the monster know the difference? Of course the DM knows, but if the DM uses that information, he is metagaming.




Criticals don't get announced in your games? At every table I've ever played at, in any system, criticals have always been out-of-the ordinary attack with extra visuals, and everyone involved knows that they've happened.


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## Saeviomagy (Apr 30, 2009)

Regicide said:


> If the monsters are counting DPR but ignoring the fact that they're pretty obviously going to die or are very likely to lose the fight then the PCs are fighting Rain Man.
> 
> Anything beyond "attack the closest target" is too much for a monster that doesn't "run and get help as soon as they spot the party."




No, the PCs are fighting monsters who expect to win, because obviously they've beaten every previous adventuring party who came along. Otherwise they'd be dead already, and the adventurers would have nothing to do.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 30, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> Real numbers? By not using a shield, using dual strike as your at-will, choosing a PP, ED and multiclass that focus on damage, and boosting wisdom and strength (and a bunch of other things), you end up with an average damage per round of at least 150 points. Fighter A does around 30 points of damage in a round, while optimised-for-damage fighter B does 180. If you want breakdowns, just go visit the WoTC optimisation forum.




I'm not seeing it. I went to the optimization forum and did not find a 180 DPR Fighter there.

Maybe you could enlighten us.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 30, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> Criticals don't get announced in your games? At every table I've ever played at, in any system, criticals have always been out-of-the ordinary attack with extra visuals, and everyone involved knows that they've happened.




Irrelevant to the point (and in fact, it's not a rule that monsters know about criticals).

The point was that the monster does not know whether a 20 point attack was a high damage for the hit attack or a low damage for the hit attack.


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## Goumindong (Apr 30, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> The fighter does... But as I pointed out, it doesn't matter: on average the fighter who hits harder will have foes less likely to provoke.




This is just not true. The DPR at the margin never really gets to the point where it makes sense, even with very large discrepancies in AC, no other feats to lower that discrepancy[like distracting shield and Daunting Challenge], no secondary defensive powers on the part of the other characters, and very low damage coming from the character.

The only time i could see it really getting there would be with high defense battleraging fighters.

Consider for a second this metaphor. Imagine you walk into a store with 10 dollars and only 10 dollars, no credit cards, no bank cards, etc. You want to buy a CD. All the CD's on the shelves have different prices.

Some CD's cost 11 dollars, some cost 12, some cost 13, and some cost 25. 

Are you going to buy any CD's?

A: No. Does the fact that some CD's are less costly than the ones that cost 25 dollars makes you more likely to buy them? No.

Its the same case, the question of "having too high ac so that enemies never hit you over your friends" almost never comes into consideration in practical terms. In practical terms a marked enemy is going to hit your friends when.

A: He is using a burst power
B: The damage you do is immaterial to him surviving an extra attack next round(but will not kill him)
C: You can't hit him for some reason
D: he is not intelligent
E: Some specific thing has happened that makes the value of the attack significantly higher on another target[E.G. he can take someone out of the fight, he can stun a character sustaining a power, etc]

There is only ONE of these where your defense/damage matters... And its only really your damage. And Combat challenge advantages are not high enough or numerous enough[you would need enough bonuses to make people start running out of feats] to make a big difference in this anyway. The monster is going to do this because he will never see a situation where the DPR at the margin makes sense for him to do it.

E.G.

I am playing, currently, a fighter in plate mail with a heavy shield. He is a dwarf, he has 27 AC at level 8[+2 layered platemail]. He has distracting shield, 15 constitution, and 20 wisdom. He had devoted Challenge and dwarven weapon training. He is wielding a +3 Waraxe and does 1d12+16 per hit on a combat challenge[+20 to attack, expertise was free]. At level 10, he will be taking fast running because he is out of heroic tier feats he needs[and +2 speed when charging is kinda nice to let me get more attacks in].

His AC is literally as high as anyones can get at this point and will be getting higher when he moves into pit fighter and picks up plate specialization. There is no chance that anyone is going to think "oh man, its totally a good idea to attack the wizard instead of the fighter" because I am going to ruin their day if they do it. If someone was doing half as much Damage/attack as i was they still probably wouldn't do it, because they would still get their day ruined.[A 20 str fighter would be doing, with a bastard sword and the same other values as me 1d10+11 on a CC with an attack bonus of 18 on his CC, still a respectable 16.5 avg dmg/hit with a high attack bonus]



KarinsDad said:


> Nothing you said here invalidates my interpretation. A power is still being used on the foe.




But the power does not include the caveat about triggering an immediate interrupt attack, nor do non-attack based powers that place marks make an attack to set that mark.

You can, RAI, RAW, by all accounts make CC attacks against those. The enemy does not know that they're going to get CC'd until the attack happens.

After that they can infer it.


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## IllDM4YOU (Apr 30, 2009)

*Heelpppp*

im new to 4e and i need help with combat
some1 plz post a replie explaining the entire thingy of combat plz


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## KarinsDad (Apr 30, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> But the power does not include the caveat about triggering an immediate interrupt attack, nor do non-attack based powers that place marks make an attack to set that mark.
> 
> You can, RAI, RAW, by all accounts make CC attacks against those. The enemy does not know that they're going to get CC'd until the attack happens.
> 
> After that they can infer it.




The mark affects the power that allowed the Fighter to mark in the first place.

Question for you. If it is NOT allowed for the foe to know that the Fighter is going to get a free swing, is it also NOT allowed for the foe to know that it is marked? If so, why? If not, how do you explain the discrepency between the two? Does the foe know that it is marked?


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## Goumindong (Apr 30, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> The mark affects the power that allowed the Fighter to mark in the first place.
> 
> Question for you. If it is NOT allowed for the foe to know that the Fighter is going to get a free swing, is it also NOT allowed for the foe to know that it is marked? If so, why? If not, how do you explain the discrepency between the two? Does the foe know that it is marked?




Man what?

The mark is an effect, like slow, like immobilized etc. 

Lets say that you're facing an enemy that has two attack powers. One of them immobilizes and one of them can only be targeted at a target that is immobilized.

do you let the player know all the details of the power that can only be used on the immobilized character as soon as it is immobilized?

A: No, you do not. Why? Because the power that requires an immobilized character as a trigger has not been used yet.

Lets have another example

"Being adjacent to the fighter affects the powers that the fighter uses, therefor any enemy that is adjacent to the fighter instantly knows its entire attack set since any of those moves might be used on him and they couldn't be used on him if he wasn't adjacent"


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## Ryujin (Apr 30, 2009)

You know that you've been marked. You know that you've been cursed. You know that you've been Hunter's Quarried. You might not know what the effect of that is, but you know when someone mutters something and you feel a chill up your spine, when someone is tracking you with particular attention, or when some galoot in chain is trash-talking right in front of you.


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## KarinsDad (Apr 30, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> Man what?
> 
> The mark is an effect, like slow, like immobilized etc.




The only reason the creature knows that it is affected by a condition is the following rule:



> Whenever you affect a creature with a power, that creature knows exactly what you’ve done to it and what conditions you’ve imposed.




This is not automatic without this rule to tell people how this works.

So, we have this rule that tells the creature not only that it is marked, but it also tells the creature exactly what was done to it.

So my point is, if you use this rule to inform the creature that is marked, you must also inform the creature "exactly what you've done to it".

If you use a different rule to inform the creature that it is marked, please quote the rule.

My question boiled down to: How do you inform the creature that it is marked without using this rule? If you do use this rule, how do justify using it to inform of the mark WITHOUT informing of all aspects of the mark when the rule states otherwise?

Your POV sidesteps this rule for some aspects of CC (the free attack), but not all aspects of CC (the mark), without stating HOW you sidestep it.


Basically, you are chosing when and how to ignore aspects of this rule and I want to know what your justification is for doing so.

If on the other hand you are not using this rule and you claim that CC is not a power, then how does the creature even know it is marked because the mark portion of CC is also not a power? Which rule are you using to inform the creature of the mark?


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## Goumindong (Apr 30, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> My question boiled down to: How do you inform the creature that it is marked without using this rule? If you do use this rule, how do justify using it to inform of the mark WITHOUT informing of all aspects of the mark when the rule states otherwise?




*The free attack is not an aspect of the mark in the same way that any attack a fighter might attack you with is not an aspect of being adjacent to the fighter*

How many times do i have to explain this to you?

What does the mark do?

It imposes a -2 penalty on all attacks that do not include the fighter as a target. That is all they know. They do not know that the fighter has another ability that will punish them if they disobey the mark because that ability is not a function of the mark. It is a function of an immediate interrupt ability that triggers when a marked target does something specific.

Here is another example. Monsters do not know that getting hit with a fighters OA ill stop their movement UNTIL they get hit with the OA. The mere ability of them to provoke the OA[trigger it] does not immediately grant them the knowledge of what it does in the same way that the mere ability of a monster to get combat challenged does not immediately grant them the knowledge that its going to happen or what the damage is going to be.


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## webrunner (Apr 30, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> So my point is, if you use this rule to inform the creature that is marked, you must also inform the creature "exactly what you've done to it".
> 
> My question boiled down to: How do you inform the creature that it is marked without using this rule? If you do use this rule, how do justify using it to inform of the mark WITHOUT informing of all aspects of the mark when the rule states otherwise?




IT knows what you've done to it.  What you have done to it is caused the "Marked" condition.

It doesn't know what you're GOING to do to it. 

Note, that this is different then, say, the Swordmage or Paladin marks, which are explictly part of the special mark effect.  Being marked by other means don't have the rider.


To put it in another perspective, if you multiclass into Warden as a Paladin, and use the group mark on all the targets, you don't get Divine Challenge radiant damage.  It is a different ability.  If you multiclass into Warden as a fighter, and use the group mark, you still get your attack if they try to shift.  That is built into the fighter, and not the method of marking.

If a bard uses it's special "mark someone by someone else" power, the monster wouldn't know about combat challenge then.. the fighter wasn't even involved in the attack other than being a secondary target!  But Combat Challenge doesn't differentiate between ways in which the target is marked- it only cares *whether* the target is marked or not.

That the fighter can whack you is not a condition imposed on the monster by a power the fighter has.  It's an ability the fighter has that depends on marked targets.


Yet another way:
IF it was worded something like, "Whenever you mark a creature, if that creature-" that would be a condition imposed on the creature at the time of the mark, but it's not, it says "Whenever a creature who is marked by you-"

Nothing happens to the creature except being marked when it's marked.  So it doesn't know about combat challenge.


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## Saeviomagy (May 1, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> I'm not seeing it. I went to the optimization forum and did not find a 180 DPR Fighter there.
> 
> Maybe you could enlighten us.




Saint of Killers: Tempest/Student of Caiphon/Punisher of the Gods (311.65 dpr) build - Page 2 - Wizards Community

300-odd dpr. A ridiculous build to be sure, but that's the sort of spread that is technically possible.

Unfortunately I can't find where the "list of highest fighter DPRs" is, as it has a dual-wielding weapon talent fighter that hits 200 IIRC, which is slightly more towards the "things that actually might be playable".


Goumindong said:


> I am playing, currently, a fighter in plate mail with a heavy shield. He is a dwarf, he has 27 AC at level 8[+2 layered platemail]. He has distracting shield, 15 constitution, and 20 wisdom. He had devoted Challenge and dwarven weapon training. He is wielding a +3 Waraxe and does 1d12+16 per hit on a combat challenge[+20 to attack, expertise was free]. At level 10, he will be taking fast running because he is out of heroic tier feats he needs[and +2 speed when charging is kinda nice to let me get more attacks in].
> 
> His AC is literally as high as anyones can get at this point and will be getting higher when he moves into pit fighter and picks up plate specialization. There is no chance that anyone is going to think "oh man, its totally a good idea to attack the wizard instead of the fighter" because I am going to ruin their day if they do it. If someone was doing half as much Damage/attack as i was they still probably wouldn't do it, because they would still get their day ruined.[A 20 str fighter would be doing, with a bastard sword and the same other values as me 1d10+11 on a CC with an attack bonus of 18 on his CC, still a respectable 16.5 avg dmg/hit with a high attack bonus




A low AC for the level you are at is around 21 (14 + 6 for a 22 stat, +1 armor), so we're looking at a 6 point spread.

A mage of that level who doesn't put much into con will have 42 hitpoints. You have 78.

If a hobgoblin hand of bane is pinned between you and the wizard, he will, on average, cause 57.5% of a healing surge worth of damage to the wizard on a hit. He will cause 18.2% of a healing surge worth of damage to you on a hit. Provoking an attack from you will cause him 36.6% of a surge worth of damage.

Now, I'll do something wierd, but I think it's sound in terms of working out a metric. I'm going to subtract the healing surge percentage he takes in damage from the healing surge percentage that he deals to the wizard. We end up with 20.9%, which is greater than the metric for attacking you (18.2%).

Hence he's slightly better off attacking the wizard (assuming you and the wizard have roughly identical value as tactical targets).

If your average damage was 2 points higher, then he's better off attacking you.

If your AC increases by 2 points, then you need to get your average damage to 27.5 (ie - 5 points higher) to make attacking you the attractive choice.

All of this is with his at-will btw.

Edit: Whoops, missed distracting shield. That changes our resultant metric to ~9.3% (because he now only causes 0.46% of a surge to the wizard, assuming that you always hit, just to make the maths easier), which means he is better off attacking you with his at-will.

However with his special, he's better off attacking the wizard again (the metric for attacking the wizard is 31.3% and the metric for attacking you is 26%). And that doesn't include the stun.


Incidentally - my position is that a foe knows that he's marked. I would leave it up to the PC to determine whether the foe knows the exact consequence of the mark (I imagine most fighters _want_ their foe to know that they'll get attacked for breaking it).


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## Saeviomagy (May 1, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Irrelevant to the point (and in fact, it's not a rule that monsters know about criticals).



I find it odd that you're arguing that a monster doesn't know he's been crit, but that he does know the consequences for being marked, given how much information he has about each event.


> The point was that the monster does not know whether a 20 point attack was a high damage for the hit attack or a low damage for the hit attack.



And it doesn't matter - the monster will respond to the information that he has, and over time those responses will be appropriate to the average damage the fighter causes.


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## Elric (May 1, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> A low AC for the level you are at [*level 8*] is around 21 (14 + 6 for a 22 stat, +1 armor), so we're looking at a 6 point spread.
> 
> A mage of that level who doesn't put much into con will have 42 hitpoints. You have 78.




Once again, you've got the hit point math wrong.  A level 8 wizard has a base of 38 + Con HP, meaning that with a typical Constitution of 12 he's going to have 50 HP, not 42 as you've indicated.  There's no way he'll have below 46 HP under point-buy.


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## KarinsDad (May 1, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> *The free attack is not an aspect of the mark in the same way that any attack a fighter might attack you with is not an aspect of being adjacent to the fighter*
> 
> How many times do i have to explain this to you?




You have to explain it once so that it makes sense if you want to be taken seriously.

You keep claiming that it is not an aspect of the mark, but you don't quote a rule that says that it is not an aspect of the mark for the Fighter, but is an aspect of the mark for the Paladin.



> Also, it takes radiant damage equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier the first time it makes an attack that doesn’t include you as a target before the start of your next turn.






> In addition, whenever a marked enemy that is adjacent to you shifts or makes an attack that does not include you, you can make a melee basic attack against that enemy as an immediate interrupt.




What difference is there between a Fighter Combat Challenge and a Paladin Divine Challenge with regard to this rule?

Answer: The Fighter can choose to not do his additional attack, the Paladin cannot choose to not do the additional damage without unmarking the foe.



Goumindong said:


> It imposes a -2 penalty on all attacks that do not include the fighter as a target. That is all they know. They do not know that the fighter has another ability that will punish them if they disobey the mark because that ability is not a function of the mark. It is a function of an immediate interrupt ability that triggers when a marked target does something specific.




Funny. I can say the EXACT same thing about the Paladin's mark. The damage is a function of an immediate interrupt that triggers when a marked target does something specific.



			
				webrunner said:
			
		

> IT knows what you've done to it. What you have done to it is caused the "Marked" condition.
> 
> It doesn't know what you're GOING to do to it.




No? Where is the rule for this? It doesn't know this for the Paladin Divine Challenge either?



> For example, when a paladin uses divine challenge against an enemy, the enemy knows that it has been marked and that *it will therefore take a penalty to attack rolls and some damage* if it attacks anyone aside from the paladin.




The rules disagree with your "it doesn't know what you're going to do to it" idea.

The rules explicitly state that the monster knows exactly what is going to happen if it takes a specific set of actions.


The problem with the opposing POV is that the subtle differences between  Combat Challenge and Divine Challenge that you are claiming are not hard explicit rules. The rules do not make these claims, the posters do.


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## KarinsDad (May 1, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> I find it odd that you're arguing that a monster doesn't know he's been crit, but that he does know the consequences for being marked, given how much information he has about each event.




A critical is a game mechanic.

A monster is an NPC that does not perceive game mechanics.

PCs do not perceive game mechanics either. Players do. PCs don't.

PCs and NPCs do not know about ability score modifiers, feats, criticals, auto failures on a one, etc. These are game mechanics that allow real life humans to understand how to play the game.

The monster knows that it has been hit hard and well. It does not know that it is a critical.

In a monster's perception, a mark is some form of combat intimidation or pressing of the foe. It doesn't understand the game mechanic term mark. It understands that it has a tougher time hitting anyone else other than the creature that marked it.


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## Goumindong (May 1, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> You have to explain it once so that it makes sense if you want to be taken seriously.
> 
> You keep claiming that it is not an aspect of the mark, but you don't quote a rule that says that it is not an aspect of the mark for the Fighter, but is an aspect of the mark for the Paladin.




That is because the text of the ability that the paladin uses expressly lays out the penalties for disobeying. But the text of the ability that the fighter uses does not.

lets be really clear here

Paladin: Special mark that does damage if you don't attack the paladin

Fighter: Gets an immediate interrupt ability that lets him hit anyone who shifts or does not attack him if that person is marked by him.

So lets lay it out again

Paladin: Special Mark
Fighter: Regular Mark



> What difference is there between a Fighter Combat Challenge and a Paladin Divine Challenge with regard to this rule?




one is an effect of the mark and one is another ability that is triggered by enemies who happen to be marked.

I suppose if i was going to be as semantic about this as you were. Despite the fact that wizards has made it abundantly clear with their information in the compendium. I would say that "in addition" is modifying the fighter ability. I.E. Combat Challenge grants 2 things. 1 it grants the mark ability and 2 it grants the extra attack ability.

Whereas with the Paladin, the "also" is modifying the power, or the ability. Such that this is one ability that does two things, not one entry that grants two abilities.



> Funny. I can say the EXACT same thing about the Paladin's mark. The damage is a function of an immediate interrupt that triggers when a marked target does something specific.




Except that its not, so your argument doesn't make any sense. 

Fighters combat challenge works on any enemy that has been marked by any reason. Its two separate abilities.



> No? Where is the rule for this? It doesn't know this for the Paladin Divine Challenge either?




Fighter: Normal mark
Paladin: special mark



> The rules disagree with your "it doesn't know what you're going to do to it" idea.
> 
> The rules explicitly state that the monster knows exactly what is going to happen if it takes a specific set of actions.




So you're saying that the monster knows whether or not i will attack it and what attack i am going to use against it if it moves adjacent to me? Really?

I also have "come and get it", does that mean the monster is going to know that i will use it on him if he is within 3 squares of me?[does he know that when I don't know it?]


The rules state that the monsters know the effects of abilites imposed upon it. It does not state that the monster knows your power set that you have just because they could possibly trigger one of those powers or abilities.


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## Goumindong (May 1, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> Now, I'll do something wierd, but I think it's sound in terms of working out a metric. I'm going to subtract the healing surge percentage he takes in damage from the healing surge percentage that he deals to the wizard. We end up with 20.9%, which is greater than the metric for attacking you (18.2%).




Unfortunately you're not taking into account a few things

1. The relative DPR of the fighter vs the Wizard.
2. The drop in DPR caused by the CC'd person dropping faster than they would have otherwise
3. The fact that the wizard has defensive powers of his own
4. The fact that when healing comes, its, at this level, at around +2d6/surge. And that this evens out the hit point discrepancies between me and the abysmally low AC wizard[Whose hit points you've incorrectly calculated by the way] in terms of how long it takes you to knock him down.
5. It assumes that the wizard is going to stick around and be in range of this enemy each and every time that he attacks. Because if he is not in range of the enemy each and every time that he attacks, then the enemy will not be dropping the wizard and taking his DPR out of the fight which makes the damage/healing surge figure meaningless.

So, in order for it to make sense to not attack the fighter, assuming we are maxing our AC on a defender, we need to have a minimum AC, minimum constitution, minimum defensive power character with an underleveled item, who is going to stick it out in melee until he drops to make the other attack on...

It really just doesn't happen that often, and with good reason.


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## MadLordOfMilk (May 1, 2009)

FireLance said:


> In addition, as MadLordOfMilk points out in this thread, each additional point of AC is worth more than the last. Given that plate is already the best armor there is in terms of base AC, an AC bonus on top of plate is worth more than an AC bonus on top of scale.



Woo, the thread saw some use  Anyway, it's also worth noting that anything that decreases their hit rolls against you will also be more effective in increasing your survivability (AKA expected length of time you'll live)! *So, cover means even more with that extra +1 armor, marks by others are more effective, etc.* As to how much more it matters... well, that depends entirely on how likely they are to hit you.

Of course, +1 speed is always nice. And, assuming a typical 5spd in heavy armor, it can seem like a godsend in a number of scenarios. At the same time, though, +AC applies in most rounds in virtually every single combat...


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## DracoSuave (May 1, 2009)

I tend to give monsters a bit more credit.  I figure if a character with 13 wisdom/intellegence can make a knowledge check to figure out the monster has an attack that marks, then a monster with 15 wisdom/intellegence/training in the appropriate skill can make the same attempt to know things as players do.  I have a tendancy to play monsters that are smarter/more perceptive than certain players as though they happened to have access to more information.

In otherwords, if the Monster's got Arcana, I let the thing use it.  It's not like character classes are rare things that never pop up in the world.  Barring an unusual campaign, the eladrin wizard isn't the only wizard that's ever been, so some knowledge on how they work -can- potentially be available.  To a Gelatinous Cube?  No.  Of course not.  To a Human Mage?  Absolutely the -potential- is there.


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## Saeviomagy (May 1, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> The monster knows that it has been hit hard and well.




How? By your logic, the monster only knows whether he's bloodied or not (because that's a condition), not how many hitpoints he has left.


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## Saeviomagy (May 1, 2009)

Elric said:


> Once again, you've got the hit point math wrong.  A level 8 wizard has a base of 38 + Con HP, meaning that with a typical Constitution of 12 he's going to have 50 HP, not 42 as you've indicated.  There's no way he'll have below 46 HP under point-buy.




You're absolutely right. I was going for con 10 actually (it was intended to represent a defense-light wizard), so 48 hps.

That means with his at-will, the foe will take 38.33% of a surge from the wizard, 18% of a surge from the dwarf, and suffer 36.6% of a surge in return for his attack on the dwarf, making attacking the wizard with his at-will a really bad decision. His encounter power is still a bad choice as well - he takes 53% of  surge from the wizard, 25% from the dwarf and suffers 36.6% from the dwarf.

It's a fairly delicate balance though - if either AC swings 2 points in the wrong direction, or the hitpoints swing, or any number of other things, the wizard is a better choice again.



Goumindong said:


> 1. The relative DPR of the fighter vs the Wizard.



In an ideal world, the wizard would be winning this fight: after all, the fighter is a defender, not a striker or controller, and thus his primary job shouldn't be to deal out the hurt: if it is, then rogues and rangers are obsolete.

In reality though, this is quite possibly not true.


> 2. The drop in DPR caused by the CC'd person dropping faster than they would have otherwise



I don't understand the meaning of this sentence.


> 3. The fact that the wizard has defensive powers of his own



As does the fighter. There's not really much in it either way.


> 4. The fact that when healing comes, its, at this level, at around +2d6/surge. And that this evens out the hit point discrepancies between me and the abysmally low AC wizard[Whose hit points you've incorrectly calculated by the way] in terms of how long it takes you to knock him down.



You're in heroic: healing varies pretty wildly, from a flat X hitpoints(from a healing potion for example), to flat surge value (for the dwarf burning his free action second wind or any number of attack+heal powers), to surge +1d6 (for an unfeated warlord), to surge + 1d6 + some number for a cleric.


> 5. It assumes that the wizard is going to stick around and be in range of this enemy each and every time that he attacks. Because if he is not in range of the enemy each and every time that he attacks, then the enemy will not be dropping the wizard and taking his DPR out of the fight which makes the damage/healing surge figure meaningless.



It also assumes that we only have melee combatants. Once we've got ranged ones, the meter swings wildly in favour of blasting the mage to bits, because your retaliation counts for naught and your defenses make it the favourable action by a long shot.


> So, in order for it to make sense to not attack the fighter, assuming we are maxing our AC on a defender, we need to have a minimum AC, minimum constitution, minimum defensive power character with an underleveled item, who is going to stick it out in melee until he drops to make the other attack on...
> 
> It really just doesn't happen that often, and with good reason.




As I pointed out above: it requires the enemyto be sticking it out toe-to-toe with the defender as well. As soon as you've got your scenario above and there's no retaliation involved, the wizard is a nice juicy pincushion, purely because the fighter is so much harder to hit than him.

So the moral is: you're going to be a more effective defender if your defenses are close to the defenses of those you are defending. That was the point.

Also - wow, that's a lot of defend in a single sentence.


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## Goumindong (May 1, 2009)

DracoSuave said:


> .  It's not like character classes are rare things that never pop up in the world..




Player characters actually are. But for the most part, you've no real way of knowing if that guy in the armor is a warlord, a paladin, a fighter, or a cleric. Not until they use their powers.


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## KarinsDad (May 1, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> The rules state that the monsters know the effects of abilites imposed upon it. It does not state that the monster knows your power set that you have just because they could possibly trigger one of those powers or abilities.




So, it is your contention that WotC intended CC to be a "gotcha" ability instead of a sticky ability.

PC Fighter: "HA HA monster. Gotcha. Didn't see that coming."

How does this class ability actually make the Fighter sticky with your interpretation? Your interpretation means that the Fighter does more damage, not that he defends others better. He becomes more of a Striker and less of a Defender.

I totally understand where you are coming from with regard to CC giving the Fighter the ability to do the attack. It's just that powers and conditions do that.

Let's take Combat Advantage which is an attack modifier, not a power or condition.

Is it your claim that the monster does not KNOW that the PC has Combat Advantage against it since CA gives the +2 bonus to the PC?



> Combat advantage represents a situation in which the defender can’t give full attention to defense.




The monster does not know that it is in a defensively bad situation? If CA is granted to a PC with a power, the monster does not know that the PC has CA against the monster?


Your interpretation makes the Fighter non-sticky and instead makes him stealthily vengeful. Being -2 to hit squishier defense targets becomes a no brainer for the monster and then opps, didn't see that coming.

That just does not make sense based on the WotC design philosophy for a defender.


Put another way, the effect on the monster is not that it is marked. It's that it is Combat Challenged. The Fighter is NOT marking the creature, he is Combat Challenging the creature. And the creature knows that the Fighter is doing this because of the rule of it having exact knowledge of what is happening to it because CC is being added to the power. It is being challenged. Not marked.


With my interpretation, if the monster refuses to shift because it doesn't want to be hit, that means Combat Challenge is working as intended. The Fighter is holding the monster there and protecting his fellow PCs.

With your interpretation, it means that Combat Challenge is working as intended to punish those around him. Not to be sticky, to be vengeful. And, it forces the DM to come up with an adjudication on when in the combat each foe starts to figure it out. The DM has to be thinking about which game rules are affected by this and which are not. It's vastly simpler to just run them all the same way.


So, the advantages of my interpretation:

1) It's consistent with other powers like Divine Challenge.
2) It's easy to remember because they all work the same (e.g. no warpriest's challenge different from some other ability or power)
3) It follows the WotC design goal of making fighters sticky.
4) One does not need to be a rules lawyer to figure out the difference for each and every case. The game need not slow up as the players talk out whether Combat Advantage is known by the monster or not.
5) The DM does not have to adjudicate when and if the monsters finally figure it out.

Advantages of your interpretation:

Are there any?

Bottom line for your interpretation:

The fighter's not really sticky. He's just a guy that gets lots of extra attacks.


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## Goumindong (May 1, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> In an ideal world, the wizard would be winning this fight: after all, the fighter is a defender, not a striker or controller, and thus his primary job shouldn't be to deal out the hurt: if it is, then rogues and rangers are obsolete.




I don't know what ideal world you're talking about, but in the one that currently exists, the wizard is throwing out d6's and d8's. And the fighter will be throwing out d8->d12's.[with a 5% higher chance to hit due to his one handed bonus]



> I don't understand the meaning of this sentence.




Attacking the wizard will affect the number of rounds he can do damage. If he is trying to maximize, then getting another hit in every round can severely reduce his expected damage over the entire fight.



> You're in heroic: healing varies pretty wildly, from a flat X hitpoints(from a healing potion for example), to flat surge value (for the dwarf burning his free action second wind or any number of attack+heal powers), to surge +1d6 (for an unfeated warlord), to surge + 1d6 + some number for a cleric.




And any time its anything other than "surge" you're evening out the system in favor of the wizard. Also, at level 6, for a warlord its 2d6, an average of 7 more hit points. For a Cleric is 2d6+wisdom. For a bard, its 1d6+charisma

Considering the fighter in question has 18 hit point healing surge, and the 10 con wizard has a 12 hit point healing surge your real comparison should be roughly at 25 vs 19



> It also assumes that we only have melee combatants. Once we've got ranged ones, the meter swings wildly in favour of blasting the mage to bits, because your retaliation counts for naught and your defenses make it the favourable action by a long shot.




One of the best things a fighter can do is get next to a ranged enemy. If it shifts it gets whacked, if it attacks the fighter, it gets whacked[or uses a very weak attack], if it moves it gets whacked, if it attacks the wizard, it gets whacked TWICE.

Furthermore[as you've already ignored], you don't have to assume only melee combatants, you only have to assume one. Why? Because the enemies goal is to win, and if they spread their damage around they're going to have just as many problems. 



> As I pointed out above: it requires the enemyto be sticking it out toe-to-toe with the defender as well. As soon as you've got your scenario above and there's no retaliation involved, the wizard is a nice juicy pincushion, purely because the fighter is so much harder to hit than him.
> 
> So the moral is: you're going to be a more effective defender if your defenses are close to the defenses of those you are defending. That was the point.




Except you don't have to, because your defender can move, and in fact, probably move much more easily than your melee enemy trying to get close to the wizard considering your fighter's OA's end all enemies movement and get a nice big bonus equal to the fighters wisdom score.

The moral of the story is you're not going to be a more effective defender if your AC is closer to your allies[assuming your allies are low], you're going to be a more dead defender.


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## Goumindong (May 1, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> So, it is your contention that WotC intended CC to be a "gotcha" ability instead of a sticky ability.




Its only a "gotcha" ability the first time you use it. And fighters are plenty sticky with their OA's. Which is, ironically, another "gotcha" ability by your definition.

Nothing says they don't have to catch on after the first time it works.



> How does this class ability actually make the Fighter sticky with your interpretation? Your interpretation means that the Fighter does more damage, not that he defends others better. He becomes more of a Striker and less of a Defender.



Only so much as you can say that stickyness is a choice of the enemies. They choose to not shift away because they know they'll get whacked, they choose to not move away because they know they'll get whacked and have their movement ended before it began. They will only know these things once the ability gets used. Once they do, its perfectly rational for them to operate knowing the abilities of the fighter.



> Let's take Combat Advantage which is an attack modifier, not a power or condition.
> 
> Is it your claim that the monster does not KNOW that the PC has Combat Advantage against it since CA gives the +2 bonus to the PC?




I never made the claim that monsters do not know the basics of how combat operates. That was all you. I said they do not know the specifics of the players powers.

Just as you, the player, do not know the specifics of an enemies power, only exactly what it does to you when it does it to you.

If an enemy has a power that immobilizes you and does extra damage when you're immobilized, then you know about the extra damage even though you were not immobilzied when it hit. If an enemy has a power that immobilizes you and another power that only can target immobilized enemies if they make an attack that does not include the enemy, you do not know about interrupt ability until its used on you.



> Put another way, the effect on the monster is not that it is marked. It's that it is Combat Challenged. The Fighter is NOT marking the creature, he is Combat Challenging the creature. And the creature knows that the Fighter is doing this because of the rule of it having exact knowledge of what is happening to it because CC is being added to the power. It is being challenged. Not marked.



Except that is not what the rule states, nor what the rule intends. 




> The fighter's not really sticky. He's just a guy that gets lots of extra attacks.



You're doing a lot of hand wringing logically to get there. You're assuming that enemies do not carry knowledge from one round to another. You're assuming enemies cannot observe the combat environment and see stuff happening to their allies. You're assuming that enemies cannot communicate to their allies. And you're assuming that enemies cannot know the basics of combat.

None of these things are true. A few of them might be true for some enemies. E.G. Oozes aren't likely to know what's up after they get CC'd by a fighter for attacking someone else, and they certainly aren't going to be communicating it to their allies, and they certainly aren't going to be seeing it and then figuring it out. But they are going to carry information over from one round to the enxt and they are going to know the basics of combat.

Kolbolds on the other hand, are going to know and/or do all those things. The moment the first kolbold gets CC's, they're all going to know what's up not only because they just saw it, but because the kolbold that got hit and communicate the knoweldge he gained of the attack to the rest of the Kolbolds. This knowledge does not vaporize at the end of the round and they're going to pull off as many tricks as they can utilizing the basics of combat.


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## Piratecat (May 1, 2009)

No snarky bickering, please. Either discuss it or don't, but being rude and telling other people what they're thinking and knowing isn't something we wish to see.


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## KarinsDad (May 1, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> Its only a "gotcha" ability the first time you use it.




But, that is not what happens with the Paladin. The foe that is marked and 20 feet away (moved away and was then ranged attacked by the Paladin) KNOWS that if it attacks someone else, a mystical radiant bolt will fly from the Paladin's hand and strike it.



Goumindong said:


> I never made the claim that monsters do not know the basics of how combat operates.




You avoided the question instead of answering it. If a power gives Combat Advantage to the PC, does the monster know it since CA is given to the PC and not to the monster?



Goumindong said:


> You're doing a lot of hand wringing logically to get there.




If you say so. I prefer to think of it as using the simplest solution instead of the convoluted one which assumes that all monsters never saw a Fighter fight before.

And, I also view it as the foe knowing that something bad will happen, not that it knows about the free attack. It knows it will become a trigger if it does the actions. So for a Sword Mage, the creature doesn't really know that the Sword Mage will teleport over and smack it.

A simpler view is that the creature knows that it is either a normal mark or a mark with a rider. The creature doesn't know what the rider is, only that the creature is a trigger for a rider. This just simplifies the DM's job.

Otherwise, the Paladin example and ones like it are totally illogical.


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## Goumindong (May 1, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> But, that is not what happens with the Paladin. The foe that is marked and 20 feet away (moved away and was then ranged attacked by the Paladin) KNOWS that if it attacks someone else, a mystical radiant bolt will fly from the Paladin's hand and strike it.




Yes, the Paladin power is different. That is because its a different ability with different effects. I am not sure what is so amazingly profound about this.

Oh, and the Paladins marks damage doesn't require an action or line of effect from the Paladin as far as I am aware. The damage is pure divine retribution. It does not stop the Paladin from taking other immediate actions[as the fighters ability does].



> You avoided the question instead of answering it. If a power gives Combat Advantage to the PC, does the monster know it since CA is given to the PC and not to the monster?




Depends on the power. If the power is an ability used on the monster that makes the monster grant CA then yes, it knows. Why does it know? It knows because in the powers text it says "the monster grants CA" and the monsters know the effects of all powers used on it.

If the power was not used on a monster and simply says "you have combat advantage on the next attack you make" then the monster does not know, because you did not use any power on them and it is not within the basic combat knowledge of the game.

And no, i did not "avoid the question"





> If you say so. I prefer to think of it as using the simplest solution instead of the convoluted one which assumes that all monsters never saw a Fighter fight before.



 1.It assumes no such thing, even though such a thing might be a reasonable assertion. What it assumes is that the enemy does not know the capabilities of the party before the party uses those capabilities. Just as the party does not know the enemies capabilities before the enemies use them without the use of heavy metagaming of the "bad" sort.[Bad as in, "not endorsed" since some level of metagaming is expected, but game knowledge is not and its expected that said game knowledge is ingored by players even when they do know it if their players would not]



> And, I also view it as the foe knowing that something bad will happen, not that it knows about the free attack. It knows it will become a trigger if it does the actions. So for a Sword Mage, the creature doesn't really know that the Sword Mage will teleport over and smack it.




Except they don't know "something bad will happen" with the fighter because there is no indication of it. For the sword mage, its the same as the Paladin, the marks are special marks. If you mark someone without using your Aegis of Assault, you do not get to teleport over and smack it. Why do you not get to teleport over and smack it? Becacuse the power is tied to the special mark and not an immediate ability triggered any marked creature.




> A simpler view is that the creature knows that it is either a normal mark or a mark with a rider. The creature doesn't know what the rider is, only that the creature is a trigger for a rider. This just simplifies the DM's job.
> 
> Otherwise, the Paladin example and ones like it are totally illogical.




No, that is not the "simpler" view. Both are equally simple. Enemies do not know they might be the subject of a trigger unless that trigger is specifically spelled out within a power that has already been activated upon them.

If an ally has a razor shield, enemies do not know that they could trigger it just because they attack him(or by your example, could attack him). They only know that they trigger it when the other guy makes it happen.


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## KarinsDad (May 1, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> Enemies do not know they might be the subject of a trigger unless that trigger is specifically spelled out within a power that has already been activated upon them.




You mean like the Combat Challenge POWER in the Compendium where the trigger is specifically spelled out within a power that has already been activated upon them?


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## Goumindong (May 1, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> You mean like the Combat Challenge POWER in the Compendium where the trigger is specifically spelled out within a power that has already been activated upon them?




Now you're just making stuff up. Incidentally, stuff we've gone over before. Unfortunately i cannot refer you to the compendium right now, because its down, but goodness, i referred you to it when it was up, you could have checked then.

1. The combat challenge power is an immediate interrupt ability with a trigger of "an enemy marked by you shifts or attacks someone else". The enemy you use it on knows whats up as soon as you use it, but not before you use it.

2. The combat challenge mark ability and the combat challenge interrupt ability are separate. The first ability lays marks, not special marks, just plain old marks. The second ability allows you to retaliate against those marks.

Two different abilities. One triggers on any old mark assigned to you. One makes marks. They are not the same ability, its not special marks. Its not in any way different than if a Bard uses misdirected mark on an enemy and assigns the mark to you when creating the mark, and its not in any way different from you smacking the enemy for attacking the bard if that enemy is marked by you from the misdirected mark.


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## KarinsDad (May 1, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> Now you're just making stuff up. Incidentally, stuff we've gone over before. Unfortunately i cannot refer you to the compendium right now, because its down, but goodness, i referred you to it when it was up, you could have checked then.
> 
> 1. The combat challenge power is an immediate interrupt ability with a trigger of "an enemy marked by you shifts or attacks someone else". The enemy you use it on knows whats up as soon as you use it, but not before you use it.
> 
> ...




If you say so.

Sounds like Divine Challenge and Aegis of Assault to me. A mark and a trigger. Two abilities and the monster knows them both.

I fail to see the difference from a rules perspective.


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## LittleFuzzy (May 1, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> You're absolutely right. I was going for con 10 actually (it was intended to represent a defense-light wizard), so 48 hps.




Your defense-light wizard had a 20 base Int?  I know wizards are one of the few classes that can get away with a 20 in their AC-boosting stat, but how does that represent a defense-light build?


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## Goumindong (May 1, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> If you say so.
> 
> Sounds like Divine Challenge and Aegis of Assault to me. A mark and a trigger. Two abilities and the monster knows them both.
> 
> I fail to see the difference from a rules perspective.




I suggest you actually go read Divine Challenge and Aegis of Assault and note that they are both powers with special applications.

Then you should go and read combat challenge and note that it is not, that it has two separate advantages for the fighter. The first advantage is that every attack me makes marks. Stop, end of ability. The second advantage is that he can take an action when any marked creature that has that mark assigned to him, from ANY source, be it a utility power, be it another classes at will, be it a multi-class power that lets him mark all adjacent creatures for a round, is able to attack with a melee basic attack as an immediate interrupt.

This is separate from the Divine Challenge and Aegis marks because those marks make special allowance for the specific mark created by the power. The ability that they grant is tied ONLY to the mark created by the power and is not a separate ability by itself. If they get a mark assigned to them by any other means, that mark does not grant the special mark abilities.

As well, the damaging abilities present in Divine Challenge and Aegis of Assault are specifically listed in the power block with the mark in question.

There is no equivalence, there is no wiggle room either RAI or RAW.



> Your defense-light wizard had a 20 base Int? I know wizards are one of the few classes that can get away with a 20 in their AC-boosting stat, but how does that represent a defense-light build?




No staff of defense, underleveled armor, Cloth Armor.

Just look at the AC at level 1 to compare. The wizard has an AC of 15. Base+int=15. Which goes as high as 18[base+int+leather+staff]. He can eventually upgrade to hide, and hide specialization for an AC of Base+int+4+1].

A rogue has a base AC of at least 16. [10+dex+leather] With as high as 18[10+Dex+hide=10+5+3]. He can eventually get a light shield and specialization for an AC of base+dex+3+2

To compare, a fighter will have an AC of [Base+9+2] but will have a slightly better bonus from armor strength. This puts their AC's roughly equal to each other before bonus items[Super staff of defense] or paragon path bonuses[pit fighter]. Supposing the rogue or wizard started out with a 20 in their AC stat the fighter will be 1 ahead after specialization and 2 ahead after pit fighter.


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## Regicide (May 1, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> But, that is not what happens with the Paladin. The foe that is marked and 20 feet away (moved away and was then ranged attacked by the Paladin) KNOWS that if it attacks someone else, a mystical radiant bolt will fly from the Paladin's hand and strike it.




  I prefer to picture it as a hole cracking open in the sky, the hand of a god coming down, picking up the offender, spanking it, then putting it back.  It's easier to picture than a bolt going around corners and under doors.



Saeviomagy said:


> No, the PCs are fighting monsters who expect to win, because obviously they've beaten every previous adventuring party who came along. Otherwise they'd be dead already, and the adventurers would have nothing to do.




  Sooo... your monsters can calculate the effectiveness of their blows by percentage of healing surges used when they hit various targets, but they can't tell that a fight is going against them, badly, and they're taking far more damage than putting out and far worse than they've ever seen before and the enemy isn't breaking a sweat?  Sheer silliness.  A fighter isn't a "less attractive target" because they lose a little bit of DPR, it's just silly.  If a monster can calculate DPR they can calculate they've lost the fight.


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## KarinsDad (May 2, 2009)

Goumindong said:
			
		

> Depends on the power. If the power is an ability used on the monster that makes the monster grant CA then yes, it knows. Why does it know? It knows because in the powers text it says "the monster grants CA" and the monsters know the effects of all powers used on it.
> 
> If the power was not used on a monster and simply says "you have combat advantage on the next attack you make" then the monster does not know, because you did not use any power on them and it is not within the basic combat knowledge of the game.




See, here is the problem with this type of interpretation.

If there are special exceptions (or specialized rules if you prefer) like this, but they are not crystal clear:

1) Each DM will play it differently since some DMs will be rules lawyers, some will read the boards, and some will be clueless.

2) Powers like No Opening can sometimes be used and sometimes not be used.

This is really bad game design. There is no real good balance reason for segregating this.

Instead, it should be a simple rule so that all DMs play it the same and no DM has to pull out a magnifying glass to analyze the exact text to the nth degree of a power.

DM: "Is that CA given to the PC or does the monster give it?"
Player: "Well, let me bring out the book."

The entire point of 4E was to get away from this type of special case nonsense.



Goumindong said:


> This is separate from the Divine Challenge and Aegis marks because those marks make special allowance for the specific mark created by the power. The ability that they grant is tied ONLY to the mark created by the power and is not a separate ability by itself. If they get a mark assigned to them by any other means, that mark does not grant the special mark abilities.




You keep bringing this up as if this makes a difference in core rules.

Where exactly is the rule that states that an ability that affects any mark for a PC is not known by the foes and a power that affects only the mark created by this PC's power is known?

Answer: There is no such rule. This is merely symantics that you are using to try to justify your POV.


This argument of yours comes back to the same thing. If the Combat Challenge ability is special in this way, so is it's mark. If the special portion of CC is not known by the monster, then neither is the mark created by CC.

You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

There is no rule line drawn between the two. CC modifies the mark for any power the same way, regardless of the source of the mark.


Now, I will agree that some designer went and changed this in the Compendium so that there is a Combat Challenge ability and a separate Combat Challenge power. Unfortunately, they did not do that in errata (in fact, they errataed CC and did not put this in) or the core book. The did not even do it in Character Builder. So yes, I'll concede that some designer over at WotC probably agrees with your POV here.


But in core, there is no significant conceptual difference between Combat Challenge and Aegis of Assault.

Both have the foe trigger an attack. Having the foe know about it in one case and not know about it in another case is non-consistent and illogical.

Forcing the DM to figure this difference out for every single case is bad game design.

Not all DMs frequent the rules forums.

Now, there is nothing wrong with the solution that was put into the Compendium. If they want the Fighter to get in an extra attack now and then for balance or something, that's ok. As long as WotC makes it crystal clear that this is an exception to the standard rule about monster knowledge.

But in the core rules, there is no definitive RAI or RAW interpretation. So, it makes sense in core rules to use the one that makes the Fighter sticky and is consistent with similar rules like Divine Challenge.


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## Goumindong (May 2, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> See, here is the problem with this type of interpretation.
> 
> If there are special exceptions (or specialized rules if you prefer) like this, but they are not crystal clear:
> 
> ...




So what you're saying is that its incorrect because people might incorrectly interpret it? You're aware that you're arguing that I am incorrectly interpreting it... right?


I am also not sure how "no opening" factors into this. It works just like the combat challenge immediate interrupt. It may or may not be used and the enemy does not know about the fact that it may or may not be used until it is used.

In fact, the ONLY difference between "No Opening" and the combat challenge immediate interrupt ability is that one of them is an at-will and one of them is an encounter ability.

Do you make sure that your enemies know about all these interrupt abilities because they might possibly be triggered? Does an enemy attacking your wizard know that he might use a shield to interrupt the attack and not be hit? Where does this mystical insight on powers and abilities come from?



> You keep bringing this up as if this makes a difference in core rules.



Because it does make a difference. In fact, i've been laying it out why it makes a difference over and over again. 



> Where exactly is the rule that states that an ability that affects any mark for a PC is not known by the foes and a power that affects only the mark created by this PC's power is known?



*WHERE IS THE RULE THAT SAYS IT DOES!*

The rule is that they know what you do to them. The rule is not "they know what you do to them but if its a mark, they also know what you might maybe do to them with any powers that specifically affect marked targets"

edit:

When you're marked, do you know that the ranger might "Fox Shift" if it hits you in melee? That also triggers off a marked enemy.

Does he know that if he becomes bloodied that you can "Jackal Strike" him into the ground?

What about "Menacing Stance", do they know you might possibly use that and make them grant CA as well as the attack for attacking someone else?

I bet they also know about the shield adepts "Sudden Shield Bash" too, and "Marked Beating" because those are all also powers that can only be used against marked creatures.

To answer my rhetorical question, no , they do not know about those powers until they happen, just as they do not know about CC until it happens.



> There is no rule line drawn between the two. CC modifies the mark for any power the same way, regardless of the source of the mark.



I am sorry, would you please point out where it says that "all marks the fighter creates have the following ability tacked onto them" or "all marks the fighter or his allies create that are sourced to the fighter have the following ability tacked onto them".

I am waiting with baited breath.



> But in core, there is no significant conceptual difference between Combat Challenge and Aegis of Assault.



Except for the fact that combat challenge makes no mention anywhere of the ability being tied to any special mark, and aegis of assault specifically mentions, in the powers description, exactly what you can do, yes.

Which is to say, no, you're entirely wrong.



> Both have the foe trigger an attack. Having the foe know about it in one case and not know about it in another case is non-consistent and illogical.



It might not be consistent with your psuedo logic, but it is totally consistent with the way the rules are written.


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## Saeviomagy (May 2, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> I don't know what ideal world you're talking about, but in the one that currently exists, the wizard is throwing out d6's and d8's. And the fighter will be throwing out d8->d12's.[with a 5% higher chance to hit due to his one handed bonus]



Which is totally irrelevant: dpr typically is only depending in small measures upon dice size. Really - go read the optimization boards. Most builds could use a dagger and end up dealing only slightly less than using a maul...

Unfortunately, with the way certain powers and feats and items work, fighters abusing multiple-attack powers come out mixed into the top of the dpr pile.


> Attacking the wizard will affect the number of rounds he can do damage. If he is trying to maximize, then getting another hit in every round can severely reduce his expected damage over the entire fight.



... and I took that into account: why do you think part of the metric included damage taken?


> And any time its anything other than "surge" you're evening out the system in favor of the wizard. Also, at level 6, for a warlord its 2d6, an average of 7 more hit points. For a Cleric is 2d6+wisdom. For a bard, its 1d6+charisma
> Considering the fighter in question has 18 hit point healing surge, and the 10 con wizard has a 12 hit point healing surge your real comparison should be roughly at 25 vs 19



There's plenty of powers not taken into account here: but you're right, many heals will give back more than a surge.


> One of the best things a fighter can do is get next to a ranged enemy. If it shifts it gets whacked, if it attacks the fighter, it gets whacked[or uses a very weak attack], if it moves it gets whacked, if it attacks the wizard, it gets whacked TWICE.



And leaves the melee threat to mix it up with the wizard... You'd be far better off making yourself an attractive target for that fire without needing to stand next to the firer.

And, of course, you can't stand next to all of them.


> Furthermore[as you've already ignored], you don't have to assume only melee combatants, you only have to assume one. Why? Because the enemies goal is to win, and if they spread their damage around they're going to have just as many problems.



Again - eh? If we're talking focus fire, then balance slides further towards attacking the wizard. I already demonstrated that with the big defense gap you've got, the only thing that stops attacking the wizard being the best deal is your retalition, and that is only marginally and WITH the benefits of distracting shield and mark. On most rounds you'll only get to retaliate against a single foe, so every other foe is at a "no bones about it, gank the wizard".


> Except you don't have to, because your defender can move, and in fact, probably move much more easily than your melee enemy trying to get close to the wizard considering your fighter's OA's end all enemies movement and get a nice big bonus equal to the fighters wisdom score.



You're starting to do the "well, I counter your X with my Y!" thing, and it's just going to lead to us running in circles. Simply put, the defender cannot be everywhere all the time.


> The moral of the story is you're not going to be a more effective defender if your AC is closer to your allies[assuming your allies are low], you're going to be a more dead defender.



As a DM, there's no way that my monsters are going to shoot at the full-plate clad, shield wielding fighter when there is any other foe available. Sure that makes you less dead: the problem is that it makes the fighter or rogue or whatever more dead at the same time.


Regicide said:


> Sooo... your monsters can calculate the effectiveness of their blows by percentage of healing surges used when they hit various targets, but they can't tell that a fight is going against them, badly, and they're taking far more damage than putting out and far worse than they've ever seen before and the enemy isn't breaking a sweat?  Sheer silliness.  A fighter isn't a "less attractive target" because they lose a little bit of DPR, it's just silly.  If a monster can calculate DPR they can calculate they've lost the fight.




That's a good point: but this is all more theorycraft proving that most of the time monsters are better off ignoring the very well armored gentleman who says their mothers wear army boots and slamming the robed spellcaster than an algorithm running in the foe's head.

They don't need to do the maths, they just notice that whenever they use one set of tactics, they get hurt a bit less than otherwise.

The maths will still work out with characters of other levels, more or less. In fact the precise example that we ran through is a rather extreme one: the individual hits extremely hard, has every feat that makes ignoring him a bad idea, yet his (visually obvious) superior defenses are still going to make him a bad target to focus fire on.


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## Goumindong (May 2, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> Which is totally irrelevant: dpr typically is only depending in small measures upon dice size. Really - go read the optimization boards. Most builds could use a dagger and end up dealing only slightly less than using a maul...
> 
> Unfortunately, with the way certain powers and feats and items work, fighters abusing multiple-attack powers come out mixed into the top of the dpr pile.




This is not true throughout most of the game. Yes, you can get ridiculous DPR with a bunch of high level gimmick builds. That doesn't mean that most builds will have those properties.

That being said, fighters still typically do more DPR than wizards by your estimation, so its tough to come back around and say "the wizard is doing more DPR".

Lets just get to the basics

1. The fighter, on average, hits 5% more often than the wizard does. 

2. The fighter, on average, throws 2-3 average damage more per hit than the wizard does[4-6 more on a crit]




> ... and I took that into account: why do you think part of the metric included damage taken?




No, you didn't. DPR as a flat rate assumes a flat goal. But the goal is not flat. The longer you survive, the more rounds you have to do damage. When your enemies DPR affects your DPR you cannot simply look at it as a simple straight line formula.



> There's plenty of powers not taken into account here: but you're right, many heals will give back more than a surge.




The issue is not that heals give back more than a surge, the issue is that the heals work to normalize the value of the surges.



> And leaves the melee threat to mix it up with the wizard... You'd be far better off making yourself an attractive target for that fire without needing to stand next to the firer.
> 
> And, of course, you can't stand next to all of them.




Which is inefficient on the enemies part[not focusing fire].



> Again - eh? If we're talking focus fire, then balance slides further towards attacking the wizard. I already demonstrated that with the big defense gap you've got, the only thing that stops attacking the wizard being the best deal is your retalition, and that is only marginally and WITH the benefits of distracting shield and mark. On most rounds you'll only get to retaliate against a single foe, so every other foe is at a "no bones about it, gank the wizard".




Each individual, but not as a group. You're also assuming that all enemies can alway hit the wizard, which is unlikely. Consider for a moment a 2v2 scenario. 1 melee+1 artillery vs 1 fighter and 1 wizard. The fighter ties up the melee and the wizard and fighter kill it until its deal. The Artillery can either try and kill the fighter with the melee or it can shoot the wizard and split fire. As this expands with more players getting in the way[whether or not they are melee], focusing fire is always easier on the fighter, the guy trying to be close to the melee.



> You're starting to do the "well, I counter your X with my Y!" thing, and it's just going to lead to us running in circles. Simply put, the defender cannot be everywhere all the time.




Please, this isn't a "well, ill counter" issue its a "your point does not work because you are making assumptions that are not true" thing. 



> As a DM, there's no way that my monsters are going to shoot at the full-plate clad, shield wielding fighter when there is any other foe available. Sure that makes you less dead: the problem is that it makes the fighter or rogue or whatever more dead at the same time.




Which makes the party win better.



> The maths will still work out with characters of other levels, more or less. In fact the precise example that we ran through is a rather extreme one: the individual hits extremely hard, has every feat that makes ignoring him a bad idea, yet his (visually obvious) superior defenses are still going to make him a bad target to focus fire on.




For all of your "i can make a 130 DPR fighter" swagger you're really discounting the ability of these people to pump out damage.

The reality of the situation that you compared is that of a moderately optimized for combat challenge very high AC fighter compared with a ridiculously low AC wizard(who sat around in melee range all the time and could always be attacked by everyone). And even in that situation the Fighter was easily able to make attacking the wizard unwise.


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## webrunner (May 2, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> But in core, there is no significant conceptual difference between Combat Challenge and Aegis of Assault.




This is not true. 
When a fighter attacks an enemy, the enemy gets the status effect "Marked by Fighter Mc Swordpants"

When a Swordmage uses Aegis of Assault, the enemy gets the status effect "Marked by Aegis of Assault, and when the marked target blah blah blah blah blah"

The effect on the *monster* by Aegis of Assault includes the reaction.  The effect on the monster by combat challenge does not, and there is a clear rule distinction to that.


To put it another way, let's look at Rogues.

When a rogue attacks a target when he has combat advantage against the target, then he can add his sneak attack damage

Now let's say the rogue has a utility power:
target: one adjacent enemy
effect: The target grants combat advantage to you until the next turn.

They use this utility power on a Kobold who has never met a rogue before.

The Kobold now knows it grants combat advantage, and knows that it will grant it until the next turn.

It does *not* know that the Rogue can now do an extra 1d6 damage against him, because *that is a separate ability*


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## KarinsDad (May 3, 2009)

webrunner said:


> This is not true.
> When a fighter attacks an enemy, the enemy gets the status effect "Marked by Fighter Mc Swordpants"
> 
> When a Swordmage uses Aegis of Assault, the enemy gets the status effect "Marked by Aegis of Assault, and when the marked target blah blah blah blah blah"
> ...




As you say, this is not true:



> You mark the target.
> 
> If your marked target makes an attack that doesn’t include you as a target, it takes a –2 penalty to attack rolls. If that attack hits and the marked target is within 10 squares of you, you can use an immediate reaction to teleport to a square adjacent to the target and make a melee basic attack against it.






> Every time you attack an enemy, whether the attack hits or misses, you can choose to mark that target.
> 
> whenever a marked enemy that is adjacent to you shifts or makes an attack that does not include you, you can make a melee basic attack against
> that enemy as an immediate interrupt.




The language here is extremely similar. Nothing here indicates that there is a significant explicit rules difference with regard to monster knowledge.

Regardless of people's claims to the contrary, this is open to interpretation. There are no explicit rules one way or the other from the wording here or from the other rule that we have.


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## Goumindong (May 3, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> The language here is extremely similar.




No, they are not similar. One is a explicit listing of a powers effects. One is an explicit listing of another ability.

We know this RAW because combat challenge is not a single power, its an ability that grants multiple bonuses. Now, if combat challenge were a separate power that was "free action: whenever you attack an enemy you may also mark that enemy, and if that marked enemy does not attack you, or shifts you can make make a melee basic attack as a immediate interrupt against them" then you would have an argument to RAW. But it doesn't, so you don't. 

We know this RAI because

1. Its changed in the compendium
2. There ability works on all marks created from all targets so long as those marked targets are assigned to the fighter.

Look, we've already given you multiple examples of how it works, how similar abilities work, and why they work that way. Either you have some argument other than "nuh uh" or "its too confusing", or "fighters aren't sticky without my rule interpretation", all of which have been thoroughly refuted, or you should stop posting.


Anyway, how about another example for good measure. Some items have both properties and powers. If you get hit with a weapon that has both a property and a power, you do not know the specifics of the power even if that power ties into the property of the weapon. Even if that power is an interrupt ability that requires the triggering creature to have been affected with the property.

In fact, we can do one better. Lets say someone had a power that let them interrupt an attack against an ally and take all the damage instead. Lets say this power is on a Paladin who is in a party with a fighter and a bard. Lets say the bard marks the baddy for the fighter and then the baddy attacks the bard. The fighter interrupts that ability with his CC and the Paladin interrupt that ability with the CC. What is the difference between the two? A: Nothing, both had a condition imposed, both triggered off the exact same event, both were using separate powers from the mark ability.

Now, if you really want to get confusing, in order for your intrepretation to make any sense, you would have to say that:

If an enemy is marked by the fighter from a source that is not an attack, then he does not know about combat challenge.  If an enemy is marked by the fighter from a source that is an attack from the fighter, then he does know about the combat challenge.

Why do we know this? Because the combat challenge apparently only modifies fighter abilities and is not a separate ability[well, besides the fact that it is a separate ability, and its the fighters prime advantage over other defenders]. So now you have to justify two combat challenge abilities in the rules.

One that is tied to the attacks and one that isn't. BUT WAIT, it gets worse. The fighter could simply always use the one that wasn't tied to the power, negating your intrepretaiton even if it were true[since the fighter could just avoid it]. BUT WAIT, it gets worse, the fighter could use the marked interrupt ability when he wanted enemies to know he was going to hit them but the other ability when he didn't want enemies to know he was going to hit them! Now the DM has to keep track of marks created by the fighter and marks created by the figthters attacks and marks assigned to the fighter created by someone else, because each one of them has a different rule intrepretation with regards to what the enemy knows.

All of that is, of course, ridiculous. If the enemy simply doesn't know what is up until the power is activated, at which point he knows exactly what is up. Exactly as the rules state; there is no confusion. Once the fighter has whacked someone, enemies know that when they're marked by fighter attacks and fighter powers and other powers where the mark is simply assinged to the fighter that the fighter is going to whack them if they don't attack the fighter.


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## KarinsDad (May 3, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> No, they are not similar. One is a explicit listing of a powers effects. One is an explicit listing of another ability.
> 
> We know this RAW because combat challenge is not a single power, its an ability that grants multiple bonuses.




No, we *know* nothing of the sort.

That is an interpretation. If you cannot comprehend that there is no explicit rule here that states "Combat Challenge is an exception to the monster knowledge rule", then it is not worth discussing this.

I totally understand where you are coming from. But, you are talking as if it is fact and written and stone and it's not. There is no rule that explicitly states what you are stating. There is an interpretation that supports your POV, just like there is one that supports mine.

If you cannot see that, then shrug...


If you are using the word "power" in the actual rule ("Whenever you affect a creature with a power, that creature knows exactly what you’ve done to it and what conditions you’ve imposed") to differentiate, then the monster does not even know it is marked by the Fighter because CC is not a power that affects the creature.

This is the only monster knowledge rule we have. If some other rule does not explicitly (i.e. in other words, states that it does so in non-ambiguous terms) override it, then this rule takes precedence.

CC does not explicitly override this. To have it do so is an interpretation, not RAW.



Goumindong said:


> Now, if you really want to get confusing, in order for your intrepretation to make any sense, you would have to say that:
> 
> If an enemy is marked by the fighter from a source that is not an attack, then he does not know about combat challenge.  If an enemy is marked by the fighter from a source that is an attack from the fighter, then he does know about the combat challenge.




I would have to say nothing of the sort.

Btw, this is called a strawman argument. Trying to disprove my position by attempting to disprove some other position that I have not claimed is a logical fallicy.


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## Goumindong (May 3, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> No, we *know* nothing of the sort.
> 
> That is an interpretation. If you cannot comprehend that there is no explicit rule here that states "Combat Challenge is an exception to the monster knowledge rule", then it is not worth discussing this.




No one is saying this except you. Stop strawmanning. Combat Challenge is not an exception to the monster knowledge rule, its a perfect example of its application with immediate action triggers.



> If you are using the word "power" in the actual rule ("Whenever you affect a creature with a power, that creature knows exactly what you’ve done to it and what conditions you’ve imposed") to differentiate, then the monster does not even know it is marked by the Fighter because CC is not a power that affects the creature.
> 
> This is the only monster knowledge rule we have. If some other rule does not explicitly (i.e. in other words, states that it does so in non-ambiguous terms) override it, then this rule takes precedence.
> 
> CC does not explicitly override this. To have it do so is an interpretation, not RAW.




1. This has been explained already. Combat Challenge does two different and separate things. The immediate interrupt power that the fighter can take *is not part of the effects imposed by the marked condition or any attack the fighter makes*. There is no "getting around the rules" its just that the rules state, explicitly that monsters know what you've done to them. They do not state that you know what you're about to do to them or what they might do to them.

2. This is indeed the only monster knowledge rule we have. But that does not mean that we do things it does not say just because we feel like it. Please stop doing so.



> Btw, this is called a strawman argument. Trying to disprove my position by attempting to disprove some other position that I have not claimed is a logical fallicy.




No, its not a strawman. A strawman would be if i were not using your position.

But that is your position, specifically your position that Combat Challenge is a single ability that is applied to any mark that is assigned to the fighter[and therefor enemies always know about if if they're marked by the fighter]. The argument is an argument to the absurd[not to be confused with a reduction to the absurd]. What it does, is show how your position creates an absurd, and known false conclusion, when its logic is carried out. Since any valid logic with a true premise must produce a true conclusion, we know that if the conclusion is not true, there must be something wrong with the premise or conclusion.

For instance, lets say we have the logical construction

All pigs are dirty
All dirty things are diseased
Therefore all pigs are diseased

Alright. Now, we now that "all pigs are diseased" is false. Because we know this, we also know that either the logic is bad, or one of the premises is bad, or some combination of the two.


This is exactly what I have done with your position. You have presented a premise as to how the rules work[enemies know all aspects of the combat challenge ability even the ones that are not affecting them], combine with our second known true premise[powers that mark without attacking and mark for fighters with other powers exist and fighters can make CC attacks agaisnt them], and then we apply our known valid logic [enemies know what you've done to them] and use that logic to solve the conclusion.

The conclusion we reach is absurd, and known false. However, since we know that the logic is valid[its valid by definition, as its the rules], and since we know that one of the premises is true[they are true again by definition, as they're the rules], then we know that the other premise, your premise, must be false.


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## KarinsDad (May 3, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> 1. This has been explained already. Combat Challenge does two different and separate things.




Yup. You can keep claiming that there is an actual rule hidden in that fact, but you have yet to quote an explicit rule where it changes the rules for monster knowledge. No matter how many different ways you say the same thing, it still does not add a rule.

But, play the game your way and I will play it mine.


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## Goumindong (May 4, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Yup. You can keep claiming that there is an actual rule hidden in that fact, but you have yet to quote an explicit rule where it changes the rules for monster knowledge. No matter how many different ways you say the same thing, it still does not add a rule.
> 
> But, play the game your way and I will play it mine.




What in the world are you talking about. Combat Challenge is two different abilities. This has nothing at all to do with the rules for monster knowledge[at this point]. It does not matter until you apply the rules for monster knowledge which state they know what you do to them. Since its two different bonuses and not an single power[which the Paladin's mark and Swordmages mark explicitly are] you only apply the monster knowledge rule to what you explicitly do to them. You do not add more monster knowledge that the rules do not explicitly call for.


So let me make this explicitly freaking clear for you

There is one rule for monster knowledge: "Monsters know what you have done to them and what conditions you have imposed"

Now, there are TWO different type of mark powers

1. A mark power that places a mark on an enemy, this mark makes them take a -2 penalty if they attack anyone but the person in question.

2. A mark power that places a special mark on the enemy, this mark makes them take a -2 penalty if they attack anyone but the person in question AND they will take extra damage or be subject to another attack if they do that.

If we apply the monster knowledge rule to our two types of mark, the monster knows different things having been marked. Why? Is there a separate rule? No, there are separate powers which do different things and so the enemy knows different things.

If its the first type of mark power, the monster knows he has been marked and will take a -2 penalty if he attacks someone else.

If its the second type of mark power, the monster knows he has been marked and will take a -2 penalty and possibly damage if he attacks someone else.

*The fighters mark is the first type of mark, not the second type of mark*. There is much evidence for this. Not the least of which that combat challenge is not described in a power block in the PHB, that in the compendium, the immediate interrupt ability is explicitly its own power, that the CC description in the PBH makes no mention of the mark being special[which it would if it was]. With RAI clearly being that the fighter can make CC attacks against marked creatures when the mark does not come from his attack. Etc etc etc.

That is what is important here. The combat challenge immediate interrupt is not a rider on the power that marks, its a separate power that has a trigger based on when a mark does something. This is entirely consistent with the one and only rule about monster knowledge. 

Now stop lying about my position. I've explained this many times. I've explained how its not an exception to the single monster knowledge rule. I've explained how it works with the single monster knowledge rule. I've explained other similar scenarios that work just like this under the single monster knowledge rule. I've even explained how your interpretation literally cannot be true.


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## webrunner (May 4, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> A
> The language here is extremely similar. Nothing here indicates that there is a significant explicit rules difference with regard to monster knowledge.




The language here is extremely different, actually.


First, you need to use the current version of Combat Challenge, which reads like this:
"
In combat, it’s dangerous to ignore a fighter. Every time you attack an enemy, whether the attack hits or misses, you can choose to mark that target. The mark lasts until the end of your next turn. While a target is marked, it takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls if its attack doesn’t include you as a target. A creature can be subject to only one mark at a time. A new mark supersedes a mark that was already in place.
In addition, you gain the Combat Challenge power.
"


Which pretty much separates the Combat Challenge marking ability and the immediate reaction, which is now a class power.  In order for the monster to know about the Combat Challenge interrupt, it would have to be an exception to the monster knowledge rule: the rule is that they know what they've been hit with.  The monster has not yet been hit with the Combat Challenge interrupt power.  They would have to also know what they *potentially can be hit with* to see the Combat Challenge interrupt.

As for between the two, make particular note to these parts:

"If your marked target makes an attack..."

vs

"Whenever an enemy marked by you is adjacent to you and shifts or makes an attack..."

The Swordmage ability specifically refers to 'target', namely the target of the aegis power.  You have to actually aegis a target in order for it to trigger, so they know about it.   The Combat Challenge power does not, as the fighter _doesn't even have to use the first combat challenge ability to mark a monster in order to get the combat challenge interrupt_.  If the fighter multiclasses warden or has a bard on his power, he can mark people without using combat challenge, but still gains an attack.  The rules make no distinction between marking methods, so there is no rule difference.


The claims you are making require exceptions to the rules.  Ours do not.

A monster knows when an effect has been imposed on it, as per the rules.  For combat challenge, no effect has been imposed on the monster except "you are marked".  for Aegis, it isn't.


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## Saeviomagy (May 4, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> This is not true throughout most of the game. Yes, you can get ridiculous DPR with a bunch of high level gimmick builds. That doesn't mean that most builds will have those properties.
> 
> That being said, fighters still typically do more DPR than wizards by your estimation, so its tough to come back around and say "the wizard is doing more DPR".
> 
> ...



And the wizard hits 3+ targets and sustains another multi-target effect.


> No, you didn't. DPR as a flat rate assumes a flat goal. But the goal is not flat. The longer you survive, the more rounds you have to do damage. When your enemies DPR affects your DPR you cannot simply look at it as a simple straight line formula.



Actually you can. Your goal is to reduce all opposing characters to zero hitpoints before they reduce you and your allies to zero.

You're well within rights to say "if I lose 1/2 of a guy, but kill one of their guys, that's better than if I kill 1/4 of their guys.", which is pretty much exactly what I'm saying.


> The issue is not that heals give back more than a surge, the issue is that the heals work to normalize the value of the surges.



Theres many variables being ignored here because they're simply too complex, and this is just one of them. Even if we assume that every single heal comes from a power with bonuses, the numbers don't shift that much.


> Which is inefficient on the enemies part[not focusing fire].



Yes, you're absolutely right. So the formula for whomever you've marked shifts even further in favour of ignoring you and just attacking the current focus target.


> Each individual, but not as a group. You're also assuming that all enemies can alway hit the wizard, which is unlikely. Consider for a moment a 2v2 scenario. 1 melee+1 artillery vs 1 fighter and 1 wizard. The fighter ties up the melee and the wizard and fighter kill it until its deal. The Artillery can either try and kill the fighter with the melee or it can shoot the wizard and split fire. As this expands with more players getting in the way[whether or not they are melee], focusing fire is always easier on the fighter, the guy trying to be close to the melee.



Ah, so you're saying that the defender's job is simply to take up a square on the battlefield, and that pretty much covers it?


> Please, this isn't a "well, ill counter" issue its a "your point does not work because you are making assumptions that are not true" thing.



Sure you are: you just did it above. You're simply stating "well, my tactic X defeats your tactic Y" without actually doing the simulation yourself. What actually happens is that splitting fire leads to your foes causing more damage on any one target than them both focussing on you.


> Which makes the party win better.



Please feel free to support this with... well... anything.


> For all of your "i can make a 130 DPR fighter" swagger you're really discounting the ability of these people to pump out damage.



First, you're lowballing the DPR.

Second, I never made any of the builds I suggested.

Third, fighters are not currently kings of DPR: they're merely up there.

Finally: We're comparing against a wizard, and fighters lose their DPR king status once there's a second target available.


> The reality of the situation that you compared is that of a moderately optimized for combat challenge very high AC fighter compared with a ridiculously low AC wizard(who sat around in melee range all the time and could always be attacked by everyone). And even in that situation the Fighter was easily able to make attacking the wizard unwise.



Did you just not read the entire thing? Yes, you're a very high AC fighter - and part of the point of the exercise is that this is a bad idea.

How is the wizard ridiculously low AC? He's close to his attribute maximum, and hasn't done anything to boost it, sure, but his AC is far from ridiculously low. Ridiculously low would be if I'd chosen a warlock or melee ranger.

And what makes you "moderately optimised for combat challenge"? You've got 50% of your feats boosting it, and a wisdom in the region of 16+, at a guess. How much more could you do to boost it?

The fighter was able to make attacking the wizard a close thing, but as you've pointed out, focus fire has a certain amount of value. So if that hobgoblin has any artillery buddies, he's still going to ignore you.


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## KarinsDad (May 4, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> Now stop lying about my position. I've explained this many times. I've explained how its not an exception to the single monster knowledge rule.




Except that you POV is an exception from my POV. The fine line that you differentiate between a Fighter's CC and a Swordmage's Aegis of Assault is something that many DMs will never see unless they read the boards.

You apparently are incapable of seeing the opposing POV and are only capable of seeing your own. In fact, it's pretty apparent that you did not even try to comprehend my POV. So I'm not going to discuss this any further.  It's like talking to a wall.


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## KarinsDad (May 4, 2009)

webrunner said:


> First, you need to use the current version of Combat Challenge, which reads like this:
> "
> In combat, it’s dangerous to ignore a fighter. Every time you attack an enemy, whether the attack hits or misses, you can choose to mark that target. The mark lasts until the end of your next turn. While a target is marked, it takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls if its attack doesn’t include you as a target. A creature can be subject to only one mark at a time. A new mark supersedes a mark that was already in place.
> In addition, you gain the Combat Challenge power.
> "




Actually, I agree that if one uses the Compendium language, then it works the way you claim.

Unfortunately, we have core, errata, and Character Builder or 3 sources that do not use that language and 1 source Compendium that does.

The vast majority of DMs are going to use core or core/errata for their interpretations. Compendium is too much of a pain in the butt to look stuff up (especially compared to .pdfs). So until WotC actually changes this in errata, it's not really a rule yet. For all we know, the Compendium change might be something that was just floating around on someone's hard drive as a possible change. One would think that if it were an official change that both Character Builder and Compendium would get their data from the same source. And heaven forbid that if we make it such a definitive change that it go into errata.

Note: It might be changed in Character Builder as well by now. Someone could go look. I do not know because my CB did not upload last week's update and WotC is slowly working on trying to figure out why.


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## Goumindong (May 4, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> And the wizard hits 3+ targets and sustains another multi-target effect.




Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Also, your second reply contradicts this reply. Damaging 3 targets less may not be as strong as damaging 1 target more.



> Actually you can. Your goal is to reduce all opposing characters to zero hitpoints before they reduce you and your allies to zero.
> 
> You're well within rights to say "if I lose 1/2 of a guy, but kill one of their guys, that's better than if I kill 1/4 of their guys.", which is pretty much exactly what I'm saying.



Sigh, except that is not what you're saying because you're advocating a position where its more advantageous to split fire. You're advocating this position because the situation where it is advantageous to not split fire in, is one that has a very hard time actually existing. It requires the wizard be sitting around in melee all the time. Even if you do get this to occur, it still runs into the flat out marginal DPR problem.

The fighter is probably be going to be marking the primary target, everyone is going to be hitting the primary target as much as possible. When the enemy defects it drops his DPR faster than it does the enemies. We know this, you proved it.

When his DPR drops, the other side gets even more powerful since their incoming DPR has no been reduced, but their outgoing the same. 



> Theres many variables being ignored here because they're simply too complex, and this is just one of them. Even if we assume that every single heal comes from a power with bonuses, the numbers don't shift that much.



There are very few healing powers that come without flat amounts or bonuses. For the most part, its second winds, which people are loathe to use for a number of very good reasons[std action, means they can't be brought back up with a heal check]



> Yes, you're absolutely right. So the formula for whomever you've marked shifts even further in favour of ignoring you and just attacking the current focus target.



Only if they can be the current focus target. If they can't be the current focus target for some reason, many of which exist, then the best focus is going to be the fighter. Because there are always going to be fewer reasons that enemies can not attack the fighter than they cannot attack the wizard[Range, cover, line of sight, other allies getting in the way, etc etc etc]. 



> Ah, so you're saying that the defender's job is simply to take up a square on the battlefield, and that pretty much covers it?



No, but its one of the methods he uses in doing his job. I mean, you're going to tell me that taking up a spot on the battlefield is not valuable? Because each and every melee player should be concentrating on taking up spots so that enemies cannot reach the ranged characters while hitting the primary target. 

As a side note, fighters are great at taking up spots on the battlefield and they are designed pretty aggressively towards doing that.



> Sure you are: you just did it above. You're simply stating "well, my tactic X defeats your tactic Y" without actually doing the simulation yourself. What actually happens is that splitting fire leads to your foes causing more damage on any one target than them both focussing on you.



What? You're saying that the enemies should attack different players instead of focusing fire? Seriously? And you think this will make them cause more damage on any one target?



> Please feel free to support this with... well... anything.



Lanchester's square law is an easy representation and proof, if simple.



> First, you're lowballing the DPR.
> 
> Second, I never made any of the builds I suggested.
> 
> ...



First, wooo, who cares

Second, wooo, who cares

Third, wooo, who cares, what matters is that they're ahead of wizards, what were comparing against.

Finally: We are comparing against a wizard with a low AC, because wizards have the abysmally low AC required to make your comparison even get close to working. Of course, wizards don't win over fighters until 3 targets are available. Well, for a few reasons. One of which is that the fighter also has AoE capabilities if you choose to go down that route(which do more DPR than the wizards due to throwing higher dice*), and the other is that higher damage single target abilities are stronger than lower damage AE abilities unless everyone has those AoE abilities. That is because the higher damage single target abilities kill the primary target and the AoE abilities do not take that primary target DPR out of the game as fast.


But lets compare to the real king of DPR, the melee ranger. They will have an AC of, at the very least at level 8 [14+4+3+1]= 22. . Realistically they're going to have an AC of either 14+4+3+2+1 = 24[base+dex+hide+enhancement+TWD], or [14+7+2+1]=24[base+chain+enhancement+TWD] a full 3 higher than our wizard[or more, this assumed a 16 base in dex rather than an 18 which is reasonable due to dex bonused races]. Hell, they might even have more if they've invested in scale[not a bad decision on the whole].

Clealy this makes your case all the more weaker.




> Did you just not read the entire thing? Yes, you're a very high AC fighter - and part of the point of the exercise is that this is a bad idea.
> 
> How is the wizard ridiculously low AC? He's close to his attribute maximum, and hasn't done anything to boost it, sure, but his AC is far from ridiculously low. Ridiculously low would be if I'd chosen a warlock or melee ranger.
> 
> ...



No, i read the entire thing. 

The wizard has an abysmally low AC because he has done nothing to boost it and has an under leveled armor. At level 8 you can have up to a +3 armor, but +2 is going to be pretty standard. You're going to have spent a feat or two on AC, either with a shield, or with leather. All of these boost your AC. If you're wearing +2 leather your AC on that wizard goes to 24. If you're wearing +2 leather with a staff wizard or wielding a shield your AC goes to 25, hide bumps it up to 26. You are likely to have shield or expedious retreat, powers that get you out of tough situations. 

I have 2 feats boosting the challenge specifically, 2 feats boosting attacks in general, and one feat boosting AC[16 str, 18 wisdom base]. If i wanted to, i could add shield push which would entirely negate attacks unless the enemy had reach or was being flanked and shield the fallen[+2 all defenses and saves for adjacent allies when they're bloodied, helpless or unconscious] if i really wanted to focus on it. In the end, I will be able to spend a maximum of roughly 2 feats over the fighters career to boosting AC. ALL the rest go to boosting offense, or the defense of others. This will hold true for most fighters, as they advance they're going to get damage on a miss from their hammer, or bigger crits with their axes, or they're going to be able to combine shield push with spear push[push 2 on a successful CC which will negate a LOT of attacks when it hits], etc etc etc.

How many times do i have to explain to you that the hobgoblin will not always be able to attack the wizard when it is much more likely that everyone will be able to attack the fighter? The wizard can move out of the way and the fighter can very reasonably ensure that the hobgoblin cannot follow it. Either with the simple mark or OA, or with powers that slow, hinder, and prevent the melee enemies from getting to the other enemies. That is what either forces the enemies to split fire[artillery on the wizard, melee on the fighter/other melee], or to focus fire on the fighter.[the wizard will also be making sure that the hobgoblin cannot close when it attacks it with debilitating effects such as daze, immobilize, prone, difficult terrain, etc]

*And because they hit more[Sweeping blow, AoE +1/2 str mod to attack w/axe, 1[W]+str. +weapon talent and/or +3 proficiency bonus] and because they are likely to hit more targets[come and get it, pulls enemies within a close burst 3 in before making the attack at 1[W]+str, nearly guaranteeing more enemies are getting hit], and because wizards have to be cognizant of hitting their allies.


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## webrunner (May 4, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Actually, I agree that if one uses the Compendium language, then it works the way you claim.
> 
> Unfortunately, we have core, errata, and Character Builder or 3 sources that do not use that language and 1 source Compendium that does.
> 
> ...




It is in the Builder that way.  It even prints out a power card for it.

However, even if it wasn't it would still work this way: Combat Challenge (Interrupt) does not specify it depends on the marked target, only that the target is marked.  Therefore, you don't have to hit someone with Combat Challenge (mark) to use Combat Challenge (Interrupt). Therefore, they are two separate abilities.  Therefore the monster doesn't know about the other one.  QED.


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## KarinsDad (May 4, 2009)

webrunner said:


> However, even if it wasn't it would still work this way: Combat Challenge (Interrupt) does not specify it depends on the marked target, only that the target is marked.  Therefore, you don't have to hit someone with Combat Challenge (mark) to use Combat Challenge (Interrupt). Therefore, they are two separate abilities.  Therefore the monster doesn't know about the other one.  QED.




It's the logical leap from "Therefore, you don't have to hit someone with Combat Challenge (mark) to use Combat Challenge (Interrupt)." to "Therefore, they are two separate abilities." (i.e. same abillity, just additional text on how it works in the core rules) and the leap to  "Therefore the monster doesn't know about the other one." (i.e. no explicit rules on how one makes this leap in regards to the monster knowledge rules) where I find the logic suspect.

Both of these leaps of logic are conclusions not based on actual rules text, but on interpretation. Both of them need an explanation in a certain way in order to understand the concept as opposed to just rules text in the book clearly explaining it.

I do understand that WotC is now changing the rule (minimally, the interrupt is a power now, so this is a change, not just a clarification), but I'm not even convinced that all of the designers at WotC understood the difference when the PHB first came out.

If one goes to the early discussions on this on the web both here and at WotC, there were a lot of people on both sides of the fence who interpreted it either way. The reason for that is that it is NOT crystal clear and the logical leaps you wrote above were not written, but interpreted. Some people might not understand that your POV is an interpretation based on the logic chain that you have forged, but your POV was definitely not crystal clear fact. It is becoming fact now due to the WotC change (but it would still be better if they put it into the errata), but not in core.


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## webrunner (May 4, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> It's the logical leap from "Therefore, you don't have to hit someone with Combat Challenge (mark) to use Combat Challenge (Interrupt)." to "Therefore, they are two separate abilities." (i.e. same abillity, just additional text on how it works in the core rules) and the leap to  "Therefore the monster doesn't know about the other one." (i.e. no explicit rules on how one makes this leap in regards to the monster knowledge rules) where I find the logic suspect.
> 
> Both of these leaps of logic are conclusions not based on actual rules text, but on interpretation. Both of them need an explanation in a certain way in order to understand the concept as opposed to just rules text in the book clearly explaining it.
> 
> ...




I do not understand how there is a leap between Therefore, you don't have to hit someone with Combat Challenge (mark) to use Combat Challenge (Interrupt)." to "Therefore, they are two separate abilities."

If they weren't two separate abilities, then they would only work together.  You can attack monster A, get a mark on him (the marking ability).  Then a bard can mark monster B for you, and monster B then attacks the bard, triggering the interrupt.  Two unrelated events- they're related only in that they occur under the same class feature heading (which they still do).  In fact, you _never had to attack monster A at all_.  The interrupt is not contingent on the CC mark.  In the rules there's no indication the two abilities are related except being under a common header... and the same is true for, eg, all the individual effects of a magic type as a sorceror.  Are the following two benefits:

Cosmic Persistence: While you are not wearing heavy armor, you can use your Strength modifier in place of your Dexterity or Intelligence modifier to determine your AC.
Cosmic Power: You gain a bonus to the damage rolls of arcane powers equal to your Strength modifier. The bonus equals your Strength modifier + 2 at 11th level and your Strength modifier + 4 at 21st level.

The same ability, as they are under the same kind of bolded heading ("Comsic Magic") as "Combat Challenge".  Do you beleive that if you hit with any sorcerer power then the enemy knows you have STR to AC?

As for the next jump:

Assuming they are separate abilities, that would mean that in order for a monster to know about the 2nd ability after being effected by the first, would have to be an exception to the rule that a monster knows what hits them- so I ask you to find _this_ exception, the one that says "If a monster his hit by an ability they also know a related ability's effects" if you say it exists.

Additionally, your definition of "core" seems to be a bit off: By the rules, the way it's printed in the PHB is emphatically _not_ core any more: Core is the most recent modifications.


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## KarinsDad (May 4, 2009)

webrunner said:


> I do not understand how there is a leap between Therefore, you don't have to hit someone with Combat Challenge (mark) to use Combat Challenge (Interrupt)." to "Therefore, they are two separate abilities."
> 
> If they weren't two separate abilities, then they would only work together.




See, this is the first preconceived notion of yours.

If one view it as "CC is one ability, here are the rules for CC", then it is a single ability. It has qualifiers. It has times it works and times it does not work and times part of it works and times part of it does not work.

But, it is always a single Class Feature for the Fighter, just like Aegis of Assault is a single Class Feature for the Swordmage.

The monster is not affected by a mark and an interrupt, it is affected by a Combat Challenge. Even if only part of that class feature is applicable in some circumstances.

It's a paradigm shift away from your POV to interpret it this way.



webrunner said:


> As for the next jump:
> 
> Assuming they are separate abilities, *that would mean* that in order for a monster to know about the 2nd ability after being effected by the first, would have to be an exception to the rule that a monster knows what hits them-




Says who? Again, you are making a logic leap that is not written there.

Just because you can come up with this "that would mean" logic chain conceptionally does not make it a rule in fact.

I'm sorry that I cannot explain this so that you can understand it. People have a hard time breaking out of their thought processes and I'm not smart enough to get you to do so.

In this case, even considering them as separate abilities does not by definition mean that the power is not affected by both of them and hence, the monster knows both of them.

Logically, there could be 50 ways to modify the power (e.g. adding stun to it) and the monster would know if the power was modified that way.

So again, your logic leap here is an interpretation. Just because you might not be able to see that does not change it. In any case, I understand your POV and how you got there. It's unfortunate that you cannot understand mine, but ...



webrunner said:


> Additionally, your definition of "core" seems to be a bit off: By the rules, the way it's printed in the PHB is emphatically _not_ core any more: Core is the most recent modifications.




And the most recent modifications are the PHB plus errata. Not a paid web service that all DMs do not have access to.


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## webrunner (May 4, 2009)

Okay, let's look at this again. 

If a bard uses Misdirected Mark to cause a monster to be marked by the Fighter, does it now know that the fighter can get extra attacks on it, or not?  

If you believe it is, then how?  Combat Challenge doesn't give the bard any extra abilities.  The fighter didn't do anything at all. All that happened was the bard said "he did it!".  It isn't an aura or something that says "whenever a party member marks a creature by you" or something.  It doesn't even trigger on when you mark.  There are two triggers in Combat Challenge, and _neither of them have happened yet_.

If you believe it isn't, then how is it different then using the Combat Challenge mark, as the combat challenge 2nd trigger doesn't depend on how the creature was marked?  The exact same condition, the exact same game state, exists either way.  There are no effects in play that are different.

As for the "that would mean" section: If I understand correctly, you believe that a monster is effected by a different ability then it's been explicitly hit with, just because the rules don't say it isn't?   That's what happens under the assumption that they are two different abilities.  Why not add Warlock's Curse damage on to the mark while you're at it?  Nowhere in the rules say that you don't add warlock's curse damage when a fighter hits a guy!

4e uses exception-based design.  You don't rule based on what the rules don't say, you rule it based on what they do with exceptions taking precedence.

From "my POV" this isn't my POV.. this is what the rules say, explicitly.  You're adding these things saying "the rules don't say that this isn't an exception", but that isn't th eway the rules work.


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## KarinsDad (May 4, 2009)

webrunner said:


> Okay, let's look at this again.
> 
> If a bard uses Misdirected Mark to cause a monster to be marked by the Fighter, does it now know that the fighter can get extra attacks on it, or not?
> 
> ...




I won't explain in detail again. Bottom line: CC affects the power. All relative to the situation aspects of CC, not just part of it. It does not matter what allows the CC to work (Fighter mark or Bard mark), the power is still affected by it. From your perspective, this is a separate ability of the Fighter that is not part of his mark. From my perspective, this is an ability derived from the Fighter's unique mark (regardless of source) and directly affects the creature.

You won't change my mind, just like I won't change yours. I was just trying to get you to understand my interpretation like I understand yours.



webrunner said:


> 4e uses exception-based design.  You don't rule based on what the rules don't say, you rule it based on what they do with exceptions taking precedence.




Precisely. There are no exception rules for the Fighter's Class Feature not being known by the monster compared to the Swordmage's Class Feature being known by the monsters. Both of these are handled the same way unless an exception in the Fighter's Class Feature explicitly states otherwise.

The monster knowledge rules are always run the same way shy of an exception, that is why I think your interpretation (of the original text) is flawed.

You are manufacturing an exception in the Fighter's Class Feature that is not explicitly written as a rule. You need to follow your logic train to get there which means that not all DMs will get there. The only time most DMs get to the same interpretation is if the rule is explicitly and clearly written. Obviously, that is not true for this or we would not have pages of discussion on it in many different forum threads. Once one changes the rule to the new Power in the Compendium, then it becomes explicit and clearly written. Until then, it's two different interpretations of the same text.



webrunner said:


> From "my POV" this isn't my POV.. this is what the rules say, explicitly.  You're adding these things saying "the rules don't say that this isn't an exception", but that isn't th eway the rules work.




If you say so.

If you cannot (or will not) comprehend that your interpretation (of the original text) is just an interpretation, then like with Goumindong, this conversation will go nowhere.

Whether or not WotC changed or clarified their original position on this is non-sequitor.


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## Akaiku (May 4, 2009)

Also, if the fighter is outnumbered and the wizard is between 3 and 6 squares around, it's almost always a good idea for most monsters to shift out of melee with the fighter, (One takes the smack, as it's an interrupt and it's even less likely to hit then if they just tried to move) then all charge the squishy. Ironically, if the fighter is only marking one guy at a time, perhaps out of burst encounters or something, it's best for the monsters to have one guy holding the fighter away from the squishys as his friends run around and have a field day. If the fighter shifts to avoid the OA, he can only charge and mark one guy. Wherein the remaining guys can shift out of melee and continue murdering.


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## Saeviomagy (May 5, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> Lanchester's square law is an easy representation and proof, if simple.



And applied without any regards to any of it's assumptions. Lanchester's square law applies to forces that are either homogenous or large enough to be considered so. Furthermore it assumes that each member can only damage a single foe. It's completely inapplicable here except in the broadest of strokes, entirely because you've got such a huge disparity between members of your force.


> First, wooo, who cares
> 
> Second, wooo, who cares
> 
> Third, wooo, who cares, what matters is that they're ahead of wizards, what were comparing against.



First: who cares? The person whom you're maligning and attacking the character of.
Second: They're not. The supercharger is currently king of the heap, and the supercharger is a wizard.


> Finally: We are comparing against a wizard with a low AC, because wizards have the abysmally low AC required to make your comparison even get close to working.



Nope, anyone not boosting AC has a low enough AC. As I pointed out, if I'd just wanted to push an agenda, I could have chosen something with even lower ac, or even just not gone with a wizard starting at 18 int.


> Of course, wizards don't win over fighters until 3 targets are available. Well, for a few reasons. One of which is that the fighter also has AoE capabilities if you choose to go down that route(which do more DPR than the wizards due to throwing higher dice*).
> *And because they hit more[Sweeping blow, AoE +1/2 str mod to attack w/axe, 1[W]+str. +weapon talent and/or +3 proficiency bonus] and because they are likely to hit more targets[come and get it, pulls enemies within a close burst 3 in before making the attack at 1[W]+str, nearly guaranteeing more enemies are getting hit], and because wizards have to be cognizant of hitting their allies.



I don't actually think you know wizards too well.


> But lets compare to the real king of DPR, the melee ranger. They will have an AC of, at the very least at level 8 [14+4+3+1]= 22. . Realistically they're going to have an AC of either 14+4+3+2+1 = 24[base+dex+hide+enhancement+TWD], or [14+7+2+1]=24[base+chain+enhancement+TWD] a full 3 higher than our wizard[or more, this assumed a 16 base in dex rather than an 18 which is reasonable due to dex bonused races]. Hell, they might even have more if they've invested in scale[not a bad decision on the whole].



A full 3 higher because he's got 2 enhancement and one feat boosting his ac (or for the str-based ranger, 2 enhancement and 2 feats). The point was to make someone not spending many resources on defense, which it seems you've totally missed.


> The wizard has an abysmally low AC because he has done nothing to boost it and has an under leveled armor. At level 8 you can have up to a +3 armor, but +2 is going to be pretty standard. You're going to have spent a feat or two on AC, either with a shield, or with leather.



These points are far from guaranteed. The point of the argument is that having a big disparity in defense is a liability, not that the entire party having bad defenses in the first place is.


> I have 2 feats boosting the challenge specifically, 2 feats boosting attacks in general, and one feat boosting AC[16 str, 18 wisdom base].



The 18 wisdom over 16 strength alone makes you a heavily CC-based fighter.


It seems to me that you're taking my facts and hypotheses to be a personal attack on your character. You certainly seem to be getting upset. Please be assured that this is not so, and feel free to calm down.


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## Saeviomagy (May 5, 2009)

Just a point on the "monsters know/don't know about CC".

Recently a WoTC source clarified some of the rogue powers. Specifically there is one power (dance of death I think?) that makes any foe that was hit by it hit themselves instead of the rogue when they target him for the next round. Furthermore, artful dodgers apply a bonus to the attack roll of enemies who end up hitting themselves.

Now clearly: if any foe who is hit by the power gets to read the rules text, they're never going to make that attack: the rogue gets a free pass. Why, then, does an artful dodger make those attacks more potent? That's a bonus without value!

The answer was that the rules text redirecting attacks is not known by the monster, even though it's in the hit text, because it was actually something granted to the user of the power and not a condition applied to the target.

Specifically:
"...you can make it attack another creature of your choice instead, including itself."

Which looks a lot like the CC text.


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## webrunner (May 5, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> I won't explain in detail again. Bottom line: CC affects the power. All relative to the situation aspects of CC, not just part of it. It does not matter what allows the CC to work (Fighter mark or Bard mark), the power is still affected by it. From your perspective, this is a separate ability of the Fighter that is not part of his mark. From my perspective, this is an ability derived from the Fighter's unique mark (regardless of source) and directly affects the creature.




So, your point of view, is that the _fighter_ class feature, which only deals with himself and marked enemies, with no mention of allies except as targets for enemy attacks, is a rider on _allied_ powers that mark as well, assuming they give a mark to the fighter?

That somehow, a bard can, with no help from the fighter, induce the "fighter's unique mark"?


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## Goumindong (May 5, 2009)

Saeviomagy said:


> And applied without any regards to any of it's assumptions. Lanchester's square law applies to forces that are either homogenous or large enough to be considered so. Furthermore it assumes that each member can only damage a single foe. It's completely inapplicable here except in the broadest of strokes, entirely because you've got such a huge disparity between members of your force.




I am only using it with regards to the broadest of strokes, as are you. Which means that its entirely appropriate here. The existence of weak AoE does not negate the principle just as the existence of the inability to focus fire at times does not negate the principle.



> First: who cares? The person whom you're maligning and attacking the character of.
> Second: They're not. The supercharger is currently king of the heap, and the supercharger is a wizard.



I am not maligning or attacking the character of anyone.

The whatercharger?



> Nope, anyone not boosting AC has a low enough AC. As I pointed out, if I'd just wanted to push an agenda, I could have chosen something with even lower ac, or even just not gone with a wizard starting at 18 int.



Nope, only the lowest AC classes that do not push AC or have other ways of defending themselves have a low enough AC. Who else has a low enough AC



> I don't actually think you know wizards too well.



That is fantastic, i don't actually think you know the optimization procedure to well, so i guess we're even.



> A full 3 higher because he's got 2 enhancement and one feat boosting his ac (or for the str-based ranger, 2 enhancement and 2 feats). The point was to make someone not spending many resources on defense, which it seems you've totally missed.




That isn't spending many resources on defense. At the beginning of level 8 you have 5(6 if you're human) feats and have acquired 1 +3 item, and 17 +2 items. This will set a party of 6 up fully with +2 items by the time they are level 8[1 acquired at level 2, 2 acquired at level 3, 3 acquired at level 4, 4 at lvl 5 and 6, 3 at level 7] with 4 items left over. By the time you're level 8 you're starting to upgrade your equipment to +3.[over the course of lvl 8 you will acquire a level 12, 11,10, and lvl 9 item, two of which are +3]

This means that the wizard in question would be focusing a full 1/5th to 1/6th of his feet allocation on AC. The ranger a full 2/5th. _onerious_... not. I mean, there is still room for weapon focus, expertise, and a superior weapon, d8 marking feat if you're human. The wizard well, he gets distance advantage, and expertise... O.K. all the rest of the wizards feats are more or less defensive in nature until you get to paragon tier[where most of them are still defensive in nature]



> These points are far from guaranteed. The point of the argument is that having a big disparity in defense is a liability, not that the entire party having bad defenses in the first place is.



No, the point of the argument is to whether or not boosting your AC is a good idea. It is, and its only _possibly_ not a good idea when you're dealing with abysmally low AC's(and hit points) from your other characters who decide to sit in melee the entire time and do nothing to defend themselves. Its a ridiculous proposition and yields equally ridiculous results.

A wizard who you would expect to stay in the range of a shift+charge on the front line guys is going to be running at least 14+5+2+2+1= 24 AC and will have two immediate interrupt powers to add more AC per encounter[shield and staff mastery] and may even have more AC[he will also have a few more hit points], and the rest will be throwing up status effects to make those situations impossible without provoking OA's from the fighter[which stop moment negating the charge], or impossible in their entirety.



> The 18 wisdom over 16 strength alone makes you a heavily CC-based fighter.



Wrong, it makes me one who values my constitution based axe damage feats which increase my damage more than +5% to hit and +1 damage do which i would be unable to get with a higher strength because dwarfs do not have a bonus to strength[base stats before bonuses are 16,13,11,10,16,8]. If i upgraded strength to 18, i would have to downgrade wisdom to 12(14)! This gains me +5% to hit and +1 damage but i lose +1 to hit on my OA's and +1 damage when i get marked scourge and pit fighter]. Then again, maybe i should have went that route and my optimization would have been slightly better. But either way, the speicialization is not "heavy". A full damage optimized fighter will have only a 2 point difference in his CC attack and 1 point in his OA[20 str, a dwarf these will both be 1]



> It seems to me that you're taking my facts and hypotheses to be a personal attack on your character. You certainly seem to be getting upset. Please be assured that this is not so, and feel free to calm down.



Do not confuse a vigorous argument for a slight. You're wrong, and that is why I am arguing against you, not because of any personal feelings. But kudo's for the ad hom.


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## KarinsDad (May 5, 2009)

webrunner said:


> That somehow, a bard can, with no help from the fighter, induce the "fighter's unique mark"?




The Fighter can do it. The Bard can only give the mark to the Fighter. Just like with your interpretation.


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## Goumindong (May 5, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> The Fighter can do it. The Bard can only give the mark to the Fighter. Just like with your interpretation.




What in the world are you talking about.

The bard has an ability that creates a mark. The ability says "is marked by ally". So the enemy knows he is marked by the ally. That is all he knows. He has not been affected by any power that might even hint at adding any more riders onto that relating to what the fighter can do.

You have, earlier, explicitly said that the enemy knows that if it defects the fighter can whack it. But there is no text anywhere, ever that mentions that this would be the case. There is no text that gives the combat challenge ability to allies. There is no text that says "any mark assigned to the fighter has the following effect". There simply is not text that gives any sort of suggestion that the enemy would know he is going to get hit.

Now, either there is some text that suggests that, or your interpretation fails. It fails because it produces a known false conclusion.


Lets do a little example

Round 1

Fighter attacks enemy 1: Marks him. [At this point, what do you think enemy 1 knows?]
Bard attacks enemy 2: Marks him, assigns the mark to the fighter[at this point, what do you think enemy 2 knows]
Enemy 2 attacks bard: fighter whacks enemy 2 with CC [are you saying this is impossible? because you've said earlier it was possible. At this point what does enemy 2 know?]
Enemy 1 attacks bard: nothing else happens


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## WalterKovacs (May 5, 2009)

I don't think I've actually seen this specifically:

If you aren't a paladin you need 15 STR and CON to get plate.

If you are proficient in Plate and you _aren't_ a Paladin, you are automatically qualified for Plate Specialization.

For Hide, you need Con, which doesn't apply to your AC defense. For Chain and Scale, you need Dex, which will _not_ help your AC, and will qualify you for Shield Specialization anyway. This means you need to choose whether to take Shield Spec or Chain/Scale Spec. So, you have to compare the Reflex bonus to getting back the speed or armor check penalty.

On the other hand, you have Scale where you automatically qualify for the feat if you are proficient (unless you are a Paladin). So it's 'easy', and gives just a +1 to AC. If you use a shield you _can_ also go with Dex (meaning you need 15 in STR, CON and DEX if you aren't a Paladin) and get the reflex bonus as well.

In the case of Scale Spec Vs. Shield Spec the prerequisites are effectively the same (proficiency and Dex 15), so each has a different 'bonus'. However, the Scale Spec Vs. Shield Spec have different prereqs. Again, unless you are a Paladin, you don't have to worry about getting the 15 CON to meet the prerequisites in addition to the Scale Prof, so it's pretty much just 1 prerequisite, not two. That is why it gives less, because it _costs_ less.


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## webrunner (May 6, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> The Fighter can do it. The Bard can only give the mark to the Fighter. Just like with your interpretation.




What does that have to do with anything I said?  In my example the fighter isn't doing anything.  It could be the first turn of the entire campaign so the fighter hasn't done anything except roll initiative.  How does the monster suddenly know about fighter class features, given that the fighter didn't do anything at all whatsoever.



Goumindong said:


> Round 1
> 
> Fighter attacks enemy 1: Marks him. [At this point, what do you think enemy 1 knows?]
> Bard attacks enemy 2: Marks him, assigns the mark to the fighter[at this point, what do you think enemy 2 knows]
> ...




Enemy 1 attacking the bard would still trigger combat challenge, as fighter marks aren't one-at-a-time like divine challenge.


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## Majushi (May 6, 2009)

webrunner said:


> Enemy 1 attacking the bard would still trigger combat challenge, as fighter marks aren't one-at-a-time like divine challenge.




Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the combat challenge limited to once per round?

It being an immediate interrupt and all...


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## Goumindong (May 6, 2009)

Majushi said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the combat challenge limited to once per round?
> 
> It being an immediate interrupt and all...




Indeed. The fighter may only make one II/round and CC is an II.

I could only imagine how amazing it would be if it were an OA(or free action)


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## webrunner (May 6, 2009)

Right, I forgot that part.

It always trips me up that it's not an OA considering that the other 'combat' ability IS related to OAs.. it's actually possible to get both a Combat Challenge and an OA in one action if the enemy is adjacent to you and does a ranged attack against an ally...


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## KarinsDad (May 6, 2009)

webrunner said:


> What does that have to do with anything I said?  In my example the fighter isn't doing anything.  It could be the first turn of the entire campaign so the fighter hasn't done anything except roll initiative.  How does the monster suddenly know about fighter class features, given that the fighter didn't do anything at all whatsoever.




Does the Fighter get to use the CC interrupt for the Bard's mark?

If yes, then the monster knows about it with my interpretation.

You cannot use common sense to explain rules. It has never worked and it never will work. As an example, if a Fighter marked foe teleports 10 squares away and attacks a different PC, it is still marked and still at -2, even though the Fighter is 50 feet and cannot harm or threaten the foe in any way. Common sense says that the mark should no longer apply, but the rules don't.


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## webrunner (May 6, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Does the Fighter get to use the CC interrupt for the Bard's mark?
> 
> If yes, then the monster knows about it with my interpretation.




Yes, the fighter can use the CC Interrupt on the bard's mark.  But how does *any* interpretation of the rules rule that as being a rider on the mark itself.  It _isn't the fighter's mark_, the fighter _ did nothing except be the target of another ability _.  Combat Challenge has no trigger that 'activates' on bard marking.  As such the "fighter's unique mark" hasn't been used, but fighter still gets to use his combat challenge because the _interrupt trigger_ is still being met.  At the time of marking Combat Challenge has *not yet been used*, which means your interpretation is in flat contradiction to the rules: it's when the ability is used, not _when the ability is *able to be* used_


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## LittleFuzzy (May 6, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Does the Fighter get to use the CC interrupt for the Bard's mark?




Yes.  He also gets to use his CC interrupt on any adjacent enemies that have a Paladin's DC, a Swordmage's Aegis, or marks from any other source.  The only requirement is that an enemy has the Marked condition, the source and method of that condition are irrelevant.


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## KarinsDad (May 6, 2009)

webrunner said:


> At the time of marking Combat Challenge has *not yet been used*, which means your interpretation is in flat contradiction to the rules: it's when the ability is used, not _when the ability is *able to be* used_




Actually, CC has not been used, but it has been activated as long as the Fighter has a mark. CC (as written in the PHB) is not just the mark, it is also the interrupt. When the Bard gives the Fighter the mark, he also allows the Fighter's CC to work and hence, the monster knows about it.

You view CC as two different abilities. I view it as the rules for one ability.

This is not a contradiction to the rules. This is a different interpretation of the rules.

No matter how you spin it, my interpretation is consistent within itself just like your interpretation is consistent within itself. But neither interpretation has to be consistent within the other interpretation and that is where your logic here is flawed. You are trying to force inconsistencies derived from viewing the rules within the narrow rose colored glasses of your interpretation onto my interpretation.

If you refuse to see the differences between the interpretations here, there is nothing I can do about it. You will always think that my interpretation is flawed, just because it is not your interpretation because your interpretation colors how you view the rules. You appear to not be seeing the big picture of either interpretation and how the rules work for both.

The rules work fine for both. They just work slightly differently. Either interpretation is firmly within the framework of RAW, they just have a different "rules as interpreted".


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## Goumindong (May 7, 2009)

KarinsDad said:


> Actually, CC has not been used, but it has been activated as long as the Fighter has a mark. CC (as written in the PHB) is not just the mark, it is also the interrupt. When the Bard gives the Fighter the mark, he also allows the Fighter's CC to work and hence, the monster knows about it.




This part. This is the part that is quite literally insane. There is no rule, ever, that states that you know the rules of another power that someone else allows to work. 

When a wizard uses a power that dazes, that does not give the enemy the knowledge that the rogue can now sneak attack him.


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## Regicide (May 7, 2009)

Goumindong said:


> When a wizard uses a power that dazes, that does not give the enemy the knowledge that the rogue can now sneak attack him.




  It does if the DM figures the monster is intelligent enough to know how rogues work.  Most probably are.  Many are smarter than the most characters and have probably been around the block more.

  But monsters are lemmings and just plow themselves to death on the character's swords.  If they aren't, DnD doesn't work.  So most of this thread is pretty much moot.


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## DracoSuave (May 7, 2009)

Any argument that operates under the assumption that monsters with higher Intellegence Wisdom scores than a fighter are somehow stupider than players is a flawed argument at the outset.

Some monsters have the knowledge skills to know what players can do, and a monster group that can communicate this to each other has the advantage of knowledge.


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## Goumindong (May 7, 2009)

Regicide said:


> It does if the DM figures the monster is intelligent enough to know how rogues work.  Most probably are.  Many are smarter than the most characters and have probably been around the block more.
> 
> But monsters are lemmings and just plow themselves to death on the character's swords.  If they aren't, DnD doesn't work.  So most of this thread is pretty much moot.




But we are not arguing that "mosnsters know about fighter abilities because they are smart enough to know about fighter abilities". He is claiming that they explicitly know how it works because it can be used on him.

Furthermore, no one was saying that "monsters don't know about fighter abilities after they've been used" or that "monsters cannot communicate about other abilities after they've been used" or that "monsters cannot see a player do something and then make an inference after that has occurred about what the player can do".

In fact, had you two read back a few pages, you would have seen me explain all of that and how it was likely to work and why. [Though i would likely reject the idea that they know about CC before the fight, since knowledge skills do not typically give that information, nor do they give that information about classes, since classes are not race/society based information. You could know about a dragonborns breath weapon for instance, but not the fact that he was a cleric.]


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