Marking and Stealth

Chiana was using a combination of Marking opponents, Teleporting, Turning invisible and using Stealth. Essentially, as far as the marked is concerned, gone. Ken's argument was, "but I'm still in the area."

Ken himself, while DM'ing declared that if you mark someone and then you go out of site of the marked, the mark no longer is in effect. In this situation my Swordmage had a wizard marked and went behind a pillar. Of course now that the positions are reversed Ken said his original ruling was wrong.

I feel that Ken's original declaration was correct because "they require the marking creature to remain a threat to the marked target." <Marked rules> When they don't believe your around you are no longer a threat to them, and they don't have to be wary of you.

Now if Chiana just teleported and became invisible (and didn't stealth) then the opponent knows she's there and knows she is still a threat, however, can target her, albeit at -5 to hit.

Am I way off here?
I honestly want to know other peoples point of view on this as it's the center point of Chiana's build, and basically makes or breaks her character....well actually doesn't break it as having -5 to his is still dang helpful.

It does make sense to me too that the NPCs must have a chance to honor the mark for it to apply. Actually, I can see where any tactical retreat might not be considered "remaining a threat" too.

Okay, I actually looked quite a bit on line, the Wizard's forum, FAQ, and the PHB, 4.0 Essentials, and the DMG to see how much guidance I could find.


First off, I'm going to consider the "Mark" as an "effect/condition" that the (Fighter) is imposing on the target (monster). All of my logic follows from this assumption.

To cause or bring an effect into being, the Fighter would initially need to have LoS and LoE when they Mark the target or make the attack that Mark's the target.

The question(s) are, what breaks a mark?

In the "spirit" of the rules, the marked creature is worried about and distracted by the Fighter, thus taking a penalty to hit others.


Question 1: Does the marked creature have to be able to target the Fighter in order for the mark to be sustained? (assuming the Fighter does not have to continue to attack the marked creature for the mark to remain)
Answer 1: So, if the marked creature, an Orc Warrior, is Stunned (can't take any actions) and still right next to the Fighter who has his sword in hand, but is fighting the Hill Giant to his right, is the Orc Warrior still marked? The Orc is clearly unable to target the fighter with any kind of attack, even though the Orc has LoS and LoE. I would think that we would all say that the orc is still marked. Thus, in at least one case, the mark remains even though the marked creature cannot target the Fighter.

Question 1b: If a creature that is marked AND who is able to launch an attack cannot target the Fighter, does the mark remain?
Answer 1b: Hmmm...now, if we wanted to go down this rabbit hole, we'd need a huge server to document all of our unique situations... I'm of the position that based soley on my example above, a marked creature can still be marked, even if they cannot target the marking creature with an attack; RAW.

Question 2: Do you need LoS and LoE for a mark to remain?
Answer 2: This was a bit tougher. There are quite a few other conditions where the one who inflicts the condition, e.g. on-going fire damage, on-going poison damage, dazing, etc. can inflict the condition and then just totally leave the area and the condition will remain. Even though that pesky Drow shot me with the poison dart, just because he shadow stepped away to Menzo and he can't attack me anymore, I'm still poisoned (until I make my save).

It's easy to rationalize still being on fire or poisoned even if the instigator is long gone. Also understandable that you could be dazed for a long time even though the Storm Giant who hit you over the head has run off, chasing that little Kender who stole his golden harp. With a mark, it is much more difficult to imagine as these other effects are "passive" in nature, like a Shoot and Forget missile. A mark seems to imply that even after marking someone, you have to be more "active" (e.g. still be a threat) for the mark to remain effective. That's why, if the Fighter is Dying or Unconsious, the mark ends as the Fighter is no longer a threat.

To be a threat, you need to at least have LoE to launch an attack (w/o taking multiple actions). What is a threat? If the marked creature sees the armored fighter with sword and shield who is restrained by quicksand, and who is 15 feet away, is the monster still marked? I'd say so, as the fighter "could" be a half elf with magic missiles say or have some other non-obvious ranged attack the monster would have NO WAY OF KNOWING about. Note the caps, this will become important later. If the monster saw the fighter fall into a 60' deep stone pit and then a 2,000 lb stone cover sealed the pit, cutting of LoS and LoE, would the mark remain? Hmmm...there'd be no reasonable way that the Fighter would be a threat to the monster, one would have to say, no, the mark couldn't possibly remain, if the fighter has to do something "active" after initiating the mark.

I thought about this a lot and came up with the "Leaving the Battle" idea. Unlike other conditions and effects, I'd say a mark ends if the Fighter has left the field of battle and cannot reasonably effect any creatures within the battle. So, if a Fighter marked an orc and then ran 15' around the corner of a 10' high wall, cutting off both LoS and LoE, the mark should STILL REMAIN as the fighter could move back around the wall on his next turn and charge the marked orc. Conversely, the orc could reasonably conclude that he could move to the corner and have a chance of throwing his hand axe at the fighter. The fighter is still in the initiative order and in the area. Thus I'm defining "In the Battle" as still in the initiative order and affecting creatures in the battle. By taking this position, it would not be allowed for a Fighter to Mark every enenmy in a battle, and then plane shifting say two galaxies away to his bedroom and all the enemies are still marked.


Bottom line - RAW, I'm of the position that the Fighter can mark creatures and then become basically untargetable and the mark will remain. I think we would all agree that if the Fighter marked the creature and then turned invisible, teleported and stealthed but was still next to the marked creature and could still attack the marked creature, the target should still be worried about the Fighter. Note, in this example the marked creature could randomly attack into the Fighter's square if they got lucky and selected the right square.

Which leads me to the final conclusion, yes, the mark should remain even if the marked creature cannot target the Fighter. The marked creature has no way of knowing or not, if the fighter is still in the area or not and thus, still should be "worried" about the fighter. One could make an argument that to be a crediable threat, the Fighter would have to have LoE to all of his marked targets, but the position that just "being in the battle" is enough is a supportable position as the fighter can charge around the corner, or a pillar even, makes a fighter that is just in the area a threat.

I'm also of the position that if the Fighter leaves the battle, the mark is broken, just as if the Fighter were dying or unconsious. The fighter has left the battle, so they are not a threat anymore. Note, that the monster can't know if the fighter has left the battle or not, but it's not what the monster perceives, it is what the actual situation is. If the marked monster were blinded and the Fighter was knocked unconsious, the mark would be broken even though the blind monster still thought the fighter was nearby and a threat.


On a side note, even though I'm taking the position that a fighter can mark and then become untargetable, I do consider it poor tactics for the very heavily armored half defender with many hits and many surges to mark a number of opponents and then make themselves untargetable, opening up lanes of attack and leaving a much more lightly armored, lesser hit point ally (especially if that ally happens to be the party's healer) get swarmed and flanked by multiple foes who inflict more than 180 hit points of damage on said ally while the defender escapes the battle w/o a scratch.

Sounds good. Thanks for researching.

Teramotos wrote:On a side note, even though I'm taking the position that a fighter can mark and then become untargetable, I do consider it poor tactics...

We disagree twice then. The tactics (if legal, which I don't think should be) is very sound. Yes, Archimedes doesn't have as good defenses as Chiana, but all those hits that got through were at -5 to hit because of her. Your AC isn't 5 worse so the net healing the party required wasn't increased by that. Where our tactics DID suck, imo, was what Ross pointed out, and that was not focusing fire.

Hmmm...I think the mark only granted Archamedies two extra to defense (e.g. the monsters were at -2 to hit) and the Alchemist's AC is about 4 worse than the Swordmage. Also, the -2 was at least partially, if not totally nullified by multiple monsters getting a flanking bonus. I therefore refute the assertion that having the lightly armored Alchemist/Healer with (relative) few surges and low AC take a higher percentage of damage relative to the very high AC Defender is somehow sound. Wouldn't it be better to have the very high AC Defender draw one or more of the attackers away so that they are not flanking and so that the attackers are attempting to hit the much more difficult (even considering the -2 the attackers are taking to hit the Alchemist) Defender? Basically, we're trying to get the monsters to split up their attacks. Longer terms, if every battle during an adventure went like this, after two or three encounters, the Leader would be out of healing surges while the Defender would still be at max.

However, Chiana is not really a Defender. The Defenders role is to keep agro to keep others from being hit. When she stealth's the creatures have no choice but to attack others. When your fighting alongside her you need to realize she doesn't want to be attacked. She actually wants other party members attacked so she can get the Mark powers.

If she didn't Stealth then she would be a really good defender, especially with that extra 5 to defense, however, Marks wouldn't trigger.

Chiana is a defender/striker hybrid, not fully a defender, not fully a striker. Probably more striker than defender... She has 8 surges which is pretty close to what other non-defenders have.

Chiana has 30AC, 32 after teleporting.
She has AtWill teleport as well as several longer range move action teleports and a couple standard action attack/teleports.

Her mark penalty is -3 due to Mark of Warding feat, then if she hits a cursed target it gets another -2 penalty to attacks from Protective Hex.

When she leaves a square adjacent to a target by teleporting she turns invisible to that target due to her Paragon Path (Evermeet Warlock). Which leaves them with an additional -5 penalty to attack her.

So if a marked/cursed enemey that she has hit attacks, it'll be at -5 against one of her allies and she'll get to teleport in and make a MBA against it. Or, the creature can attack her at -5.


Chiana is not a "hold the line" defender that will keep enemies off of her allies. She does make it more difficult for them to attack her allies and punishes them when they do. Basically she's a striker that gave up some damage potential for enhanced personal/party defenses.

The stealth after teleport is part of the character, but doesn't need to be. It mostly comes into play with area attacks as they have to know where to target.

Chiana has exceptional AC, but in 4.0 for 13th level, I think that means she's get hit about 40% of the time instead of 60% to 80% of the time. Okay, -5 is a bit better of a penalty for the monsters to hit the ally than I thought and Chiana having only 8 surges is relatively low. Okay, I partially relax my critical remarks regarding tactics earlier. Still as a group, the party's tactics during the first battle were very sub-par with the possible exception of Damon's fighter who did tie up the elite, much stronger leader monster for most of the battle, like a hold the line defender should.

Actually proper tactics probably should have been all of you targeting the elite, helping your true defender.

Hmmm...wouldn't it have been better to concentrate on one lesser wolf at a time, thereby rapidly reducing the number of attacks the opponents receive each round?

Ross wrote:Actually proper tactics probably should have been all of you targeting the elite, helping your true defender.

No. Much more effective to limit the number of attacks as quickly as possible. That means clearing the minions & speds first, while merely occupying the hard to bring down elites/solos until later. My opinion.

That's right, you guys didn't know how many HP's they had.
Also, he wasn't really an elite, he just had higher damage output. He was a 16th level Lurker and the other wolves were 14th level Skirmishers.
The 16th level wolf had 20 hit points less than the 14's. His defenses were a tiny bit better though.

Regardless, Damon should have moved closer to you guys, or you should have moved closer to him, so he could take on the attacks of the other wolves. I'm sure he felt he couldn't go over to you guys since he was in combat. Of course you probably thought you were good since your other Defender was there, but I guess that backfired on you.

Ross wrote:
Actually proper tactics probably should have been all of you targeting the elite, helping your true defender.

I lean towards this tatic but typically you don't know who the elite is until 1/3 the way thru the battle.

I don't think it could have gone any other way.

The party was split because the wagon was blocking the road and it was difficult terrain off of the road. The paladin couldn't shift/move to get to the other side. Chiana could have gone to help the paladin, but that would leave the front with four wolves and little melee presense.

The wolves also knocked a few people prone limiting the actions they could take.

Dwarmaj wrote:I don't think it could have gone any other way...

True, it was unfavorable ground, but Damon could have spent a single round taking the hit to 2x move. Also, Camella Ann could have moved to Damon, but wanted to stay with the most party members.