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Apr 27, 2012 -- 9:05PM, The_Jester wrote:

Apr 27, 2012 -- 5:03PM, mestewart3 wrote:

Apr 27, 2012 -- 3:44PM, The_Jester wrote:

The aura part doesn't do it for me because of the "aura" part. It's something that emanates from the fighter. The language evokes a glowing nimbus surrounding the character. If it's just adjacent enemies then say adjacent enemies.

Aura is just the general term used for anything that effects any adjacent enemy, it is a game term and a usefull one at that.  You need to let biases like that go, because you have them you are suggesting that we should use clunky language instead of elegent terminology.

It's not "elegant terminology", it's jargon. It's a keyword that references you back to a rule elsewhere in the book rather that explain, in plain language, what the ability does. This is very needless.
It works in 4e because that's the edition: everything is a power and has a card. But it works exactly the same if you say "enemies beside the fighter" but without the same barrier to entry or explanation elsewhere of exactly what an "aura" is, what it stacks with, the action needed to activate, and the like. I don't need to know it is a "personal" power with the "martial" keyword, and it only matters if it's an Aura 1 if there's some mechanic or option that increases the size of the aura. And Aura 1 is meaningless off a grid. 

The -2  still works. I didn't mean my suggestion to be the "be all, end all". But why a -2 or an attack penalty? How does that work? Isn't the threat of a free hit enough? And how exactly is the fighter imposing this penalty? And on the table, the fighter often has AC more than 2 higher than strikers and controllers, so even the penalty doesn't mean much.

-2 is often about how far many melee characters are from the defender in AC, unless of course the Defender is working to max his AC which is a viable option.  Also there are a lot of feats and abilities that increase the -2.  It makes sense a defender wants to minimize damage to the party as well as just punish foes so he makes it harder to hit.  The fighter is imposing that penalty because he is parrying the enemies blows, body checking them, throwing off their timing and a number of other things that trained swordsmen know to do in a fight.   

Parrying blows, body checking them, and throwing them off all while getting a free attack. There's the rub, the enemy takes a penalty AND provokes, not just one or the other. Defenders are apparently busy. 

The -2 penalty is a very tactical penalty. It's good for a tactical game. It makes the DM consider who he can hit, balancing the choice of attacking the unarmoured squishy versus the armoured fighter. 
But it adds extra math to the roll. Possibly every roll near the fighter. Devoid of other situational modifiers, it doubles the numbers to be added to the d20. This slows down play, as it's something else that affects a creature's tactics. It's one more thing to track: who was marked, when does it end, which powers provoke, etc? 

Additionally, ideally, the enemy is not triggering the mark and focusing on the fighter, making the fighter signature power un-used.

I don't think the -2 really adds much. It seems like a 4e sacred cow: defenders impose a penalty to attacks. 

"Jargon" as you call it is the beating heart of a good exception-based system. By applying terms to things you empower the game designers to hook onto those things and do new things with them. You also allow for a much more modular approach to the system where these hooks can be used in different ways by different rules modules. Without them you have pea soup. Much of the expressive power of the mechanics is lost. Every edition of D&D has a certain amount of jargon. 3e is FILLED with it. There are so many acronyms in 3e that it makes my head swim. 4e is actually quite a bit better. So, no, replacing standardized terms with endless recapitulations of the same thing without any way to refer to them is not the same thing.

There's no 'rub' to the -2 and a free attack. It is a balanced workable way for the defender to punish the enemy and create a catch-22 where they can do their job. There could be other possibilities (4e is rife with them actually), but there's nothing IMHO wrong with triggering an attack using a mark (or an aura, etc). Sure, defenders are 'busy', so what? They are masters of melee combat (mostly, maybe some have other shticks but those work too).

A -2 penalty is universal. It isn't 'tactical' at all. In fact it is a mechanic that will work in virtually any sort of combat system, assuming it has attack rolls. Virtually any attack in any system with a fair number of options is likely to have SOME modifiers. While having less of them is certainly a laudable goal it is hardly the giant inconvenience you make it out to be. Marks are really not a big deal to track. a small number of poker chips, hair bands, etc is more than adequate to the task. OTOH I'm not married to marks, there can be other mechanics like the defender aura (though I will note that there are weaknesses to the aura that definitely make it a weaker option).

Fighter's signature power is never 'unused'. Every time the DM chooses to attack the fighter instead of his allies is his power working. It may not always be explicit and flashy, but it is always effective one way or another.

Plenty of things are expected standards. That doesn't make them 'sacred cows', it just makes them good ideas that work. Attack rolls are 'sacred cows' too by your criteria, yet nobody seems to be seriously suggesting we get rid of them. It seems to me that the mark penalty is just a NEW mechanic. There's no reason to have a prejudice against a mechanic simply because it wasn't introduced in the 1970's, is there?