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Sep 16, 2009 -- 9:45AM, txporter wrote:

Sep 16, 2009 -- 9:23AM, LordOfWeasels wrote:

Sep 16, 2009 -- 8:59AM, octavius wrote:

also, while right now only third party publishers have given dominate to PCs

Uh...  you haven't seen the Wizard or Warlock?

Or Bard or Psion or Invoker or Rogue (?!) or Avenger or Sorceror or Cleric or Druid.

Wizard and Warlock were the only ones I was absolutely sure had a power that inflicts Dominated.

But yes!

With Dominate you choose the action, but nothing about Dominate allows you to designate the Dominated foe as his/her own enemy.

You could make someone run off a cliff (I'd call that a form of forced movement and allow a save), use a power that targets all creatures to hurt themselves, or similar things, but you can't make them fall on their own sword in a coup de grace sort of move.

Often, in 4e Dominate, one makes the victim run past their foes, provoking opportunity attacks from them all, and, of course, ending in a tactically disadvantageous position.  If Dominating a POC, I'd expect the DM to use the PCs most deadly at-will power against another PC ) or a whole group of PCs).  It kind of depends if you want to damage the target or use the target to damage others.

I don't get how you want to empower dominate any more than it already is.  If I'm dominating someone, the list of things I could do to that person is quite horrifying.  In the case of certain characters, where "this power can be used as a melee basic attack" is a byline, and since if I'm in charge of your action it's like I'm playing your character, your character is in trouble.

As for the free action thing, are you saying I can't speak for six solid seconds while I'm taking my turn?  Imagine all the things you could do for six seconds, like walking, chewing gum, talking on a cell phone, dropping something in the trash, and looking and maybe even waving at someone across the street.  Now imagine that I was simply not in charge of one of them (the walk).  That's what the rules say.  I'm not in charge of the walking part, but I can drop something, scream at the top of my lungs, blink any number of times, turn my head (given my head's not up my ...).

If I can send you past up to six enemies for six opportunity attacks each with an effective +7 to the attack, you may certainly close your eyes when I'm doing it.  It won't hurt a bit.

Also, I've decided to revamp what I said in explanation to get some agreement:

If you're dominated, you're dazed, in which case:

1. You grant combat advantage.

2. You get a single action on your turn, not including free actions or "no actions."

3. You're unable to flank.

4. You're unable to maintain effects requiring you to be able to make opportunity actions.

5. You can take as many free actions as you want.

The ONLY thing dominate adds is that your single (non-free and non-no) action during your turn is chosen by your dominator/-trix.

Moral: as soon as you're dominated, shut your eyes, drop your weapons, and tell your allies to teleport you as far from the combat as possible, because:

Dominator's Plan "A" is - if you're a melee character, you will charge one of your own squishies.

Dominator's Plan "B" is - if you're a squishy (or perhaps even if you are a melee character), your a$$ is running the gauntlet with -5 to all defenses and granting combat advantage.

Me:    2. You get a single action on your turn, not including free actions or "no actions."

Soi:    No. You are restricted to using one of the main three actions on your turn. Being dazed doesn't take away your default assortment of Minor, Move, and Standard.

I don't understand this objection at all.  Are you saying you get a full turn when dazed?  Further, you are saying no to what?

EDIT:  About shutting one's eyes:

This is nuts.  Speaking is not mechanically effective either, but under free actions, "speak a few sentences" is in clear type.  Under other paragraphs in the PHB, they talk about "Seeing and Targeting," "Targeting What You Can't See," "an ally must be able to see and hear you to gain a benefit from this..."  So if shutting my eyes has no mechanical effect, why is seeing inextricable from the game's mechanic? 

Also, if I decide to cover my ears, could I not effectively deafen myself as well in order to gain a -10 penalty to Perception?

SECOND EDIT:

Sorry for the tone of this.  No disrespect intended and thanks for responding to me.  I have trouble with tone.

See, this is the permissivity thing...

I'm trying to come up with something.

OK.

PHB pg 267 lists examples of free actions:

✦ Free Action: Free actions take almost no time or

effort. You can take as many free actions as you

want during your or another combatant's turn. The

DM can restrict the number of free actions in a turn.

Examples:

item, letting go of a grabbed enemy.

I say the fact that the text elects to include examples and call them examples, it has granted permission for me to come up with other actions that could technically, under RAW, be called free.  Since I could go a whole day without speaking a few sentences (per the example), whereas I blink my eyes a few thousand times a day, it is perfectly logical that I could close my eyes as a free action in order to be less able to target my allies while dominated.

Whatcha think, Soi?