Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour: The Warlord

Gardens & Goblins said:

Remathilis said:

The one area I think I might object though is called the "don't touch my character" rule. It spawned, unfortunately, from the problem of 4e powers to move characters (both PC and monsters) without outside force (such as grappling or shoving) to reflect some narrative trope

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Not that modeling tropes would've necessarily been a bad thing - genre emulation and all - but, ultimately that narrative was in the hands of the player, not the system, since in another departure from the D&D norm, the player was actually free to choose the narrative description of his own powers, so if you didn't care to describe swapping places, mechanically including sliding an adjacent ally 1 sq, as 'darting behind' him, you'd've brought a description of physical force into it, instead - or, if you just couldn't imagine that, choosen a different power that better fit your concept...

examples could include King's Castle moving a rogue and warlord PC without the rogue's consent,

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Consent would have been strongly implied by his use of King's Castle, since it was a Rogue exploit.

The odd Warlord power that was phrased in a way that could be misinterpreted as involuntary on the part of the ally, such as the original Commander's Strike, was errata'd to require a free action from the ally, both making it explicitly voluntary and removing bizarre edge cases like commanding a dead ally.

King's Castle may have escaped that because the movement was conceptually all the Rogue's, with the swap places mechanic being a compromise artifact of the inherent positioning fuzziness in a turn-based
system, or simply because that particular wheel hadn't been squeaked about...

However, if the bard was shouting out commands like an up-beat exercise video? Yeah... they're going to find themselves on the wrong side of a Bag of Devouring.

AND LIFT AND STRETCH AND SWING THAT MACE AND STAB AND STAB! GOOD YOU'RE DOING GREAT! NOW THE ELVES!

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Yep, it all depends on how you RP (or 'narrate') it, and what your table thinks is fun(ny).

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Remathilis said:

It spawned, unfortunately, from the problem of 4e powers to move characters (both PC and monsters) without outside force (such as grappling or shoving) to reflect some narrative trope (examples could include King's Castle moving a rogue and warlord PC without the rogue's consent, or the infamous CaGI overriding monster Int or tactics to run up and take a whack).

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FrogReaver said:

Yes. But names evoke concept as well. I've not seen a sufficiently broad name to encompass martial support options like the name warlord does. So if the change the name then the concepts evoked and created for that new name will inevitably shift as well. It's not that I'm against another name if there is a good alternative provided but I've yet to see a good alternative.

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Satyrn said:

I think you've convinced me that the next time I say something like "I'm pretty sure most Warlord fans won't mind if the class has a different name" I'm gonna add "although I know one guy who does, sort of, in a theoretical way think it will be an issue, even though he himself wouldn't object to a reasonable name change."

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FrogReaver said:

I honestly think it will be an issue because there's not a lot of generic non-magical names . . .

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Satyrn said:

Danggit. I should've been clearer from the start so that we didn't waste all these words talking past each other. That's not the sort of issue I was talking about, it's not the issue I thought you were talking about.

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FrogReaver said:

Oh. I'm very confused. lol

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Satyrn said:

You're talking about the designers coming up with a good name. I only just realized this with your previous post. I agree, that can be tough.

I was saying I would not reject the theoretical class as "not a warlord" based on its name, and I doubt there's more than a handful fans who would.

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mellored said:

4e warlord powers required consent. That was implicit any time they used the word "ally", which in 5e terms would be "a willing creature, excluding yourself".

And if a warlord looses the trust of his allies, well... that just makes for some good RPing.


Actually, a nice thing about 4e was the other classes requires consent as well. Unlike 5e, a cleric couldn't forcefully bless someone.

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Zardnaar said:

Players get annoyed f another player is telling them what do do even if its optional/beneficial. I have noticed this with new players getting annoyed with a bless spell for example and another player reminds them to roll a 1d4.This tends to be OK if you're playing with friends, new players and something like AL yeah it may be an issue.

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