Do Leaders act as Force Multipliers?

[Mostlyjoe]

In your game experiences have you noticed the Leaders acting as a linear addition to the groups power. (ie. Another warm body dishing out damage) or do they have the effect of a full Force Multiplier. Basically taking a group and giving them far more output than they ever had before?

Has using more than 1 Leader seem to make the effect get better? Is there a point of too much? Just pondering the overall effect of Leaders. What have you noticed?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

well in my experance there is a limeted retuern on more then one leader... a group of 4 2 strikers, a defender and a controler almost double in power by adding a cleric or warlord...but if you add both it isn't 4times...more like a bit of a boost from the second...

 

[Lord Zardoz]

A leader is not so much a force multiplier as they are a durability multiplier. Leaders basically have the effect of giving the party a much larger pool of HP to draw on during battle. The impact of the other class based powers are not especially more powerful than any other classes. However, a leader optimized with an eye towards generating synergy with the other players can do a great deal.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Paul Strack]

The big benefit of leaders is that they can easily put a downed PC back into the fight quickly with a some quick healing. If there is a leader nearby, dropping below 0 hp is not much worse than dropping prone. That makes a big difference in your group's ability to survive a fight.

I would say that having more than a 1:3 ration of leaders to non-leaders is the point of diminishing return, however. Any leader-less groups can function just fine if the group compensates with other healing (lots of healing potions, multi-classing into cleric, a paladin that focuses on healing effects, etc.).

 

[dammitbiscuit]

In my experience at the RPGA (where "balanced" group composition is never guaranteed and you just might have all strikers or even no strikers), a warlord "stacks" better with other leaders than clerics, bards, or artificers do. The greatest amount of redundancy I see is that depending on power choices (and whether or not a cleric is a melee cleric), leaders are capable of granting a great deal of superfluous combat advantage. Sometimes, a cleric's vast amounts of available healing are simply unnecessary. Sometimes, you have two of the same type of warlord in the same party. I've not seen enough artificers and bards to make much comment. A bard and a warlord, though, are HOLY CRAP amounts of tactical shifting, forced movement, and positional control. I'm still secretly hoping to see a fighter, bard, and warlord all shut down a group of kobolds.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Based on my game yesterday, I'd say two leaders in a party of four works just fine.

My Battle Cleric and the Resourceful Warlord can both act as front-line, Combat Advantage-granting combatants because we know that we will pop back up quickly even if our relatively low AC values cause us to take extra hits and go down quickly.

Extra healing is extra HP that can be doled out to whoever needs them. Also, being front-line means we absorb attacks that otherwise would focus on just one or two defenders or strikers, unlike my earlier Laser Cleric who went through numerous battles without a scratch.

Here is a 4 character party that I think would work very well, using 2 leaders and multiclassing to get some Controller powers and extra damage:

Tactical Warlord with MC Wizard
Battle Cleric with MC Ranger or Invoker (depending on ability scores)
Shielding Swordmage with MC Wizard
Brutal Scoundrel Rogue with MC Ranger (extra damage and free skill)

All 4 characters go into melee, thus there is no need for a Fighter to lock down monsters and prevent a breakout into the squishies. The Swordmage can reduce damage to whoever gets hit. The Rogue will almost always have Combat Advantage on something, if not necessarily the BBEG. The two leaders provide lots of healing to keep everyone on their feet.

Lastly, using Readied Actions, the group can cooperate to use the Cleric's Righteous Brand bonus against the biggest threat for multiple attacks. In this group, I can see up to 6 attacks with the bonus, ignoring the possibility of OAs. Assuming the Swordmage gets the Righteous Brand bonus:

First round:

Setup: Cleric attacks with Righteous Brand (if it misses, just try the sequence again next round)

1. Swordmage readied attack triggered by the end of the Cleric's attack.
2. Warlord's readied action uses Commander's Strike to have Swordmage attack.

Second round:

3. Swordmage attack
4. Swordmage uses Action Point for additional attack
5. Warlord uses Commander's Strike to have Swordmage attack.
6. Warlord uses Action Point for addtional Commander's Strike.

Epilogue: Cleric goes again, and hopefully sets up the Righteous Brand trick again, but without the added zing of the Action Point actions.

Maybe that's too munchkin-y for some people -- my own group didn't go for a variant of it -- but as far as I can see it's there in the rules, and probably already on the CharOp boards.

 

[Revinor]

a group of 4 2 strikers, a defender and a controler almost double in power by adding a cleric or warlord...

Almost double - so you suggest that this groups benefits the same from adding a cleric as it would from adding one of each striker/defender/controller ? Sorry, but I'm not buying it. 2 extra people are way more powerful than 2 healing words and small bonus here and there.

I could possible agree that above group benefits from adding a leader more than any other role - but 2 people of any roles would make a lot bigger impact.

 

[the Jester]

We have two warlords (inspiring and tactical) and a cleric in my group (8 pcs altogether).

Simply awesome.

 

[Mostlyjoe]

Imagine the weirdness of 1 of each type of leader in a party.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

We have two warlords (inspiring and tactical) and a cleric in my group (8 pcs altogether).

Simply awesome.

Heck, y'all need at least two leaders in that party. Two heals/encounter runs out pretty quick.

Brad