Paladin should kill the Warlord and take his stuff!

[Majoru Oakheart]

What little I read about Warlord, It sounds more like a renamed Bard then Paladin. I foresee the Wrlord being the class everyone wants in the party but does not want to play themselves.

Even with the no one out preforms everyone else and everyone helps one anther, lets all hold hands in the battle, Go! team power, thing, they are pushing.

No, I don't see the Warlord being a renamed Bard. Partially because the Bard is going to be in 4th edition, so the Warlord has to be separate from it.

I see that each Leader will perform the leader role in a slightly different way.

Cleric: Everyone's weapon becomes magical, everyone is protected from fire, remove status effects, magical healing

Warlord: Give bonus attacks, give combat advantage to allies, knock back enemies into Opportunity Attacks, give people(larger) bonuses due to tactical positioning

Bard: Magically distracting the enemies with illusions, increasing the movement rate of allies, temporarily inspiring bonus strength and endurance

If anything the Warlord is like an actually decent version of the Marshal or the PrC, Tactical Soldier.

 

[rkanodia]

If anything the Warlord is like an actually decent version of the Marshal or the PrC, Tactical Soldier.

I pretty much imagine that Warlord will look like someone using the White Raven school of Book of Nine Swords.

 

[Greg K]

That archetype, in the past, went to Fighters.

The first thing I thought of was how inspiration tree would have been appropriate for the fighter or even being made available to several classes.

 

[Bishmon]

The paladin taking the warlord's stuff wouldn't bother me. The more I think about it, the more it seems the fighter, paladin, warlord, and cleric are treading some of the same ground.

Other classes taking the paladin's stuff wouldn't bother me, either. I think I should be able to make a good defender paladin by taking a fighter and giving him some clerical training. Not saying that's how it'll play out, just that that's kind of the ideal.

That would open the paladin's slot in the core rules for something for a bit more mechanically different. Maybe something like a berserker, a defender who relies of little armor and massive HP to defend, and uses his rage instead of tactics to defend the party.

I think that'd be my ideal, but I'm certainly not heartbroken over how it is now.

 

[Darrius Adler]

Personally I am going to be glad to have a non Divine based leader. The Paladin might be able to fit as a leader but the defender role seems to me to fit them better over all. To be more of the leader type multiclass Paladin/Cleric or Paladin/Warlord. I am actually looking forward to giving a completely non magic party a try since it looks like it will function far better in 4e than in older editions.

 

[Incenjucar]

I'm happy about moving away from leaders all being holy types simply because my homebrew lacks any notion of religion or supernatural righteousness.

Saves me from having to cram a bard into every single party.

 

[Gloombunny]

Seriously. It seems to me that the Paladin would make an effective 'leader', without requireing a fancy new class called warlord. The paladin could have the leadership abilities, aura's, boosts,etc. Just remove paladin spellcasting and add in everything else from the warlord and what you already have for the paladin.

I dunno, just something about the paladin screams 'LEADER'.

Paladin has too much baggage to take over the warlord role. People have always complained about how they couldn't play a woodsman without also getting spells, and you want to stick tacticians with the same problem?

If anything I would have said that the warlord stuff should be rolled into fighter options. Hopefully fighter/warlord multiclassing will be easy and effective enough.

 

[Zaruthustran]

I disagree. The Paladin carries too much baggage:

1. Code of conduct
2. God(s) / Faith
3. Divine magic

Core D&D has never mechanically supported the natural-born leader archetype, and its about time it did. Alexander the Great, Odysseus, Leonidas, Robin Hood, Henry V, King Arthur, Richard the Lionhearted... heck, most of the ancient heroes were much more than guys who were good at hitting things with weapons (and being good at soaking hits by weapons). They weren't just Fighters. They inspired their men, made them exceed their abilities, boosted their morale so they could fight on even when wounded or scared. They were charismatic and intelligent leaders. They were Warlords.

Classic fighters would be more like Little John, Lancelot, Beowulf, Hercules, and Achilles.

Paladins would be Joan of Arc, Sir Galahad, Saladin, most every Templar or Hospitaler or anyone else who truly believes the battle cry of "God's will!!!!" Sure they can be leaders, but their first loyalty is to their god, not their nation or their men. Very different from a Warlord. Not to say that a warlord can't be a religious fanatic; it's just that there's no rules requirement for them to be.

-z

PS: I guess the way I see it, there's a 0 level "Devout" class that after Basic Training can go into either healing (cleric) or combat (paladin). And there's a 0 level "soldier" class that can go into combat (fighter) or leadership (warlord).

 

[Klaus]

Can't see why those you listed as Warlords couldn't have been Fighters with leadership talents.

 

[KrazyHades]

ummm, clerics provide healing, are not as good at combat, and can't both attack and provide a + boost to attack rolls at the same time?

That is EXACTLY why the 4E cleric will be able to buff and attack at once. It was very boring for many cleric players to do a cleric because they had to spend almost all of their time healing and buffing, rarely getting the chance to be badass. To make the pally do the same thing would overlap onto the cleric's class too much, and to take that out of the cleric's class would make it be boring again.