D&D 4E Rich Baker on his 4e Warlord

[Lonely Tylenol]

I think it's them trying to sell "healer" as a category to people who don't want to just be the medic. (See any multiplayer videogame for the problems in getting many people to take on that role.)

Except Team Fortress II, in which the healer is awesome. Now, back to your regularly scheduled thread.

 

[Pazu]

I may be misremembering, but haven't we seen some indications that:

1. Lower ability scores still gain you positive stat modifiers in 4e? and
2. Your stat modifiers also increase with your character level?

Wouldn't these factors also help mitigate any issues with MAD?

 

[Rechan]

Wrong. What you have instead is that every class has multiple specialties (because they all have 3-4 important stats), so "I'm a Dex Fighter" and "I'm a Con/Chr Wizard" etc.

Neither of us are right, given that we don't know what 4e will be.

You're assuming that it works the way YOu're saying it is. I'm saying that I'm concerned it Will be the way I am assuming it will be.

 

[Rechan]

1. Lower ability scores still gain you positive stat modifiers in 4e? and
2. Your stat modifiers also increase with your character level?

I've never seen indications of this.

Source?

 

[Irda Ranger]

"I considered half-elf just because they multiclass well." ... wtf? Some races are better at mutli-classing?

What are Humans good at? Unlimited advancement? Dual-classing? Argh!! THAC0 flash-backs!!

Sorry.

Or are Half-Elves just better than everyone else, part of their "feet in more than one world" concept?

"warlord abilities are often reminiscent of the White Raven maneuvers from Tome of Battle" ... all good.

"(At this point I’d tell you exactly what we’re up to with multiclassing so that I could explain Karhun’s wizardliness, but I’m afraid I can’t quite yet. Suffice it to say that multiclassing isn’t like it was in 3e. That’s as much as I can say right now.)" ... this really bothers me. I hope this wasn't Rich's idea, but it seems someone at WotC decided to hold stuff back for no particular reason. "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to hold off releasing this until D&D Experience? That will sell tickets!" Or whatever the reason is. I really don't understand it.

"I set my Strength high because most warlord powers rely on melee attacks" ... we already knew they're not much good at ranged attacks.

"I can “hide” Karhun’s poor Dexterity score by choosing heavy armor for him, so my Armor Class is passable." ... bummer. I was hoping the Iron Heroization of D&D would extend to BDB and Armor as DR.

"And Karhun’s got the Toughness feat (much better than the 3e version)" ... it would be hard to be much suckier, wouldn't it?

"our group happens to have a healing-freak cleric in it" ... This is interesting. I guess you have baseline healing and "extra super-freak" healing Talents?

But either way, bummer. I was hoping that "Leader" wasn't just a head-fake renaming for the "Healer" role. Now someone has to play a Warlord or a Cleric to get healing? I was really hoping a Healer wouldn't be necessary or that healing powers would be spread around to a lot more classes (Wizard, Warlock, Paladin, Ranger (herbs), etc.).

"whether I should have gone wizard first and then multiclassed into warlord instead of the other way around." ... see also, SWSE starting conditions.

 

[Piratecat]

Just a quick note to thank people who haven't lost their temper and gotten snarky, and a reminder to keep both politeness and a sense of humor. Thanks, gang.

 

[Irda Ranger]

I think this is actually one of those rare times when hong is actually making sense.

hong always makes sense ... to me.

 

[M.L. Martin]

"(At this point I’d tell you exactly what we’re up to with multiclassing so that I could explain Karhun’s wizardliness, but I’m afraid I can’t quite yet. Suffice it to say that multiclassing isn’t like it was in 3e. That’s as much as I can say right now.)" ... this really bothers me. I hope this wasn't Rich's idea, but it seems someone at WotC decided to hold stuff back for no particular reason. "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to hold off releasing this until D&D Experience? That will sell tickets!" Or whatever the reason is. I really don't understand it.

Maybe they're still nailing down some of the details, but I'm more inclined to think that it's the sort of thing that's going to require a full-length D&D column to explain so that we don't fly into a frothing-at-the-mouth, storm-the-gates-of-WotC frenzy . . .

All right, so a lot of people are going to do that anyway, but maybe they're trying to keep it to a minimum.

 

[Exen Trik]

Going back to Mearls comment which I initially responded to...

When I read this, I do not think "their abilities that they can Choose can utilize some of those skills".

Yet, it doesn't really say they are set in stone either.

Or even if it was, if they are active abilities you still choose whether you use them or not. Unlike the passive benefits of the charisma bonus for paladins or wisdom bonus for monks, you could actually dump one stat you could use for an optional ability and still be just as effective.

You probably won't be satisfied with that though, so I'll add this: there's little sense to read too much into things and get upset over problems we don't know exist.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

How the hell am I supposed to compare things in 4e when we can't?

Because it makes sense to assume that if they design every character to use more than just one or two abilities, that assumption will inform the design of the rest of the game, and characters designed that way will be well-balanced in the new edition. The other assumption you can make is that all 4E characters will be underequipped to face challenges that they are supposed to be able to face.