Robert Schwalb, who designed one of my favorite games (Shadow of the Demon Lord), with a version of one of my favorite classes? Sold.
Well, at least you admit it.(Happily) guilty!
Wait...no....seriously?!?!?! They had a section on "how not to be a douche while playing this class"???
I'm speechless (but laughing hysterically inside.)
See? Confirmation that people think it's the class that gives orders. I knew it!
You figured out my secret: I'm a Warlord IRL. So I can't help it.
Ok, to be less snarky for a minute...
I agree with this. As I tried to do with my Bravura homebrew a while ago, going with Int removes the "Natural Leader" bit that I find so antithetical to the D&D ethos, and allows you to use cleverness to manipulate NPCs, leaving your fellow PCs alone.
When I came up with it, I was taking at face value the claims that, "It's not about giving orders, it's about tactical options." Ok, so I tried to build something with tactical options that didn't involve dictating how other players' characters feel about your character.
Some Warlord fans liked that approach, but others seem stuck in the "No it must be pretty much identical to the 4e Warlord, and must include non-magical healing."
Sigh.
I mean, half the classes in the game could use a similar section.
Maybe, and I can certainly think of some annoying archetypes. Rogues who think it's ok to treat their companions as marks. Paladins (especially those of the AD&D era) who think they need to constantly moralize. Druids who think 'neutral' means "it's ok if my friends die, as long as animals don't".
But despite how common stuff like that is, WotC didn't add sections on etiquette for those classes, did they? (Although correct me if I'm wrong; as I've explained many times I skipped 3e and 4e so don't know what's in those books.)
And yet the Warlord fans, they concluded, needed to have it explained to them that they aren't the boss.
I wonder why?
(Actually, I don't. That was a rhetorical device.)
Maybe, and I can certainly think of some annoying archetypes. Rogues who think it's ok to treat their companions as marks. Paladins (especially those of the AD&D era) who think they need to constantly moralize. Druids who think 'neutral' means "it's ok if my friends die, as long as animals don't".
But despite how common stuff like that is, WotC didn't add sections on etiquette for those classes, did they? (Although correct me if I'm wrong; as I've explained many times I skipped 3e and 4e so don't know what's in those books.)
And yet the Warlord fans, they concluded, needed to have it explained to them that they aren't the boss.
I wonder why?
(Actually, I don't. That was a rhetorical device.)
It's charisma creep.
I've posted on this before, and it's definitely worth its own topic, but charisma has morphed from a dump stat that was often confused/conflated with "physical attractiveness" back in the day to a world-eating stat that will soon envelop all of Intelligence and Wisdom.
Nom nom nom.
That's ok. When Dex becomes a casting stat in 6E, Charisma can join the other five as a dump stat. We can have a whole section on how your lowest non-Dex stat is a story choice.
The game doesn't "need" stats at all, you can simply narrate successes or failures based on your character concept.Really the game could just have two stats: "Body" and "Mind".
The game doesn't "need" stats at all, you can simply narrate successes or failures based on your character concept.
"Dear Dragon Forum,For years I've been playing without stats. Or dice. Or narration. Or really any form of human communication.
I just close my eyes and imagine really great stories.
Best. RPG. Ever. (R)