Many things are local to some level.
For example where I am RPGA is a non existen thing as is orginised play.
He probably means WPN, the RPGA was launched by TSR long ago, it eventually became part of the WPN. Then, as LFR, it was cut loose. Now we have AL. And, also, PFS.
Umm, pardon? WOTC's own surveys placed warlords ahead of barbarians and sorcerers and on par with psions and monks. IOW, warlords hit pretty much the middle of the pack.
The survey we saw, which was almost as questionable and self-selecting as this one. The actual playtest surveys, for instance, we never saw the results of - but, they also never asked a single question about the warlord.
Exactly. I read the warlord and said to myself that I didn't see where it filled an archetype and why have it in the game. I then played it. I actually tested my assumptions and learned that there are some things that you just don't get right when you make knee jerk assessments.
My experience was with Psionics, and it took me a lot longer to finally just try to live-and-let-live and accept a psionic character at the same table without complaint or even silent resentment. I suppose that could be called a 'good thing to come out of the edition war,' since being constantly confronted with the 'war's petty, trivial on-line-only version of intolerance left me inclined to be more tolerant off-line.
Maybe for instance the whole idea from a cursory reading that 4e wasn't going to be enjoyable? Do I detect a pattern? It seems to me there are some people that are open to trying things and finding out what they are, and other people that are less so.
I'm rarely an early-adopter, and tend to like to look back to the original versions of things for a clear vision of what they're about, but not entirely closed-minded. I like to understand things, including different points of view, and that runs the risk of occasionally being persuaded by them.
Yeah, I've actually never encountered anyone that even purchased a copy of Pathfinder, in either of the two areas where I've been gaming for the last 7 years.
Yep, regional. It's pretty popular in my area, not so much at our FLGS (one or two weekly tables, vs 7-8 ) the PFS is very active at the local cons and claims a lot of space at them.
In our area we had an equal number of clerics, bards, artificers, and warlords. Never had an actual Shaman, nor an Ardent (we did once have a psion, during playtest, but that guy was a super optimizer and I suspect he just wanted to play something way OP). The only other leader we had was a Cavalier that MCed into warlord to pick up Inspiring Word and something else I forget exactly that turned her character into a pretty credible leader.
Since we ran a lot of Encounters, and they stopped putting out new pre-gen characters for a while, the set with WarPriest as the only leader option was played to death(pi), putting that class well in the lead.
This was another aspect of warlord, it was a GREAT multi-class!
I don't know if that sort of consideration would apply with a 5e warlord, I'd guess it COULD, but it would depend on the details. I'd certainly want to build the class with that idea in mind, like with any of the 5e classes. This is another reason to consider making warlord a full class, not just a fighter option.
MCing is technically optional in 5e, and it seems like some sub-classes and even whole classes (Paladin, Ranger, EK, AT) are designed with the idea of making MC-like options available when MCing is opted out.
I find it interesting that the classes that were lower or equal to the Warlord are the classes WotC chose to hold back in 4e for later releases... and we all know that supplemental books tend to get bought and used exponentially less than the core 3. I wonder how much of that lack of popularity was due to the fact that there was no Barb, Sorc or Monk in the 1st PHB...
I doubt much at all. I mean, by that logic, how /long/ the class has been in the game is going to have a similar, but vastly greater effect.
But neither hold together. The Warlock serves as a clear counter-example to the 'core book' hypothesis, and the Illusionist to the 'long familiarity' corollary.
EDIT: I also remember the Warlock being pretty polarizing as well when it was determined it would be in the 4e 1st PHB... so the Warlock being low isn't all that surprising.
Don't recall anything of the sort. The Warlock was a little disappointing on release, but it had been thoroughly re-rehabilitated by the end of the run, when that poll was taken. I do remember the controversy around it when it was first introduced in 3.5, there were those who just couldn't accept an at-will caster. I'm sure that had also run its course.
Well, ironically enough, I entirely agree with you that there was little sense to this promise they made, yet they did make it.... For all Mike Mearls' talk of the 'big tent', etc, its clear that only one certain subset of the D&D Community is actually in that tent. It doesn't sit well at all.
The feel of the Standard Game certainly evokes AD&D, particularly 2e. That doesn't necessarily exclude anyone. The Sorcerer and Warlock are classes that call back 3e, as is the 'optional' (but used in AL) multi-classing system, as are most of the d20-esq mechanics. Admittedly, the fighter might disappoint anyone who liked the 3e fighter (though I wouldn't be surprised if I was in a small minority in appreciating class), and 5e necessarily won't have the kinds of options and system-mastery-rewards that late 3.5 has for many years yet. Fans of Basic or B/X can't be too bitterly disappointed with the Basic game, and it's free, anyway.
The pattern I see is less a desire to exclude the 4e fan base (by definition, counting among them the D&D fans most inclined to give a new ed a fair chance, anyway), as it is to include them on the sly. 4e-like mechanics have their names changed, for instance, or the availability restricted. Perhaps the idea is to let the edition war types cool down and become secure in their victory, in the hopes they'll eventually be able to accept some more meaningful inclusion?
I concede that in the meantime we do have this unfortunate appearance of intentional exclusion. But I'm willing to give WotC the benefit of the doubt and a chance to come through on that spirit of inclusion. If, ultimately, their fan-base won't tolerate it, though, there's nothing they can do.
So, slower pace would have been OK, but not strictly for reasons of QC problems. Another huge benefit would possibly have been the lack of a desire for 'Essentials'. Essentials has some good material in it, but it really neither added much to the game overall nor did it appear to serve WotC very well in a business sense.
A slower pace of release would have been a good thing when selling into the teeth of the worst recession since the Great Depression, too, I suppose. I just also like a slower release schedule, in general, because it gives players a chance to explore what's available before being distracted by the next 'shiny,' and lessens the burden on DMs when it comes to keeping up with the the rules (though you didn't need to in 4e, specifically, and can choose not to do so in 5e by emphasizing rulings - but in 3.5 it eventually made running the game 'anything goes' pretty daunting).
The 'everything is core' conceit was also something we could have done without. Because of it, WotC published 3 "Player's Handbooks" which didn't sit well with retailers who felt it confused customers. Essentials was the death-knell, conceived as making it easier on customers, but giving them 4 more products (HotFK, HotFL, RC, & basic set) that could be mistaken for the core player's book.
Hmm... Essentials also tripped itself up by trying to be too many things. It had a starter set with nostalgic cover art to try to appeal to returning fans, it tried to be bone-simple for 'new players,' and it addressed many of the strident complaints of the edition war - fighters no longer got dailies and were simplified and option-poor, wizards got more and more spells with every book until they had more power than any other class in the game, fluff multiplied to fill the space available, monsters got extensive treatises instead of terse descriptions, and on and on. If any of the overblown nerdrage of the edition war had been valid, or even sincere, Essentials would have been a runaway hit. Instead, Pathfinder trounced it on release.
5e learned from that fiasco, I think. While it made marketing noises about inclusion, it's pulled in the fan-base one affinity group at a time, starting with 2e fans. They then gave old-school fans some modules in the DMG that might appeal (slow natural healing and spell points are the ones I noticed). They may go on to expand the Advanced Game enough to tempt 3.x fans away from Pathfinder. And there's no reason that expansion couldn't include a few 4e-referent options like the Warlord.
