So I think I have established that I don't want to prevent anyone from playing the game the way they want to play it. But for some reason I am a bad person for wanting to play the game the way I want to play it.
Let's forget the Warlord for a moment and talk about Fireball. Is it round or square?
In 3.5e it was round. There was a template showing how it effected characters on a grid that approximated a circle.
In 4e it was square. Okay, it was called a ball, and was supposed to be round, but it was just square on the grid with a "Don't-worry-about-it-this-is-faster" explanation.
Now if I'm playing the game and looking at the map. I don't care how many times you tell me it's supposed to be round. It's square on the map, therefore it's a square.
I don't want square Fireballs!
But apparently if I don't allow square Fireballs I am being controlling and selfish and don't want to allow people to play the way they want to play. If other people want square Fireballs I should just let them have it. So it's okay to force people to deal with square Fireballs, but it is not okay to force round Fireballs. This is the argument that is being made for Warlords.
It's interesting that in 5e they say a Fireball has a 20' radius, but they don't bother telling you how to map it on a grid. They just left it out entirely. Sure the default movement is "I run faster when I run diagonally" with the option rule for more accurate 5'/10' diagonal movement (which I use btw), but that doesn't necessarily translate to area of effect spells. That is left up to the DM and his group to decide.
The design philosophy for 4e was (I believe) more cinematic and they didn't worry about logic or "realism" if it got in the way of moving the game along. "Get to the Action!" was the primary goal. The Warlord embraces that idea and doesn't worry about how his abilities work. They just do. And you can just make up flavorful, cinematic explanations or not. Mostly you just don't worry about it and "Get to the Action!"
D&D 3.5 was more simulationist (my preferred style). The 5'/10' diagonal movement was introduced because moving faster diagonally "didn't make sense". Sure some illogical things are ignored, like dragons being able to fly or giants not collapsing under their own weight, but nothing is ever just black or white. 4e was not just pure white cinema any more than 3.5e was hardcore black simulation. But 4e was still pretty white while 3.5e was pretty black.
So you can keep adding cinematic abilities back into 5e and make it whiter and whiter, but for those of us that like the darker simulation style of gaming you are going to be driving us away.
Let's forget the Warlord for a moment and talk about Fireball. Is it round or square?
In 3.5e it was round. There was a template showing how it effected characters on a grid that approximated a circle.
In 4e it was square. Okay, it was called a ball, and was supposed to be round, but it was just square on the grid with a "Don't-worry-about-it-this-is-faster" explanation.
Now if I'm playing the game and looking at the map. I don't care how many times you tell me it's supposed to be round. It's square on the map, therefore it's a square.
I don't want square Fireballs!
But apparently if I don't allow square Fireballs I am being controlling and selfish and don't want to allow people to play the way they want to play. If other people want square Fireballs I should just let them have it. So it's okay to force people to deal with square Fireballs, but it is not okay to force round Fireballs. This is the argument that is being made for Warlords.
It's interesting that in 5e they say a Fireball has a 20' radius, but they don't bother telling you how to map it on a grid. They just left it out entirely. Sure the default movement is "I run faster when I run diagonally" with the option rule for more accurate 5'/10' diagonal movement (which I use btw), but that doesn't necessarily translate to area of effect spells. That is left up to the DM and his group to decide.
The design philosophy for 4e was (I believe) more cinematic and they didn't worry about logic or "realism" if it got in the way of moving the game along. "Get to the Action!" was the primary goal. The Warlord embraces that idea and doesn't worry about how his abilities work. They just do. And you can just make up flavorful, cinematic explanations or not. Mostly you just don't worry about it and "Get to the Action!"
D&D 3.5 was more simulationist (my preferred style). The 5'/10' diagonal movement was introduced because moving faster diagonally "didn't make sense". Sure some illogical things are ignored, like dragons being able to fly or giants not collapsing under their own weight, but nothing is ever just black or white. 4e was not just pure white cinema any more than 3.5e was hardcore black simulation. But 4e was still pretty white while 3.5e was pretty black.
So you can keep adding cinematic abilities back into 5e and make it whiter and whiter, but for those of us that like the darker simulation style of gaming you are going to be driving us away.
