Class Compendium: The Warlord (Marshal)

[Incenjucar]

The thing with bringing out Essentials first is that Essentials isn't as much of a change from 3E, so many people would wonder what the point in switching over to an equally generic fighter would be.

 

[Ryujin]

The thing with bringing out Essentials first is that Essentials isn't as much of a change from 3E, so many people would wonder what the point in switching over to an equally generic fighter would be.

Unless Essentials had been brought out as the simplified "Red Box", followed by a compatible "Advanced Players Handbook" (PHB1). That strategy might have worked rather well.

 

[Incenjucar]

WotC has made it clear what they're doing. I don't know why people insist on making up a mythology around Essentials that's counter to the information available.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

It's easy enough to go ahead and SAY that you would have just jumped on the E-train, but I think for a lot of us, at that time, it probably looked a llittle too much like 3.x for comfort. Sure, we know now that the Dailly-less structure works adequately as far as power balance goes, but back then, I think you would have had a difficult time convincing the people who were sick of the imbalance of 3.x melee classes to even give it a chance.

Yeah, I think I would have fallen in to this category. I really like Essentials and have come to dislike AEDU, but I'm not sure I would have gotten to this point without 2ish years of AEDU first.

 

[sunrisekid]

I'm going to throw my 2cents into the mix in favour of the Essentials class design, but also express disappointment in the warlord article.

I really appreciate the simplified MBA approach to combat for the reasons you've all heard before (less video gamey, faster play, less to fuss with, etc). I recognize that many players prefer the more complex offerings of core-4E but my preference is for an older style of play and Essentials is a great move in that direction. That said, I am not one who buys expansion books (my players and I have fairly pedestrian tastes); the core classes are all I run in my game, so it would seem I am not of that gaming demographic that collects endless book releases.

I replaced my original 4E books with Essentials but was mildly disappointed, though not surprised, to see the warlord was left behind. Warlord was my favourite 4E class and I jumped to the conclusion that it would be "essentialized" in the new manner of things, upon hearing of this article; I find this reprint misleading that it be classified with Essentials.

I would love to see somebody's efforts on houseruling the Warlord to be somewhat more inline with the Knight and Slayer!

 

[sunrisekid]

I've written up a few stances for a leader build of fighter that resembles a warlord. Indeed, many of the stances are based on warlord at-wills. I can post them in 4e House Rules if you (or anyone else) is interested.

Oh, perfect, I would love to see something like this!

 

[Aegeri]

Warlord was my favourite 4E class and I jumped to the conclusion that it would be "essentialized" in the new manner of things, upon hearing of this article; I find this reprint misleading that it be classified with Essentials.

It is "essentialized" as it is the new format and that is all Wizards said they were going to do to it in the first place. Especially if one noticed the "Weaponmaster" preview from last year, which basically showed a preview of the original PHB fighter. As for the Warlord, it never needed to be butchered in the first place and it's good that a proper martial class is now in essentials

My only issue is that the hordes of flavor text eat up so much space wastefully repeating the same kind of thing multiple times, that I kind of wish this wasn't the format of future classes.

 

[Walking Dad]

Yeah, I think I would have fallen in to this category. I really like Essentials and have come to dislike AEDU, but I'm not sure I would have gotten to this point without 2ish years of AEDU first.

AEDU (at-will, encounter, daily, utility ?) is the new term for pre-essentials?
Bad term, as most classes still have theses categories. Where is it from?

 

[Aegeri]

AEDU has been around for a while actually and has been a general description of what most classes did. It's become a lot more common now as a way of distinguishing some older classes from newer ones. It usually refers to choices as well: So while slayers do have encounter powers, they don't count as a classic AEDU class because they don't get choices (they have a different structure in many ways). They also (obviously) lack dailies.

 

[kaomera]

It's easy enough to go ahead and SAY that you would have just jumped on the E-train, but I think for a lot of us, at that time, it probably looked a llittle too much like 3.x for comfort.

Maybe for some, but I remember the big stumbling block in getting players to give 4e a try was that it seemed overly complex.