Class Compendium: The Warlord (Marshal)

[Tony Vargas]

That's the second time I've heard mention of some secret Essentials handshake. Where is it hidden in the Warlord arcticle?

 

[kaomera]

The hanful of Knight & Slayer utilities that a Fighter can actual take? Or be further beefed-up, 'must have' Expertise feats?

No, I mean the fighter sub-classes. Sure, there where a couple of neat things in Martial Power and MP2, if you really dug, but for my money HotFL is the best support the fighter has gotten since PHB1.

Why not? Is 1e not simple? It is undeniably retro. There's also 2e and 3e and Pathfinder. Nothing could easily be simpler and more retro than a pre-Unearthed-Arcana 1e AD&D Fighter.

Simple, retro, and not 4e. The three are not in any way exclusive, why can't I have all three?

If you want to play a Slayer or Thief, you don't want to play 3.5 - you want to play AD&D. Play an AD&D Fighter, and you will, indeed, have a simple class where you just swing a sword at the bad guys. If you want to play a Knight, yeah, 3.5 would be better.

Or, you know, maybe he wants to play 4e? I mean, I'm sure I could make the slayer or the thief as boring and un-fun as you seem to want them to be, but that's a heck of a lot of work and basically I'm just lazy.

 

[Obryn]

Why not? Is 1e not simple? It is undeniably retro. There's also 2e and 3e and Pathfinder. Nothing could easily be simpler and more retro than a pre-Unearthed-Arcana 1e AD&D Fighter.

If you want to play a Slayer or Thief, you don't want to play 3.5 - you want to play AD&D. Play an AD&D Fighter, and you will, indeed, have a simple class where you just swing a sword at the bad guys. If you want to play a Knight, yeah, 3.5 would be better.

Again, I'm going to guess there's something I'm not understanding here. Could you explain? If my friends are playing 4e, and I want to play a dirt-simple class in their game, how does the existence of AD&D help me? Or if I want to specifically play 4e, with all its design innovations on the gameplay side, but nevertheless want a simple class, how does it help me?

Is the only thing 4e brought to the table the AEDU power structure, in your mind? Otherwise, I'm not understanding your argument.

All of this - just about every bit of it - looks cut & pasted from the 3.5/4e edition wars, and it seems even more senseless to me.

See, I can't deny that claim without being terribly unfair to the handfull of people who might genuinely just want to play a simplistic martial character, yet can't find anyone playing AD&D. But, I will say that there is no shortage of those who /do/ think martial classes should be inferior to arcane classes, and /do/ claim to want a 'simpler' or 'retro' feel to the game, with the ulterior motive of restoring that superiority. WotC has post-Essentials D&D headed back in that direction, whether it's in honest response to such claims, or for ulterior motives of their own (no, not making money, that motive is right up front).

I can safely say that I don't think anything of the sort and neither do my players, and yet we're fine mixing both Essentials and AEDU classes at the table. The players playing Essentials classes don't have any of those ulterior motives - in fact one is a complete newbie - and just thought it looked like a fun alternative.

Essentials decided that balance was less important than differentiation, and stripped it's martial classes of dailies, beefing up their at-will abilities in return. As a result, Essentials does not deliver the same degree of class balance as 4e. I'd be surprised if it was as bad as prior eds, but it can't help but fail to equal 4e in that regard. At the D&D Encounters tables, the martial classes, while boring, put in solid performances. They have their beefed-up basic-attack-enhancing at-wills, front loaded, while the daily classes each have but a single daily to answer that advantge. At high Heroic, when other classes have 3 dailies, and dailies are consistently used in every encounter, it's unlikely that will hold true. Again, this isn't just a gaffe - it delivers the retro feel: fighters being strong at first, and rapidly falling to a 'meat shield' support role, and casters being weak at first, but slowly growing into ever greater power. Anyone who wanted that feel need only have dusted off an older version of D&D, but that didn't stop them from crying loud and long about 4e, and 'defecting' to Pathfinder in retaliation.

From what I've seen at my own table, I disagree with your assessment. It looks kinda tinfoil-hat, honestly, and I think you're assigning motives when there just aren't any.

What could convince you otherwise? An Arcane class that resembles the Slayer mechanically? Options to mix & match Essentials and Core features?

-O

 

[Dice4Hire]

I see where [MENTION=6182]Incenjucar[/MENTION] is going in his post above, and largely agree.

One thing I really do not like about some essentials supporters is their insistence that martial classes be dirt dry dead boring. No healing, no conditions, no dailies, no..... fun.

At least in my opinion.

Fine, if that is what they like that is good.

But I am legitimately concerned that WOTC will take away what I want to play my game. I ave no problems with people getting what they want to play their way, but I would like to get what I want to play mine.

Obviously, looking at HoS, Essentials is getting support and traditional 4E is probably getting support. But I do not want it to be backhanded support. "But a wizard can choose Mage spells....." I want clear support.

I'm waiting to see how WOTC will do it.

I could play 4E forever with what I have now, but I like new goodies as much as the next guy.

 

[Obryn]

One thing I really do not like about some essentials supporters is their insistence that martial classes be dirt dry dead boring. No healing, no conditions, no dailies, no..... fun.

Who are these people?

I hear them referred to, but not only have I never seen one in real life, I don't hear about them playing 4e at all.

-O

 

[kaomera]

I could play 4E forever with what I have now, but I like new goodies as much as the next guy.

See, I can get behind that. But I just don't understand some of the other stuff. OK, you see no healing, no conditions, and no dailies as boring and no fun. I don't but I also don't see anyone insisting on any of that. Yes, that's the way some of the HotFL / HotFK sub-classes work, and I've found that I can still enjoy them, but I don't see why anyone should be assuming that I don't want healing, conditions, and dailies for martial classes or for any classes, really. Lack of dailies is still the big (mechanical) reason I don't like the psionic classes; power points don't work for me. But, ya'know, whatever... That stuff rocks some players worlds, and good for them.

I also don't feel like the fear that WotC will "take away what I want to play my game" really seems legitimate to me. I almost feel like if you think that "traditional 4E is probably getting support" in HoS then you haven't been reading the same previews that I have.

FAQ for Heroes of Shadow!

The idea that the support that's been previewed is "backhanded support" bothers me. Because I think that's an issue of your perception, and I don't think that anyone else can really affect that. If the fact that some portion of future products will be aimed at sub-classes from the essentials products is going to bug you, that sucks... Like, let's say someone really didn't like the Divine power source - there's big chunks of a lot of products that's just wasted paper (or bytes for DDI stuff). There's an advantage there, tho, in that an entire major source (Divine Power) can just be ignored pretty much in it's entirety (probably). But I don't think segregating material that acknowledges the essentials products and material that doesn't is the way to go, at all. I think that just wouldn't work out for WotC and would end up leading to no new material for anyone.

 

[Incenjucar]

Who are these people?

I hear them referred to, but not only have I never seen one in real life, I don't hear about them playing 4e at all.

-O

There ARE people who want martial classes to pull away from dailies and such. I've seen them post here and on the WotC forums. I've read at least one comment to that regard earlier today, but there are a lot of posts in a lot of redundant threads to go through to hit the link. But you know what? It's fine that they exist so long as nobody takes their opinion as some sort of popular mandate. I've said it before: I'd like to see medium-option and few-option versions of each of the main classes, including Spellcasters, and then for WotC to move back toward the more complex classes again. This gives people an easy entry without the game turning into D&D Jr. If there is a truly compelling reason to have a brand new limited-option class, I'm cool with it, but I would hate for it to become the norm.

 

[Obryn]

There ARE people who want martial classes to pull away from dailies and such. I've seen them post here and on the WotC forums. I've read at least one comment to that regard earlier today, but there are a lot of posts in a lot of redundant threads to go through to hit the link.

I still haven't seen much of this at all, to the point of honestly saying I can't recall seeing it, and I have no reason to believe that this viewpoint represents the developers' future vision of D&D. By far, the predominant opinion I've heard from "pro-Essentials" people is, "It's nice this is an option" and/or "I am running an Essentials-only game for simplicity-related reasons."

I just don't believe that Mike "Iron Heroes" Mearls wants to nerf his beloved martial classes forever & ever. It's crazy tinfoil-hat talk, as far as I'm concerned.

-O

 

[Incenjucar]

?

Are you confusing "Essentials supporters" and "designers?"

They're sort of a different thing.

 

[Obryn]

?

Are you confusing "Essentials supporters" and "designers?"

They're sort of a different thing.

The two are getting conflated a bit in this thread (see: Tony's posts), so I addressed both in my post. I don't think people who like Essentials are clamoring for those changes (being one myself), and I don't think the designers are, either.

-O