Class Compendium: The Warlord (Marshal)

[Tony Vargas]

I rebuilt a 3rd level half-elf Warlord PC for a fellow player yesterday; to work as intended she needed to be W-shaped, with good STR INT & CHA. I got her to STR 17 (+3) INT 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3), STR can go to 18 when she hits 4th.

That's very doable. I've tried a gnome (of all things) resourceful warlord, with 16 each in STR, CHA & INT. Obviously STR gets the level-ups, and is still the viable attack stat as the character gains levels. What's split for this kind of character is the secondaries - and that still works, and gives you nicely-balanced non-AC defenses, especially early on - none of the problems of a split-primary class assail such characters, though.

 

[S'mon]

No 1e AD&D Fighter used a 2-handed weapon! Especially when UA banned double weapon spec for 2-handed swords. Every 1e Fighter I ever saw used a longsword; although theoretically broadsword & bastard sword (or twin hand axes!) were viable choices, the 70% chance a magic sword was a longsword made it silly to take anything else for your weapon spec. Other hand was either a shield or TWF.

If anything the Knight is closer to the 1e Fighter. The Slayer's required use of a 2hW actually reminds me of 3.5e with its 2-for-1 2 handed Power Attack...

 

[Obryn]

Well, when you played a fighter in AD&D, you would have a large hit/damage bonus from your percentile strength (and weapon specialization). For the first couple of levels, you were the star of the show. You were the one bringing the monsters down while the theif failed to find/remove traps (or hide in shadow or anything else but 'climb walls) and the wizard shivered in his robes in the back, throwing darts. The Slayer evokes some of that. His striker damage bonus makes him a bad-ass, and his stances pour a little - well not gasoline, a little something - on that fire, but you mostly just pick a stance and stick with (especially if you have Berserker's Charge - you lead with that, and then switch to 'Poised Asault' or 'Unfettered Fury' or whatever you damage-boosting stance is and just stay in it. Weapon specialization (introduced in Unearthed Arcana), gave you a very potent ranged option, but it was very much a build option. Then there were the plethora of variants and oft-ignored rules. Every game had some extra stuff you could pull in combat. Maybe grappling, maybe called shots, maybe siezing the high ground, whatever the DM was into.

About the only thing the Slayer didn't deliver on was 2e's TWFing. Every weapon specialist and his maiden aunt used TWFing in 2e AD&D. That's why I felt the Slayer had the more 1e feel.

With all this, I don't know if you're saying anything other than what I said - that the class is stylistically similar, but not mechanically. Exceptional Strength is different from any 4e striker mechanic; it doesn't scale, and you had to be (very) lucky to get it in any quantity.

Another key difference? At higher levels, slayers get more toys to play with. An AD&D Fighter gets some better to-hit numbers and hit points, and more attacks, but nothing new mechanically. AD&D Fighters can't keep up with the Wizards & Clerics for a lot of reasons. Slayers can.

Well, depending on your DM you might do some mad charging, push enemies, or have a reason to wear light (or no) armor (there were some weird variants - the game was a lot less unified and consistent across campaigns than it is today), and weapon specialization certainly channeled them into weapon-specific paths. But, sure, the Slayer has feats & skills and so forth, and the AD&D fighter didn't. And, really, neither did anyone else in AD&D have feats or skills or other more recent inovations. By the same token, /everyone/ in Essentials has feats and skills and so forth. So they're not notable aspects of the Slayer. Tough, big damage, and just attacking or moving & attacking every round, that's the distinctiveness of the Slayer - and the 1e AD&D Fighter.

That's part of my point, though. They're notable aspects of the Slayer precisely because we're operating within the 4e rule-set, not the 1e rule-set. If one of your arguments is, "People who want a Slayer are playing the wrong edition..." you're making the opposite point, here.

-O

 

[Tony Vargas]

With all this, I don't know if you're saying anything other than what I said - that the class is stylistically similar, but not mechanically.

We are comparing things 30 years appart, of course there are mechanical differences. But, there are also similarities. The Slayer lacks daily resources to manage, it has few choices beyond what weapon to use, it's main claim to fame is hitting hard. That's very much the same as the 1e Fighter.

Exceptional Strength is different from any 4e striker mechanic; it doesn't scale, and you had to be (very) lucky to get it in any quantity.

The various 'random' ability generation methods in AD&D made getting an 18 pretty easy, really. AD&D also had weapon specialization, for yet more damage. Sure, there's decades of power inflation between them, but given how different 4e and 1e are, the Slayer and AD&D Fighter are more remarkable for their similarities than their differences.

Another key difference? At higher levels, slayers get more toys to play with.

They get 2 stances and some bigger numbers.

An AD&D Fighter gets some better to-hit numbers and hit points, and more attacks, but nothing new mechanically.

Well, he got to set himself up as a fuedal lord.

AD&D Fighters can't keep up with the Wizards & Clerics for a lot of reasons. Slayers can.

Actually there were not a lot of reasons. There was one reason: spells. Spells were starkly limited-use powers in AD&D, they were compensated for their limitations with a great deal of power, and, as levels progressed, the limitations were no longer enough to contain the sheer power casters commanded, and the game shifted to their favor. It was just a badly balanced system. The hobby was in its infancy, and that flaw was easily forgiven or overlooked. 4e (finally) learned from those mistakes, and had a system where all classes had basically the same sets of limitations* (primarily resource management) on their major abilities (powers). Essentials repeats the mistakes of prior eds by trying to balance classes with differently-limitted abilities (with or without daily powers, primarily). I'm not saying it's making those same mistakes as badly (not by a long shot), at least, not yet, but it is the same issue, in kind, if not nearly in degree.



* as an aside, another point that often gets overlooked is that, while spells were always daily, they used to have much heavier limmitations, as well. Casting a spell in AD&D meant having both hands free, being able to speak (and hear), having exactly the right material components readily at hand, standing upright on a stable surface (no, really, you couldn't even cast on horseback like Gandalf), and doing so, uninterrupted by attack, damage, or whatever, for a varying but often substantial portion of a 1-minute combat round. It was not always easy to get spells off in combat, it was virtually impossible in melee. Through editions, those limitations have been lessened, and 4e really did away with virtually all of them. Casting a spell is now no more limitted than swinging a weapon. That 'parity' I'm constantly harping on /was/ a two-way street.

 

[Tony Vargas]

No 1e AD&D Fighter used a 2-handed weapon! Especially when UA banned double weapon spec for 2-handed swords. Every 1e Fighter I ever saw used a longsword; although theoretically broadsword & bastard sword (or twin hand axes!) were viable choices, the 70% chance a magic sword was a longsword made it silly to take anything else for your weapon spec. Other hand was either a shield or TWF.

If anything the Knight is closer to the 1e Fighter. The Slayer's required use of a 2hW actually reminds me of 3.5e with its 2-for-1 2 handed Power Attack...

The Slayer is not required to use a two handed weapon, it simply isn't given shield proficiency.

I don't recall anything about two-handed weapons not being subject to specialization. And, while TWFing existed in 1e, it was on the obscure side - it really exploded in 2e.

The random magic item tables did produce longswords with remarkable regularity, though, so, while you might very well start with a two-handed sword or even one of the hinky pole-arms, you'd eventually find yourself swinging a vorpal sword or hammer of thunderbolts or whatever. Afterall, your magic items were the only thing you really had going for you after a while.

 

[S'mon]

I don't recall anything about two-handed weapons not being subject to specialization.

They could x1 spec (+1, +2). They could not x2 spec (+3, +3). Check your UA.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Like I still have a UA at hand... ;(

I'll have to take your word for it. But it's an odd limitation, and I'm surprised I don't recall it... I wonder what the rationale was...

(though, right now, I'm having trouble remembering exactly when double-specialization was introduced. I thought I remember there being specialization for a while, before double-spec, but if double-specialization was in UA, where did specialization first apear, The Dragon? ... Also, I remember bows cost an extra proficiency to specialize in but... damn, bow specialization was vicious). :sigh: long, long time ago.

 

[The Little Raven]

Sure, there's decades of power inflation between them, but given how different 4e and 1e are, the Slayer and AD&D Fighter are more remarkable for their similarities than their differences.

Your "go back to 3e/AD&D if you want an Essentials-type Fighter" argument misses the remarkable difference between the Knight/Slayer and the 3e/AD&D Fighter: the Essentials classes don't become obsolete by mid-levels because other classes can take care of things without them.

I'm a huge fan of 4e, and the AEDU setup, but I also like experimenting, and after years of playing with that system, they can give us non-standard class structures that allow the class to operate at the same basic level of proficiency within their role as the original 4e ones.

The old structure is still being supported, as evidenced by the warlord article (and the upcoming other ones over the next few months) which included errata and updates to powers and features. And we're getting feats for it next month. How often do you see a 2 year old game element get support like that?

 

[Tony Vargas]

No, of course I don't find AD&D to have robust class balance.

You had me worried there for a minute.

I'll agree that there's a design issue with A-shaped vs. V-shaped classes. Ironically, I don't think the designers had a very good handle on the 4e system when PHB1 was released. I have some different conclusions from this than you do, though.
...
It's not that a V-shaped class is necessarily a mistake or an inherently bad design; it's that a V-shaped class is really two subclasses which share some common features of the main class, and they should be treated and addressed as such. V-shaped classes can and do work just fine; it's only when you run into serious MAD issues, like with a starlock or a straladin, that things get chancy.

A 'sub-class' is really the same problem, if it's going to split a single class's worth of goodies between two sub-classes. That is, if they can't use eachother's stuff, and they aren't just outright given as much stuff, each, as a regular class (in which case, it might just as well be too different classes).

I don't think the issue with V-shaped classes would have been nearly as bad had the designers made sure that each branch of the V had more powers to choose from. All the existing V-shaped classes are fine right now; even the poor Strength cleric has enough powers to live off of.

Sure, a v-class design or incompatible sub-class design can work if you throw enough stuff at each build or sub-class - but, that's a lot of material, and if their close enough to fit in one class, it's more efficient to just set them up to share more powers (by using the same stat, making virtually all powers use either stat, or, in the case of sub-classes using the same stat, making them mechanically compatible).

The poor STR cleric, for instance, has half the attack powers to choose from that the WIS cleric did - and the WIS cleric has yet more from the Warpriest, and probably more on the way in HoS. Not looking good. It's funny, because it was a solid build, at first. It had a number of very good powers, a minor advantage in having a strong melee basic attack for OAs, charging, and the like, a similar minor advantage in using weapons (which, eventually, got to crit on a 19-20, while implements didn't, had 'superior' versions, and a little variety - some +3 prof, some high-crit, etc), and a few other little factors that mostly slowly disapeared in one way or another. The stunning lack of attack power choice was evident, of course (what did a human PH1 STR Cleric take for this third at will? A WIS power.) OK, and a tendency to be MAD, which is never good.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I guess I need to say it again: I'm not arguing that people 'should' be playing 3e. I've tried to make the point that /IF/ you want to claim that I can't be critical of Essentials because pre-E 4e is 'still there' and my 'books haven't been taken away,' THEN, by that same logic, there was no need for those Essentials retro-nostalgic changes, since the old game is still there, and no one took those books away, either.

I'm pointing out a spurious objection to complaints about Essentials (and 4e, for that matter), that is just overwhelmingly popular with apologist of every stripe. It's a fallacy, as it denies /any/ objection to /any/ change, ever.

Now, I have made a very similar-sounding point, so I can understand the confusion. I do mention that D&D had lacked class balance for some 34 years prior to 4e, and those of us who like class balance had it for only a little over 2 years before Essentials came out and started monkeying with it again. (Actually, Psionics started monkeying with it a few months before that, even). But, I'm not saying go back and play 3e if you hate balance - though, that, and Pathfinder, are certainly options - I'm saying GIVE CLASS BALANCE A CHANCE!