Class Compendium: The Warlord (Marshal)

[Magil]

No, the Paragon Paths are the same ones as in the PH. There is no Epic destiny (AFAICT, Essentials has one Epic Destiny, Indomitable Champion, for everyone). There is an entry for 'Epic Marshal' but it's just the level 21-30 class features, and notes about 'you get an Epic Destiny thingy at this level.'

Nah, there's Destined Scion now too. Basically Indomitable Champion with an offensive focus instead of a defensive focus.

 

[TerraDave]

If you have been playing a warlord, this does give you an errated version, if you have the heroes book(s) and want to, this gives it you for free. Thats something.

In terms of an actual book, I am with the banana on this, and thinking it was better they didn't do a whole book. Interesting to see that others would still be interested.

Actually, my complain was also that 'Essentials' made the old PHB redundant (especially with the rules compendium added).

Now they start giving the remaining PHB content for free...

But no, I will not complain!!! I actually like it!!!

As some of use predicted a while ago, the 08 books are gradually being replaced. (original 4E monster manual anyone?) But ya, its not worth complaining about.

 

[RangerWickett]

Aura 5. An ally in this aura who spends a standard action to make an attack gains 5 temporary hit points.

or

Aura 5. When an ally in the aura first becomes bloodied in an encounter, he may spend a healing surge.

 

[Ryujin]

I like that they fixed a few riders on some of the abilities (like clarifying the free action portion of Commander's Strike), but am seriously disappointed by the fact that it's mostly existing material reformatted; I was hoping for a new Warlord design, even if it wasn't strictly Essentials (because I can't quite figure how that would work out anyway, Warlord's toolset is too big).

And they still suffer from having three primary stats

I prefer to think of it as having two clear directions that they can take. Do you lead through knowledge, or force of personality? You can do both, but you won't be as good at either as if you had specialized.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

A noble endeavor.

So what's the shtick? I imagine it'd keep inspiring word as is.

Would it have, what, stances that grant benefits based on you hitting with your stances? An encounter power like 'Power Strike' that lets you, as a free action, have an ally make a basic attack or use an at-will?

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.

I decided to go with an inspiring word analogue that granted temporary hitpoints equal to the target's healing surge value and +2 to all defenses (kind of a pseudo-Second Wind). I have to playtest it to see if works okay.

 

[Nikosandros]

I prefer to think of it as having two clear directions that they can take. Do you lead through knowledge, or force of personality? You can do both, but you won't be as good at either as if you had specialized.

A lot of post PHB1 classes have a one primary ability and two secondary scores and they choose one depending on the build.

What has been abandoned is the idea of having two primary scores and I'm rather curious to see what they will do (if anything) with the strength cleric.

Unfortunately paladins, rangers and warlocks aren't included in this first batch of classes.

 

[jimmifett]

I like how they literally copy-pasted the content from the actual book, leaving italicized titles and page references intact.

Yeah, it's probably for the best that this book got cancelled. I'd be hard pressed to buy it, even my collectionist instincts balked at buying the Player Strategy Guide for 50% off at a borders closing. Dark Sun CG and PF APG for 50% off were 2 deals I could not resist.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

But warlocks are announced!

 

[OnlineDM]

After reading all of the comments on this thread, I think I'm more confused than when I started. Some folks are saying, "See, everyone was worried that WotC would do a martial-Essentials-style Warlord built on basic attacks with no dailies, but as promised they just reformatted the existing material!"

Okay, that's lovely, but I think I'm still missing the point of publishing this article. I guess it's nice of WotC to give away the Warlord class as a free bonus to anyone who wants it, and I guess it's nice to have it in the same layout as the Heroes Of... books to make it easier for players who only have those books to understand it. I'm sure the power tweaks and clarifications are nice, too.

I'm really glad that they're not charging for it, as there's just nothing new here, though. It feels really, really pointless to me. Why did WotC expend effort on this reformatting? I'm sure it took time and resources to have people redo the layout. Am I alone in feeling like that was a waste and wishing they would have put that time and those resources into new content of some sort (whether for the Warlord or something else entirely)?

Don't get me wrong, I'm completely fine with the layout and I think it's lovely that WotC made this available for free. But is it a good use of the company's limited game development resources? Wouldn't people rather see new stuff instead of reformatted stuff - again, whether for the Warlord or something else entirely?

Maybe that's why they ended up killing off the Class Compendium book - someone looked at it and said, "What's the point?" And while I know that some people would love to have the PHB1 reprinted with errata and tidy formatting, I'd rather WotC put their effort into creating cool new stuff rather than reformatting old stuff.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I'm a little disappointed about the article. I thought they were going to present a new build of the Warlord that would be similar to the Knight, Slayer, Thief, etc. - a martial class with simplified powers, no dailies, and so on.

And thank goodness they didnt. We have enough shortbus martial classes. Time to spread the pain (or love, depending on your POV) of that design style to other power sources, and leave a few martials wearing big boy pants.