Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="mlund" data-source="post: 6098709" data-attributes="member: 50304">If we're looking at the 4th Edition PHB playing a Warlord felt like playing a Cleric, without the Divine Magic thing hanging around your neck - oh, and you get to use a Shield. You played nothing like a Fighter - who was designed for a completely different battlefield role and couldn't do jack or squat to enhance the abilities of his allies. Then there's the whole thing with Lazy-lord abilities. The Fighter can't lend his actions to others or perform any sort of teamwork combos.Once you got into Martial Power the Archer-Warlord opened up an entirely different can of worms too - and he still didn't play anything like a Fighter or a Ranger.The Warlord is, in general, less of a menace in personal combat then the Fighter - just like the Marshall before him. He is, however, a fantastic force-multiplier.Nothing in the D&DNext implementation of the Fighter even begins to reflect this character concept, character story, or mechanical ability set.Nothing in the Fighter's story requires him to be particularly disciplined. He could be a drunken, violent prodigy of destruction. The "wild and untamed" part of the Barbarian's story is misplaced background. He's a Berserker with semi-offensive cultural stereotypes muddled in for no logical reason.It's telling that the story the D&DNext Barbarian tells could be emulated by the Fighter in 4th Edition by going Battle Rager or later Slayer. In 3rd Edition you basically just needed to level-dip at any point in your career to do everything the Barbarian did - no "wild and uncivilized" stereotypes needed. Fighter hits things with stick. Angry fighter hits things harder with stick. Rar. Playing a Barbarian feels very much like playing a Slayer-style fighters with some sort of "Savage" background - it's still beating people to death with sticks as fast as you can - whether you wear fur and foam at the mouth or stand stoic in plate mail. Contrast with a character whose shtick is "force multiplier" like the Warlord.In the end it may just be that some folks will never accept any Martial characters that contribute in combat by any means other than beating people to death with sticks. That would be a sorry state of affairs, though.- Marty Lund</blockquote>

Verification