Design & Development: Warlord Article UP!

[Ten]

When rules provoke the response of "don't think too hard" I'm thinking that's rarely a good thing.

Yeah, down with spell casting, it destroys verisimilitude!

 

[Khuxan]

I only used that word since someone else did.

Actually, you were the first person on this thread to use the term controller to refer to the warlord.

But I agree that you can discuss the warlord's powers without using 4E specific terminology. After all, new players to the game aren't going to know a leader from a controller either - and yet they're still going to have doubts about the powers.

 

[Vomax]

In general the shift in 4E seems to be away from "this is exactly what takes place when you use this action" to "this is the result of using this action". So rather than describe exactly how Pin the Foe works, you just know what happens when it works and the power lets you make it work once per day. Cause and effect have changed from being both contained in the rules; now cause is in the hands of the players and the DM, whereas the rules deal mostly with effect.

Certainly there is only so much you can make work on your own. For example, I'm not sure how a power available to all fighters that, say, encased the target in a block of ice would work. You just have to trust that the designers are working with believability in mind.

I can see how this doesn't sit well with people who enjoy a finer level of granularity, but I honestly can't complain that the designers wanted to make things cooler simply for the sake of making them cooler.

 

[Mistwell]

It is? Since when?

And... for the record, I've lived in the States for 29 years out of 32, and while I've heard the term, I have no idea what it actually does. I can only assume it doesn't guard points, since both teams usually get around 100, and only the last minute or so actually matters.

Definitely not a game that is JUST about the last minute. But, you have to watch many games before you see the difference.

Anyway, the point guard (if they are traditional in nature) guides the team strategy. They can score points, but more often they provide an assist to another player to score points. They have the best "court vision" of any position in the game, trying to know at all times where everyone on their team is, where all the other teams players are, where everyone is going, where people will block each other, and where gaps are or will open in the defense. A good point guard can make an OK team very good (like, for example, Steve Nash did for the Phoenix Suns). A bad point guard can make an OK team bad (like, for example, what happened to the Los Angeles Lakers for the past few years until this year - when they finally got some decent point guards going).

In this case, I think the analogy of a Warlord to a basketball Point Guard is very apt.

 

[KarinsDad]

In general the shift in 4E seems to be away from "this is exactly what takes place when you use this action" to "this is the result of using this action". So rather than describe exactly how Pin the Foe works, you just know what happens when it works and the power lets you make it work once per day. Cause and effect have changed from being both contained in the rules; now cause is in the hands of the players and the DM, whereas the rules deal mostly with effect.

Which is why it is problematic for some people.

Why can a Fighter now walk through a brick wall? This power is no more explanable than Pin the Foe, it's just drawing the line at a different place in the sand.

I can see how this doesn't sit well with people who enjoy a finer level of granularity, but I honestly can't complain that the designers wanted to make things cooler simply for the sake of making them cooler.

Come on! The word "cool" shows up 217 times in Races and Classes. "Cool" is the new "Fun".

 

[Kobu]

And what if the "adjacent ally" doesn't want to slide? No save? No choice?

That bit throws up a red flag for me. The power as written gives the player running the warlord control over other people's characters. That's exactly what a lot of people feared when they heard the name.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

If only the power did not last the entire encounter, then this explanation would work for me (it wouldn't explain the rest of how the power works, but it would be a sufficient explanation as to why Daily martial powers are Daily powers). But with Pin the Foe as an encounter long power, this explanation means that the player decides when to really screw up the laws of game world physics.

Thanks for trying though. And I don't mean that facetiously.

I agree that the long duration of Pin the Foe is nonintuitive, and that the nonintuitive (from a story perspective) powers can make it more challenging to role play combats and to suspend disbelief.

My best guess is that Pin the Foe typically represents the warlord figuring out how a particular enemy defends itself when it shifts and then showing his comrades how to nullify that defense, at least when two of them threaten the enemy. It's not about physics, it's about tactics at a level beneath the level of abstraction used by the game mechanics.

 

[Kobu]

In general the shift in 4E seems to be away from "this is exactly what takes place when you use this action" to "this is the result of using this action". So rather than describe exactly how Pin the Foe works, you just know what happens when it works and the power lets you make it work once per day. Cause and effect have changed from being both contained in the rules; now cause is in the hands of the players and the DM, whereas the rules deal mostly with effect.

I should hope not. That would make the game rather inaccessible for new players. I don't see how any new player could hope to understand what is happening without good descriptions.

It also puts an unnecessary burden on everyone at the game table to figure out what is really going on--unless you are strictly looking at the game as a very abstract board game rather than an RPG.

 

[Vomax]

Which is why it is problematic for some people.

Why can a Fighter now walk through a brick wall? This power is no more explanable than Pin the Foe, it's just drawing the line at a different place in the sand.



Come on! The word "cool" shows up 217 times in Races and Classes. "Cool" is the new "Fun".

You're right about the line in the sand, and I guess the developers drew it where they felt the greatest number of people would be comfortable. Personally I like most of what I've seen, apart from the cleric and warlock powers which seem to be damage + something more or less random. Hopefully the PHB will paint a better picture of the classes as a whole that makes the powers easier to understand.

And as for "cool", well, sometimes things are just cool.

 

[MaelStorm]

The way I see the warlord's power is as if he was the puppet master and everybody on the battlefield are his subject.

IMO, it would have been perfect for a Psionic power source not a Martial one.