Design & Development: Warlord Article UP!

[TwinBahamut]

OK - we can agree to disagree about rules and their implementation, but I am baffled as to how one can claim that the martial leader type class does not fit into heroic fantasy.
Just a very few examples that come to mind:

...

I would claim that it is probably the third most common fantasy stereotype (after Warrior and Rogue), certainly more common then the adventuring priest, or a bard/musician or even I would claim an arcane spellcaster.

Absolutely. Heroic leader figures are extremely common in myth and fantasy.

I mean, compare Lancelot to King Arthur. I think it would be impossible to list either one as being higher level than the other in D&D terms, but Lancelot is perceived as the better fighter, but King Arthur is the leader.

From Lord of the Rings, there are many people who are seen more as leaders than fighters, like King Theoden, or possibly even Aragorn himself (since he leads and inspires, but can't hold a candle to Gimli or Legolas in battle).

Certainly, there are plenty of real historical figures who can serve as Warlord models. Julius Ceasar, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, or the many other legendary generals of history who lead from the front lines, would all be Warlords in D&D terms.

Not to mention the countless characters in videogames who fit the Warlord archetype perfectly...

Why, even basic concepts like "A Ship Captain" is an ideal warlord. It is not an obscure concept by any reasonable stretch.

I can't agree at all that the Warlord is some kind of D&Dism that doesn't fit genre tropes, when my first reaction to its announcement was that D&D finally had a core class to emulate a major character archetype.

 

[Remathilis]

Not in terms of themes. The rogue is still a sneak, the fighter still a whacker, and the wizard still a magician. They just happen to know exactly how to do their job better tactically than anyone else in the party, as they gain levels. That would make sense. But no.

Instead we have this upstart nothing-class that automagically knows how the rogue should be sneaking better than the rogue does, how the fighter should be fighting better than the fighter does etc. etc. It strains belief. The class is so anathema to a D&D party that there's not even a name that fits. That's a big clue right there that it should not be core, and should be hidden away in a supplement where it can be ignored...or even better, annihilate it and divide up it's tactical abilities amongst the classes that exist, where they belong.

So don't play one. Take a sharpie, cross it out of your PHB, ban the class for your players, and never speak of it again.

Meanwhile, there are some of us who wouldn't mind a valid tactical guy that doesn't use the Blessing of Pelor or the Battle Hymm of the Republic to motivate and inspire his allies.

To each his own.

 

[TwinBahamut]

It would fit if he had an entourage of soldiers ready to jump to it, like in the novels. He doesn't. He's only got the other PCs, who are heroes in their own right, and not subordinates to be bossed around or corrected. The military hierarchy exists for a reason, and it doesn't exist in a D&D party by default. That's one of many things wrong with the "warlord".

Well, the basic idea of an inspiring leader and skilled tactician, who helps his allies with his intelligence and ingenuity, is not limited to military characters. He is the guy who comes up with The Plan(TM), and this has nothing to do with a military position.

Heck, I can make a great argument that Westly from The Princess Bride is a Warlord. He is a man who is skilled at fighting, but his greatest skill comes from his wits and planning. When push comes to shove, he and his allies only succeed because he devises good plans that they carry out.

 

[Scrollreader]

The Dread Pirate Wesley is obviously a Rogue/Warlord multiclass. Or was it the other way around?

 

[Mephistopheles]

My main concern with this preview of the Warlord is how the abilities would play out at the table.

On the one hand you have pushy Warlord players.

Admittedly this is a problem with the player more than the rules. However, I don't like that these abilities empower a pushy player to make other PCs do things when previously the pushiness could be politely (or not) tolerated and not acted on. We have no idea what else Warlord abilities might do aside from shifting. It could become quite annoying.

I think a better wording for these kinds of abilities would be uniform language that gives the players of the PCs the option of taking a bonus action/ability the Warlord is granting them rather than specifying that the player of the Warlord does it.

This would not be a problem in my own games and probably the same goes for many others. But when it comes to pick up games, conventions, tournaments, or just the occasional obnoxious players we come across in our travels, I think there is potential for these kinds of abilities worded in this way to cause problems.

On the other hand you'd have the opposite type of Warlord player who tries to involve the other players so that he is moving them (or whatever else Warlords can do) to where they want to go.

The downside with this approach to playing the Warlord - and this would include a game where a blanket house rule was applied that the individual players can apply the effects of the Warlord's abilities as they prefer - is that I think it could encourage excessive metagame table talk and planning that probably would not be possible in many combats.

This kind of OOC game related table talk always occurs to some extent so I'm not trying to say 4E will be introducing that. Previously it's been fairly easy to set the level of it that individual groups are comfortable with and go from there. Judging by the Warlord abilities in this preview, though, I think the Warlord player may often need to check whether anyone wants or needs to make use of a benefit he can offer with an ability (no point using them if nobody wants or needs to take advantage of them at this point of the battle), and so on, which could become a bit of a gameflow gobstopper.

 

[Mort]

Not in terms of themes. The rogue is still a sneak, the fighter still a whacker, and the wizard still a magician. They just happen to know exactly how to do their job better tactically than anyone else in the party, as they gain levels. That would make sense. But no.

Instead we have this upstart nothing-class that automagically knows how the rogue should be sneaking better than the rogue does, how the fighter should be fighting better than the fighter does etc. etc. It strains belief. The class is so anathema to a D&D party that there's not even a name that fits. That's a big clue right there that it should not be core, and should be hidden away in a supplement where it can be ignored...or even better, annihilate it and divide up it's tactical abilities amongst the classes that exist, where they belong.

The class doesn't seem that way to me at all; it's a tactical nonmagical support class - something that D&D could have used a long time ago.

As many people have already stated heroic fantasy has many examples of the martial leader, arguing the concept is somehow new just doesn't hold.

When I saw this class, I actually thought of Hannibal. Not the Carthaginian general (though warlord would certainly fit) but Hannibal of the A-Team. He's the guy with "the plan" and the guy who coordinates everyone else into being as effective in their roles as they can be.

Frankly a class that encourages team work by providing bonuses for working together is a definite plus for me and a welcome addition.

 

[Ximenes088]

I'm definitely seeing the use of this class in my own game, and I can see a lot of players I know finding something to like about it. The distinction between "sword-swinging loner" and "leader of men" is one that gets made all the time. It's just that 3E PCs don't really have the option of taking any special leadership shticks until 6th level. There's almost nothing you can do to make your swordsman any group-handier to have along in a fight than any other swordsman, barring such fabulously useful choices as taking a few levels of Bard.

As for the new focus on group-affecting tactics and maneuvers, I can't see them doing the slightest injury to narrative and roleplaying in my own games. When I want to have a setpiece battle, I can use them, and when I don't, I just use a Skill Challenge that the whole group can get involved in.

I've already run a half-dozen scenes with my existing PCs all revolving around Skill Challenge situations. I was able to run a "Horatio at the bridge" gate defense situation for a solo PC that never actually involved a single to-hit roll- he was using his Balance skill to shove attackers down the slope, Hide to get clear of thrown volleys, Intimidate to buy some space... all manner of skills based on the particular roleplaying choices he made. His combat abilities were used to get bonii on the rolls based on his actions, and what would've been a brutally dreary twenty-attack-rolls-a-round death-by-statistics scene in 3E was made into a flavorful high-risk heroism scene that left the PC bloodied but victorious. This is what I want from a new edition, and from my experiences thus far, this is what I'm getting.

 

[pemerton]

I just automatically assume that statistic based information is also in character information. That is, the statistics are there to tell us, the out of character players, what the in game characters know.

I don't think this works for 4e (nor for many other narrativistically-inclined systems).

For example: I, the player, may know that my PC has only one use of a daily power left. On the best interpretation of martial daily powers (as put forward by other posters upthread) my PC does not know this - because the "per day" is a metagame constraint on player narrative control, not an attempt to model ingame causal processes.

 

[pemerton]

You mean, we should apply the narrative AFTER the action not before? Shock and horror. That can't be right.

Didn't someone already paste the Forge's definition of FitM?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The class doesn't seem that way to me at all; it's a tactical nonmagical support class - something that D&D could have used a long time ago.

As many people have already stated heroic fantasy has many examples of the martial leader, arguing the concept is somehow new just doesn't hold.

When I saw this class, I actually thought of Hannibal. Not the Carthaginian general (though warlord would certainly fit) but Hannibal of the A-Team. He's the guy with "the plan" and the guy who coordinates everyone else into being as effective in their roles as they can be.

Frankly a class that encourages team work by providing bonuses for working together is a definite plus for me and a welcome addition.

Hey! I thought of the A-Team and Hannibal, too.