Design & Development: Warlord Article UP!

[Belphanior]

Take Melf off Melf's acid arrow and you've still got acid arrow, a perfectly good if rather bland spell name. Take Bigby off Bigby's crushing hand and you've still got crushing hand. But if you take White Raven off White Raven Onslaught, you end up with a power named "Onslaught," which is pretty shaky as a power name. And Iron Dragon Charge is even worse--take Iron Dragon off and your power is named "Charge," which is the name of something else entirely.

Except those are the names of the people who invented them. Of course you can get rid of those, they were never added on as descriptions of the effect to begin with! Strawman.

I'd much rather have evocative names than descriptive ones. Silence, 15' radius permanently soured me on such names.

 

[MaelStorm]

D&D is so sportsgamey.

lol I agree. I hope to hear about something else than powers, grid, shift, tactical, blah blah. I want to see a cool non-combat element. What is outside monsters and combat? Rituals, fluff about planes. I really want to believe D&D has abstract and deep immersive element too. Not only the stuff I'm going to make up in my head, but that there are elements about characters behaviour, not alignment. But something like quirks characters has to choose. I don't know I guess it's not something people want. Just positive boosts and powers. It's starting to sound like a Dur-A-Cell commercial: And you keep going, and going, and going!

 

[Bishmon]

Ok, while I agree that the names aren't that good, I think people should be cautious before labeling them 'high fantasy', 'videogamey', or 'anime'. There's a number of names in modern martial arts that are also a bit silly, such as an anaconda choke, Superman punch, gator roll, guillotine choke, axe kick, omoplata, gogoplata, rear naked choke, darce choke, etc. So to think that these sorts of odd names only fall in the realm of more fantastic or unrealistic mediums is a bit off-base.

That being said, I wish WotC would do better than these sort of odd names.

As for the warlord, so far so good. I really like the idea behind it, so I'm eager to see the mechanics. The three powers presented were fine, definitely didn't do anything to dissuade me, I'm just eager to see a good bit more to know if it comes close to my hopes for the idea.

 

[Klaus]

I'd totally play something that let me use "White Star Raven" powers.

Of course, the setting better involve space, and a ridiculous helping of anime or pulp sci-fi. So I probably wouldn't play in that setting... but if I did, White Star Raven is too awesomely retarded to pass up.

(I've come to accept that things can be both retarded and awesome.)

"Star", in this case, being something to increase the "metal" quota of the ability, by way of the Star Child persona embodied by Paul Stanley from KISS.

One could also go Space Ace, after Ace Frehley.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

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.

The "stereotypical" point guard is usually a (relatively) short, quick guy with good ball-handling skills. His primary role is to distribute the ball to his teammates and get the offense moving. He usually doesn't score many points, but he often gets a lot of assists (an assist is when a player passes the ball to a teammate that leads to a direct score). Good examples of point guards are John Stockton, Steve Nash, and Jason Kidd (if those names mean anything to you ).

EDIT - Never mind. Answered a while ago.

 

[Klaus]

I know! I mean "Bull Rush," WTF?! Why would a medieval fantasy game use a modern American football term invented after the advent of the modern automobile?! They're trying to dumb this game down by using terms that only jocks use!

You fail at sarcasm. I first learned the term "Bull's Rush" through D&D 3.0, and I instantly knew it was a maneuver akin to a bull rushing at a target. This is the first time I hear that it was invented for American football.

I don't actually mind Iron Dragon Charge (although, if the point is that the ally keeps charging the same foe you do, something like "Charging Onslaught" would be appropriate), but White Raven Onslaught has no relation to what the power actually does (I suppose some sort of flavor text will explain it).

 

[breschau]

I'd much rather have evocative names than descriptive ones. Silence, 15' radius permanently soured me on such names.

That's a perfect example of the other extreme. I wouldn't want that either. Somewhere between that kind of silliness and the silliness of "Iron Dragon Charge" there has to be some middle ground.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Why? Don't know. It's not even two flanking opponents. No save. No way to avoid. Just, the laws of game physics suddenly change for that target.

I'm beginning to get worried about this edition of the game. It seems that it requires more imagination from players than previous editions; this has lead to problems and will probably lead to more problems.

It seems pretty obvious that "Pin the Foe" is about the warlord committing to tracking a foe and calling out his or her movements.

 

[cheddar bearer]

Does look really interesting. I like the idea of combining some of the ideas in Bo9S with the marshal class. Never used the marshal class myself something about the use of "auras" put me off. I know its a really petty thing but I don't know something about it didn't quite appeal to me.

Anyway this definitely sounds intersting. Still not sold on 4e but at the very least I will be stealing some of this class sounds really good.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

I recently finished playing a Bard through the entire Age of Worms campaign. Straight Bard levels 1-20, no prestige classes. Part of the reason I did this was to convince another player - who'd played a Bard in a previous campaign - that it's possible to design a fun Bard. I was perhaps a bit overoptimistic.

Oh god the Warlord looks wonderful [breaks down in tears...]