Silverblade The Ench
First Post
One thing I liked about 3rd ed, was the NON player classes. Most NPCs in a campaign aren't combat types, also, many enemies/allies should not be combat types either, thus, the Expert/Aristocrat/Commoner classes were really great for me as a DM.
For example, take the "BBEG" in an adveture as being the "Evil Lord", now WTH should he have to be a fighter/wizard etc? I love the idea of him as the "greasy, maniuplative villain" but he has little combat skills, until 3rd ed it wa shard to put that in the game, now I can, as an Expert/aristocrat. It's his minions who are the physical threat, as it should be.
He can be higher level than the PCs if I want, without slaughtering them, as it's about skills, not violence.
Take it another step: most soldier officers are *not* gonna be pure fighters/paladins etc. Look at RL officers, their skills are mostly and more importantly in command, planning, communicating etc, leaving small tactics to their NCOs (the experienced fighters as it were).
Thus an officer is more like an expert/warrior, and that's how I've been playing them when appropriate.
Now comes the warlord for 4th ed...I have the Miniatures Handbook and really like the Marshall class as a type of "motivator". Rather than being a threat because of what he himself can do, it's what he can make his allies do that makes him a SOB! That's fantastic.
Stick such a leader in charge of a bunch of normal orc grunts and things really heat up, and make more sense...rather than treating him as a "BBEG" who assaults the PCs directly, he can turn a bunch of typical orcs into a damned menace, getting extra moves, attacks, saves or whatever. He's a "force amplifier", an indirect threat.
In fantasy and fiction, you don't whack the officers because they are "uber and gonnna whack you out!" , no it's because when they are in charge, the grunts are much more dangerous and typical_grunt_001 is more likely to kill you by skilled envelopment/ambush, than the officer is.
As you may guess I'm usually a DM
But the Warlord class seems like it maybe very cool for us DMs, or players who would rather do more than just direct mayhem, as a "martial type" combatant. Need to see how it works in practice 
For example, take the "BBEG" in an adveture as being the "Evil Lord", now WTH should he have to be a fighter/wizard etc? I love the idea of him as the "greasy, maniuplative villain" but he has little combat skills, until 3rd ed it wa shard to put that in the game, now I can, as an Expert/aristocrat. It's his minions who are the physical threat, as it should be.
He can be higher level than the PCs if I want, without slaughtering them, as it's about skills, not violence.
Take it another step: most soldier officers are *not* gonna be pure fighters/paladins etc. Look at RL officers, their skills are mostly and more importantly in command, planning, communicating etc, leaving small tactics to their NCOs (the experienced fighters as it were).
Thus an officer is more like an expert/warrior, and that's how I've been playing them when appropriate.
Now comes the warlord for 4th ed...I have the Miniatures Handbook and really like the Marshall class as a type of "motivator". Rather than being a threat because of what he himself can do, it's what he can make his allies do that makes him a SOB! That's fantastic.
Stick such a leader in charge of a bunch of normal orc grunts and things really heat up, and make more sense...rather than treating him as a "BBEG" who assaults the PCs directly, he can turn a bunch of typical orcs into a damned menace, getting extra moves, attacks, saves or whatever. He's a "force amplifier", an indirect threat.
In fantasy and fiction, you don't whack the officers because they are "uber and gonnna whack you out!" , no it's because when they are in charge, the grunts are much more dangerous and typical_grunt_001 is more likely to kill you by skilled envelopment/ambush, than the officer is.
As you may guess I'm usually a DM
But the Warlord class seems like it maybe very cool for us DMs, or players who would rather do more than just direct mayhem, as a "martial type" combatant. Need to see how it works in practice 
