I just realized what bugs me about Warlords . . .

[Imp]

"Champion".

(Also jumps the gun a bit, but it's certainly possible to have failed or untried champions)

Or, riffing off the AD&D references:

"Fight-User."

 

[IanB]

I liked Marshal. :\

 

[hong]

In any case, if people can get used to "Wii", they can get used to anything.

 

[Stone Dog]

I liked Marshal. :\

The more I think about it, the more I do too.

In any case, if people can get used to "Wii", they can get used to anything.

Warlord better have a kick ass bowling game then. And I fully expect the port of Zelda to blow my mind.

 

[Ry]

)-1. IMO, it's not American ethnocentrism (I'm a Canadian, actually) but Army/Marine-centrism. A DnD adventuring party is probably more like an Army or Marine unit than a Naval unit.

More like a clownmobile than a circus troupe.

 

[Nifft]

I liked Marshal. :\

The only problem is the homophone "Martial".

"Marshal" is a fine word, but ambiguity is to be avoided when possible. So if they ditch "martial" weapons as a category, and never wrote "martial adepts" as a class type, I'd support it.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Gloombunny]

Unfortunately it seems like they're already set on having "martial" heroes (along with the arcane and divine ones), so we may not get a nice sensible "marshal" name for the class. (This is doubly annoying because "martial" is a terrible name for that power source anyway.)

"warlord" really needs to go. Not only is it a lousy name, it's too similar to "warlock". Even though "marshal" is the only alternative I really like, almost anything would be better than "warlord".

 

[rounser]

The "war" part of warlord is fine, it's the "lord" part that doesn't fit

I disagree; the war part doesn't fit either. The PCs are adventurers - heroes - not an army. That's why it should be something like "Champion" IMO, which checks both the "hero" and "leader" boxes, and is generic enough to fit many character concepts.

Warlord rules out lots of character concepts because of the martial, noble, bossy, and even unethical connotations of the term. As a PC, it doesn't even have a "kewl factor" to my ears, which has got to be the reason why it was even considered in the first place. As an NPC villain with an army and an oppressive, violent regime on tap, sure.

 

[Lackhand]

Even though it doesn't fit for the class necessarily, I'm a big fan of Tactician, if only because of the nod towards Odysseus. The problem is that it's probably a Cha, rather than Int, driven class.

So Tactician is *really* inappropriate. "Speaker", "Inspired", "Devoted" or "Dedicated", maybe?

 

[Seeten]

What, you think in the medieval times, a war was 100,000 men?

A contingent of heavy cavalry could number 8. Sometimes less. Pikemen could amount to 30 or 40. I dunno where you guys get the idea war was some massive undertaking. Maybe for Napoleon, when he levied the peasantry, but in the middle ages, not frackin likely.