Leaders' Affect Allies Only Powers

[Starfox]

There are a bunch if leader powers that affect all allies in an area, but not the leader himself. Many of these deal with saving throws.

Any opinions on this? Is it needed to prevent multiclass cheese, or does it just make the leader role even less desirable?

 

[Stalker0]

Its a big pain for me as well. I don't mind the leader that makes the party better...but no reason he can't help himself along with it!

In my game, I made the houserule that 1/encounter the leader can declare himself to be an ally on one power he is about to use. Its worked out alright, but I still think leaders could use some more love.

 

[BobTheNob]

There are a bunch if leader powers that affect all allies in an area, but not the leader himself. Many of these deal with saving throws.

Any opinions on this? Is it needed to prevent multiclass cheese, or does it just make the leader role even less desirable?

I dont know about making a leader less desirable. Leaders require a certain rare mindset, one that can interpret that when another player succeeds due to the leader contribution, the glory does not belong to the other player, the glory belongs to the leader.

9/10 players are glory hogs who only get a kick out of self success. For the reamaining 1/10, there are the leader classes. A change like this "sort of" homogenises leaders into the other classes.

Your idea thought did cross my mind at one stage, but I let it go.

 

[Starfox]

The problem with 4E leaders (case-in-point is a bard) is that they don't really contribute much to the efficiency of the team except in the very toughest of fights.

• Healing? Not really needed in most fights, and many builds can self-heal.
• Buffs? All classes have better self-buffs than what the bard hands out.

 

[BobTheNob]

The problem with 4E leaders (case-in-point is a bard) is that they don't really contribute much to the efficiency of the team except in the very toughest of fights.

• Healing? Not really needed in most fights, and many builds can self-heal.
• Buffs? All classes have better self-buffs than what the bard hands out.

Its a bit of a yes and no answer to this. Some fights can be pretty light, and you are right, generally the leader does not have a big impact in these, but I find they are the ones the players get board with. The fights the players really cheer at when they win are the tough ones, where you really have to pull out every last little trick that's up your sleeve.

Its those fights where leader classes have a big impact.

Generally speaking, I tilt my encounters on the side of challenging. You could do these without a leader class, but not as convincingly.

If the leader is not having a big impact, the problem (to me) is not so much with the leader, its more with the encounter and the challenge level.

 

[Blue]

The problem with 4E leaders (case-in-point is a bard) is that they don't really contribute much to the efficiency of the team except in the very toughest of fights.

• Healing? Not really needed in most fights, and many builds can self-heal.
• Buffs? All classes have better self-buffs than what the bard hands out.

If you don't need healing most fights, you are either doing everything really right, or the DM is taking it easy on you. I don't think that's the average experience. BTW, when you mention healing and buffs, those are only part of the leader package. Debuffing foes and rearranging the battlefield also come up very often.

As for counting themselves as an ally, many have things like granting an ally an attack. Picture if you could attack for an effect and then hand out to yourself an attack with a bonus to hit or damage. If you focused on yourself you'd be more effective than strikers at their roles.

Some leader powers do include you. But the ones that don't usually do so for a reason. It IS somewhat annoying when playing a leader that would enjoy those bonuses, but also help eliminate places for abuse.

Cheers,
Blue

 

[Starfox]

Roles in 4E basically come in two varieties - Defensive roles, and strikers. All the other roles are focused on keeping the team alive while doing some other fun stuff, while strikers focus on damage alone. Leaders is the most defensive role.

Defense - Leader - Defender - Controller - Striker - Offense

To me, 4E seems based around having about half the party be Strikers. An archetypal five hero party has one of each role and an extra striker. Being more defensive like that creates defensive redundancy. My current party has 2 defenders, one striker (a pretty defensive one), and one leader. I think this is too defensive, which is why the leader is feeling his role doesn't matter. What the group needs and thus what would shine is more offense.

A corollary to this is that the defender is a very strong role, able to both negate and inflict damage. This team routinely faces +3 encounters with no real need of healing or other leader abilities. Thus the leader feels redundant.

This is my best analysis of the current situation in my game.

 

[Fluxx]

Leaders is the most defensive role.

Tell this the warlord who is giving out extra-attacks, attackboni and damageboni every round...
I've seen mor defensive defenders/controllers than that!