Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour: The Warlord

[outsider]

Regarding 4e Come and Get.

Mearls is flirting with the concept in his warlord brainstorm, when referring to inducing the ‘charmed’ condition. He specifically means ‘confusing’ the hostile, tricking the hostile into attacking a fellow hostile, and so on. Moreorless, exploiting the fog of war.

So there seems room for negotiating the concept of Come and Get.

Hopefully so. I honestly don't think anything like Come and Get It will make it to print. This one is enough of a dealbreaker for many D&D players that I basically cast it aside.

I don't see it as mind control. I see it as giving the player(not the character) brief narrative control over the npcs/monsters. Most D&D players see that as something that should only be done by magic though, and I accept that.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Hopefully so. I honestly don't think anything like Come and Get It will make it to print. This one is enough of a dealbreaker for many D&D players that I basically cast it aside.

A deal-breaker in the core game is bad for the game. The deal is D&D or not D&D? A deal-breaker in an option is just a matter of taste, the deal is opt-in or opt-out of one thing. NBD.

C&GI as a new maneuver in some Bo9S style supplement, for instance, who cares? If you're horrified by the very possibility of interesting martial characters, you were never going to glance at it, anyway, not beyond making a sign to ward off evil as you pass the shelf...

Telling me to go play 4e instead(which I do once in a while) is basically just telling me to STFU and leave the thread. It's not particularly funny. It's not like I'm running around every 5e thread, and crapping them up with talk about how 4e is better.

Ironically, telling you to go play 4e because 5e can't deliver what you want /is/ essentially a dig at 5e: if you only way you can play a balanced, fun character you've played in D&D before is by abandoning 5e to go back to a system that hasn't been updated in 6 years, that paints a pretty ugly picture of 5e. Undeservedly so. 5e has all the pieces in place, it just needs to get over the legacy of the edition war enough to put 'em all together into a worthy iteration of the only PH1 full class it has excluded from it's own PH.

ignores the fact that I'm perfectly willing to look for a compromise, and I'm adding value to the thread.

And, really, what's to compromise at this late date? Compromise would have been only having 2 of the 8 de-facto warlords from 4e in the PH, even though the wizard go all 8 of it's. Actually, that's not true, compromise would have been every PH class having 2 sub-classes, Cleric, Warlord & Wizard included.

If the compromise is "wait 4+ years before the class you want even enters development" on one side, then "get exactly the class you want, and then some" needs to be on the other side.
And the longer the wait, the higher that bar.

 

[cbwjm]

Hopefully so. I honestly don't think anything like Come and Get It will make it to print. This one is enough of a dealbreaker for many D&D players that I basically cast it aside.

I don't see it as mind control. I see it as giving the player(not the character) brief narrative control over the npcs/monsters. Most D&D players see that as something that should only be done by magic though, and I accept that.

I had to google the power come and get it. It looks like it could be a good manoeuvre that could be included in 5e. It seems like a great narrative feature, a warrior making themselves a target and taunting their enemies. I could see it being used via a skill contest, intimidate vs insight or something. You win and that creature moves towards you.

 

[iserith]

Ironically, telling you to go play 4e because 5e can't deliver what you want /is/ essentially a dig at 5e: if you only way you can play a balanced, fun character you've played in D&D before is by abandoning 5e to go back to a system that hasn't been updated in 6 years, that paints a pretty ugly picture of 5e. Undeservedly so. 5e has all the pieces in place, it just needs to get over the legacy of the edition war enough to put 'em all together into a worthy iteration of the only PH1 full class it has excluded from it's own PH.

I don't agree. I see each game as its own thing. D&D 5e is not in my view a game update that must include all the elements of previous editions or even a substantial amount of them. It's just a different game that delivers its own experience. I neither play nor DM the games the same way and I don't see the exclusion of certain elements from other games as a slight against things I like. I also wouldn't say that my choice to play D&D 4e when I want to play a warlord is abandoning D&D 5e. That's a bit dramatic in my opinion.

This position you appear to espouse fairly reeks of bitterness and resentment to me. It's not a good look, even if you try to cloak it in some kind of faint praise of D&D 5e.

 

[outsider]

5e has all the pieces in place, it just needs to get over the legacy of the edition war

I agree with this, fairly highly. While I do personally prefer 4e, I can work within 5e and have fun there. The amount of new/lapsed players 5e brings in shows me that it's quite a good edition, despite being not exactly what I'm looking for.

What needs to go is the explicit rejection of 4e. The edition war is over. The h4ters all bought their books already. There's very little 4e in the core game. They don't have to fill the game full of 4e stuff, just bring in some of the good stuff. And in the eyes of 4e players(and h4ters), Warlord is the poster child of 4e.

 

[Yaarel]

Hopefully so. I honestly don't think anything like Come and Get It will make it to print. This one is enough of a dealbreaker for many D&D players that I basically cast it aside.

I don't see it as mind control. I see it as giving the player(not the character) brief narrative control over the npcs/monsters. Most D&D players see that as something that should only be done by magic though, and I accept that.

It seems even 4e didnt accept Come and Get. It was updated with errata.

It was changed from Strength v AC defense, to Strength v Will defense. So hostiles with a strong Will could ignore the taunt.

Also, the forced move was changed from automatic, to only forcing a move after the weapon hit. So, the forced move was more a judo trick, rather than a jedi trick.

The 5e warlord will probably see more plausible tactics along these lines.

 

[Yaarel]

Even if Come and Get was part of the excess of experimentation. It provoked designers and players to think about the creative uses of nonmagic.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I had to google the power come and get it. It looks like it could be a good manoeuvre that could be included in 5e. It seems like a great narrative feature, a warrior making themselves a target and taunting their enemies.

Like a lot of 'powers' in 4e, it felt like it was pulled right out of an action movie.

It was changed from Strength v AC defense, to Strength v Will defense. So hostiles with a strong Will could ignore the taunt.

It was a rare critter that had a higher WILL than AC.

Also, the forced move was changed from automatic, to only forcing a move after the weapon hit. So, the forced move was more a judo trick, rather than a jedi trick.

The burst wasn't reduced, and it gained the charm keyword, so, no, not exactly a judo trick. The main change was, indeed, that you hit to initiate the pull, rather than to deliver damage (which was automatic if the pull left them adjacent, an unintuitive, but solid bit of game design). Everyone you attacked with it was still marked, though, even if the pull failed for whatever reason, so still a very good defender-role-support exploit.

The 5e warlord will probably see more plausible tactics along these lines.

To work in 5e, the Warlord needs to break out of the leader box a bit, and intimidation, trickery, and out-maneuvering type Gambits that go more into the old controller box would be a great way. The other non-magical sub-classes get very little of that, while having tankiness & DPR to spare, so it'd round out the range of character concepts that don't resort to magic, as well.

I agree with this, fairly highly. While I do personally prefer 5e, I can work within 5e and have fun there.

Y'know, 5e-for-4e is one of the typos I see the most around here. I feel like it's a slightly hopeful sign.

I quite enjoy running 5e, but it's yet to appeal too strongly to me as a player. The Druid really appeals, but the very occasional (very, it's been years) chance to play my old 1e Druid still appeals a bit more, I suppose. I don't hold out any hope for the Sorcerer or Fighter ot return to their 3.x-build-to-concept heights either. So, long being tired of casters other than the afore-mentioned very occasional paleo-gaming, and not caring for DPR beat-sticks, really leaves 5e players options oddly sparse for me.

The amount of new/lapsed players 5e brings in shows me that it's quite a good edition, despite being not exactly what I'm looking for.

The ease of introduction to and the retention of returning players is amazing with 5e. And, there's more folks trying it thanks to the way boardgames have taken off, there's just more traffic through the stores. It still feels like a hard sell to entirely-new players, but that's almost always been the case.

What needs to go is the explicit rejection of 4e. The edition war is over. There's very little 4e in the core game. They don't have to fill the game full of 4e stuff, just bring in some of the good stuff.

The funny thing is, there's a /lot/ of 4e in 5e, but it's at the level of mechanical detail. It's there, but as a whole, just contributes to delivering the standard games' classic feel, not any of the emergent characteristics that made 4e so 'revolutionary' (for D&D, which, of course, has always been a very evolutionary, if not determinedly primeval, system).

The h4ters all bought their books already. And in the eyes of 4e players(and h4ters), Warlord is the poster child of 4e.

If you're going to say 'h4ter,' you might as well own '4venger,' too...

...sorry, just the bitter old cynic in me.

I don't agree. I see each game as its own thing. D&D 5e is not in my view a game update that must include all the elements of previous editions or even a substantial amount of them

I suppose that's your view. That's not how it was pitched when the Next playtest started. 5e's thing was to be D&D for everyone who ever loved D&D. Even the ones who were bitter about what they'd had in 3.5 (and still had, along with a lot more, in PF) or what they had in the classic game (and had, re-booted, in OSR games in profusion), and, yes, even the ones that had been happy to adopt the current ed at the time.

I neither play nor DM the games the same way and I don't see the exclusion of certain elements from other games as a slight against things I like.

Oddly, I have been finding myself running my Epic 4e campaign more and more like I run 5e (and ran 1e back in the day). More improvisation, more unique items (not more items, but items that are more unique & higher-impact), and less linear (though still not quite a sandbox, as my players very clearly don't want that).
Not sure, what, if anything, that indicates.

I also wouldn't say that my choice to play D&D 4e when I want to play a warlord is abandoning D&D 5e. That's a bit dramatic in my opinion.

Doing so /instead/ of registering your desire to play one in the current ed is abandoning it. Not nearly as dramatic as edition warring against it, of course, but still giving up on it in a real sense.

This position you appear to espouse fairly reeks of bitterness and resentment to me. It's not a good look, even if you try to cloak it in some kind of faint praise of D&D 5e.

Oh, I've been bitter & cynical since I was 8, that's just my personality coming through the keyboard.

 

[Hussar]

I had to google the power come and get it. It looks like it could be a good manoeuvre that could be included in 5e. It seems like a great narrative feature, a warrior making themselves a target and taunting their enemies. I could see it being used via a skill contest, intimidate vs insight or something. You win and that creature moves towards you.

Shhhh! Thou shalt not mention that wot man was not meant to know.

Seriously, this is just waving a red flag in front of the bull. The mere whiff of CaGI in a thread is akin to dropping gasoline on the fires of edition warring. This is about as bad as trying to reference Tolkien.

Never minding, of course, that 5e already includes all sorts of this sort of stuff (what's the narrative, in game justification for rogues being able to do things as a bonus action? how exactly does a barbarian's rage work, even to the point of resisting fire and lightning (depending on your totem)? how does that battlemaster make my character move farther than I possibly can?) and has from the get go. The greatest feat that 5e managed to pull off is convincing people that all those things they bitched about in 4e didn't exist in 5e.

 

[Yaarel]

I see each game as its own thing. D&D 5e is not in my view a game update that must include all the elements of previous editions or even a substantial amount of them.

Personally, I want 5e to incorporate the best that each previous edition has to offer. Fortunately for me, that is one of the design goals of 5e.

In my eyes, each edition does something extremely well.

1e - narrative immersion, homebrew imagination, opting into or out from rules
3e - systematization of rules, customizing an individual character
4e - gaming system balance, thematic rules: power types (arcane, primal, psionic, martial)

I appreciate the way 4e conceives types of power. Thinking about what ‘martial’ powers might be able to do, 4e expanded the possibilities for the fighter and the warlord.