new playtest report by Steve Winter

[Fifth Element]

Sure why not, he stands next to paladin pointing a finger at him and yells "Stand up you worthless piece of s..t, you call yourself a paladin!? Your friends need you!"

You know of any paladin that wouldn't revive after such speech?

Nice. The tactics used to get a character back into the fight (in-game) would depend greatly on the character's class and personality, I think.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

There's a default way people to play things with antisocial stereotypes, and I think this thread has coined it. e.g. Half-orcs are often played as dumb, violent bullies. Coincidence? Nope. They're half stupid, violent monsters. 1E Assassins were sometimes played as threatening or outright murdering other PCs if they didn't get their way (via the good old assassination chart), which is why they were excluded from 2E. Same thing. The "warlord" is going to get played as a rude, obnoxious drill sergeant by many, many players...it's a no-brainer.

Player problem. Please revise solution.

Given how gamers think, they're the right ones, though. Look, even WOTC
have a placeholder warlord ability called "Feather Me Yon Oaf!" Even if the name changes, the attitude will still be there.

Player problem. Please revise solution.

Giving orders to other players.

Giving orders to other characters. Everybody makes the typo of calling the PCs "players" sometimes, but it's particularly glaring here.

Just because you've taken a class. Lame.

Because no pre-4e paladin has ever demanded the party take "the high road".

And going to cause infighting, guaranteed.

Perhaps the warlord isn't a class for every table. Your players appear to be, err, independent to the point of taking umbrage at someone roleplaying a demanding character who is nevertheless not only right in his commands, but will help them succeed if they stick to the plan. Mine, less so. I void your guarantee; please revise solution.

 

[Doug McCrae]

A lot of the inspiration for the warlord seems to come from the White Raven discipline in Tome of Battle. Many White Raven abilities boost one's allies, granting bonuses to hit and extra attacks (though not healing), due to brilliant tactics and leadership.

I'm due to play a character with a lot of White Raven powers in a game tomorrow, so we'll see if I start calling the other PCs worthless maggots. Hope so.

 

[Aloïsius]

Precisely this sort of thing already happens in 3.x. It' just the cleric doing the reviving, that's the only difference.

As I said, I don't like this in 3e.
4e is supposed to be better than 3e, I guess, on this particular point, it wont.

I 'm not calling a more lethal game, I'm calling a game where being wounded or rendered unconscious is more serious than what it is.

I know that "rushing and cleaving through the endless hords while laughings at the ennemy feeble attempts" is 4e style, and every bits of playtest remind us of this. The insta-heal has always been of my pet peeves. I did not try to house rule it because it would involve a LOT of work to adjust game balance. But, if the rest of 4e system is realy good, I may try to create my version.
After all, we know that "rituals" aka out of combat magic is among the cleric power. So, why not move most healing ability in this ? Just keep a few things like second wing, so that PC are able to make some heroic "I'm not already dead!" once in a while. But, as it is a very dramatic kind of action (very anime BTW...) make this a once per day power or so.
1e, 2e, 3e or any other game system, when PCs fall dying, rise, re-fall dying, re-rise, re-re-fall dying and rise a third time to finish the orcs with a smile... Well, I don't like this.

 

[Fifth Element]

I know that "rushing and cleaving through the endless hords while laughings at the ennemy feeble attempts" is 4e style, and every bits of playtest remind us of this.

Did you miss the part where one character went down twice, and another went down once during the battle? Most playtests have shown the PCs in fairly dire straits, or at least fighting a pitched battle. The PCs have not been shown, generally, to walk over the opposition.

 

[Novem5er]

Remember that HP in D&D doesn't represent just physical harm. Minor cuts, bruises, etc. A higher level character has more HP, not because he's suddenly more resilient to cutting blades, but because he's learned how to roll with the bunch, to twist aside the blade, and to generally avoid that killing blow.

Thus, it was always ridiculous that divine magic was the only source of instant healing. Yes, suddenly curing a deadly cut that's spurting arterial blood... miracle!

That old Dwarf catching his breath, manning-up and rolling with more blows? The gods be praised!!!

Seriously, there should always have been alternative means to gaining HP. Maybe for negative HP (-1 through -9), divine healing would be required, but in other situations...

Examples:

A fellow party-member dies: the rest of the part gets enraged/inspired and gains HP to fight on.

A party member lands a really good hit (critical); the rest of the party gets inspired and fights on.

After a long road and many wounds, a Bard recounts a story of legendary heroes... the PCs are inspired, heal some HP, and continue on to the climatic battle.

A leader character (like Tanis Half-elven) rallies his comrades for one final push. Heal HP and fight on... no maggots needed.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

I hope they call that power "ON YOUR FEAT, SOLDIER!"

I'm more willing to believe its
"Masters dragonbound school phoenix rising technique"

Edit:
wait, that actually hints at what the ability does...
"Masters dragonbound school AMBER phoenix technique"

Much better

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Given how gamers think, they're the right ones, though. Look, even WOTC have a placeholder warlord ability called "Feather Me Yon Oaf!" Even if the name changes, the attitude will still be there.

Giving orders to other players. Just because you've taken a class. Lame. And going to cause infighting, guaranteed.

"Hey guys, I order you to get a bonus attack on that guy over there. Also, I order you to heal 10 hit points."
"No! I'm tired of you always granting me bonus this, bonus that. You aren't the boss of me. I'm going to just walk into this attack of opportunity now, and you can't do anything to stop it! And I'm going to let them flank me too. How do you like them apples?"

Yup. That'll be the way it plays out, for sure.

Also, before anyone accuses me of hyperbole, I don't think I've taken this up any higher than it already has gone so far this thread.

 

[Aloïsius]

Did you miss the part where one character went down twice, and another went down once during the battle?

And they stayed down how long ? One round ? I guess those wounds were not so bad after all.
So, even when they fall, they can still hack and slash through the hords 6 seconds latter. This happen on a regular basis in all the campaign I'm playing.
On a balance-gamist point of view, this is not a problem. But on a "suspension of disbelief" point of view, I don't like it.

I know that, if "falling" meant "you are out of this fight", then encounters will be more dangerous and harder to balance, since losing, even temporarily, a character is crippling the party. But I would rather have some boost to the remaining characters than those boring "respawn" of dying characters.

What is more heroic :
* "Wolbur the warrior rises, fully healed, for the 3rd time, his blood and former internal organs littering the battlefield and finaly take down the blackguard" or
* "seeing her comrades uncouscious or uncapacited, Haldra the cleric feel a rush of anger, charges the blackguard, her forces decupled by the will to save her friends, and slay him with a surprinsingly strong hit" ?

I guess I will have to muse with 4e rules, but I'd rather have a power that allow to give a moral boost to remaining PC rather than moral healing to fallen ones.

 

[Remathilis]

There's a default way people to play things with antisocial stereotypes, and I think this thread has coined it. e.g. Half-orcs are often played as dumb, violent bullies. Coincidence? Nope. They're half stupid, violent monsters. 1E Assassins were sometimes played as threatening or outright murdering other PCs if they didn't get their way (via the good old assassination chart), which is why they were excluded from 2E. Same thing. The "warlord" is going to get played as a rude, obnoxious drill sergeant by many, many players...it's a no-brainer.

Yeah, yeah, and the paladin is an obnoxious joy-kill who smites allies for doing questionable things, the thief steals from every PC in there sleep, the elf looks down at everyone with disgust and hubris, the halfling whines about wanting to go home everytime something remotely dangerous appears, the wizard flaunts his intellectual superiority over the common riff-raff (everyone not matching his INT score) and the cleric evangelizes about his god relentlessly until the other PCs convert just to shut him up.

Nothing new to see. Move along.