Paladin should kill the Warlord and take his stuff!

[Wulfram]

In combat he understands positioning and tactical advantage better than the other characters, and gives them direction/leadership that aids them in combat. This, in some way, turns the other PCs into his subordinates? The Warlord is actively aiding his friends and allies with his superior understanding of battle, just as a Rogue would aid his friends when engaged in a dinner with the leading nobles of the city, or a Wizard would aid his friends when identifying strange mystical writings found in the lair of the arch villain.

He's telling them what to do, and they're obeying. Yup, sound's like a commander and his subordinates to me.

All that's saying is that not only is the warlord in charge, but that the others don't even know how to competently carry out their roles. The warlord, who, let's not forget, probably has no more experience than anyone else in the party, is such an expert that a few shouted orders will improve their performance markedly.

The rogue and the wizard aren't telling people how to do what they have specially trained to do. The wizard's not swooping in and telling a specialist in reading mystical writings what to do, and the rogue's not telling a courtier what to do when dining with nobles.

Also, those activities are likely to be sidelines, not really being central to the game. In a game in which deciphering mystic texts was as important to the game as combat is traditionally in DnD, it would be pretty poor to have one class which was the expert while the rest acted under his direction.

If anything, the Warlord takes less of the forefront than in the other examples I've given, since he's merely assisting the group in performing better in combat, rather than completely taking over the situation as a solo act.

Yeah, the warlord seems to be pretty boring really. It's a shame that WotC seem to want to compensate for that by making him the boss.

So how, precisely, is this lessening the importance of the other PCs in any way?

Because he's the Leader, which makes the rest the Henchmen

 

[Sol.Dragonheart]

Alright, first point, from what we've seen so far of the Warlords abilities, the Warlord is not telling the Fighter how to swing that axe. He's not telling the Rogue how to sweep his weapon into the fine points between armor. He's not telling the Wizard how to bend the forces of the cosmos into a big ball of fire that incinerates the enemy. I don't see how the Warlord is subsuming the ability of other classes to perform and excel in what they do best.

What he is doing, is pointing out and exposing the enemies tactical defencies. He's coordinating the groups efforts and pin pointing strikes, making the group better as a whole due to his battle expertise. He's inspiring others with his bold attacks and stirring resolve, charging forth into the breach once more, and so forth. How, in any way, does this lessen what the other characters bring to the table?

Now moving onto the second point from that, how is any of that dull or boring? It's actually quite exciting to have a character capable of doing that, and it's an archetype that has been deserving of its own unique class for quite some time

 

[Moochava]

I've waited for a class like the Warlord for a long time. It's an archetype I've always wanted: a soldier focused on the mind as much as or more than the body. I've seen more than one person try to hammer a bard into a "St. Crispin's Day speech-giving-guy," in the words of one player, and it never quite worked. Others tried prestige classes (a delayed and mechanically sloppy reward), or making high-int, high-cha fighters (thematically satisfying, but mechanically inferior to the physical fighters). Others tried to cram their image into the paladin class (despite the implications of piety) or the rogue class (despite the implications of subterfuge). Nothing quite seemed to work.

I'm happy. Now my players and I can create characters like King Theoden (or countless others in fantasy fiction and medieval history) without having to pick and choose from different class features or sacrifice mechanical utility for conceptual fidelity.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So basically the warlords great, as long as you don't do any roleplaying?

Whatever you're doing OOC, IC it still amounts to the warlord being the boss, and the rest thus his subordinates.

It's probably not the character that is against a comrade giving him suggestions during combat.
But it can be pretty annoying if the Warlord player is constantly berating you to do this or that.

But then, I think an annoying Warlord player would also be annoying without the class, he just would lack some mechanics to back him up (or make him at least useful? )

 

[rkanodia]

It's probably not the character that is against a comrade giving him suggestions during combat.
But it can be pretty annoying if the Warlord player is constantly berating you to do this or that.

But then, I think an annoying Warlord player would also be annoying without the class, he just would lack some mechanics to back him up (or make him at least useful? )

I have to say, many players in my group (myself included) are guilty of trying to take other people's turns for them, and I think the Warlord class finally gives me an excuse to put the hammer down on that kind of thing. "If you want someone else to do something for you, take some Warlord Training and give them some free actions to do it with; otherwise, please shut the hell up when it's someone else's turn."

 

[Wulfram]

Alright, first point, from what we've seen so far of the Warlords abilities, the Warlord is not telling the Fighter how to swing that axe. He's not telling the Rogue how to sweep his weapon into the fine points between armor. He's not telling the Wizard how to bend the forces of the cosmos into a big ball of fire that incinerates the enemy. I don't see how the Warlord is subsuming the ability of other classes to perform and excel in what they do best.

What he is doing, is pointing out and exposing the enemies tactical defencies. He's coordinating the groups efforts and pin pointing strikes, making the group better as a whole due to his battle expertise. He's inspiring others with his bold attacks and stirring resolve, charging forth into the breach once more, and so forth. How, in any way, does this lessen what the other characters bring to the table?

So the fighter can only go "Urrr Thog smaaAASSHHH" and strike where he is told? Having dedicated himself to combat, he has no conception of tactics and no ability to spot enemy weaknesses. The ranger may be able to thread a needle with an arrow at 500 paces, but he's certainly not capable of deciding intelligently what to shoot.

All the things which the Warlord's doing, the other characters should be able to do for themselves. To imply that they require his assistance to do it is to imply severe incompetence.

Now moving onto the second point from that, how is any of that dull or boring? It's actually quite exciting to have a character capable of doing that, and it's an archetype that has been deserving of its own unique class for quite some time

What he does is heal and buff. He's the stereotypical cleric or bard, fulfilling the role which players have been trying to avoid. Last edition, WotC tried to counter this by making the cleric super powerful - this time, they're trying to do it by putting them in charge.

 

[orc food]

You know, I see this sort of thing a lot (in other threads too), and I really don't get it.

I don't look for an archetype in a class. I start with a character concept, and I pick the class that best helps me realize the idea I have. Whether the class is "archetypical" or not (a quality hard to define, surely?) is quite irrelevant.

My *concept* may well be archetypical, but the mechanics? All too often, D&D's "archetypes" differ from the ones in my head. All I want in a class is crunch that suits what I want to do.

So true

 

[Wulfram]

It's probably not the character that is against a comrade giving him suggestions during combat.
But it can be pretty annoying if the Warlord player is constantly berating you to do this or that.

If my character wanted to be ordered around, why didn't he join the army? This character isn't any more experienced than mine, so why should I be listening to him? Just because the game system annoints him leader, doesn't make it so.

But then, I think an annoying Warlord player would also be annoying without the class, he just would lack some mechanics to back him up (or make him at least useful? )

I think it encourages good, or at least decent, players to become annoying by telling them that they're in charge.

 

[Lackhand]

So the fighter can only go "Urrr Thog smaaAASSHHH" and strike where he is told? Having dedicated himself to combat, he has no conception of tactics and no ability to spot enemy weaknesses. The ranger may be able to thread a needle with an arrow at 500 paces, but he's certainly not capable of deciding intelligently what to shoot.

All the things which the Warlord's doing, the other characters should be able to do for themselves. To imply that they require his assistance to do it is to imply severe incompetence.

Possibly. But the other way to parse it is that they do indeed know how to do these things, but only the warlord can assist others in doing them well -- after all, the ranger is (almost certainly!) a deft marksman, able to shoot a bazillion arrows a second, the assistance of the warlord pumps that up to a bazillion and one, as he inspires the ranger to greater feats of archerdom.

I think I get a lot of the problems in this thread, and as long as they existed against the bard also, then there's not much room for discussion: do whatever you want to the warlord, he's not gonna please you as writ, because he's a bard that ran into a marshal in a null magic zone.

I just don't get some of the venom

 

[Zamkaizer]

So the fighter can only go "Urrr Thog smaaAASSHHH" and strike where he is told? Having dedicated himself to combat, he has no conception of tactics and no ability to spot enemy weaknesses. The ranger may be able to thread a needle with an arrow at 500 paces, but he's certainly not capable of deciding intelligently what to shoot.

All the things which the Warlord's doing, the other characters should be able to do for themselves. To imply that they require his assistance to do it is to imply severe incompetence.

Your worldview appears to involve everyone being equally good at everything, with everyone sharing exceptional levels of genius and insightfulness. I wished I inhabited your worldview, because then I would be as brilliant with theoretical physics as Stephen Hawking and as clairvoyant as Rainman.

Also, Ender Wiggin was a Warlord.