Paladin should kill the Warlord and take his stuff!

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Can't see why those you listed as Warlords couldn't have been Fighters with leadership talents.

Zhuge Liang was an amazingly skilled warlord but he was also frail. To be a strategist, you don't need to be a good fighter. (It helps to be, of course, if you fight on the front lines.)

Julius Caesar wasn't particularly frail, but he was far more a warlord (and politician) than a fighter. (His cousin, Marcus Antonius, was the opposite.)

 

[Victim]

Can't see why those you listed as Warlords couldn't have been Fighters with leadership talents.

Leadership abilities available as a side item that you can get with a main order of buttkicking ability aren't going to be as significant as when they're the main item.

 

[Generico]

The Paladin class shouldn't even be needed. If the multiclassing system was robust, you could just give the Cleric some smite related powers and create a paladin by multiclassing fighter/cleric. The paladin needs a talent tree, not an entire class to himself.

Nobody in the game world can see "Paladin" on your character sheet. If you're an overzealous douchebag who runs around in full-plate and smites everyone who doesn't agree with him, you're a paladin - no matter what you're character sheet says.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Can't see why those you listed as Warlords couldn't have been Fighters with leadership talents.

Because Fighters don't have leadership talents?

I mean, you could say the same thing about Paladin (cleric with sword talents). Or Rangers (Fighter with bow and wilderness talents). That slippery slope leads to a generic "Hero" class, with all abilities (magic, stealth, combat, leadership, whatever) being selectable talents. That's not D&D.

No, D&D is a class system. Major archetypes, like a nonmagical combat leader, get to have their own class.

-z

PS: also, what (Psi)SeveredHead said.

 

[rounser]

Major archetypes, like a nonmagical combat leader, get to have their own class.

What archetype?

On the military battlefield, with subordinates and a hierarchy, it's an archetype, maybe. This "class" has no place in a D&D adventuring party among heroes, and even it's name doesn't fit.

No fitting archetype for a D&D party here, not even a minor one IMO. I suspect it's just there for D&D Miniatures Game crossover marketing reasons.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

What archetype?

On the military battlefield, with subordinates and a hierarchy, it's an archetype, maybe. This "class" has no place in a D&D adventuring party among heroes, and even it's name doesn't fit.

No fitting archetype for a D&D party here, not even a minor one IMO.

Military units go as small as four, and this is a DM-heavy board. A leader makes for a great NPC. A leader who leads entire cities or armies makes for a very compelling and dangerous NPC.

 

[kennew142]

ummm, clerics provide healing, are not as good at combat, and can't both attack and provide a + boost to attack rolls at the same time?

Anyhow, this is ntot a post against the warlord. Basically what Ia m saying is that it makes more sense for the paladin to do the things the warlord will do, in addition to doing paladin things. It seems a waste to have another class do something when an existing class could do it and have it make more sense flavorwise.

I wouldn't want both leader classes in the PHB to be based on the divine. I am looking forward to playing a warlord in one of the first 4e campaigns to start up in our group. I have no desire to play a paladin. It has nothing to do with paladins being goody-goody - I know that they don't have to be. I just don't want to play a character with a divine power source. I've done that once in 3e (am doing now in fact). It's not for me. No one role should be restricted to just one power source.

 

[rounser]

Military units go as small as four, and this is a DM-heavy board. A leader makes for a great NPC. A leader who leads entire cities or armies makes for a very compelling and dangerous NPC.

A D&D party isn't a military unit.

The other PCs are not the "warlord's" subordinates.

There is no war, no army, no nation, no battlefield - unless the campaign explicitly goes there. The warlord neither fights in a war, nor is he a lord of anything.

Worst of all, this "class" affects the archetypes of other, actually legitimate-in-a-D&D-party archetypes. Your fighter is an independent type? Too bad, someone else took "warlord", so now you're an implied mook. Brings a whole new meaning to the warlord using some random ability which involves ordering about his "friends" with some "Feather Me Yon Oaf" bollocks, and the paladin turning around and saying, "Oh yeah? Who's going to make me? You and which army?"

Which says it all really, because the "warlord" should be in an army, not in an adventuring party.

I'm happy to be proved wrong, but that's what it's looking like from here. It's looking like some marketing stunt for the miniatures game, based on a bunch of crunch abilities, archetype gone out to lunch.

makes for a very compelling and dangerous NPC.

You said it. An orc warlord fits, even the name fits - he fights wars and has underlings. As a PC class, it doesn't belong in the core.

 

[Gloombunny]

Where in the name of all that's holy did people get this crazy idea that warlords will have any ability to control other PCs' actions?

 

[kennew142]

What archetype?

On the military battlefield, with subordinates and a hierarchy, it's an archetype, maybe. This "class" has no place in a D&D adventuring party among heroes, and even it's name doesn't fit.

No fitting archetype for a D&D party here, not even a minor one IMO. I suspect it's just there for D&D Miniatures Game crossover marketing reasons.

We all know that this is not what the class represents (even if the name would imply otherwise). It is pure stubbornness to define the class in the a manner at odds with its design concept and then argue against that definition as if it were accurate. This is the very definition of a straw man argument.