Reach Weapons for a Warlord (Resourceful)

[Amphimir Míriel]

I find this a highly amusing idea, especially with regards to Commander's Strike.

Standing behind the fighter: "You!" *crack!* "Get a-swingin' or it's ten more lashes!"

Right, funny, but it would work better this way:

Standing behind the fighter, the warlord whispers:
"I'll distract him, you gut him!"
The whip cracks right above the head of the monster
*Crack!* "Hey you! idiotic beast! Look over here!"
The monster looks around, trying to assess the new threat, giving enough time for the fighter to stab him in the gut

 

[DracoSuave]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdXQJS3Yv0Y"]Where there's a whip *CRACK* there's a way![/ame]

Wow, I didn't even intend that to get window'd like that. Nice.

 

[Turtlejay]

There is a Warlord PP in the Martial Power book that uses polearms. As for the argument that flanking is more difficult, per the PHB:

Reach: With a reach weapon, you can attack
enemies that are 2 squares away from you as well as
adjacent enemies, with no attack penalty. You can
still make opportunity attacks only against adjacent
enemies. Likewise, you can flank only an adjacent
enemy.

So you are in no way diminished should you wish to flank. It gives you more options. I like the idea of a polearm warlord with his battle standard flapping and him stabbing over his bruiser's shoulder. With the right selection of powers and polearm feats you can make yourself a superb battlefield controller.

Greatspear+Opening Shove (At will power)+Spear Push(Feat)+Combat Leader(Feat) is like the Commander's Strike for grownups. Push an enemy 2 squares and an ally gets a free basic attack with a +1 bonus.

The Longarm Martial Path means your Greatspear is a +4 weapon. Excellent for a class that needs to hit to get their effect off.

There are a ton of reasons to do it.

Jay

 

[Gruns]

Help!

Oh noes.
I clicked the video link!!! And while I "got the point" after the first 20 seconds, I couldn't bring myself to turn it off, and thus I sat through the whole thing in a dazed stupor.
How does this happen?
Gruns

 

[DracoSuave]

We don't want to go to war today
but the lord of the lash says 'Hey, hey, hey!
We're gonna march all day all day all dayyyyyyy' left right left right

That was from the 70s. See! There's a precident for warlords with reach in fiction!

 

[eamon]

We don't want to go to war today
but the lord of the lash says 'Hey, hey, hey!
We're gonna march all day all day all dayyyyyyy' left right left right

That was from the 70s. See! There's a precident for warlords with reach in fiction!

That video.... OMG...

 

[tallyrand]

Yes, gather around younglings, and this greybeard will tell you the tale of the animated Hobbit and Lord of the Rings....

Gods I feel old, not just because I own all the animated Tolkien, but because this is NEW to some people...

I'll put this on the list of things that Bilbo Baggins Hates.

 

[jontherev]

I tried a Spiked Chain with my taclord and just switched out of it for several reasons. First of all, the defense boost from a 1 handed weapon and shield comes in handy, even in a defender heavy group like ours. Attacks do get through, and you're probably not going to have a good Con. Hence few surges. Even with Durable, my warlord is often the first one to reach a critical level of surges - but we play many encounters per day.

Second, you need to be adjacent to enemies to flank. So providing a typically much needed bonus means not using the reach that you sacrificed some attack, defenses, and/or feats to get... Flanking usually seems sufficiently useful (you want every bonus to hit on those important encounter/daily powers you can arrange for your team) and easy to arrange that not going for it seems worse than wasting reach. So if you'll often end up adjacent for flanking (and possibly other feats), then why emphasize reach?

I'm not saying you shouldn't pack a reach weapon - they are very useful in certain situations like extremely tight quarters. But I don't think they're worth using as your primary weapon.

I'm pretty much in the opposite boat as you. I started using a maul, then briefly switched to Mordenkrad because I was sticking with hammers...and then decided at 4th level to switch to GreatSpear. I can't say enough good things about having reach, plus the additional +1 to hit for Greatspear.

If you are going to go 2-handed, there's no reason to NOT to choose a reach weapon for a warlord. Losing the defense of a shield is slightly mitigated by the fact that you can hide behind the tanks and avoid even getting attacked at all (situationally of course).

You can always flank when you need/want to. I like being able to charge an enemy right after an ally does and staying behind him. And by the way, although you might be sacrificing a shield, you can wear other magic items to fill up that slot, which provides other goodies.

I can't see myself going back to a non-reach weapon as warlord. To each his own...