D&D 4E Rich Baker on his 4e Warlord

[Aage]

That DOES sound awesome. Methinks I'll be sticking close by any Warlord players in future games in order to benefit from stuff like that.

Oh yeah, and best part? "Hammer and Anvil" doesn't sound the slightest bit anime.

That is very much like a manoeuvre from Tome of Battle... White Raven, can't remember the name though... Flanking manoeuvre, is that it?

Anyway, it also reminds of the power that a warlord in one of the playtest articles used once... something like "used tactical acumen to grant ?? an immediate attack"... Could be hammer and anvil, wouldn't you say?

 

[Green Knight]

Possibly. I'm gonna have to reread that Tomb Under the Toy playtest report to see if that's the case. I do know that the ability used in the playtest pretty much WAS a White Raven maneuver. I remember flipping through Tome and Battle and finding a maneuver which did exactly what the Warlord in that playtest did.

 

[Lurker37]

Wizard abilities, but no wizard levels. Hmmm.

Perhaps multiclassing is achieved through some sort of talent tree rather than actual character levels? I'm thinking along the lines of at some levels buying some of the second classes' abilities/spells instead of buying a power available to your core class.

So instead of buying wizard levels, Karhun bought some wizard feats/talents/whatever-they're-called-now instead of warlord ones at some levels.

Furthermore, based on comments made about scaling, and multiclassing a 19th level fighter int owzaerd at 19th level not being a boneheaded move, I'd go so far as to guess that doing this didn't weaken his Warlord powers, but it does mean that he has a shorter list of Warlord abilities to draw on as some of those, er, $ability_points were spent on Wizard powers instead.

I'm imagining a system where you buy options as you level up, and those options scale with your level. And you can choose options from another class without taking a level in that class, possibly at some penalty or with a pre-requisite of some kind.

 

[Gloombunny]

I considered half-elf just because they multiclass well

Some races are better at multiclassing than others? I wonder how that's gonna work.

Fighters have no real use for a high Intelligence

&^#$&!

One of the neatest parts of Bo9S is how its fighter class gains benefits from Int. I was really hoping that would continue into 4e. I hate meathead classes.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

That DOES sound awesome. Methinks I'll be sticking close by any Warlord players in future games in order to benefit from stuff like that.

Oh yeah, and best part? "Hammer and Anvil" doesn't sound the slightest bit anime.

It's actually a pretty good name. Better than Dragon Tail Cut, at any rate.

 

[hong]

For those of us without Bo9S, what are White Raven powers like?

Party buffups.

 

[hong]

Party buffups.

Apropos of nothing, Buffy Partups sounds like a decent d20 Modern name. Possibly from LA.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

The interesting bit would be that he mentions wizard powers without actually having levels of wizard...

Actually, he said:

I thought about converting Karhun to a fighter instead of a warlord. After all, warblades would be in the defender role, just like fighters are. However, my desire to keep in touch with some arcane spellcasting meant that Karhun would need to multiclass into wizard (no warmage yet either), and thus could really use a good Intelligence score. Fighters have no real use for a high Intelligence, but warlords certainly do, and warlord abilities are often reminiscent of the White Raven maneuvers from Tome of Battle—Karhun had a couple of those maneuvers in his 3e incarnation. So it wasn’t entirely crazy to change up roles, and make Karhun into a warlord.

Emphasis mine.

Instead of being a fighter, he went with warlord. Why? Because he could gain synergy from the benefits of having a high Int in both warlord and wizard. I think he's a multiclass warlord/wizard.

 

[Aage]

Some races are better at multiclassing than others? I wonder how that's gonna work.

Yeah, that sounds weird :/ And one would think humans would be the once to multiclass best...

&^#$&!

One of the neatest parts of Bo9S is how its fighter class gains benefits from Int. I was really hoping that would continue into 4e. I hate meathead classes.

Agreed, that is really sad.

Furthermore, based on comments made about scaling, and multiclassing a 19th level fighter int owzaerd at 19th level not being a boneheaded move, I'd go so far as to guess that doing this didn't weaken his Warlord powers, but it does mean that he has a shorter list of Warlord abilities to draw on as some of those, er, $ability_points were spent on Wizard powers instead.

I'm imagining a system where you buy options as you level up, and those options scale with your level. And you can choose options from another class without taking a level in that class, possibly at some penalty or with a pre-requisite of some kind.

This seems likely yes, and I for one salute the idea

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

From the Tomb under the Tor article:

As the initiative count came to the top again, Domna used her tactical acumen to attack in such a way that the wolf she hit opened itself up to Robozcniek. The warforged struck true, and the wolf collapsed in a heap.

Sounds like Hammer and Anvil to me. Though the TutT characters were 1st level, I think.