Warlock, Warlord, and other alternate classes

[Blacksmithking]

A typical party might consist of a striker, leader, defender, and controller. That's all fine if that party consists of a rogue, cleric, fighter, and wizard. But what if the striker is a ranger or warlock? What if the leader is a warlord instead of a cleric? What if we have a psion instead of a wizard? Can the warlock handle the traps, locks, and general sneakiness required in a dungeon? Can a warlord raise dead or cure a poison using martial powers? Can the psion read the magical runes on the tomb's door?

 

[bramadan]

Traps - we have been told - are now much more of a multi-person use-your-skills-wisely kind of experience.
As for your other questions, I believe that the idea of DnD4 is to give multiple ways of solving any given problem.

So warlock may not be sneaky but may be able to summon imps or floating eyes to provide "advance warning" to the party.

Warlord will not be able to raise dead I wager but I from what we have seen raise there shan't be raise dead in heroic tier, in paragon it will be ritual based thing that will require at the very least return to the base and involvement from most party members whereas at Epic level people will be jumping back from the dead all by themselves.

Idea is that surely with certain classes *some* encounters will be easier but some other will be easier with other classes. I think it will be wise for the party to aim to cover all the power sources as well as all the roles in its composition so
if Fighter/Cleric/Rogue/Wizard is a "classic" setup then
Paladin/Warlord/Warlock/Psion may well be a good answer to it

 

[small pumpkin man]

Not necessarily. The point of roles was to seperate out of combat abilities from in combat abilities, and another goal appears to be seperate as many particularly useful abilities from a particular class as possible. You could have a Warlock with Aracana and the detect magic and raise dead rituals, a sneaky psion, and a Fighter who disables traps, allowing you to mix up in combat and out of combat roles while still covering most of the abilities "required" for an average dungeon crawl.

 

[CleverNickName]

So warlock may not be sneaky but may be able to summon imps or floating eyes to provide "advance warning" to the party.

Warlord will not be able to raise dead I wager but I from what we have seen raise there shan't be raise dead in heroic tier, in paragon it will be ritual based thing that will require at the very least return to the base and involvement from most party members whereas at Epic level people will be jumping back from the dead all by themselves.

Man. This sounds like quite a departure from the game as I know it. I used to roll my eyes and close the browser window whenever someone started writing about how the game "isn't D&D anymore" in a thread...but this really opened my eyes.

Now I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing; I'm just saying it is different from what I am accustomed to. Very different.

 

[bramadan]

Man. This sounds like quite a departure from the game as I know it. I used to roll my eyes and close the browser window whenever someone started writing about how the game "isn't D&D anymore" in a thread...but this really opened my eyes.

Now I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing; I'm just saying it is different from what I am accustomed to. Very different.

Don't take it from me. I just scavenge the forums for what little info there is. This just seems to be the way things are going, but I may very well be wrong (except for the heroic tier deaths being final - that came straight out of the Mouth of Mearls).

I kinda like the idea of distinct tiers treating things like death differently... we shall see what they make out of it.

 

[am181d]

Man. This sounds like quite a departure from the game as I know it. I used to roll my eyes and close the browser window whenever someone started writing about how the game "isn't D&D anymore" in a thread...but this really opened my eyes.

Now I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing; I'm just saying it is different from what I am accustomed to. Very different.

I'm not clear which part you think is a departure... No resurrection at low level? Difficult ressurections at mid-level? Easy ressurections at high/epic? Sounds like D&D as usual to me...

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Man. This sounds like quite a departure from the game as I know it. I used to roll my eyes and close the browser window whenever someone started writing about how the game "isn't D&D anymore" in a thread...but this really opened my eyes.

Now I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing; I'm just saying it is different from what I am accustomed to. Very different.

If what you're talking about is the Warlock description I think I might be able to put your mind at ease.

From what we've seen from the sample characters the Warlock and the Rogue are going to have fairly similar scout skill sets.

Heck, the warlock even gets a concealment ability he can then use to hide.

So, yeah, not so much difference there.

Raise Dead and such are rituals now, which implies that access to them will be a lot less restricted then it was in the past.

A Warlord might not be able to give you the raise dead ritual but someone will.

And in the meantime the Warlord will probably give you hefty hefty bonuses on stabilization rolls.

If it's the epic level stuff that's getting you, well...

that probably shouldn't be like DnD. There has been support for that level of play in the game before - Epic level handbook, the Immortals stuff from BDnD - but it's always been weird and unusual and basicly a different game.

The new epic stuff seems like it's going to integrate the weirdness directly into play.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Can the warlock handle the traps, locks, and general sneakiness required in a dungeon?

He can if he's trained in Thievery and Stealth!

Can a warlord raise dead or cure a poison using martial powers?

Not using martial powers, but he can if he's trained in using rituals! (Although I wouldn't be surprised if the Raise Dead ritual required a clergy member to perform part of the ceremony, which could mean either a PC cleric or a random NPC village priest.)

Can the psion read the magical runes on the tomb's door?

He can if he's trained in Arcana!

You might've noticed a pattern here: a lot of abilities that were previously exclusive to certain classes are now more generally available to anyone who wants to train the skills or feats they require. Heck, maybe the party fighter spends a feat to train Arcana and become the party's Indiana Jones, while the warlock has trained Bluff and Diplomacy from his contractual work with devils.

 

[Campbell]

One of the important things to remember is that Trap Finding is no longer a rogue class feature. From what I've seen finding traps is dependent on Perception and there seem to be multiple ways to get past most traps and not all 'traps' can be disarmed with Thievery (being able to disarm mechanical traps will still be nice though). There seems to be an emphasis on there being multiple ways to bypass most obstacles.

 

[Blacksmithking]

He can if he's trained in Thievery and Stealth!

The DNDXP warlock has decent ranks in the Thievery skill but none in Stealth, so I think she'd be passable as a trapspringer and lockpicker. From what I've read, Stealth is not a class skill for a warlock, but I agree that a warlock might have powers that function like Stealth (perhaps an "Eye of Killrogg").

Not using martial powers, but he can if he's trained in using rituals!

If a warlord can perform rituals, then he can pass as a cleric. Specifically, if negative conditions such as blindness or petrification are persistent, I need a leader that can cure poisons, bind wounds, raise dead, cure blindness, etc., or I need another character that can do the same. If negative conditions are not persistent (if an enemy's blindness spell lasts only for the encounter) then that need is reduced.

(Although I wouldn't be surprised if the Raise Dead ritual required a clergy member to perform part of the ceremony, which could mean either a PC cleric or a random NPC village priest.)

It'd be even more interesting if I could scrape by with some cleric training or one level of cleric. I wonder if rituals will dictate required class levels or just character levels? Will 4e support a "martial raise dead" as in the movie Conan the Barbarian?

Heck, maybe the party fighter spends a feat to train Arcana and become the party's Indiana Jones, while the warlock has trained Bluff and Diplomacy from his contractual work with devils.

I noticed that the DNDXP warlock has high Charisma, so she'd be useful as the party face. In a classic C,W,R,F party, the group might not have as "pretty" of a face. That means a nonstandard party has some abilities (in this case, better diplomatic skills) than the classic party, which likely has better Stealth and Thievery.