Warlord Help!

[blargney the second]

I'm not as sure about this. I played a tac warlord in a one-shot, and found that commander's strike is very party-dependent. If you have a melee striker, then it is great. But it feels like it is very restrictive in what sorts of characters it works well with. Sure, you can have the party defender hit them, but that presumes you have a fighter, not a chr paladin.

I guess my point is that if you are able to coordinate everything - including party composition - with the group, the tac lord can be great. If you can't, then try a different build.

I totally agree. Like I said above, you want at least one character with fantastic basic melee attacks for the taclord to buddy up with. Fighters and brutal scoundrels are ideal candidates right off the block because they have useful class features to bring into the equation. Clerics with good Str and swordmages with the intelligent blademaster feat can pull their own weight as partners as well.

Actually, I'd be very interested to see a melee cleric and a taclord in the same party sometime. They could daisy chain insane attack bonuses with each other, and it'd be neat to see that in action.
-blarg

 

[Pickles JG]

I totally agree. Like I said above, you want at least one character with fantastic basic melee attacks for the taclord to buddy up with. Fighters and brutal scoundrels are ideal candidates right off the block because they have useful class features to bring into the equation. Clerics with good Str and swordmages with the intelligent blademaster feat can pull their own weight as partners as well.

Actually, I'd be very interested to see a melee cleric and a taclord in the same party sometime. They could daisy chain insane attack bonuses with each other, and it'd be neat to see that in action.
-blarg

As a DM I have found a Tac warlord using Vipers Strike & Wolf Pack Tactics to be annoying - admittedly this is better suited to a different flavour of Warlord, but he is playing the H1 pregen...

My Eladrin level 3 Taclord is fun to play. Yesterday teamed with a level 4 Tempest Fighter. I Adaptive Stratagemed & Warlords Favoured him (our cleric had Righteous Branded me) then APed to Concentrated Attack giving the Tempest a basic attack for about 50 damage in my turn. In his turn he Villains Menaced & APed for Rain of Blows for another 140 damage - the poor boss we were fighting was no more & the DM was very very irritated*.
With attack bonuses generally being agaisnt one target it does look like I can specialise in assisting in the massacring Solos & Elites, though the AP damge boost is good on AOEs too.


*Which is fair as the Tempest using a double weapon is a bit broken & Rain of Blows is a lot. But a melee ranger should have clocked over 100 damage which would have been plenty in the circumstances.

 

[Christian]

I'm not as sure about this. I played a tac warlord in a one-shot, and found that commander's strike is very party-dependent. If you have a melee striker, then it is great. But it feels like it is very restrictive in what sorts of characters it works well with. Sure, you can have the party defender hit them, but that presumes you have a fighter, not a chr paladin.

I guess my point is that if you are able to coordinate everything - including party composition - with the group, the tac lord can be great. If you can't, then try a different build.

That's a good point. The two taclords I've played (also in one-shots), one had a zeihander fighter and a ranger in the group, the other had a TWF ranger and a rogue ...

 

[Herschel]

I'm not as sure about this. I played a tac warlord in a one-shot, and found that commander's strike is very party-dependent. If you have a melee striker, then it is great. But it feels like it is very restrictive in what sorts of characters it works well with. Sure, you can have the party defender hit them, but that presumes you have a fighter, not a chr paladin.

I guess my point is that if you are able to coordinate everything - including party composition - with the group, the tac lord can be great. If you can't, then try a different build.

You are probably right to an extent, but Tactical Warlords and Commander's Strike are great with any melee-based pal: Rogue, Fighter, Strength Paladin, Swordmage, Strength Cleric, Twin-weapon Ranger, etc. Even in RPGA one-offs, you will generally have at least one of these in the party with you if not two. TacLord, Rogue, Fighter, Assualt Swordmage is hella fun!

 

[cmbarona]

*Ahem*... quick correction: "Rogue" should read "High-Strength Rogue" until they get some semblance of Weapon Finesse.