Warlord is a stupid name. Call them Captains.

[Herschel]

Warlord is good because "The one whopoints your uppity backside in the right direction and bails you out when you do something stupid" is a little to long for the marquee.

 

[Remathilis]

Class names are all catch 22. Every one of them suck, to be honest. They're are too specific to a single archetype (druid, bard, monk, paladin) or too generic (fighter, rogue, wizard) to describe what the class actually does. I've taken opinion that the warlord is a fine name because its no worse than using monk for spiritual martial artist or druid for nature priest. Its evocative and sounds fantasyish. Fine enough.

(On a related tangent, I'm beginning to see the wisdom of the first classes being the extremely generic "fighting man" "cleric" and "magic-user" along with titles that fluxed based on level. Too bad "thief" messed it up; he should have been called "sneak")

 

[1of3]

Fair enough. Will Clerics and Fighters be renamed, too?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Warlord has a nice ring to it, especially for those of us who read ERB and were fascinated with the adventures of John Carter, 'Warlord' of Mars (as opposed to those who only saw the movie). But it has been used to talk about some rather unsavory characters in the news cycle since 9/11, so I can understand some distaste.

Captain wouldn't be horrible, though it being an actual rank implies that all such characters belong to some sort of military hierarchy.

Marshal is just awful, I hope they don't go with that and the image of tin stars and six guns it conjures up.

 

[tuxgeo]

Warlord has a nice ring to it,
< snip >

Captain wouldn't be horrible, though it being an actual rank implies that all such characters belong to some sort of military hierarchy.

Or two or three actual ranks: in the US military, an Army Captain outranks Lieutenants, but is below Majors, Lieutenant Colonels, full Colonels, and Generals in rank; but a Navy Captain outranks all officers except Admirals. (If I recall correctly.) And then there are Police Captains, which are what?

Marshal is just awful, I hope they don't go with that and the image of tin stars and six guns it conjures up.

Or "Field Marshall" Erwin Rommel, with his tanks and jerry-cans.

 

[Obryn]

I believe the designers need to have a rules module in which we can rename "Warlord" to something else.

-O

 

[tlantl]

Warlord brings to mind a powerful leader controlling an army.

Warmonger is what I think of as when I think of the class. That and a few other things.

Please no marshals this time I hate when the 'official' name for something clashes with one of my own classes or spell names.

I will forever hold a grudge for someone using the name Bloodstone as the title for several 2e spells since I had an illusionist/thief named Bloodstone who invented several spells that were illusions not necromancies.

I already have a star wearing six-gun toting class called marshal.

( I like westerns )

 

[billd91]

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with warlord, though the connotation seems a lot grander than a single character of militarist bent in an adventuring party. Unfortunately, most others like marshal suffer the same issue. I wouldn't mind captain, frankly, but I think it would connote too many current military, specifically naval, images.

Maybe trooper or soldier? I suppose people would feel those are too much like followers than leaders.

 

[Drowbane]

Back in my day we called them Bards...

 

[dd.stevenson]

War-leader?
Vindicator?
Herald?

"Warlord" does bring to mind the feudal-style thugs that prey on Third World countries. Not an awful word, but it does have baggage.