Warlord or Soldier?

[Wepwawet]

Probably WotC wants Warlord and Warlock with these names to put them at the end of the Classes chapter. So they must start with W
What about Zerg, by the way? LOL

 

[Gadget]

The notion of soldiering goes back at least to Roman times. The word itself is hundreds of years old. Soldiers in fantasy are all over the place--The Black Company, The Malazan Book of the Fallen, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Wheel of Time. All chock full of soldiers. How can you say it isn't a fantasy archetype?

Because it is not. The fact that the word soldiers comes from salt and denotes that the Romans used to pay their soldiers in salt (as it was a valuable commodity) notwithstanding, the word is too overwhelmed by modern connotations. Besides, in most of those works cited above (except maybe Black Company) the soldiers where just grunts to follow or oppose the real heroes in the story, and are called (among other things) armsmen, guardsmen, the spears, vassals, or what have you. To be more specific, it is not a fantasy heroic archetype. Some heroes may be soldiers, but they may also be shepherds, cobblers or what have you. It would, at best, be an NPC class (if such things still exist), though admittedly more action prone than an cobbler or shepherd.

Besides, from what we know of the class, the Warlord will be more of a super bard that inspires and supports and doesn't use magic (depending on how the special abilities of the class are defined), rather than some professional, organized soldier.

 

[BartD]

This is painful. I hate the name "warlord", but "soldier" is even worse. I can't bring myself to vote in favor of either one, even if they're the only options.

QTF.

Assuming we're talking about a class who leads his comrades in battle and has reasonable skills outside combat as well, I guess it should be called a ... ?

Ok, I must admit it doesn't really fit any archetype for me. "Drummer" is not exciting.

I wouldn't mind "Myrmidion" (apparantly a greek word for a fighting man following orders?), as it doesn't have much prior meaning to me. What does it mean to all you English-speakers?

 

[Elphilm]

The fact that the word soldiers comes from salt and denotes that the Romans used to pay their soldiers in salt (as it was a valuable commodity) notwithstanding

I've been under the impression that the term comes from gold coins.

 

[Wepwawet]

I wouldn't mind "Myrmidion" (apparantly a greek word for a fighting man following orders?), as it doesn't have much prior meaning to me. What does it mean to all you English-speakers?

It reminds me of Warcraft 3. Wasn't the Myrmidion a Naga soldier?

 

[Remathilis]

Solider to me implies more a grunt, a dough boy, an in-the-trenches warrior. A Warlord implies a leader of men, a tactician, a marshal. Solider also implies to me some form of actual army. A warlord can be the orc-chieftain, a dwarven captain, a goblin commander, or a halfling sheriff.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

QTF.

Assuming we're talking about a class who leads his comrades in battle and has reasonable skills outside combat as well, I guess it should be called a ... ?

Ok, I must admit it doesn't really fit any archetype for me. "Drummer" is not exciting.

I wouldn't mind "Myrmidion" (apparantly a greek word for a fighting man following orders?), as it doesn't have much prior meaning to me. What does it mean to all you English-speakers?

To me, the elite soldiers who served under Achilles in the battle of Troy.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

Given the choices Soldier and Warlord - I took Warlord.
Soldier sounds so lame for a player class, IMO.

Warlord
Commander
Marshall

There might be even more and better ones, but I don't mind seeing Warlord printed in the PHB.

 

[Mokona]

This is painful.

I agree.

Looking at the poll results so far it appears as if Wizards of the Coast understands after all. This poll made me think...perhaps Officer is a good option.

 

[Gloombunny]

While I don't want to spam the board with polls, I have to say I'm very curious what we'd get from a series of "Warlord vs. _____" polls. I suspect much of the reason why there's no clearly popular alternative to "warlord" is that the anti-"warlord" vote is split so many ways. A series of runoff-style votes would be more informative than any one poll could be, I think.