Warlord Player's job is to tell other players what to do??

[hong]

Well, that's dependent on the group.

But a social contract that B will consult before sliding A doesn't mean that B no longer makes the final call of where A slides to.

Most of the people complaining about the warlord are implicitly assuming no social contract. Hence the argument is about that contract, and what significance should be attached to it.

 

[AllisterH]

Well, that's dependent on the group.

But a social contract that B will consult before sliding A doesn't mean that B no longer makes the final call of where A slides to.

-Hyp.

I think many of those who don't have a problem with the "forced" movement of the warlord is because this problem is the same thing we've had to deal with all the time before, namely with spellcasters and their powers that affect the entire battlefield.

If you have a player that fireballs and doesn't consider his friends, you have the same problem as the warlord sliding a character involuntarily.

 

[Lizard]

Except of course that WotC_Miko already said the DMG has a section clearly spelling out what counts as an ally or an enemy.

Yeah, and everyone thought alignment was clearly spelled out, too.

 

[Henry]

1) I want those players to learn in order to get better at it (one of them is my wife) and that doesn't happen as well if other people often make decisions for them. They learn better by learning from their own mistakes and watching what tactics the other players use.

2) I do not want to embarrass those players by having other people chime in "smarter tactics". Fred says "I move up and attack" and Barney says "No, no. You want to move around him like this to both avoid the Attack of Opportunity and gain the Flank.".


People who need to play with cross table combat tactics discussions seem to be more "win/goal" oriented than "let each player do what he wants to have fun, even if he makes a mistake" oriented. At least IME.

1) learning from your own mistakes isn't bad, and if someone says, "don't help me" then that's fine. But if someone asks for suggestions, as usually happens at our table, I'm not going to say "no" because there's more than one way to learn.

2) In my opinion, Barney is kind of pushy; if he said instead, "don't forget that moving that way may provoke an op attack" it would alert Fred to look out for that kind of stuff without telling him what to do.

3) At least at our table, our players ARE goal-oriented, that goal being to have fun, but also to keep the opposition from killing us so we can continue next session, and if all the players were totally uncoordinated, then that second goal will often fail. To me, it's better for the people in the group to have access to "group-think" if they want it. If they fail despite the group tactics, then that's the way the dice bounce.

 

[Remathilis]

Something missing from this conversation is the "common curtosy" rule. Even IF the warlord has complete control of the ability to "slide" an ally, its probably NOT in his best interest to slide him into lava, off a bridge, and somewhere the PC doesn't want to go. Just like its impolite to fireball high-ref/evasion PCs (while chances are they'll make it, 1's happen and its just rude without permission).

Being able to move other peoples PCs doesn't give you the right to be a jerk. If your concern is people using the warlord to reposition PCs against there will, find a better warlord player.

 

[Mallus]

Isn't any class ability problematic if the player is going to be a prick about using it?

 

[pemerton]

I don't understand why we are not supposing that "ally" will be a voluntary status.

 

[Zimri]

The point perhaps is that if B habitually does not listen, then B needs to be pelted with dice.

No, well yes but pelted with dice on his way out the door.

If player b = "I control your character against your wishes cause raw says"
then DM z = "The blue hand of unmaking rips and tears at you"
then Host s = "Remove yourself from these hallowed halls thou art no more a knight at this table"
then Robin's Minstrels = "nananana hey hey hey goodbye"

 

[Zelster]

Isn't any class ability problematic if the player is going to be a prick about using it?

Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

This whole discussion has a lot more to do with how people behave at the table rather than what the RAW will allow the Warlord to do in the next edition. I mean, there were truckloads of terrible, party-harming decisions possible in 3E and most of us survived that.

Just play with common sense, be friendly, and if some warlord decides to slide your character over the edge... then I suggest you get even.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

If you have a player that fireballs and doesn't consider his friends, you have the same problem as the warlord sliding a character involuntarily.

And the same solution: talk with him, tell him to not be an ass, and boot him out of the group if he persists in being an ass.l