Warlord - punished for sacraficing

[Herschel]

Right, but the text of "Reset Initiative" says that you set your place in the initiative before the triggering creature, so if you want the fighter to go after the warlord in the subsequent round, you have to take that conscious step of overriding the rule.


But in the proposed example, the warlord's effect isn't being prolonged; rather, the fighter is acting twice within the original duration. The warlord's initiative never changes, and the duration of the effect is based on the warlord's initiative.

-Hyp.

But the key is the trigger. The Warlord acts as the trigger. By your reasoning, the Fighter would not get the bonus on the first attack because he's actually going before the trigger. That's like saying you load a bullet in the chamber of a gun, the shell discharges and fires, and then you pull the trigger.

 

[Pickles JG]

But the key is the trigger. The Warlord acts as the trigger. By your reasoning, the Fighter would not get the bonus on the first attack because he's actually going before the trigger. That's like saying you load a bullet in the chamber of a gun, the shell discharges and fires, and then you pull the trigger.

There are two separate effects that you are conflating - one is the readied attack & the other is when the Fighter's NEXT turn happens. It is odd in that it compresses the Fighters two turns together but it's RAW - the fighter gets two turns between the warlords one.

It happens when you eg ready against a foe becoming visible after it attacks. You would attack after it then before it next round. A flip flop as we Third Reich players call it.

As an aside lots of DMs do this sort of thing without thinking when they have several monsters acting on the same initiative. They move them all then attack with them all thus benefiting from flanking they may have set up. Really the monsters have to ready their attack until they have flanking - probably beyond most Zombies.

 

[N8Ball]

But the key is the trigger. The Warlord acts as the trigger. By your reasoning, the Fighter would not get the bonus on the first attack because he's actually going before the trigger. That's like saying you load a bullet in the chamber of a gun, the shell discharges and fires, and then you pull the trigger.

Herschel, I respectfully and STRONGLY suggest that you read PHB 291 under readied actions before you post again. There are 2 bullets that pertain and they are surprisingly clear. One is the "Immediate Reaction" bullet and the other is the "Reset Initiative" bullet. It's only 2 sentences.

I think the main beef these guys have with your argument is not that it isn't a valid argument, but that you haven't acknowledged that your proposal is a departure from the readying rules that do not really require any interpretation to decide what they mean. Disagree with them, fine, but at least acknowledge what the actual rules are first.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I think the main beef these guys have with your argument is not that it isn't a valid argument, but that you haven't acknowledged that your proposal is a departure from the readying rules that do not really require any interpretation to decide what they mean. Disagree with them, fine, but at lease acknowledge what the actual rules are first.

They appear to understand what the rules say perfectly well. It would seem that they don't have a beef with the argument itself: merely that they would ban the tactic because it's clever and gets the players a bonus.

 

[Hypersmurf]

But the key is the trigger. The Warlord acts as the trigger. By your reasoning, the Fighter would not get the bonus on the first attack because he's actually going before the trigger. That's like saying you load a bullet in the chamber of a gun, the shell discharges and fires, and then you pull the trigger.

Consider a simpler example of Ready.

We have the PC, and the orc.

The PC rolls a 15 on initiative, the orc rolls a 10.

Round 1.15: PC readies an action. "I attack the orc when he attacks me."
Round 1.10: The orc moves up and attacks the PC.
Round 1.10a: The PC's readied action triggers, and as an immediate reaction - occurring after the triggering action - he makes his attack.

Now the PC resets his place in the initiative order to just before the creature who triggered his action. His place in the initiative order is just before the orc.

Round 2.10+: It's the PC's turn, and he attacks.
Round 2.10: It's the orc's turn, and he attacks.

So the order of attacks goes Orc, PC, PC, Orc. That's how readied actions work.

-Hyp.

 

[Danceofmasks]

It's a nice tactic, for sure.
But a battle cleric can do a similar thing most rounds with righteous brand, and its bonus is nasty.
(ok, to be fair, righteous brand is broken, but still)

Although my cleric is more of a glory hog than most warlords ... intending to use righteous rage of tempus with a *cough* vicious fullblade ...

 

[Tony Vargas]

The designers wanted to resolve a problem with the 3e cleric, when doing his 'leader' stuff meant that he wasn't getting to do fun stuff himself, and getting some of the glory of the attacks. So they changed that by (a) allowing healing word as a minor action and (b) making the clerics buffs into side effects of his attacks.

This seems to contrast a little with the Warlord, who gets (a), but his fun stuff is more about giving other people extra moves or attacks - it is the direct result of the power, rather than a side effect of the power (or at least it can seem that way to some people when they look at the warlord)

To be fair, there are only a few warlord powers that transfer actions from the warlord to another character. They're really /good/ powers, actually - Commander's Strike and Knight's Move - but if you don't like that sort of thing, they're easily avoided. A warlord can do his job well and attack every single round, no problem. He can also garner quite a bit of 'glory,' himself - which, really, is what the above is about (spotlight time) - via such powers, depending on his play style.

The objection being raised in this thread is that some of the warlord's bennies - most notably his signature Commanding Presence - only aply to allies, not to himself. This is true of a lot of other classes' powers, too, as it's a function of the definition of 'ally.' One quick and easy resolution is to simply change the definition so that you are your own ally. It might create a few wonky "Murphy's Rules" (like a warlord can use Knight's Move to give himself a move action, which costs him a move action, thus expending an encounter power and recieving no benefit; or that Commander's Strike suddenly becomes even better than Sly Flourish), but if it addresses the percieved problem, it might be worth putting up with a few such oddities and imbalances.

 

[CapnZapp]

Let's ignore the Readied Action portion.

Round 1: Warlord uses Warlord's Favor, and spends an action point to use Commander's Strike (1).

Round 2: Fighter's turn - fighter attacks (2), and spends an action point and attacks again (3).
Warlord's turn - Commander's Strike (4). Warlord's Favor expires.

He's fitted in exactly the same number of attacks with the Favor bonus - it just cost an action point more than the initiative version. Do you consider this to be rules-lawyery and finagley, and would you ban it before the next session?

-Hyp.

Interesting you bring this up.

We agree this way of doing things cost more (a whole AP, to be exact).
This means that doing it the other way (with readied actions) saves the considerable cost of 1 AP.

Now, do you find both approaches equally intuitive and easy?

 

[CapnZapp]

And to answer my own semi-rhetorical question ...

I don't. I find it to be a negative for a game to provide a situation that can be solved either in a straight-forward manner or in a mechanically complex way. And to make the latter better.

This penalizes players for "not reading the rules thoroughly" you might say. On the contrary, I would reply. It creates a situation where you're suckered into a solution you feel is good but in reality isn't.

This adds a level of complexity to the game which I happen to dislike. You might not, but remember that the discussion is about whether you as the player would accept my decision to rule zero it away or not.

My stance is (obviously) that this is far from a central and very valuable part of the ruleset. And I would be very surprised (despite what I said earlier) if a player would quit just because of this detail.

Besides, I maintain that the original, underlying, reason for Readied Actions is not at all to enable stuff like this. It is simply there to allow characters to synch actions in regards to an opened window, a running thief, somebody throwing a target through a window.

That you can eke out a whole AP by "cleverly" or "imaginatively" combining this rule with various powers is bad for the game.

I certainly don't want my game delving into this kind of detail each time it's your turn.

 

[Tony Vargas]

There's nothing particularly unintuitive about how Ready works in 4e. If you have the initiative, you can anticipate your opponents actions and be ready to react to them decisively. It's a little /less/ potent than in was in 3e, because it no longer interrupts the triggering action. If it did, the tactic of readying triggered by an ally's buff wouldn't work - or wouldn't work as easily, you'd have to set the trigger to something else the ally is doing. But, readied actions would then be more potent when used against /enemies/.

So be careful with a house rule meant to 'power down' one tactic, when it may 'power up' other, more significant ones.


Edit: BTW, note that the tactic has a minor downside. You re-set your initiative downward whether the warlord hits or not. When he misses, you've delayed your own attack for no benefit. If, for some reason, he can't attack - if the target gets away, the warlord is dropped or stunned (or you are) or whatever. So there's a bit of a risk, and, generally, you take risks to earn greater rewards.

It's about a coordinated effort. If the two characters are 'working together like a well oiled machine' they'll use the ready option (possibly sacrificing an action along the way to do it, depending on where they each are in the initiative order relative to the enemy). If they're more just fighting on the same side, but being oportunisitic rather than planning things, they'll use the action point - and the higher-initiativec character won't have to sacrifice the advantage of going earlier in the round to possibly eke out a better attack chance on an extra attack.

Both styles are valid - and viable.