Warlord - punished for sacraficing

[Saeviomagy]

When I read that passage I thought "Great! So the DMG encourages DMs like me who doesn't want play bogged down by technicalities to simply say "okay, there's two orcs and only one of you. So they both get flanking" without having to worry about how, or even if, this is possible by the rules as written".

One would hope you apply the same logic to players then...

Otherwise this looks a lot like "I'm giving the monsters a mechanical advantage because I can't be bothered seeing if it's legal. But I'm willing to go to the effort to rule that the perfectly legal combination the players would use to do the same thing is illegal".

 

[Nail]

Ah, but monsters use different rules than the PCs, right? It's only fair...... :\

 

[Danceofmasks]

They way I see it, if you have to ever contradict yourself while coding 4e into a computer, you're probably not as consistent as you should be.

The procedures in 4e are usually mechanically sound, but ready allows you to choose a trigger by description, which inherently brings with it the old problem of an arbitrary line in the sand:
"that's too vague, you can do it!"
You'll be hard pressed to find DMs who draw the line at the exact same place.

And that's a problem.
Consistency, especially at cons, is what has to happen across tables.
'cos players rock up expecting certain results from their actions, and just because one DM always says "fireballs do 100D20 damage, 'cos I like it" doesn't make them right.

Yes, I'm a pro player, and I make awesome use of ready mechanics.
But, it's a descriptive-dependent mechanic, and should have gone the way of wish.
That is, far far away.

 

[evilbob]

Re: The original post -
Oh, yeah, I know exactly what you are talking about. Sorry I couldn't make it through 8 pages of responses - I only got about halfway - but I know what you mean. Our group has a warlord player that is constantly complaining about not being able to use powers on himself. Granted, this guy can really be an ass, so take that for what it's worth - but still, it's being felt.

My take is that warlords are just hard to play, because it's not intuitive. Almost all the other classes are so self- and damage-focused and their tactics are based around "what's a good idea right now," so it's hard to play a guy that has to spend actions/turn order to set cool stuff up that doesn't happen immediately. It's also harder to swallow when you spend two rounds (and lots of powers) setting up something cool and it doesn't come off. And sometimes it's hard to really get a feel for how much some warlord abilities really help, because they are very small factors that can be overlooked easily. For instance, the +2 init bonus is one of the most powerful class features in the game, in my opinion - and it helps ALL THE TIME. (Even the warlord!) His little pluses here and there really add up, but they aren't a BIG dramatic effect that's easy to see (like Brute Strike) - so it's easier to forget, and it -feels- like you're not doing as much. But, really, you are. And hopefully: you know.

It seems like the leaders are designed for self-sacraficers, strikers for selfish players, and defenders for the rest (I don't know anything about wizards).

Wow. This sentence really made me take pause.

I think you may have hit onto some kind of universal truth here; a quick mental check of multiple games I've been a part of shows this to be a very strong trend! "Helpers" or "others-focused" people tend to head for the "support" roles (sorry leader, but that name was a marketing choice - you are "support"), and more self...focused people tend to head straight for the strikers. How interesting.

And it has a wider implication, too: if you're a DM (and who in this thread isn't?) and you have a player who is trying to decide what to play, you could probably take this leader/striker knowledge to help steer them in a direction they might enjoy more.

Also, I'd like to submit that controllers are for people who enjoy playing tactical strategy games. I play a wizard, I love tactical games, and I'm having a blast.

 

[Tony Vargas]

And they offer a second way of doing this, that 1) by far is the more technical one 2) thus easily missed by newcomers 3) but yet the mechanically superior one.

I understand where you're coming from, here, but it's not purely mechanically superior. It /can/ give a superior result, but it does so at a cost.

FREX:

Gen the Fighter and Geoff the Warlord want to double-team an elite overlevelled controller, because, let's face it, you have to fight one at the end of every module. Geoff's player, being one of those snooty rule-mastering types, cajoles Gen's player into using the Ready trick. Gen moves forward and to one side of the Evil Overlevelled Controller and Readies her attack with Geoff's attack as the trigger. On his action, Geoff moves forward and to the opposite side of the Elite Overlvelled Controller to flank and thus set up his uber-combo - and falls in the pit trap the EOC was standing next to. (Geoff, as a propperly powergamed Tactical Warlord, of course, dumped his WIS, since it doesn't help any of his class features or powers, so his passive perception was 9 at 1st level). Goeff, who doesn't have a ranged weapon handy, can't attack. Gen's readied action is wasted - since Geoff doesn't get to attack the EOC, it's never triggered. Had she not allowed herself to be talked into the combo, Gen would at least have gotten to attack on her intiative.

 

[Krensus]

The first time I played a warlord was when we were starting a new campaign and I rolled TERRIBLE stats. I mean my best row was gawd-awful, think my highest stat was 14. So I said to myself, I'm just going to play a warlord and give the Barbarian and Paladins swinging those Execution Axes free swings every chance I get. And it was DEVASTATING. I don't think I ever swung my weapon but once per encounter to try to trigger hammer and anvil. I spent most of my time maneuvering into CA with either of those melees and allowed them to melt the face of whatever dared to fight us. This was when I fell in love with the warlord. I don't know if it's as satisfying as playing a straight up striker, as I've never played one. But I did some rough calculations on our third game, keeping track of damage per round and attributing damage I enabled as damage I dealt. I found that in close quarters, I dominated, and in one case did a tad bit more damage than the barbarian. In open fields, I went down to about 3/4 their damage, but it still wasn't bad considering I'm a "healer." I don't know how this stacks up to a Righteous Brand Cleric, but I felt very powerful, even though it wasn't me swinging away at the orcs. I think a warlord's great for a party with at least two other melee, and Martial Power just makes them better. Wish I had had Lend Might when I played this character! Just my two cents, but I think Warlord is really fun to play, and definitely for those who like support roles and tactical thinking.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Yeah, martial power has awesome stuff for warlords.
Fearless Rescue (daily 1) is probably my favourite at the moment, though it probably needs errata.
The effect allows you to move to the nearest square from which you can attack your target, but it doesn't say you have to move directly. It'd be hilarious for the warlord to zigzag and provoke more OAs just so he heals the buddy for more.

 

[Veggiesama]

Only read first and eigth page, so I don't know if this has been suggested before.

Very simple fix for the player who wants to play a warlord but hates "giving up" his attack and damage rolls to another player:

Before the game, have him ask everyone what their basic attack and damage rolls are. He writes that down somewhere. When his warlord uses a power that has someone else make a basic attack, just have him roll the d20 and look at his chart depending on which player's character he uses. Of course he should probably double-check before each roll, but a good warlord is paying attention to everyone's turn anyway.

I also think the warlord's Commanding Presence (the action point class ability) should work on himself too, like Combat Leader does. I don't see anything inherently unbalancing about it.

EDIT: Read through some of the posts, and a big LOL goes out to the argument about readied actions. For what's it worth, I totally agree with CapnZapp's interpretation. My first look-through of the PHB told me that "finally, readied actions are simpler and exploit-free." Once I got to this thread, I found that I was wrong.

To me, a readied action is "I shoot an arrow at the first thing that comes through the door." It's a way for players to make their characters react intelligently to the changing conditions of combat. It is NOT a way to wiggle in extra attacks or extra bonuses due to a fluke in the "until the end of your next turn" mechanics.

I'd be tempted to dump readied actions entirely if it weren't for the previous arrow-shooting example, because in every game I play in, readied actions seem to be misunderstood by players and DMs alike--rarely used and overwritten in every edition, readied actions continue to suffer from the very type of exploits that the previous poster suggests using.

 

[wedgeski]

I won't be adding much to this thread, other than to say that the moment I read the Warlord in the PHB, I knew I had to play one. And I wasn't disappointed. The quiet pleasure of seeing someone else in the party rock harder than usual because of my actions is reward enough for me.

And we should be very careful about stereotyping Strikers as 'selfish'. This is done all the time in World of--... certain other gaming formats, and is as hopelessly over-generalised here as it is there. To quote someone else who once said something similar, "Some of my best friends are Rogues."

 

[CapnZapp]

@CapnZapp:

So if all players including their DM don't use delay and ready because they missed it, they don't understand it or whatever, is their game less fun?
Are there any problems caused by ignoring the delay/ready options?

I remember fights where we did absolutely fine w/o delay/ready.
Are we playing the game wrong if we don't need those options every time?

It's like if you say, you need an optimized char or you can't play D&D. - It is not true. You only need them if you want to use some cool uber-combo but uber-combos are a feature not required at least in those games that I play or serve as a DM.

If none of the players realize or use this trick, everything's fine.
If all of the players (and their DM) understand and appreciate it, all's well too.

But what happens when only one player understands it? Or when a single player doesn't?

I am not saying anything about your game. I am saying that in many situations, the presence of an option that is both 1) mechanical and complex 2) and clearly worthwhile

...will come across to the players and their DM as something you need to look into. Especially if one player does, it will become very clear you're missing out on something if you don't.

Again, if noone bothers, or everybody can agree to a gentleman's aggrement not to bother, that's okay.

But you know what would have been much better? If the game hadn't presented this dilemma in the first place.

Either if the Warlord + AP trick was so easy as to be clear and intuitive, no problem. We like clear and intuitive rules.

Or if it didn't give a clear bonus. I can understand if the designers don't close a loophole if that requires a lot of rules text, and the loophole causes no harm.

Or if it simply was removed from play.