Warlord - punished for sacraficing

[Nail]

Cool.

 

[Nail]

One thing that I thought would have been brought up in the thread.

The fighter, and other defenders are also self sacrificing.

Good point!

Now that I think about it, the roles of both Leader and Defender are - by definition - "self-sacrificing" roles. ...and I play a PC of each. Huh.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Readied Actions do not work like that.

Actually, its a fairly textbook readied action. They work exactly like that. Great tactics! (stealing it)

 

[Pickles JG]

It would not have been THAT difficult to make sure every class had at least one selfish build path and one selfless one. Today, I'd like to play a Warlord who considers himself an ally. Some day I might want to play a Warlock who can give up some of his uberness to help other's shine. With a game system as mature as this one, I think it's fair to expect such considerations.

I think it probably would have been. 4e classes are pretty tight & the versatility you are talking about comes from having more classes rather than wider classes. There is already some variation - a high STR Bravura warlord will play much more selfishly than a low STR Tactical one (not taking commanders strike...)
Also (some) warlocks & rogues can debuff so they already have that ally helping functionality.

The alternative to having classes fitted to different personalities would be to have them all suited to one - which would be good if you were that one .....

 

[Pickles JG]

Actually, its a fairly textbook readied action. They work exactly like that. Great tactics! (stealing it)

Dunno how I missed this - we do it all the time to get double flanking (& used to use it in 3.0).

Mind you Warlords favour, action point-commanders strike; Fighter:- attack, action point-attack; warlord:- commanders strike, is often enough

 

[Herschel]

As for what I expected - I had thought the classes would be well balanced with respect to sacrafice (since they are apparently well balanced in other respects). So if the Warlord Presence ability uses up a class feature slot and does them no good, then the other classes should have something similar.

That's because you are looking at it from the 'it's all about you' aspect of it.

*Earlier editions were more a group of individual characters working SIDE-BY-SIDE towards a goal.

*4E is about a group of characters working TOGETHER towards a goal.

It may seem subtle, but it's an important distinction. Frank pointed most of this out above. Solo smackdown is no longer a viable feature in the game. Big damage is done by glass cannons. Unlike before, those cannons are now generally closer to or actually in melee. They need protectors. They also don't do area damage like before.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Also, with multiclassing and power selection it's able to make certain characters more or less selfish.

A warlord doesn't have to take the powers that give other players more actions, and some of the "everyone gets a bonus" powers, like Lead the Attack, will include himself.

On the other side of the coin, the new rattling keyword let's the rogue drop attack penalties on the bad guys. Warlocks have a few controller type powers like that as well. Even just tactical play, not directly connected to your power selection can have a "selfish" class be selfless, like a striker putting themselves in harms way to encourage the monsters to trigger the various mark based powers of the defenders.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It seems like the leaders are designed for self-sacraficers,

It is interesting in the light of your original concerns to consider comparing the warlord with the cleric.

It is noticeable that when it comes to the at-wills the cleric gets to do something which gives a benefit as a side effect, while the warlord tends to have powers which give up his attack to give someone else a benefit.

(I say 'seems to' because I've not gone through the list carefully, but just on observations on what the warlord players have done and what cleric players have done over the first 5 levels of the game I've been running).

Cheers

 

[chitzk0i]

Dunno how I missed this - we do it all the time to get double flanking (& used to use it in 3.0).

Mind you Warlords favour, action point-commanders strike; Fighter:- attack, action point-attack; warlord:- commanders strike, is often enough

I think what he means is that you can't use an action point with a readied action. If you check the readied action rules on page 291, you'll see that a readied action is actually an immediate reaction. You're executing a power outside your turn, so you can't use an action point. However, the fighter could delay until right after your turn essentially accomplishing the same thing.

 

[Nail]

It is interesting in the light of your original concerns to consider comparing the warlord with the cleric.

Cleric also gets to target something besides AC -- whereas the Warlord always targets AC. (sigh)