Warlord - punished for sacraficing

[Jack99]

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

Apparently something ate a couple of words from my reply. It doesn't work like that in regards to action points. Meaning, if you ready an action in responce to an action and that action happens via an action point, your readied action still bounces you to after the other player's turn, no matter when the action point was used.

This was much better explained in an earlier post - point is, the player who readies doesn't get the bonus for as many attacks as he thought he did.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Meaning, if you ready an action in responce to an action and that action happens via an action point, your readied action still bounces you to after the other player's turn, no matter when the action point was used.

It still looks right to me.

The readied action is an immediate reaction, so it triggers after Warlord's Favor. But the "Reset Initiative" step states "move your place in the initiative order to directly before the creature that triggered your readied action".

Let's say the fighter rolls a 15 and the warlord rolls a 10 for initiative.

Round 1.15 - the fighter readies.
Round 1.10 - the warlord uses an action point and attacks with Warlord's Favor, granting the fighter a bonus until the end of the warlord's next turn - that is, the end of the warlord's turn in round 2.
Round 1.10a - the fighter's readied action triggers as a reaction to the warlord's attack, and he attacks with the bonus. After his readied action, he resets his place in the initiative order to just before the warlord.
Round 1.10b - the warlord's turn continues, and he takes his normal complement of actions. In this case, Commander's Strike - the fighter attacks with a bonus.

Round 2.10+ - just before the warlord's turn, the fighter's reset initiative occurs. He takes an action to attack with a bonus.
Round 2.10 - the warlord's turn, and he uses Commander's Strike. The fighter attacks with a bonus.

And then we reach the end of the warlord's turn in round 2, and Warlord's Favor expires.

It looks to me like it works exactly the way he described. Which step do you disagree with?

-Hyp.

 

[CapnZapp]

If this is indeed how the rules work, let me shake my head at the fact that by being some kind of initiative rules lawyer you can eke out substantial bonuses.

In other words, my reaction as a DM is "enough with this finaglery!"

I view readied actions as a tool for getting around the inherent inflexibility of having a discreet initiative system. That's what it is there for.

It isn't there to be an essential piece of the puzzle to racking up bonuses everybody needs to read up on and master.

Again, in no way do I disagree with your deconstruction of the rules, Hypersmurf.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

If this is indeed how the rules work, let me shake my head at the fact that by being some kind of initiative rules lawyer you can eke out substantial bonuses.

In other words, my reaction as a DM is "enough with this finaglery!"

I view readied actions as a tool for getting around the inherent inflexibility of having a discreet initiative system. That's what it is there for.

It isn't there to be an essential piece of the puzzle to racking up bonuses everybody needs to read up on and master.

Again, in no way do I disagree with your deconstruction of the rules, Hypersmurf.

So if someone tried this in your game, what would you do?

As a player, I'd be pretty annoyed if I tried this perfectly legal (and indeed clever) bit of work and the DM waved his hands dramatically and said "Enough with this finaglery!" and...what? Didn't allow it? Tried to say it wouldn't work?

This doesn't even come close to some of the rules lawyering that's gone on (let's once more mention PunPun as the ultimate nightmare in that regard...) so it strikes me as a strange on to get worked up about.

 

[WalterKovacs]

So if someone tried this in your game, what would you do?

As a player, I'd be pretty annoyed if I tried this perfectly legal (and indeed clever) bit of work and the DM waved his hands dramatically and said "Enough with this finaglery!" and...what? Didn't allow it? Tried to say it wouldn't work?

This doesn't even come close to some of the rules lawyering that's gone on (let's once more mention PunPun as the ultimate nightmare in that regard...) so it strikes me as a strange on to get worked up about.

I think the rule of thumb for DMs would be to allow it ... but perhaps with the caveat that you won't allow it again in he future. And I doubt that any DM actually allowed PunPun in teir games

Generally, a DM will probably just discourage players from using the trick in every encounter, and if they did, might outright rule 0 against it.

 

[CapnZapp]

So if someone tried this in your game, what would you do?

As a player, I'd be pretty annoyed if I tried this perfectly legal (and indeed clever) bit of work and the DM waved his hands dramatically and said "Enough with this finaglery!" and...what? Didn't allow it? Tried to say it wouldn't work?

And you'd be rightly so.

You should never debate or change rules when you're playing.

What a good DM (who shares my opinion) would do, is change the rules either before the session (if he has read this thread) or afterwards (if he's introduced to the trick by someone like you).

If, on the other hand, what you really wanted to say was "As a player, I'd be pretty annoyed if the DM doesn't let me use any and all perfectly legal bits of work" then you have apparently never heard about house rules.

Ninja: Or indeed Rule 0.

What I mean by this is that I don't particularly care for the argument that players are somehow entitled to everything in the official books, just because they brought them along.

I don't know you, but perhaps you would say "if I don't get to use this particular trick, I don't want to play in your campaign". If you did, I could respect that.

What I don't respect is when players argue it isn't the DM who's in charge.

Basically, your response does not carry much weight, unless, of course, you are talking about the "changing rules in the middle of play" aspect only, in which case I totally agree.


Regards
Zapp

 

[Plane Sailing]

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

Sorry to come back to this again, but my thinking was this:

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)

i.e. saying "well, you shouldn't play a warlord if you don't want to play a support character" seems strange when the previous support character (cleric) who has essentially the same role (leader) was modified so that he expressly *wasn't* just a 'support' character.

Cheers

 

[WalterKovacs]

Sorry to come back to this again, but my thinking was this:

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)

i.e. saying "well, you shouldn't play a warlord if you don't want to play a support character" seems strange when the previous support character (cleric) who has essentially the same role (leader) was modified so that he expressly *wasn't* just a 'support' character.

However, not everyone disliked the old clerics. By having two different types of leaders, the cleric and the warlord aren't the same, and people can pick the kind of style they want.

The cleric has a lot of healing (not just hp regeneration, but also saving throw) to keep the party going, while the warlord has a lot that let's the party do more with it's time. Both also have some ways of buffing the party, etc.

In most cases, for both the cleric and the warlord however, they still get to do some attacking. While there are a few specific examples where they do nothing, or barely any damage to give their ally that power, it does give someone the option of building a character that doesn't have to concentrate as hard on it's own damage dealing potential. But, that isn't the only way to play a warlord, and you can have all your attack powers involve actual attacks. And as either a cleric or warlord, you aren't doing tons of damage, but you are still attacking, dealing damage, and doing the leader part of your job.

 

[Nail]

If this is indeed how the rules work, let me shake my head at the fact that by being some kind of initiative rules lawyer you can eke out substantial bonuses.

In other words, my reaction as a DM is "enough with this finaglery!"

Huh.

I find the use of Readied Actions to be completely an exercise in tactics. Their use is when you anticipate an action, and plan your action around it.

How is this bad?

Some players are good at tactics. Those same players tend to be good with readied actions. Using the "DM Rule Hammer" to break that up seems.....counterproductive.

If a warlord is tactical enough to align his use of a power with another PC's use of a readied action to respond to that power, then he's fulfilling his role as a Tactical Warlord! ...and "bully fer him!" I say.

 

[Nail]

i.e. saying "well, you shouldn't play a warlord if you don't want to play a support character" seems strange when the previous support character (cleric) who has essentially the same role (leader) was modified so that he expressly *wasn't* just a 'support' character.

FWIW, I "get" what you're saying. WotC learned something about the leader role, and changed the 4e cleric because of that.

But can we turn the original question around a bit?

"If you don't want to play a support character, what classes should you play?"

It's a valid question. And I know from experience that questions like it are asked all the time when creating a character:

• "I'd like to play a character that hits hard, then fades into the background."
  
• "I'd like to play a character that's sneaky."
  
• "I'd like to play a character that can lob fireballs!"

So.....

If someone says "I think the rogue class was designed sloppily. It can't throw fireballs!".....what would you say to her? How would that be different from what we're saying to the OP about Warlords?