NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6145099" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm using the name "captain" because some people don't like "warlord", and it is the word that Tolkien uses. And in the Tolkienian/Arthurian model I'm interested in developing, the presence of a captain does inspire companions - look at how Aragorn inspires Gimli and Legolas, for instance; or how Eowyn inspires Merry, or Denethor and Beregond inspire Pippin.That's fine. No one is making you build or play a warlord, either in 4e or in the hypothetical version of D&Dnext that includes one.It depends on the point of the trait, the players' expectations etc.For instance, in Burning Wheel if you take the Beautiful trait for your PC that means that your are the most beautiful one around. But the expression of this, in play, is primarily under the players' control.In 4e, the player gets to decide who his/her warlord inspires, and how inspiring the character is, by choosing when and how to use his/her powers.Why not? In the metagame, because the player of the barbarian didn't pay PC build resources to get this ability. In the fiction? Because the barbarian is brave but not inspiring - his/her allies shake their heads at his/her recklessness, for instance, rather than being moved to emulate.This is somewhat similar to the fact that the gods regularly answer the prayers of cleric PCs, but rarely answer the prayers of non-cleric PCs, even though the latter may be just as devout as the former.I'm with Neonchameleon here - if the mechanics don't in fact produce an outcome whereby inspiration from the battle captain will turn the tide of battle, they are not doing their job. In D&D, the most fundamental and time-honoured way to turn the tide of battle is to infuse extra hp into the PCs.</blockquote>

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