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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Caffinicus" data-source="post: 6146764" data-attributes="member: 78909">It seems like there is a larger discussion of the Warlord concept, and whether it should be shoehorned into Next, and whether it should be a healer. First.  A few thoughts on the Warlord.  Many of these are opinions of mine, and therefore, BIASED.[FONT=Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]I really like the CONCEPT of a warlord class.  Like the "loremaster" of dream park, it is a character built around improving the function of the party around him.  CONCEPTUALLY, I like that.  In EXECUTION, not so much.  The Warlord of 4E was a terrible mishmash of ideas.  It was constrained by the clerical armor restrictions (until feat support improved the situation), it was lacking in offensive punch, it took too many attributes to function, often it sacrificed it's actions to give actions to other characters in, what I saw to be, the most reprehensible demonstration of poor self-esteem building ever, e.g. "I'll just stand here.  You take my actions.  You can do better with them than I would."  It seemed built to do this, at a design level.  It had some non-denominational healing, and it gave out actions.  When it took actions, they were lackluster, which enhanced the 'low-self-esteem' image.  Sure, there were a couple of builds, suicidal, arse-to-the-wind builds, that were different, and cool, and took hits for others, and punished the enemy for attacking the warlord.  IF DM's didn't go around you, ignoring your tricks to eat the creamy center of the party you were trying to protect.  In EXECUTION, the warlord was an exercise in misery, designed to diminish the self-esteem of the player until he finally was a passive-aggressive ball of hate who could properly play his class.  That's bad design.[/FONT] So, stepping away from that. I don't understand the point of "metagame tool to fill a hole in the rules".  What's the hole we're talking about?  Healing? There are already two classes that can do that.  Are we talking about the 4E "self-heal" and trying to indicate that having a character have to do it is filling that hole?  I'd need a bit more context to the argument. Assuming that is what is being said, then I can point out that having a character who sacrifices a percentage of his energy/attention/capacity to have the ability to 'on-the-spot' restore to function characters who have become the "point of contact" with the enemy is not covering a gap in the rules, but is serving a valuable service.  Ideally such a character should have high mobility and high durability, and low damage infliction potential.  Historically, Clerics have never quite hit that right.  They tend to hit too hard, and have too little mobility, making them function more like something the players have to escort, or a rallying point for the party. Now, if the idea that a warlord, or "battle captain" should be able to keep his friends in a fight, as opposed to the cleric's function of getting them BACK in the fight, then Warlord mechanics should focus on REDUCING the damage the party takes, whether by defense buffs (not ideal) or by damage reduction (tricky to implement, but feels right) or by giving a 'pool' of hit points that his companions can draw from (very strange, and might result in warlords being super tough on their own).In this way, they would be keeping their team mates in the fight, in formation, not having to break off and be drug back to the column, and would lose effectiveness when teammates broke off on their own.  For this, they should pay a price in combat effectiveness against say, a fighter, and mobility, against say a cleric. You might notice that's a tough spot to hit.  Historically: Fighters = Tough, both in hp and AC, hard hitting and consistent.  Thieves=Fragile, but hard to hit, inconsistent, but SUPER hard hitting, usually once a fight.  Clerics= Not as tough as a fighter, but close.  Soft hitting, and poor at it, healers. Wizards=fragile as glass and easy to hit, but mobile, and multi-target super-hard hitting.  Trying to fit into that a Warlord=Tougher than a cleric, but not so much as a fighter, with AC as good, consistent, but not as hard hitting as a fighter, more than a cleric, and DR aura. How do you do that?  d9 HP?  No armor restriction?  Fighter attack bonuses, but weapons that limit you to d8 damage? Do the DR aura, or HP pool work like spells, or as a constant? It's a tricky balance. A few more thoughts on DR aura. I believe that this will hit the target of being balanced within the other class abilities, and not identical to the cleric's healing abilities.  It will, however, have greater effect the longer a fight goes.  A longer, harder battle will magnify the results.  This would make a warlord more greatly affect the outcome of a larger battle, where clerics would have a much larger ability to correct for single moments of failure.  In so doing, it would make them feel like different classes. Hope those are interesting. [FONT=Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]Caffinicus[/FONT]</blockquote>

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