Why are there no sneaky leaders?

[Nifft]

Striker=>Highly Mobile=>Light Armor (No movement penalty).

Fey Warlocks move around in heavy armor or light.

Sorcerers can stand still and kick butt -- same with Archery Rangers.

There's nothing inherent in "Striker" that demands mobility, just as there's nothing inherent in "Leader" which precludes it.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Rechan]

Fey Warlocks move around in heavy armor or light.

Sorcerers can stand still and kick butt -- same with Archery Rangers.

But, notice your examples all preclude guys who stand in the BACK and fire ranged attacks. Getting in and out of melee isn't what they're focused on doing. Hell, all of those guys have powers to get them OUT of melee (teleportation or powers that let them flee).

They aren't about movement because they don't need to move.

Any class that gets into melee and gets out (Avenger, Barbarian, Rogue, Melee Ranger, Assassin, Monk) is heavily encouraged to move their ass. Heavy armor would hamper that. Even the Tempest Fighter, which does a lot of shifting and moving, has incentives for light armor.

Namely these strikers move because they don't want to get surrounded (as they can easily get splattered having low Hp and low armor), or need to move around the front ranks to get to the back ranks. Or chase down fleeing enemies (in the Avenger's case).

Thus, a heavy armored melee striker would have issues getting around the front ranks to the better targets.

 

[Nifft]

But, notice your examples all preclude guys who stand in the BACK and fire ranged attacks. Getting in and out of melee isn't what they're focused on doing. Hell, all of those guys have powers to get them OUT of melee (teleportation or powers that let them flee).

They aren't about movement because they don't need to move. But a heavy armored striker who hits hard would need to be able to move around.

1/ Who says the heavy-armor Striker needs to be a melee dude? Many laser Clerics wear heavy armor, and they utterly suck at melee. Armor is there because you lack a Dex or Int bonus to AC, melee vs. ranged is an irrelevant axis.

2/ I've seen low-Dex, plate-clad Dwarf Rangers, and they do just dandy. You don't need mobility if you aren't squishy, and if you don't care about flanking.

Cheers, -- N

 

[yesnomu]

Here's a fun one: a level 16 Elf Watcher Shaman, built around being stealthy and making her allies stealthy too. +33 Stealth all the time, and +38 with her spirit next to her.

[sblock]
====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Enna, level 16
Elf, Shaman, Ghost Panther
Companion Spirit: Watcher Spirit
Background: Occupation - Criminal (+2 to Stealth)

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 11, Con 13, Dex 22, Int 13, Wis 22, Cha 9.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 10, Con 12, Dex 16, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 8.


AC: 29 Fort: 25 Reflex: 29 Will: 30
HP: 100 Surges: 8 Surge Value: 25

TRAINED SKILLS
Nature +21, Insight +19, Arcana +14, Perception +21, Stealth +33

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +20, Bluff +7, Diplomacy +7, Dungeoneering +14, Endurance +9, Heal +14, History +9, Intimidate +7, Religion +9, Streetwise +7, Thievery +14, Athletics +14

FEATS
Level 1: Shadow Initiate
Level 2: Sudden Call
Level 4: Strengthening Spirit
Level 6: Dusk Elf Stealth
Level 8: Gloaming Ward
Level 10: Mark of Shadow
Level 11: Paragon Defenses
Level 12: Secret Stride
Level 14: Silent Shadows
Level 16: Midnight Stalker

POWERS
Shaman at-will 1: Voice of Battle
Shaman encounter 1: Stormhawk's Fury
Shaman daily 1: Stone Root Spirit
Shaman utility 2: Stormhawk Vigilance
Shaman encounter 3: Spirit of Slavering Bloodlust
Shaman daily 5: Spirit of the Hawk's Wind
Shaman utility 6: Spur the Pack
Shaman encounter 7: Guardian Eagle Flock
Shaman daily 9: Ancient Warlord's Inspiration
Shaman utility 10: Twilight's Veil
Shaman encounter 13: Call to the Laughing Fortune (replaces Stormhawk's Fury)
Shaman daily 15: Tree Father's Bounty (replaces Spirit of the Hawk's Wind)
Shaman utility 16: Spirits of the Shadowed Moon

ITEMS
Footpads, Displacer Leather Armor +3, Elven Cloak +4, Magic Totem +4
====== Copy to Clipboard and Press the Import Button on the Summary Tab ======
[/sblock]

 

[Rechan]

1/ Who says the heavy-armor Striker needs to be a melee dude? Many laser Clerics wear heavy armor, and they utterly suck at melee. Armor is there because you lack a Dex or Int bonus to AC, melee vs. ranged is an irrelevant axis.

I think that's what's being discussed though.

2/ I've seen low-Dex, plate-clad Dwarf Rangers, and they do just dandy. You don't need mobility if you aren't squishy, and if you don't care about flanking.

Must have cost him some feats to do that. And, again. The rangers have lots of movement powers regardless of if you utilize them. I can make a sword-wielding mage, that doesn't mean that they aren't designed to utilize swords.

 

[mneme]

Actually, the primary reason melee strikers are always mobile (and that strikers are generally mobile; good catch on that for why Wizards has favored putting them in light armor) is because the striker formula isn't "moar damage" -- it's "moar damage + target choice". In order to have a good choice of targets, you more or less need mobility -- either to get to the right point in melee to be able to take out your target, or to get -out- of melee and keep blasting.

Same reason, really, that Stealth is rare among non-strikers. But that doesn't mean dex builds (which are what you want if you want to pick up Stealth via a background, racial, or whatnot) need to be as rare as they are (particularly among leaders).

The stat preferences are kinda interesting, mind. I mean, we've got:

Defender: Str
Striker: Dex
Controller: Int
Leader: Wis

Arcane: Int, Controlling
Martial: Str, Defending
Primal: Con, Striking
Divine: Wis, Leading

Not sure about Psionic (I'd guess Controlling/Wis) and Shadow (striking/Dex again? Striking/Con?) yet.

But regarding the role/stat relationship, it's kinda clear why -that- is -- there are fairly strong relationships between certain skills and certain roles (all Leaders have heal as a class skill, most strikers have Stealth and nobody (ish?) else does, most/all Controllers have Arcane, most defenders have Althletics and probably Intimidate (why isn't Intimidate the Str based social skill again? We could have had Dip=wis, Bluff=chr, Int=Str and let everyone talk), and the skills help push design.

 

[Starfox]

Here's a fun one: a level 16 Elf Watcher Shaman, built around being stealthy and making her allies stealthy too. +33 Stealth all the time, and +38 with her spirit next to her.

I like pushing the envelope on what I can't do. So I'm playing a Warlord with 14 dex, stealth training, and an elven cloak. I'm wearing scale and light shield so no skill penalty. My stealth is as good as our ranger, and one behind our rogue. I can lead them for an ambush or alpha strike if we ever need to.

It is very nice if you can get a stealthy leader to work, but you do have to give up tour secondary attribute to do it. Now, at least for some Leaders, that might be quite doable. Which shows 4E, at least yo some of us, if a flexible system open to builds outside the box. Again this is nice, but not quite the same thing as a Dex-based leader.

There's nothing inherent in "Striker" that demands mobility, just as there's nothing inherent in "Leader" which precludes it.

Strikers specialize in dealing high amounts of damage to a single target at a time. They have the most concentrated offense of any character in the game. Strikers rely on superior mobility, trickery, or magic to move around tough foes and single out the enemy they want to attack.

I am afraid that the definition of Striker includes mobility (or at least some way to pick their targets), as others said above me. But later classes have stretched the role mold, and I could see a less-mobile striker these days. And not everyone likes the roles.

 

[Garthanos]

(why isn't Intimidate the Str based social skill again?

I expect to see something very similar to the Duelists Panache... DP allows a rogue to apply dex as an additional boost to athletics (why isnt climbing have a dex emphasis).

Could be called Fearsome Might?

 

[Garthanos]

(why isn't Intimidate the Str based social skill again?

I expect to see something very similar to the Duelists Panache... DP allows a rogue to apply dex as an additional boost to athletics (why isnt climbing have a dex emphasis).

Could be called Fearsome Might?

(somebody presented a fighter utility idea and called it Knuckle Cracking to do the same thing if I recall correctly)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Leaders rely on a way to communicate information, orders or advice. I think that is always an issue when you want to stay stealthy. The military has developed simple sign languages to facilitate silent communication, but it obviously still requires line of sight.

Military leaders might often send someone else to scout. This means they don't really need to be stealthy themselves.

Stealth is more associated with Strikers because it helps them getting to their target - and retreat from it again - without getting stopped in between.

If there was a chance for a decent "sneaky" leader, the Skirmisher Warlord might have been it, but unfortunately, they didn't want to give the Warlord a second primary ability score.

At some point I do have to write down my Resourceful Racketeer build for the Rogue. It's still a Striker, but it might have Leader as secondary role.