I've had the chance to see our party's Warlord in action over a handful of sessions now, and so far nothing has changed my original opinion of this new class.
In fact, it seems to have the same "flaws" that the 3.5 version of the Cleric had. In that the majority of the Warlord's rounds are spent bestowing things upon his fellow adventurers. The Cleric used to "waste" actions on healing (a "problem" fixed by healing surges) and now the Warlord "wastes" actions either moving other players, or giving them an extra attack.
Granted, an extra attack or move is always appreciated. But, do we really need a new class for this purpose? Just give powers to the individual classes to do it themselves, just like with Healing Surges.
Personally, I've never cared for playing a Cleric because of the burden of healing party members. I'll certainly never play a Warlord.
The thing that probably miffs me about this "class" is that I can't shake the feeling that they bumped the Sorcerer to make room for it in the PHB.
Bastards.
Showing posts with label warlord. Show all posts
Showing posts with label warlord. Show all posts
Monday, October 20, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
The Warlord Revisited
I know I had some doubts about the Warlord class and now that I’ve had a look at the class in play (thanks to the newest addition to our group), I should in all fairness provide an update. Here it is.
Right off the bat I’ve gotta say that the class is very good at what it’s designed for. It’s powers are centered around moving allies into the right spots to control a battlefield (or dungeon room or whatever) and the class does that very well. Played properly I think a Warlord could force even the most disfunctional group of players into acting like a well oiled fighting machine.
At the same time, in it’s purest “build” (I hate that term!) the Warlord doesn’t do a lot of damage. It strikes me as a true “leader” (yuck!) in that it’s contribution isn’t in damage dice but in hidden, or subtle adds. Once you factor in all the hits that would have been misses, and the extra sneak attack damage etc… the Warlord does pull it’s weight.
On the other hand, I still don’t see why it’s powers couldn’t have been split into the paladin and cleric classes. Tried and true classes that can easily fit the “leader role” (cringe). If nothing else, rolling the Warlord’s powers into those classes would have given players extra “builds” (fuck, I hate myself right now) for their clerics and paladins.
Plus, there were rounds where our warlord used his power to give our paladin an extra attack on an enemy. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t one of the design goals to give every player something cool to do on every turn? Hence the healing surges and second winds to free up of the cleric from casting cure spells every other round. Yet, the warlord on two separate rounds did, for all intents and purposes, nothing. Weird.
Most damning of all, in my mind at least, is that the Warlord’s roots clearly show. It’s a Mini through and through. If you need any evidence to prove that 4e is nothing but D&D Minis with some roleplaying elements thrown over top, look no further. I present Exhibit A. The Warlord. Case closed.
That aside, the warlord is overall an interesting class with some nice powers. Does it have a place in 4e? Sure. Does it deserve it’s spot in the PHB? Not in my opinion. Will I ever play one? Nope. Not my cup of tea.
Right off the bat I’ve gotta say that the class is very good at what it’s designed for. It’s powers are centered around moving allies into the right spots to control a battlefield (or dungeon room or whatever) and the class does that very well. Played properly I think a Warlord could force even the most disfunctional group of players into acting like a well oiled fighting machine.
At the same time, in it’s purest “build” (I hate that term!) the Warlord doesn’t do a lot of damage. It strikes me as a true “leader” (yuck!) in that it’s contribution isn’t in damage dice but in hidden, or subtle adds. Once you factor in all the hits that would have been misses, and the extra sneak attack damage etc… the Warlord does pull it’s weight.
On the other hand, I still don’t see why it’s powers couldn’t have been split into the paladin and cleric classes. Tried and true classes that can easily fit the “leader role” (cringe). If nothing else, rolling the Warlord’s powers into those classes would have given players extra “builds” (fuck, I hate myself right now) for their clerics and paladins.
Plus, there were rounds where our warlord used his power to give our paladin an extra attack on an enemy. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t one of the design goals to give every player something cool to do on every turn? Hence the healing surges and second winds to free up of the cleric from casting cure spells every other round. Yet, the warlord on two separate rounds did, for all intents and purposes, nothing. Weird.
Most damning of all, in my mind at least, is that the Warlord’s roots clearly show. It’s a Mini through and through. If you need any evidence to prove that 4e is nothing but D&D Minis with some roleplaying elements thrown over top, look no further. I present Exhibit A. The Warlord. Case closed.
That aside, the warlord is overall an interesting class with some nice powers. Does it have a place in 4e? Sure. Does it deserve it’s spot in the PHB? Not in my opinion. Will I ever play one? Nope. Not my cup of tea.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Redundancy, thy name is Warlord
As much as I appreciate the reasonably detailed preview of the "new" Warlord class, I really don't see the need for it. I just don't see anything that this class brings which isn't or can't be covered by the paladin or cleric.
Sure. I should really wait to see the nitty gritty details on the paladin and cleric before flying off the handle. But where's the fun in that?
Anyways. Regardless of which "build" (might as well say "cookie cutter" or "road map") of Warlord is chosen it all smacks of paladin and cleric. It's like those two classes hooked up after a night of heavy drinking and nine months later the Warlord was born. And now we're all forced to pat this ugly little bastard on the head and gush about what a beautiful baby it is.
Seriously. Does the Warlord bring anything new to the game?
The other redundant classes; the sorcerer, barbarian, and bard all brought something different to the table. A different method of choosing and prepping spells, rage and DR, and inspiring songs (yeah, the bard is just a super gay class). Admittedly those things really aren't a lot but they are something at least.
From the preview article, "Warlords are accomplished and competent battle leaders. Warlords stand on the front line issuing commands and bolstering their allies while leading the battle with weapon in hand. Warlords know how to rally a team to win a fight."
Sounds like a Fighter, or Paladin, or even a martial focused Cleric. Not sure why we need another class issuing commands in battle.
Sure. I should really wait to see the nitty gritty details on the paladin and cleric before flying off the handle. But where's the fun in that?
Anyways. Regardless of which "build" (might as well say "cookie cutter" or "road map") of Warlord is chosen it all smacks of paladin and cleric. It's like those two classes hooked up after a night of heavy drinking and nine months later the Warlord was born. And now we're all forced to pat this ugly little bastard on the head and gush about what a beautiful baby it is.
Seriously. Does the Warlord bring anything new to the game?
The other redundant classes; the sorcerer, barbarian, and bard all brought something different to the table. A different method of choosing and prepping spells, rage and DR, and inspiring songs (yeah, the bard is just a super gay class). Admittedly those things really aren't a lot but they are something at least.
From the preview article, "Warlords are accomplished and competent battle leaders. Warlords stand on the front line issuing commands and bolstering their allies while leading the battle with weapon in hand. Warlords know how to rally a team to win a fight."
Sounds like a Fighter, or Paladin, or even a martial focused Cleric. Not sure why we need another class issuing commands in battle.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Warlord Crwth has a nice ring to it
I may have mentioned before, but the warlord role is one that appeals to be, just behind the role of healer. As a player, I'm definitely more interested in being there for the party, providing buffs, healing, morale bonuses and the like. I'm quite happy to let others dish out the hurt. Let's take a look at a couple of the powers that the 4th edition warlord will have available, at the almost two-week old post that I've been neglecting.
Pin The Foe. This is exactly what I'm talking about - a way to help the real bruisers (be it physical or magical) get the job done. If there was anything that stymied a party in 3rd edition, it was having to continually shift (as the five-foot step is now called) every round to try and maintain flanking around a tough foe. Now we not only have a nice new term for it, but a way to negate it. Very nice.
White Raven Onslaught. I'm not sure I get this one. I can see, perhaps, a need to slide an ally once in a while, but how often? I suppose this is a good counter to Pin The Foe. It doesn't mention that you may slide them, though; oversight, or do you just get too into your onslaught that you have no choice?
Iron Dragon Charge. Another interesting power, though it again exposes some of the wording that we've seen. This is a daily power, which means you can use it once, and it means, then, that you target one opponent with this Iron Dragon Charge. The Effect, however, says that "[u]ntil the end of the encounter" an ally can charge a target that you charge as an immediate action.
Now, I'm assuming that this means the target of this power, but really, players and rules lawyers are going to argue that even after the fact, if I just do a regular charge on a different opponent, I can enable that chosen ally to also charge this new foe. I'll beat my players with a DM's Guide if they try to argue that with me, of course, but I hope the wording for these new powers is getting a little more attention before being published, though they recently announced that the books have gone to the printers, so I guess I'm hoping that they've gotten that attention already. Getting errata the day the book comes out will be disappointing.
Pin The Foe. This is exactly what I'm talking about - a way to help the real bruisers (be it physical or magical) get the job done. If there was anything that stymied a party in 3rd edition, it was having to continually shift (as the five-foot step is now called) every round to try and maintain flanking around a tough foe. Now we not only have a nice new term for it, but a way to negate it. Very nice.
White Raven Onslaught. I'm not sure I get this one. I can see, perhaps, a need to slide an ally once in a while, but how often? I suppose this is a good counter to Pin The Foe. It doesn't mention that you may slide them, though; oversight, or do you just get too into your onslaught that you have no choice?
Iron Dragon Charge. Another interesting power, though it again exposes some of the wording that we've seen. This is a daily power, which means you can use it once, and it means, then, that you target one opponent with this Iron Dragon Charge. The Effect, however, says that "[u]ntil the end of the encounter" an ally can charge a target that you charge as an immediate action.
Now, I'm assuming that this means the target of this power, but really, players and rules lawyers are going to argue that even after the fact, if I just do a regular charge on a different opponent, I can enable that chosen ally to also charge this new foe. I'll beat my players with a DM's Guide if they try to argue that with me, of course, but I hope the wording for these new powers is getting a little more attention before being published, though they recently announced that the books have gone to the printers, so I guess I'm hoping that they've gotten that attention already. Getting errata the day the book comes out will be disappointing.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Baker's does'n' disappoint
I just finished reading Rich Baker's latest blog (to which I don't think I'm ready to link, for fear of alienating readers of this blog with the putrescent green of Gleemax), and while it doesn't give any facts, it does let us wonder about a few things.
Baker mentions that he considers moving his 3.5 character to a fighter instead of a warlord, because the fighter is a "defender", as his old 3.5 warblade would be. Again with the roles. What was the role of a warlord? I don't remember, but roles still get my hackles up.
It's good to see that heavy armor still affects the usefulness of Dexterity. Not that we had heard anything to the contrary, but this is a new version, and who knows what will change. I always liked this balance of AC-from-armor and AC-from-Dexterity, because it helped define the type of character you were creating, whether a tank, a sneak... hrm. These sound like roles.
The Toughness feat has changed. That's good, because while my first 3rd edition character had taken it, it was never taken again unless required by another feat or a prestige class. Dungeons & Dragons Online have made it useful, both with progressive benefits as well as from their enhancement system. Perhaps 4th edition is doing something similar?
Warlords are healers? Oh, right, there we go - warlords are "leaders", and I vaguely remember writing about that, and what we know of that role. It sounds like the powers from which you choose (the talent-trees or whatever we end up with) have a good range to let you customize your class, as he mentions he went with "mostly offensive powers" because their party had a cleric.
This Warlord also multiclasses as a Wizard. Wait, doesn't he wear heavy armor? Does that mean that arcane spell failure is gone? Is different? Or perhaps he chooses spells that don't have semantic components, to avoid the problem?
Okay, I'm wrong, there is an actual here-is-something-concrete-from-4e tidbit of information, about one of the Warlord powers, this Hammer and Anvil. I'm not sure I see the "logic" behind such a power; it grants an ally an immediate attack against the same target, but... why? Is it basically providing an attack of opportunity (if that still exists in 4e), by putting the foe off-guard? Is this something that the ally has to know the Warlord can do, to be ready for the sucker-punch? Being a "power", is it a spell-like/supernatural effect that "possesses" the ally and allows/forces them to attack, or at least magically lets them know that now is the time to attack? There was a feat in a splat book that I can't recall, that if TWO characters had the feat, they could use them in combination to do whatever-it-is the feat did, but that made sense, because both had that training, and knew how to work together on that maneuver. I just hope there's a game mechanic that explains how one character's power enables another character like this, such as the attack of opportunity explanation.
At the end of the post, he muses about whether he should have multiclassed the Wizard first, instead of the Warlord. 3rd edition has this dilemma when talking about the first level, since you get that extra boost of skill points -- and thus any multiclassed Rogue is remiss to not take their first level as Rogue -- but other than that, the order in which you take a level really just affects the character level to level, but not in the end (when you're a 5th-level X/5th-level Y). Since this playtest character of Baker's is 10th level, I wonder if he's saying that the end result would have worked out (noticeably) different if he had reversed the order, or if it was just the playability that might have been affected on the way to 10th level.
Lots of questions, but this is one of the few blog posts in a while that gave us something to think about, apart from how to filter out miniature blog posts automatically. Oh, and I guess I'll apologize for the blog's title.
Baker mentions that he considers moving his 3.5 character to a fighter instead of a warlord, because the fighter is a "defender", as his old 3.5 warblade would be. Again with the roles. What was the role of a warlord? I don't remember, but roles still get my hackles up.
It's good to see that heavy armor still affects the usefulness of Dexterity. Not that we had heard anything to the contrary, but this is a new version, and who knows what will change. I always liked this balance of AC-from-armor and AC-from-Dexterity, because it helped define the type of character you were creating, whether a tank, a sneak... hrm. These sound like roles.
The Toughness feat has changed. That's good, because while my first 3rd edition character had taken it, it was never taken again unless required by another feat or a prestige class. Dungeons & Dragons Online have made it useful, both with progressive benefits as well as from their enhancement system. Perhaps 4th edition is doing something similar?
Warlords are healers? Oh, right, there we go - warlords are "leaders", and I vaguely remember writing about that, and what we know of that role. It sounds like the powers from which you choose (the talent-trees or whatever we end up with) have a good range to let you customize your class, as he mentions he went with "mostly offensive powers" because their party had a cleric.
This Warlord also multiclasses as a Wizard. Wait, doesn't he wear heavy armor? Does that mean that arcane spell failure is gone? Is different? Or perhaps he chooses spells that don't have semantic components, to avoid the problem?
Okay, I'm wrong, there is an actual here-is-something-concrete-from-4e tidbit of information, about one of the Warlord powers, this Hammer and Anvil. I'm not sure I see the "logic" behind such a power; it grants an ally an immediate attack against the same target, but... why? Is it basically providing an attack of opportunity (if that still exists in 4e), by putting the foe off-guard? Is this something that the ally has to know the Warlord can do, to be ready for the sucker-punch? Being a "power", is it a spell-like/supernatural effect that "possesses" the ally and allows/forces them to attack, or at least magically lets them know that now is the time to attack? There was a feat in a splat book that I can't recall, that if TWO characters had the feat, they could use them in combination to do whatever-it-is the feat did, but that made sense, because both had that training, and knew how to work together on that maneuver. I just hope there's a game mechanic that explains how one character's power enables another character like this, such as the attack of opportunity explanation.
At the end of the post, he muses about whether he should have multiclassed the Wizard first, instead of the Warlord. 3rd edition has this dilemma when talking about the first level, since you get that extra boost of skill points -- and thus any multiclassed Rogue is remiss to not take their first level as Rogue -- but other than that, the order in which you take a level really just affects the character level to level, but not in the end (when you're a 5th-level X/5th-level Y). Since this playtest character of Baker's is 10th level, I wonder if he's saying that the end result would have worked out (noticeably) different if he had reversed the order, or if it was just the playability that might have been affected on the way to 10th level.
Lots of questions, but this is one of the few blog posts in a while that gave us something to think about, apart from how to filter out miniature blog posts automatically. Oh, and I guess I'll apologize for the blog's title.
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