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Nelyo wrote:

I'm waiting to see how much a warlord can use a good Int and Cha before I make any judgements on this point (or settle on a race for my first character:P ). We've seen three powers that use a Warlord's Int mod so far, and two powers that use a Warlord's Cha mod. One power in each category requires you to have the right class feature. If a Warlord can gain a good amount of versatility by having high Int and Cha, then Tieflings will make excellent versatile warlords. Inspiring Warlords will want to look at Half-elves (who, I'm pretty sure at this point, are getting +2 Cha +2 Con), Dragonborn, and Halflings (Halfling defensive abilities could be good for staying in melee range without putting a strain on the Defender's ability to protect you), while Tactical Warlords will look at Eladrin (and Humans can of course go either way).

From what we've seen so far, with the exception of Commander's Strike, all of the Warlord's stuff is melee smash + give out overall bonuses, so a Warlord won't have to decide on a round to round basis "attack or buff." Strength is definitely going to be a primary attribute for all Warlords, because a lot of the powers we've seen so far only give their full buff on a successful hit (apparently a swing and a miss isn't all that inspiring ). Giving all your allies a +5 bonus on attacks against the solo monster because you have an 18 Int isn't going to happen if your 13 Str makes Lead the Attack miss.

Well, the optimal Str-to-Int values for Lead the Attack can be calculated (not by me, hell no), specially after we get the full rules and are able to add in attack-enhancing feats, racial abilities etc.

I'd say that for this specific power you'd want as high Int as possible (so Eladrin comes to mind) with as low Str as you can go and still have a decent chance of hitting after you include every bonus.

Juriel wrote:

No, but compared to half-elves (advertised to be the best multiclassers), since humans get a third at-will power, they can replace that one with another class's upon taking the multiclassing feat, rather than having one class's at-will power as a per-encounter one with a half-elf...

At-will as an at-will is better than an at-will as a per-encounter power. And since humans get an extra feat, they still have the same amount of feats left after that as the half-elf without it... They just have the power usable more often, and the other extra bits from the multiclassing feat.

So currently, to my eyes, humans seem to win the multiclassing thing. Especially if half-elves' main claim to fame are things like +1 to party Diplomacy.

Um, the bolded part is incredibly true, to the point where the underlined part seems unlikely. Letting a fighter actually take a ranged Burst 2 at-will from the wizard seems like it would be impressively over the top, especially now that we've seen the limitation of the fighter mark.

Does the limitation on the fighter mark deserve a thread yet? That is, (according to the KotS package, apparently) the mark fades every round, so a fighter can only keep as many things marked as he can attack in the round. (Mark fades after the fighter's next turn). That seems like a big limitation on the "fighter MCing into wizard for fireball to mark everything at once" idea that floated around the old boards a lot.

Humans are going to be the best Battle Mages - hands down. Consider this:

* Action Surge - A Human Feat that provides a +3 bonus to all attacks made using an Action Point. Wizards use AOE's that in 4e cause multiple attacks (i.e. multiple rolls). Plus three to each is really something special in 4e.
* Battlemage Action - A Paragon Power that gives the character +4 to all attack rolls for when they use an Action Point until the end of their next turn.
* Implement Mastery - A class feature that gives the character +2 to a single attack roll as a Free Action once per encounter. Currently, we've only seen Wand Mastery but I think there will be Staff Mastery as well. The difference was spelled out in RnC, staves being the implement of AoE spells.


I imagine massive strikes from Human Wizards in 4e would look something like this:
Round 1 - Use an Action Point and cast a Cone of Cold (with Lingering Frost) against the targets to Immobilize them with a total of +7 to hit. Then cast Frostburn using Implement Mastery with total of +6 to hit and +5 to damage. The Lingering Frost will give them Vuln 5 Cold which means they take an additional 5 points of damage for starting in a "Frost Burned" square for 10pts per round.
Round 2 - Cast Prismatic Spray on the targets for +4 to hit to cause Blindness so they stay in the Frostburn and take another 10pts. Otherwise, if there's one left blast it with a Ray of Frost to slow it for a turn keeping it in the frost to cause more damage.


Only Human Wizards can "Set Up" llike that because of Action Surge.

Rasmfrackn wrote:

Um, the bolded part is incredibly true, to the point where the underlined part seems unlikely. Letting a fighter actually take a ranged Burst 2 at-will from the wizard seems like it would be impressively over the top, especially now that we've seen the limitation of the fighter mark.

Oopsy-daisy, I forgot the base multiclass feats don't give a power power, just a class power. And I just remembered that there were three power swap feats, so I remembered they mapped directly to at-will/encounter/daily. Totally missed that one of them is a utility. That's where the confusion comes from.

So, never mind me, no-one's getting another's at-wills as at-wills unless they're willing to give up a Paragon path for it. A half-elf fighter getting a Scorching Burst off once per encounter and marking all those foes hit by it might be interesting, and have its own place... But Half-Elves still seem weak, but now I see their specialty.