A Fighter's greatest weapon is his sword. A Warlord's greatest weapon is his allies.
To me, that is the major difference between a Fighter and a Warlord. There are plenty of ways they can mechanically show this, enough to justify the Warlord being a class on it's own, not to mention the Inspirational Leader is a classic archtype that just can't be quite modeled by the Bard IMO.
Warlords are not just as good with weapons as fighters, not only can the vast majority of warlords not use heavy armor, but there is a vast differenc between proficiency with weapons, and being a good fighter. For example warlord powers never surpass 5 (w) to my knowledge, while fighter, rogue and barbarian can all claim powers that wrangle 6+. Fighters also do more with their wepoans such as having powers with special abilities based on weapon choice instead of just powers that only work with certain weapons, fighters do all the stuff their powers describe themselves, a warlord on the other hand has to have allies for most of his powers to mean anything, and finally there are lazy lord builds that never make their own attack rolls.
F-111 Interdictor Long (200+ squares) distance ally teleporter. With some warlord stuff. Broken in a plot way, not a power way. Thought Switch Higher level build that grants upto 14 attacks on turn 1. If your allies play along, it's broken. Elven Critters Crit op with crit generation. 5 of these will end anything. Broken. King Fisher Does an excellent job at keeping an enemy disabled in a few ways. Strong. Boominator Fun catch-22 booming blade build with either strong or completely broken damage depending on your reading. Very Distracting Warlock Lot's of dazing and major penalties to hit. Overpowered. Pocket Protector Pixie Stealth Knight. Maximizing the defender's aura by being in an ally's/enemy's square. Yakuza NinjIntimiAdin: Perma-stealth Striker that offers a little protection for ally's, and can intimidate bloodied enemies. Very Strong. Chargeburgler with cheese Ranged attacks at the end of a charge along with perma-stealth. Solid, could be overpowered if tweaked. Void Defender Defends giving a penalty to hit anyone but him, then removing himself from play. Can get somewhat broken in epic. Scry and Die Attacking from around corners, while staying hidden. Moderate to broken, depending on the situation. Skimisher Fly in, attack, and fly away. Also prevents enemies from coming close. Moderate to Broken depending on the enemy, but shouldn't make the game un-fun, as the rest of your team is at risk, and you have enough weaknesses. Indestructible Simply won't die, even if you sleep though combat. Sir Robin (Bravely Charge Away) He automatically slows and pushes an enemy (5 squares), while charging away. Hard to rate it's power level, since it's terrain dependent. Death's Gatekeeper A fun twist on a healic, making your party "unkillable". Overpowered to Broken, but shouldn't actually make the game un-fun, just TPK proof. Death's Gatekeeper mk2, (Stealth Edition) Make your party "unkillable", and you hidden, while doing solid damage. Stronger then the above, but also easier for a DM to shut down. Broken, until your DM get's enough of it. Domination and Death Dominate everything then kill them quickly. Only works @ 30, but is broken multiple ways. Battlemind Mc Prone-Daze Protecting your allies by keeping enemies away. Quite powerful. The Retaliator Getting hit deals more damage to the enemy then you receive yourself, and you can take plenty of hits. Heavy item dependency, Broken. Dead Kobold Transit Teleports 98 squares a turn, and can bring someone along for the ride. Not fully built, so i can't judge the power Psilent Guardian Protect your allies, while being invisible. Overpowered, possibly broken Unnamed Avenger|Runepriest/Hammer of Vengance Do lot's of damage while boosting your teams. Strong to slightly overpowered. Charedent BarrageA charging ardent. Fine in a normal team, overpowered if there are 2 together, and easily broken in teams of 5. Super Knight A tough, sticky, high damage knight. Strong. Super Duper Knight Basically the same as super knight, only far more broken. Mora, the unkillable avenger Solid damage, while being neigh indestuctable. Overpowered, but not broken. Swordburst Maximus At-Will Close Burst 3 that slide and prones. Protects allies with off actions. Strong, possibly over powered with the right party.
The problem with the image challenge Jester, is similar to the issues with finding a picture of a rogue who couldn't possibly have fighter or monk levels. While the classes are different the differences ar enot always vissually apparent in still images.
The problem with the image challenge Jester, is similar to the issues with finding a picture of a rogue who couldn't possibly have fighter or monk levels. While the classes are different the differences ar enot always vissually apparent in still images.
That's a big difference. You can find pictures that are very much rogues or rangers or fighters. There's a visual difference between sorcerers and wizards, and between clerics and paladins. I'm not asking for avengers versus rogue/cleric multiclass or even assassins and rogues. The question is: is there a visual difference? At all. Or a non-personality difference in presentation. Would a fighter with high Int and the healer speciality act all that different from a warlord? Couldn't there be a tactical fighter? The game did quite well representing generals with just fighters before. I concede it could have been better, but that doesn't mean we need a whole new class.
Warlords are not just as good with weapons as fighters, not only can the vast majority of warlords not use heavy armor, but there is a vast differenc between proficiency with weapons, and being a good fighter. For example warlord powers never surpass 5 (w) to my knowledge, while fighter, rogue and barbarian can all claim powers that wrangle 6+. Fighters also do more with their wepoans such as having powers with special abilities based on weapon choice instead of just powers that only work with certain weapons, fighters do all the stuff their powers describe themselves, a warlord on the other hand has to have allies for most of his powers to mean anything, and finally there are lazy lord builds that never make their own attack rolls.
That's a very 4e example. That's like saying warlords are different because they didn't get multiple attacks from weapon specialization. It's one mechanical implementation of the class. There's no reason a warlord coudn't do that, it's not anti-warlord.
Before posting, ask yourself WWWS: What Would Wrecan Say?
F-111 Interdictor Long (200+ squares) distance ally teleporter. With some warlord stuff. Broken in a plot way, not a power way. Thought Switch Higher level build that grants upto 14 attacks on turn 1. If your allies play along, it's broken. Elven Critters Crit op with crit generation. 5 of these will end anything. Broken. King Fisher Does an excellent job at keeping an enemy disabled in a few ways. Strong. Boominator Fun catch-22 booming blade build with either strong or completely broken damage depending on your reading. Very Distracting Warlock Lot's of dazing and major penalties to hit. Overpowered. Pocket Protector Pixie Stealth Knight. Maximizing the defender's aura by being in an ally's/enemy's square. Yakuza NinjIntimiAdin: Perma-stealth Striker that offers a little protection for ally's, and can intimidate bloodied enemies. Very Strong. Chargeburgler with cheese Ranged attacks at the end of a charge along with perma-stealth. Solid, could be overpowered if tweaked. Void Defender Defends giving a penalty to hit anyone but him, then removing himself from play. Can get somewhat broken in epic. Scry and Die Attacking from around corners, while staying hidden. Moderate to broken, depending on the situation. Skimisher Fly in, attack, and fly away. Also prevents enemies from coming close. Moderate to Broken depending on the enemy, but shouldn't make the game un-fun, as the rest of your team is at risk, and you have enough weaknesses. Indestructible Simply won't die, even if you sleep though combat. Sir Robin (Bravely Charge Away) He automatically slows and pushes an enemy (5 squares), while charging away. Hard to rate it's power level, since it's terrain dependent. Death's Gatekeeper A fun twist on a healic, making your party "unkillable". Overpowered to Broken, but shouldn't actually make the game un-fun, just TPK proof. Death's Gatekeeper mk2, (Stealth Edition) Make your party "unkillable", and you hidden, while doing solid damage. Stronger then the above, but also easier for a DM to shut down. Broken, until your DM get's enough of it. Domination and Death Dominate everything then kill them quickly. Only works @ 30, but is broken multiple ways. Battlemind Mc Prone-Daze Protecting your allies by keeping enemies away. Quite powerful. The Retaliator Getting hit deals more damage to the enemy then you receive yourself, and you can take plenty of hits. Heavy item dependency, Broken. Dead Kobold Transit Teleports 98 squares a turn, and can bring someone along for the ride. Not fully built, so i can't judge the power Psilent Guardian Protect your allies, while being invisible. Overpowered, possibly broken Unnamed Avenger|Runepriest/Hammer of Vengance Do lot's of damage while boosting your teams. Strong to slightly overpowered. Charedent BarrageA charging ardent. Fine in a normal team, overpowered if there are 2 together, and easily broken in teams of 5. Super Knight A tough, sticky, high damage knight. Strong. Super Duper Knight Basically the same as super knight, only far more broken. Mora, the unkillable avenger Solid damage, while being neigh indestuctable. Overpowered, but not broken. Swordburst Maximus At-Will Close Burst 3 that slide and prones. Protects allies with off actions. Strong, possibly over powered with the right party.
That's a big difference. You can find pictures that are very much rogues or rangers or fighters. There's a visual difference between sorcerers and wizards, and between clerics and paladins.
I don't really agree with this. It's really hard to find something visually that distinguishes a Cleric from a Paladin. Hell even a Cleric/Paladin from a Fighter with a religious bent, unless the picture shows him actually using magic. A difference between sorcerers and wizards? If you don't have a spellbook being shown, you really can't tell the difference visually between the two. A Ranger might be distinct due to an animal companion, but absent that he could easily be mistaken for a Rogue or light armor fighter.
Frankly there aren't a whole lot of visual cues to distinguish various classes from each other. And that's before you even get into multiclassing or prestige classes or whatever. In general your visual cues are going to be "What type of armor does he wear" "What type of weapon does he wield" and "Does he have access to magic". If you're going to be restricting classes only to what is visually distinct you'll be reduced to a very small number of classes, and likely loose out on a number of traditionally core classes.
Warlords were introduced as a class in 4e, that's the only mechanical back up that exists! They use weapons, yes, so do rogues, artificers, and clerics. All of these classes have weapon and armor profs none of them are as good at using those weapons as a same level fighter would be. The warlord is in the same boat, he just gets bigger weapons and less armor in comparison to the cleric.
When the heck did weapon spec give multiple attacks?
Here's my qustion why do we need an image?
Do you not know who Sokka, King Arthur, Mulan, Captain America, Odin, Alexander the Great, Simone the Digger or Liu Bei are?
Warlords were introduced as a class in 4e, that's the only mechanical back up that exists! They use weapons, yes, so do rogues, artificers, and clerics. All of these classes have weapon and armor profs none of them are as good at using those weapons as a same level fighter would be. The warlord is in the same boat, he just gets bigger weapons and less armor in comparison to the cleric.
When the heck did weapon spec give multiple attacks?
Here's my qustion why do we need an image?
Do you not know who Sokka, King Arthur, Mulan, Captain America, Odin, Alexander the Great, Simone the Digger or Liu Bei are?
Weapon Spec gave multiple attacks in AD&D.
I'll admit, I can't imagine how a Warlord would have fit into AD&D, but that's simply due to the fact that in AD&D only spellcasters got actual abilities. Rogues got the ability to do things that if it were not for the rogue class everyone would have been able to do, and Fighters got the ability to make extra attacks, but nothing that really looks like the Warlord's ability to improve his allies through morale really exists that I can remember.
On the other hand, in 3.X, we do have a class that could be considered a precurser to the Warlord. The Marshal class from the Miniature's Handbook.The Marshall class got passive boosting for his allies, and the ability to grant extra actions. Full weapon and armor proficiencies, but only 3/4 BAB. This seems to fit with the same theme as the Warlord having full weapon and armor proficiencies, but abilities that deal less [W] damage than the more combat oriented classes, in exchange for more potent rider effects (typically rider effects that would boost their allies, as opposed to themselves. Another distinct difference from the 4e fighter).
And no, the ability to affect others and not just yourself is not merely a function of 4e's roles. In 4e most classes had the ability to dip into other roles via some option or another. The Paladin for example could serve as a wannabe leader, and had many powers that would act to buff and heal allies, despite his defender role. If the developers believed that the Fighter was in fact a class that should be able to play as support, rather than wholly focused on improving himself, then that would have been reflected in his power options. However that was not the case. Instead, most of the Fighter's powers were very much striker-esque, with a major focus on dealing damage, with very little in the way of supporting others (except what Defenders naturally do by distracting enemies from their allies). It's pretty clear that the intent is that Fighters do just what it says on the tin-they Fight. They don't lead, or cajole, or support, that's other peoples' job.
Now a very real concern is "Is that a broad enough role in combat?", as is "What does a Fighter do when he isn't Fighting?". In combat, I think the Fighter has a broad enough scope without the leadership capabilities, assuming the developers give them the tools to do what they do have access to well. By that I mean ways to deal with large numbers and varied types of enemies, and a diverse toolkit that lets them respond to even niche situations with ease that other classes can't match. If the Fighter actually lives up to his promise, leadership abilities aren't just unneeded, they're over the top.
The out of combat concern however is much harder. With the Warlord, it's pretty natural. The intelligent warlord has a lot of lore skills, studies tactics, etc. The charismatic warlord acts as a party face and diplomat, he is not just a leader on the field, but also the person who will be dealing with negotiations, interrogations, and all other such things. The Warlord clearly has a place out of combat. The Fighter however, really does not. He's athletic, but frankly the level of mundane athleticism most are willing to accept for the Fighter isn't enough to make him more useful than even low-mid level spells. The Fighter isn't particularly good with coming up with information, interracting, or exploring, and he is bland enough that trying to add any definite schtick to him offends others who don't think that's what a Fighter should be. I think this is where most of the argument comes from that Fighters should be Warlords, because by merging the two, you give the Fighter a natural out of combat niche, the Warlord's out of combat niche. After all, back in AD&D Fighters had a castle and an army, and everyone was happy, right? Rather than addressing the issue that characters who rely primarily on physical stats that aren't dexterity contribute little outside of combat, they seek to destroy a class that does have a natural role to roll it in with one that does not. Honestly, by this metric, the Warlord has more right to exist as a class than a Fighter.
I don't see that as reason to deny the Warlord the right to be a class though, I see it as reason to solve the problem put before us: What does a Fighter contribute out of combat that is unique, and fits with who he is in combat? The Fighter in combat is focused wholly on himself, all of his abilities go towards making himself a better warrior. What happens when we apply that same philosophy to out of combat? What sort of things can the Fighter do that aren't covered by the out of combat roles of the Warlord or Rogue? Or at the very least, what are his natural inclinations towards? Because I'll be honest, as it stands the best option for a Fighter is to go straight dexterity, and pretend like you're a rogue with fewer skills but more combat ability.
The leadership thing just seems like much more of a charactr trait, a personality not a class feature. "Hey, I'm a variant ranger with Charisma and leadership skills like Robin Hood. So I'm not a ranger, I'm a commando." Or "I'm a rogue with knowledge of tactics, so I'm a Strategian."
If a warlord is defined a fighter with social skills, what happens when you give a 5e fighter a high Cha, a background with social skills, the Healer speciality, and role-play him as a leader?
Before posting, ask yourself WWWS: What Would Wrecan Say?
