The Gaming Den

So where is it at for them these days? Mrs. talozin has wrangled an invite to a 4E game, which means I get to go along, and, since the other roles are taken, leader it is. Bards can bite me, Shamans look too fiddly, and psionics give me hives in general. So warlord or cleric it is, and I'm thinking Warlord.

Rest of the party:
drow Predator Druid
gnome Warlock
some sort of indeterminate defender

What's Legal: PHB 1-x, X Power. No Dragon, no Forgotten Realms, no Eberron. Any exceptions are likely to be things that aren't total unmitigated win. Bonus points if I synergize especially well with the Druid.

Since Eladrin appear to still be the taclord master race, I'm planning to go with that, with a "combat librarian" flavor based on knowing the weak points of all sorts of various critters and fighting styles and focused more on getting other people to hit them rather than hitting them myself. Probably with Eladrin Soldier to get Greatspear proficiency for use with those powers that absolutely require me to smack some fool.

Str/Int: 16/16(+2) or 14/18(+2)?

Commander's Strike looks optimal for an Int-based Warlord, but it kinda leaves the Warlock out in the cold. All the same, taking Direct The Strike and Commander's Strike makes me look at myself funny, even if it fits the flavor.

Powerful Warning would fit the flavor perfectly, but requires one of two stats that are unlikely to be high priority. Vengeance Is Mine would probably also be acceptable -- it's reactive, and I'm not playing a pacifist after all.

Daily is probably going to be Lead the Attack. It's somewhat tempting to just dump Strength altogether and do Lead By Example instead, since it's pretty much better when it misses than when it hits.

Your DM is not allowing FR material but is allowing drow, the only book in which they appeared? What an asshole.

Tactical Warlords are mediocre at low levels, especially their powers. Unless you're starting in Paragon, pick something else.

Be a Bravura Warlord instead, especially if you're starting at first level. The extra attack on an AP is worth way more than the +2 to attacks. In paragon, esp. with Battle Captain, this rises quickly enough to be very very worth it but there's just no compelling reason to start out like that. You can even be an INT-Bravura Warlord since even though a lot of great Bravura powers are dependent on CHA the Warlord is so spoiled for choices that you can make an overpowered Warlord that never makes an attack roll. There's even a name for it.

There's a really excellent combo you can pull off at low level but it requires two separate Dragon Material things so it's a no-go. Instead pick Lamb to the Slaughter for your daily and an immediate action attack power of some sort. All of the Warlord 2nd-level utilities are mediocre at best so pick whatever. At level 3 pick another immediate action attack power.

You are picking up Direct the Strike. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about that. This means that someone else in the party needs to have a decent ranged basic attack. You need to pick up Direct the Strike so you don't feel like a fucking idiot for not blowing resources on ranged attacks. As for your other At-Will they all suck. Brash Assault is actually pretty good if you pick up Harlequinn Style but since that was in Dragon Annual 2009 which is a pretty obscure book it may not be available to you. Go with Viper's Strike for your other At-Will I guess. Level 5, you pick Staggering Spin. Level 6, pick up either a heal-boosting power or an attack-boosting power depending on your needs. Level 7, pick Cause Overreach. This will actually make you very glad you boosted your Charisma. If not, pick another immediate action attack.

As far as your first feat goes, you need a +3 reach weapon. Meaning Greatspear. Your next feat you get something that boosts attack. Your next feat is Battle Awareness if you can afford the WIS bonus, which you should if you're going chainmail. Your next feat is Improved Defenses, from HotFL if that's available. If not then it's Weapon Focus. Your next feat after that is that one from Martial Power that grants a saving throw when you use Tactician's Word or whatever the fuck it's called.

Yes, 4E Characters aren't very varied in their feat arrays, why do you ask?

One final thing: unless you're playing a Lazylord, Eladrin are not the master race for Tactical Warlords. In fact they suck cock because they lack that all-important strength bonus. You really want to be a +STR race. Which means Dwarf (with the stupid new double racial bonus rules from HotFL, which may not be allowed since it's Essential stuff) to go STR/CON or if that's not allowed then Dragonborn. You start out with a 20 in STR, that's not negotiable.

As far as magical items go there aren't any good choices at low level, especially if you're not using Eberron stuff. Just pick the highest level item. If your DM isn't using those stupid rarity rules save up for some Iron Armbands of Power, Cloak of the Healer, and Healer's Chainmail. A Weapon of Speed is pretty all right at low levels, which just underscores how junk the whole system is.

My strongest advice really is not to play in a low-level 4E game. Beg your DM to start you out at level 7 or higher. Low level 4E is seriously 'I AT-WILL ATTACK THE ORC!' four rounds in a row.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Your DM is not allowing FR material but is allowing drow, the only book in which they appeared? What an asshole.

Yeah, I don't know what the hell is up with that. I assume the rationale there is that Drow are not actually all that and a bag of chips, plus it's a drow druid and hence unlikely to be imbalancing.

You can even be an INT-Bravura Warlord since even though a lot of great Bravura powers are dependent on CHA the Warlord is so spoiled for choices that you can make an overpowered Warlord that never makes an attack roll. There's even a name for it.

I'll go have a look at those then.

Instead pick Lamb to the Slaughter for your daily and an immediate action attack power of some sort.

Dismayingly, I think LttS is also a Dragon power (unless it's been reprinted somewhere?) For immediate attack dailies, I'm seeing Create a Target (not horrible if the rest of the party is tactically minded ... so maybe not), Leader's Instincts (meh but reliable) and Concentrated Attack (if I stack Int, this is pretty sweet, not so much otherwise).

You are picking up Direct the Strike. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about that. This means that someone else in the party needs to have a decent ranged basic attack. You need to pick up Direct the Strike so you don't feel like a fucking idiot for not blowing resources on ranged attacks.

That'll make the warlock feel happy in the pants, I suppose.

Yes, 4E Characters aren't very varied in their feat arrays, why do you ask?

One final thing: unless you're playing a Lazylord, Eladrin are not the master race for Tactical Warlords.

I was sort of aiming in that direction. But I'm getting the sense from reading stuff online that it requires a bunch of stuff that isn't allowed in this game in order to be maximally effective.

Yes. Lazylords can be effective, but:

1.) They require a ton of campaign/Dragon-specific material.
2.) They lag behind until paragon.
3.) While still more powerful than most leaders because they're friggin' warlords they're still not as good as other warlords.

They're a curiousity, not actually something that you'd want to use.

Lamb to the Slaughter is from Martial Power 2 I believe. It's not an IA daily. Then again I don't know what the rest of your party is like. It's only worth it if you have three people with decent charge attacks. Actually Warlord is only really worth it you have an all-melee or all-ranged party (the latter of which is VERY powerful, especially at low and high levels, but rarely gets to operate at full effectiveess because as you've seen in those Magical Item threads people wank excessively to melee weapons)... if you don't have that, which I don't see you having, why not pick some other class? Ardent works very well (even better than Warlord honestly) if you don't mind some serious repetitiveness. But then again it's low level so it's going to be repetitive anyway.

The 4e Monster Manual also had rules for Drow PCs.

I think it is unlikely (though possible) that we'll have more than one person who is heavily charge-focused. More likely we'll have one melee guy, one mostly-melee guy, one ranged guy, and whatever I wind up with. (Yeah, I know. All one or all the other is better. Not up to me.)

Ardent, seriously? Psionics give me the heebie-jeebies, and anything that you're calling out for its repetitiveness in a 4E game does not fill me with anticipation. What's the cheese that makes that class work?

I suppose it need not be Warlord. I sort of don't want to mess around with Cleric just because keeping track of all the errata surrounding it is giving me a headache, especially since the net result of all that errata is apparently to nerf the crap out of everything that isn't a pacifist healer. Is Rune Priest any good, as long as I'm looking at PHB3 stuff anyway?

talozin wrote: Ardent, seriously? Psionics give me the heebie-jeebies, and anything that you're calling out for its repetitiveness in a 4E game does not fill me with anticipation. What's the cheese that makes that class work?

I suppose it need not be Warlord. I sort of don't want to mess around with Cleric just because keeping track of all the errata surrounding it is giving me a headache, especially since the net result of all that errata is apparently to nerf the crap out of everything that isn't a pacifist healer. Is Rune Priest any good, as long as I'm looking at PHB3 stuff anyway?

The problem with 4e Psionics is that the low level powers cost less PP to augment and the higher level powers may not be good enough to justify taking over some choice lower level ones. (There's a DM who I can get screaming due to traumatic experiences with a Psion spamming Dishearten Augment 2.)

From what I've heard, Runepriest is good (not excelent, but capable) but severely option starved. And rather fiddly. Haven't played one myself.

If you want to have fun, all you have to do is find something sufficiently fiddly to be entertaining but not so weak that it makes you irrelevant. I did that with a psion that spent all his time teleporting enemies around using a low-level at-will. Granted, the airship-focused campaign made it rather more useful than it would have been otherwise, but it was at least not totally boring.

[edit: missed a negation that completely changed the meaning of the first sentence. >_> ]