Warlord: Artillery Commander

Troy suggested something that I feel makes sense and I would like to see if the DM would allow it. I was complaining that it is hard to use commanders strike and some of the other warlord abilities because they say melee basic attack and not just basic attack. His idea that I like more and more as I think about it is: a Warlord that has trained with the ranged attackers (Archers, Mages, Warlocks, etc.) so much that he can instinctively call targets and call for fire. To me this made a lot of sense having been in the military for 11 years working with the infantry commanders and the artillery commanders. I propose this build of Warlord would basically just replace anywhere it says melee basic attack with ranged basic attack and that would be it. They would not be able to do both as they spent so much time studying how to determine lines of site and ranged combat maneuvers that they just don't know how to direct troops in close combat. Let me know what you think about this. Thanks for taking time to read and decide on this. If you have any questions let me know.

Regarding this, I know there are few classes that offer different "flavors" so-to-speak, such as the Warlock, which offers the Fey flavor, the Infernal flavor, and the Star flavor. In the case of the Warlock, these are more than just build options because they actually lead to the various powers doing different things, etc. So anyway, I was thinking along those lines and suggested that perhaps we could create a house rule that offered two different "flavors" of Warlord: ranged or melee.

Well it makes sense and seems ok but I need to look at the rules and stuff a little more; I am not sure why they limited it to Basic attack. Of course if I approved I would say that basically it changes out "Basic Attack" to "Ranged Basic Attack" I know that this would allow the Warlord to have someone shoot magic missle but I think it would be ok if he loses the ability to make melee attack (command them I mean)

Let me consider it and research and get back to you. Everyone please feel free to comment if you see any pro's or cons etc

If the changes only affect the Commander's Strike ability, then I see no problem whatsoever. I am not sufficiently versed in Warlord-ish things to know whether such a change would also affect other powers. That might be a significant factor.

Even if just the Commander's Strike was the only ability effected that would still make this type of Warlord a viable alternative simply because I will be using the same At-Will powers for the rest of my career so to speak. I hope I can get a ruling on this soon so as to be able to discus tactics and strategies. My over all goal with this character is to be able to call out formations and maneuvers in code such as "Fire for effect right 2 go hot" I will probably do a post soon that has all the really cool call for fire sayings that I learned in my army training very soon just to spice things up and make it even more fun to play a Warlord (as if that is even possible).

I am going to approve this change. It seems ok on the surface, if something comes up that it really breaks a rule or something I might go back on this ruling. However, like I said this seems balanced enough to give it a thumbs up.

Basically we are looking at changing Commander's Strike to allow Ranged Basic Attacks only (same as before no special moves etc, Magic Missle is an exception as it "counts" as ranged basic). The Strike will no longer allow for a Melee Basic Attack.

As we come to other powers that could fall into this please bring them up to me before using it with this switch. As I said I haven't gone through every single power and thought about every situation so for now consider this JUST a change to Commander's Strike and we will discuss other changes in powers as they come.

Maybe we could change the name of the power to Commander's Aim or some such.

Commander’s Aim Warlord Attack 1
With a shout, you command an ally to attack from afar.
At-Will * Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Ranged weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: An ally of your choice makes a melee ranged attack against the target
Hit: Ally’s basic ranged attack damage + your Intelligence modifier.

Works for me I will just assume that that part about making a melee ranged attack against target is supposed to say Makes a Ranged Basic attack against target.

Now for me, I think this would only allow me to use magic missile right? Which is still a great usage, but I don't believe any other spell can be cast.

Yes magic missle would work because it specifically says "counts as ranged basic attack" I think i'm not sure but I think the Eldritch blast warlock ability counts too, or Krieg would use a normal bow attack. All of which would be good since it's another good damage dealer attacking.

Vhale Arkhan wrote:

I think i'm not sure but I think the Eldritch blast warlock ability counts too, or Krieg would use a normal bow attack. All of which would be good since it's another good damage dealer attacking.

Going strictly by what's written, the Eldritch Blast text also specifically states "This power counts as a ranged basic attack." I guess it's up to Dean if he's ok with that. As far as Krieg goes, he would just get a basic arrow shot.

If it says it counts like MM does then he can use it, however I think to "keep it basic" in the spirit of the strike there is no extra damage done even if it is cursed etc. Same goes on Hunter' Quarry, granted with them dealing the damage only once per round it would PROBABLY take care of its self but just to make sure, like I said no extra damage (OTher than what the strike grants from the warlord, his int) because then I feel like we might be getting into the realm of overpowering the power based on the party.

I don't want it to be that this power is ridiculous because you have 3 people that can attack etc; the goal was to give the party some leeway since they didn't have a fighter or rouge he could command. The rouge I know can get more damage but like I said seeing the make up of the party and just thinking about things I can't allow the extra damage from 2-3 people going through because it will probably just be to high potentially (with use of action points etc etc) In effect I don't want it to be that you effectively gained another ranged striker because then I can see that getting to good. If you want a 3rd ranged striker he can't be granting all the warlord stuff and wearing heavy armor and doing damage ya know. It has to be reigned in a bit.

Quote :

I don't want it to be that this power is ridiculous because you have 3 people that can attack etc; the goal was to give the party some leeway since they didn't have a fighter or rouge he could command. The rouge

It's rogue, dammit!

Lawl good catch I guess the spell checking thought it was ok...which means it IS OK....OK TROY THE COMPUTER IS GOD DON'T YOU GET IT.

Well I can't say that you are wrong it would be very powerful to have that extra damage take effect. However I do have to ask if our party had 3 Melee strikers (2 rogues with combat advantage and a melee ranger that has the target marked as his quarry) would you be taking away that extra damage that is built in to the regular commanders strike ability?

completely non related:

Do you realize Jon you forum name is Dravis? and your token/character name is Dravin?

Yeah Troy pointed that out on Friday and I forgot to fix it thanks for the reminder.

Dravin wrote:

Well I can't say that you are wrong it would be very powerful to have that extra damage take effect. However I do have to ask if our party had 3 Melee strikers (2 rogues with combat advantage and a melee ranger that has the target marked as his quarry) would you be taking away that extra damage that is built in to the regular commanders strike ability?

No I wouldn't, but the rogues have to GET combat advantage versus the warlock and hunter only need to take a minor action while being out of harms way. The rogues and the ranger in this case would both be in the front lines where the enemies would get some advantages too. The fear I have with this power and party is that it will make it easy to "kite" monsters around and stay well out of the way while dealing a ton of damage.

So no I am going to stand on the quarry and curse damage unless everyone thinks it's to harsh. Like I said I think it is already giving (especially in this case) the party a big boon. I don't want the party to be just super powered because then either the encounters will get steamrolled or will have to get out of hand with quantity of enemies and slow stuff down a lot.

Damn dean totally stole my thunder. Basically what I was going to say was that the difference here is having 2 rogues and a melee ranger there would be they are in the front lines much more susceptible to cleaves, aoe's and all out incoming damage. The difference with ranged players is that you could have 3 ranged strikers on 3 completely differentsides of the battlefield almost entirely out of harms way. I don't know if they thought about this stuff like its a class balance issue or anything but this might be one reason why the rogue has the highest max damage per round. I forget where i saw that, dean might have showed me, but there was some guy who did some hardcore math of course and came up with that conclusion.

I can see what dean is talking about monsters getting "kited" too. I mean if you have Krieg and Amnon on opposite sides and dravin has krieg get an extra attack, and then the monster moves to him, then dravin could just have amnon get the extra attack without the party really having done anything.

Anyway, it makes sense to me that the warlord strike for ranged get the normal attack (which already does solid damage) plus the warlords normal intelligence plusses.

I don't think it'll be a big deal one way or the other. For what it's worth, this is a non-issue as concerns Krieg. He is only allowed to designate one dude his quarry at a time, and he can only deal extra damage once per round, no matter how many attacks he gets.

Also: now my single goal in life is to kite the shit out of Dean.

You can try but I warn you my CD on Intercept is down.

You are absolutely correct. I am glad someone looks at all the implications, I didn't even think about the lack of danger or of 'kiting' the monsters. I accept your judgment with gratitude and can't wait to start commanding artillery strikes against targets of opportunity.

Ya know what, just to be fair I do want to let you know that Vhale can throw his axe once per round. COME ON COUCH DRAVIN PUT ME IN!!!