Warlord OP?


Advice and Rules Questions


Hey guys!
Haven't been on in an age and half. Just started up a campaign with some friends on Saturdays using tabletop simulator and it's been pretty fun.

Unfortunately, one of the members has already died and wants to make a character. His last character (though I was begrudge against it) was a psionic.
This time around he wants to do Warlord,buy after reading through he seems incredibly powerful and scales extremely well. I'm not a fan of his Gambit system, and I (personally) feel that the penalty is barely anything to penalize a player on a failed action. You get -2 on your rolls until next round but you still get a maneuver; versus the bonus of 2 and buffs.

I'm not listing all the good stuff, abd maybe I'm not seeing what makes this class have weaknesses like others since I can't pull up enough discussions on it.

Can someone give me a reason why this isn't overpowered overall, or why it is?

**edited for clarity: on my phone


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Its tier 3. Better than any purely martial class save a few niche builds (archer pallies, pouncing barbarians).

Theyre still weaker than most casters.

Saying whether or not theyre OP is misleading slightly. I think theyre fine.


Why do people keep posting about 3rd party stuff in places that are not the 3rd party boards? And it's always the complicated, overpowered Dreamscarred Press stuff.


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The Dreamscarred Press martial stuff is created with the specific intention of boosting martial characters. If you feel that a fighter and a wizard are equivalently powerful characters, it's not for you.


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The Path of War classes tend to be much more flexible and less one dimensional than normal martial classes. They also have a higher skill floor than normal martials. However, they tend to have less raw power than high end PF classes, and are much more dependent on tactics and teamwork to stay relevant. That Warlord will find it difficult to keep up with an optimized Barbarian, for example. Party buffs and neat little tricks using maneuvers help make up from that.

As Johnnycat noted, PoW can't keep up with most casters. They are a weak tier 3 in that regard, rather like the Magus in that they have pretty good combat tricks, but you have to go out of your way a bit to pack in enough utility to qualify as tier 3.


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Gambits are MEANT to be of little punishment if you fail. The fact taht there is a penalty at all makes their recovery method weaker than others in a certain way. The main difference is, the other Initiators need to use a Standard or Full Round to recover, and that's all they do (getting defensive bonuses in return). The Warlord has slightly more risk, in exchange for more flexibility.

As compared to Paizo published stuff, you should not compare the Warlord to classesl ike Fighter, Rogue, and Slayer; You should compare them to classes like the Magus, Alchemist, and Inquisitor. They are roughly in line (or even a bit weaker) than those classes, and intentionally so.

They were meant to give non-magical or casting classes more flexibility and options both in combat and out.


They also make every official martial class obsolete. I know there's quite a bit of disparity, but that doesn't mean you should throw out all the existing stuff.
My bigger gripe was people posting threads specifically about Third Party material. There's a whole section for that, and I see enough posts in the threads NOT specifically about Third Party gushing about Dreamscarred Press' content.


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So flag it to be moved (like I did), and stop whining in the mean time.


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Bloodrealm wrote:
They also make every official martial class obsolete.

Well, only the really bad ones (and if you put the pow archetypes on the table even that's not necessarily true). The better martials can compete with PoW characters pretty handily, along with all the partial casters. And all of the above still pale next to full casters. Seems fine.


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Relax Bloodrealm, flag for wrong forum is all you need to do bud.

All of the PoW classes will grab you some cool stuff to do, but my current game has shown (nearing the end of Rise of the Runelords) exactly what the others have said. Optimized martial classes will beat them in the damage department, even without trying to optimize really hard either.

Path of War and the Expanded provide some options to make martial characters that are unique and interesting, without being overpowered, despite looking overpowered at first glance. I admit, I had the same reaction initially.


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The main reason PoW looks OP is because their abilities look fairly frontloaded compared to non-caster classes. The Maneuvers/Stances/Recovery section looks out of place and intimidating like a bunch of extra abilities until you compare it to how the "Spellcasting" class feature is generally written.


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(Back when Tome of Battle was released)

To me it came down to the maneuvers and stances. I tried comparing them what a Fighter could do (I know, a grievous error in judgement now that I reflect) and felt it way out of line.

After some thought I compared the maneuvers to spells. I realized that despite the maneuvers being able to be used all day, a wizard would effectively throw spells out all day because he would just rest after he ran out. I then started equating maneuvers to spells and nothing seemed overpowered anymore.


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Wraithguard wrote:
... I then started equating {literally anything else} to spells and nothing seemed overpowered anymore.

Funny, that.


I read over the Warlord more, and it looks like it has 4E syndrome: it's a spellcaster. They "fixed" martials by making them spellcasters.
To answer the OP, I would say that unless your other martial characters are expertly optimized, then yes, Warlord will be OP compared to them. If they take the Steelfist Commando archetype it's a straight upgrade to the base Warlord, so be ready for that, too.


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Bloodrealm wrote:
I read over the Warlord more, and it looks like it has 4E syndrome: it's a spellcaster.

It has tome of battle syndrome.

Because Path of War is a reimagining of tome of battle mechanics, unabashedly.


Gee, sorry, I was off by 2 years. That seems to have basically been a playtest for 4E anyway.


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Bloodrealm wrote:

I read over the Warlord more, and it looks like it has 4E syndrome: it's a spellcaster. They "fixed" martials by making them spellcasters.

To answer the OP, I would say that unless your other martial characters are expertly optimized, then yes, Warlord will be OP compared to them. If they take the Steelfist Commando archetype it's a straight upgrade to the base Warlord, so be ready for that, too.

Well, it depends on how you look at it.

Did they:

A.) Fix martials by "making them spellcasters" and creating nonmagical spells, as the oxymoron goes

OR

B.) Recognize that there's a lot more to any form of martial arts ever invented than "I hit it with a stick until it dies," the preferred pathfinder form of martial arts?

I go with B, myself. Martial arts have TECHNIQUES, something PF combat sorely lacks. For the most part all your fighting style on a base martial does is add a number here or there or not let you get punched in the face for free any time you try to do something clever.


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Bloodrealm wrote:
Gee, sorry, I was off by 2 years. That seems to have basically been a playtest for 4E anyway.

Maybe, but given that you only seem to be here so that you can bitterly complain about some third party you don't like I figured it was worth correcting.


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Bloodrealm wrote:
Gee, sorry, I was off by 2 years. That seems to have basically been a playtest for 4E anyway.

A rather poor one apparently since they kept none of the things people actually liked about it. 4E has as much in common with Tome of Battle as it does with Vancian casting.


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Bloodrealm wrote:
Gee, sorry, I was off by 2 years. That seems to have basically been a playtest for 4E anyway.

*Tries to find a single at-will/encounter/daily maneuver in ToB or PoW*

*fails*


Milo v3 wrote:
Bloodrealm wrote:
Gee, sorry, I was off by 2 years. That seems to have basically been a playtest for 4E anyway.

*Tries to find a single at-will/encounter/daily maneuver in ToB or PoW*

*fails*

Bad Milo! There is that feat that lets you do that thing once per day.... /s


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Bloodrealm wrote:
Why do people keep posting about 3rd party stuff in places that are not the 3rd party boards? And it's always the complicated, overpowered Dreamscarred Press stuff.

How is it overpowered?


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Because it's 3rd party and if it's not Paizo(which, ironically, is also third party) then it must be terrible because only Paizo knows how to make some balanced and no, caster/martial disparity doesn't exist because James said so. [/sarcasm]


Milo v3 wrote:
Bloodrealm wrote:
Gee, sorry, I was off by 2 years. That seems to have basically been a playtest for 4E anyway.

*Tries to find a single at-will/encounter/daily maneuver in ToB or PoW*

*fails*

[Pedantic]Technically all Maneuvers (and some feats, like Tactical Rush) are Per Encounter.[/pedantic]


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Blackwaltzomega wrote:
Martial arts have TECHNIQUES, something PF combat sorely lacks. For the most part all your fighting style on a base martial does is add a number here or there or not let you get punched in the face for free any time you try to do something clever.

ABSOLUTELY.

Path of War made playing a martial character fun and interesting. Learning actual techniques, not just "Hit it harder!". My Samurai can follow a family tradition without me having to claim that 'I attack with Power Attack' is actually a different technique every time. They actually are different techniques, with different effects, that are useful at different times. Plus it now makes actual sense to learn from older Masters, so I can go seek Yoda in the swamps of Dagobah and maybe he'll actually have cool stuff to show me.

It just really makes me excited to play a martial character, because I can get so in-depth into the flavor of their techniques, and I can try to learn different techniques from other people. Playing a Samurai in Jade Regent that's learned techniques from Ulfen berserkers, Chelish fencers, and Varisian duelists. And any time we come across a new warrior I'm eager to fight and learn something else.

Love Path of War.


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Skylancer4 wrote:
Bad Milo! There is that feat that lets you do that thing once per day.... /s

Feats are not maneuvers :P

Sundakan wrote:
[Pedantic]Technically all Maneuvers (and some feats, like Tactical Rush) are Per Encounter.[/pedantic]

Considering you can use a single maneuver an infinite times in a single encounter, not really. Each new encounter refreshes the uses, but the fact you refresh them over and over in a single fight means you can use a maneuver many many times per encounter.


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CECShocktrooper wrote:

Hey guys!

Haven't been on in an age and half. Just started up a campaign with some friends on Saturdays using tabletop simulator and it's been pretty fun.

Unfortunately, one of the members has already died and wants to make a character. His last character (though I was begrudge against it) was a psionic.
This time around he wants to do Warlord,buy after reading through he seems incredibly powerful and scales extremely well. I'm not a fan of his Gambit system, and I (personally) feel that the penalty is barely anything to penalize a player on a failed action. You get -2 on your rolls until next round but you still get a maneuver; versus the bonus of 2 and buffs.

I'm not listing all the good stuff, abd maybe I'm not seeing what makes this class have weaknesses like others since I can't pull up enough discussions on it.

Can someone give me a reason why this isn't overpowered overall, or why it is?

Mornin' friend. Jade Ripley, Dreamscarred Press. You may remember me from such books as Path of War: Expanded, Psionic Bestiary, and Lords of the Night. Let's talk about Warlord some, yeah?

So: the basic premise that I need to lay down is that martials lack versatility, both in and out of combat. Specifically, any given martial character generally has one, possibly two effective tactics they can field through their entire career, which may or may not be viable depending on the encounter. In a situation where these tactics aren't applicable, the martial character finds themselves unable to contribute to the party. A quick tour of the forums will turn this up easily enough.

Path of War and, more generally, the initiating system was designed to offer multiple viable tactics, with a side order of helping to shore up out-of-combat utility. Maneuvers provide options in combat, while stances & boosts help to enhance those options and provide tricks out of combat to help solve problems and influence the narrative. What this means, among other things, is that maneuvers are the star; if they seem easy to recover, they're meant to be. They're the tools by which you accomplish your goals.

I could spend more time than I've got right now talking about the system math behind some of our decisions, such as stuff that "emulates" a combat maneuver without using the CM system, but I've gotta bounce here in twenty minutes so I'm going to open up with the short version: maneuver math is centered around the challenges you'll find in various bestiaries, and in particular takes into account things like the scaling they get for size and the appearance, then proliferation, of powerful "rider" effects and spell-like abilities among various monsters, partial casters (magus, inquisitor), & spellcasters.

Warlord itself is in a pretty flexible spot as a class. In practice any individual Warlord will be less versatile than the class as a whole could be, both because they can only ready so many maneuvers and because they still need to sink feats into getting their chosen fighting style up and running. If you're looking for the class's specific weaknesses, Warlords are vulnerable to being focused down (you only get one Counter per round) & to being mobbed, and disarming one can be a deceptively Bad Time for them. Enemies that rely on single, big attacks are not going to do well against Warlords but those enemies already don't do well against literally anyone so nothing's really changed there.

There are some things I'd suggest you watch out for as a GM when it comes to Path of War. In particular, we're currently hip-deep in errata to help clean up the wording and to retune some of the damage of the boosts and strikes. The particular problem disciplines tend to be Primal Fury and Broken Blade - these being the ones that can go too far on accident - with Black Seraph getting an honorable mention for some of the Intimidate exploits available. If your player's got an interest in these, talk to them about them and be open to scaling the damage back while we get this worked on, and in the meantime we beg you for your patience.

Path of War was made to have a high "floor"; that is, it's deliberately hard to build a bad initiator. We did this to keep it accessible to new players and groups that don't want to spend large amounts of time optimizing, which sounds like it may be your group! But for groups that do optimize, the same tricks that crank out high-damage martials still work with Path of War.

I and/or the team will be on hand to field further questions and discussion if you need us. Or if you'd prefer that folks who by definition have a vested interest stay out, then I can leave things to my fellow posters through the thread - whatever totes your goats. Int he meantime, though, I do hope you give the subsystem a shot.

Thank you for your time.

Community & Digital Content Director

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Removed a post and reply to it. If you want to offer constructive criticism, that's fine, but there's no need for crass/lewd commentary.

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