One New York Life

I’m going to go ahead and assume that most readers of this blog aren’t now, nor have ever been, in to Dungeons & Dragons. If you were, you probably aren’t in to Fourth Edition. This will be Greek to you. Sorry. Please feel free to skip this.

To be honest, I’m not really into Fourth Edition either. I’ve been playing it because my group switched over to it. I got dragged, kicking and screaming, in to the new edition. And not in the same way as I got dragged in to Third Edition but then realized within a few weeks that it was far superior to Second Edition. But more in a “wow, I hate this and it’s not getting better because almost everything they said they were fixing in Fourth Edition is happening again as more books come out” sort of way. With Fourth Edition, Wizards of the Coast decided to take WoW and D&D’s origin as a miniatures game, shake them together, and spit out a new edition full of level-based powers, the idea that everyone should have an equal role in combat, and nerfing the idea of D&D as a “role-playing” game and morphing it in to a “real-time strategy” game. The flexibility (almost too flexible) of character creation from 3rd and 3.5rd editions were gone and replaced with this very rigid, very ordered, very (temporarily) balanced character creation. Wizards could cast magic missile every turn instead of once per day and do similar damage to fighters. Clerics were something other than heal sticks. Life was happy.

Sadly, something sacrificed to the Lords Of Balance was multiclassing. For the most part, multiclassing got hosed. The rigid point-buy system made all but the most closely associated classes nearly impossible and the scaling of monster defenses made it almost suicidal to not max out your class’s primary statistic. I learned this the hard way when my first character created under Fourth Edition rules was a Human Tactical Warlord with the 16/16/13 stat build. The character’s attacks in combat are based on strength, but the benefits he gives to the party are based on Intelligence. For the benefit of the party, I made my Strength and Intelligence equal, put the stat boost in Strength, and flailed ineffectually in combat while the party benefited from the character’s Intelligence abilities. Not as fun as you might think in a version that is heavily, heavily geared toward combat. As the character leveled, I tried to dabble in multiclass Wizardry and, like mostly everyone else, got frustrated by the lack of good multiclass stuff in 4ed. I complained about the lack of ranged Warlords because, I argued, leaders should be able to lead from distance. I complained that I couldn’t effectively make use of multiclassing because the Warlord’s intelligence, while high, couldn’t effectively use implement powers. This went on until, I’m sure, my group got sick of listening. Eventually, when we went on a month-long break, and very soon after Arcane Power came out, I thought maybe there might be a way to do the multiclass.

The Warlord class offers something no other class does — two at-will abilities that don’t require you to actually HIT anything’s AC. Commander’s Strike from the Player’s Handbook (PHB1) and Opening Shove from Martial Powers (MP) both offer benefits based on the Warlord’s Intelligence instead of his Strength. Effectively, he benefits from having a statistic other than the primary being the best. So, if the Warlord maxes Intelligence instead of Strength, then his at-will attack deals 1W + Fighter’s Strength + Warlord’s Intelligence. When used correctly, that’s a 1W + double max stat at-will — something available to no other classes. Opening Shove, on the other hand, requires a hit, but it requires a hit against something other than AC. With a strength of 14, the Warlord is getting +2 from his statistic and +3 from a longsword. +5 is exactly what an implement attacker of the same level gets to target things other than AC. With this realization and the knowledge that the Warlord’s action point boost and many of its feats are keyed on Intelligence, I started building the Warlord with the idea that 1) maybe I could build a character while willfully ignoring his primary stat and 2) get ranged attacks from something other than Warlord that’s keyed on Intelligence… like Wizard.

With this in mind, I threw out the entire character I had, started with the 18/14/11 build, used Eladrin, and started with 20 Int and 14 Strength. The high Intelligence, change of race, and first level feat (Multiclass Wizard from PHB) immediately addressed two problems with the low level Warlord: two extra points of AC, the ability to escape bad situations (Eladrin teleport), and a ranged attack (Scorching Burst or Magic Missile). Round out the level one abilities with the Hammer and Anvil encounter (PHB1, Weapon, Strength vs. Reflex) and Fearless Rescue daily (MP, Weapon, Strength +1 vs. AC, heal a dead ally), the character only has one ability that targets AC, and that one has a useful effect even in the case of a miss.

From there, the character builds slowly. At level two, as an Eladrin, add Eladrin Sword Wizardry (AP) to give the character longswords as implements. Using the longsword as an implement, you effectively have a double magic item that will eventually boost all attacks. At fourth level, replace the level 3 Warlord encounter with Icy Rays (PHB1). At level 6, take Melee Training (PHB2) and the character now has melee basics on par with the fighter’s and implement attacks on par with the wizard’s. At level 8, take the utility replacement to get Shield (PHB1) to escape one attack. At level 10, take the Daily replacement power to get a Wizard Daily. With the daily and encounter swap feats, it opens up the ability to select wizard powers at levels where there isn’t an available Weapon vs. non-AC strength attack for Warlords.

At paragon level, I chose to go with Wizard of the Spiral Tower from PHB1 because of its two awesome immediate benefits. First, it grants longsword as implement, allowing you retrain that feat in to something else (like Tactical Inspiration from MP which grants your INT bonus to healing word). Second, it grants you the unbelievably awesome The One Sword encounter attack power which is a Weapon, 2W + Int + Daze power that targets non-AC that isn’t expended when it hits.

If you’re keeping track, that means this particular build with maxed Intelligence is now basic attacking at +6 (same as a max-Strength fighter), healing at 3d6+6 (same as a max-Wisdom cleric), implement attacking at +6 (same as a max-Int wizard), granting +3 to your allies on all their action point attacks (+3/+6 at 12th level when you take Tactical Assault Surge), and (as long as you take only Warlord abilities that target non-AC) weapon attacking against defenses at about the same rate as a max-stat implement attacker. His at will is dealing 1W + 12 + whatever goodness the fighter has for Melee Basics. He’s able to shift both his party and bad guys around the battle field, has healing, range, melee, defense, and is generally awesome.

I haven’t really found any other builds where this is valid as it relies hugely on the Warlord’s unique at-will selection and plenty of available weapon powers that target things other than AC. But, if you go way, WAY outside the box, there is a way to save multiclassing.

At Level 12 assuming +3 gear:

Stats: S:17,C:11,D:11,I:23,W:11,C:12 S:17,C:11,D:14,I:23,W:9,C:11
Trained Skills: Arcana, Athletics, Diplomacy, Endurance, Heal, Perception
Defenses: AC:29, F:22, R:25, W:21
Feats: Multiclass Wizard, Multiclass encounter, Multiclass utility, Multiclass daily, Melee Training (INT for MBAs), Tactical Inspiration (INT to healing), Tactical Assault (INT to action point damage).
At-Will: Commander’s Strike, Opening Shove
Encounter: Magic Missile, Hammer and Anvil, Luring Focus (L1 in L3 slot), Fire Burst, The One Sword
Daily: Fearless Rescue, A Rock And A Hard Place, Taunting Phantoms
Utility: Forward Observer, Shield, Marked Revelation, Shape The Dream
Melee Basic/The One Sword: +19/+9
Weapon: +16/+6
Implement: +16/+9
Healing Word: +3d6 + 6