Roleplaying a cavalryman. How relevant is Way of War still?
Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2017 8:43 pm
In Panda's blog, where he talks about the design of the Beastmaster, he talks about the heart of the beastmaster discipline has always been the Savage Warrior, and thus the decision was made to make all the savage warrior talents discipline talents, and all the mastering of beasts talents to be talent options. I kind of feel that the discipline should have been renamed the Savage Warrior, since beasts are now optional for it.
A beastmaster who chooses to go the whole menagerie route needs to pick up Animal Bond, Animal Training, Enhance Animal Companion, etc. and uses these talents to build a menagerie to help him do stuff better. Maybe animal scouts, animal thieves, animal guards, and/or animal fighters. This is a valid and non-noteworthy build choice.
The funny thing is, all of those beast mastering talents that were considered so optional for the discipline named beastmaster, are core discipline talents for cavalrymen. The talents that allow a beastmaster to be a beastmaster are ones the cavalryman already has. However people tell me that a cavalryman would never use these talents on anything except his one chosen mount. Have a remount, oh no, a cavalryman would never bond with more than one mount at a time! train an eagle to scout or a dog to hunt! Oh no, a cavalryman would never bond with anything except his one mount, and would never waste time training anything except his one bonded mount!
Now none of this is even hinted at in the players guide or any other 4th edition book, but I went back to the Way of War which is what, a 1st ED book? and there it was. Everything is all about the one special mount.
So here is my problem. All of these talents are discipline talents. In 1st ED, you could just bring Animal Bond up to rank one or two and leave it there forever, because you were only ever going to use it 3 or 4 times in your life, and there was usually no penalty for failure, so you did not need to bring it up past rank one. Use it to bond a mount, then ignore it until your mount gets too old to ride anymore.
But now all these talents, that at high rank allow you to manage a whole menagerie, we are required to keep improving, because they are discipline talents, but this old 1st ED book seems to imply that it is almost a discipline violation to ever use them more than 3 or 4 times in your life!
Now like I said, none of this is even hinted at in any current book.
And the rules have changed a lot since the Way of War was written.
So is Way of War still valid?
What do people think of a Cavalryman using his talents to build a menagerie of loyal Animal Companions of various species. Is that unexceptional usage of the talents he is required to have? or a discipline violation? Or somewhere in between?
A beastmaster who chooses to go the whole menagerie route needs to pick up Animal Bond, Animal Training, Enhance Animal Companion, etc. and uses these talents to build a menagerie to help him do stuff better. Maybe animal scouts, animal thieves, animal guards, and/or animal fighters. This is a valid and non-noteworthy build choice.
The funny thing is, all of those beast mastering talents that were considered so optional for the discipline named beastmaster, are core discipline talents for cavalrymen. The talents that allow a beastmaster to be a beastmaster are ones the cavalryman already has. However people tell me that a cavalryman would never use these talents on anything except his one chosen mount. Have a remount, oh no, a cavalryman would never bond with more than one mount at a time! train an eagle to scout or a dog to hunt! Oh no, a cavalryman would never bond with anything except his one mount, and would never waste time training anything except his one bonded mount!
Now none of this is even hinted at in the players guide or any other 4th edition book, but I went back to the Way of War which is what, a 1st ED book? and there it was. Everything is all about the one special mount.
So here is my problem. All of these talents are discipline talents. In 1st ED, you could just bring Animal Bond up to rank one or two and leave it there forever, because you were only ever going to use it 3 or 4 times in your life, and there was usually no penalty for failure, so you did not need to bring it up past rank one. Use it to bond a mount, then ignore it until your mount gets too old to ride anymore.
But now all these talents, that at high rank allow you to manage a whole menagerie, we are required to keep improving, because they are discipline talents, but this old 1st ED book seems to imply that it is almost a discipline violation to ever use them more than 3 or 4 times in your life!
Now like I said, none of this is even hinted at in any current book.
And the rules have changed a lot since the Way of War was written.
So is Way of War still valid?
What do people think of a Cavalryman using his talents to build a menagerie of loyal Animal Companions of various species. Is that unexceptional usage of the talents he is required to have? or a discipline violation? Or somewhere in between?