At high level a dodging Monk is essentially a sword and board fighter with a permanent shield spell on herself who can also stun opponents regularly.
It's not permanant if you can run out of dodges. Also, you don't have the HP of a Fighter and you rarely stun opponents.
You won't take a huge hit when dodging, you will almost never take a critical hit and in addition to having good hit points, you have the ability to heal in combat while still attacking (although it is somewhat costly).
That's a huge gamble because the Monk does NOT have good hit points.
I mentioned this earlier but it was offhand and I think I should ask it directly: is heavy armour actually notably superior to medium armour? There’s only one point of AC between them and honestly to me it feels more like they’re parallel tracks of progression for DEX and STR based characters to use respectively.
It also feels like an important aesthetic decision when handing out proficiencies to a class. Heavy Armor has certain implications that I feel better applied to a subclass.
+1 ac and no need for dex. If you want to focus say str, con and int/cha then heavy armor is much better.
Could be cool to have a Warlord who can replace DEX with INT or WIS, or even CHA, when calculating AC.
In my opinion, it depends on whether Feats are in play. For me, the reason to wear heavy armor is Heavy Armor Mastery, because that 3 damage reduction is amazingly sweet. Medium Armor Master? Not so much.
I wish Heavy Armor Mastery actually scaled.
The key ability is a choice of Mental Ability: Cha, Int, or Wis.
Even if they go with Strength as an auxiliary ability, they have to choose between agile mobility or heavy armor.
Then they need Con − because every character does.
Probably Dex is the dump stat, but many players might go Dex instead of Str.
Probably, the "typical" Warlord has both Cha and Int as the highest stats, to benefit from the class features.
The Warlord is inherently MAD.
Medium Armor seems a good idea, to benefit from some Dex but never max Dex.
For 5e, probably the saves are Wisdom (mental will) for the major save, plus a choice of either Cha, Int, or Str for the minor save.
Because the flavor is mental, the physically-focused d10 feels less resonant for the Warlord concept. Meanwhile, the Warlord will gain more hit points mentally via Warlord features. Similarly, the 4e Warlord had less hit points than the 4e Fighter.
Again: Could be cool to have a Warlord who can replace DEX with INT or WIS, or even CHA, when calculating AC.
Maybe the problem is that the Fighter doesn't get enough HP compared to the Ranger? The ranking of most HP to less HP should probably go
Barbarian
Fighter=Paladin
Ranger=Monk=Some Cleric(=Warlord)
Rogue=Cleric=Druid=Warlock=Bard?(maybe depends on subclas?)
Sorcerer=Wizard=Bard?
Just a reflection. Would be weird for the Barb to have 2d6 as 'hit dice'.
it's antithetical to a core design principle.
Core design of 'everybody for themselves'?
Until, of course, that Bladesinger takes a crit to the face and eats dirt because a nasty crit wipes them out good, being, y'know, a Wizard with d6 HP and pressing need to max Intelligence as quickly as humanly possible for more AC (meaning, at best, they're getting 8 HP at first level and 6 thereafter.) Hit points don't matter until they do, film at 11.
Come on, man. Good AC is definitely helpful, but it is far from the only solution, and isn't even always the best solution. Your comparison is simply not apples to apples. Some of the lowest possible AC, at low level, on a class with at best average HP (remember, a level 3 Barbarian is still gonna have about 40% more HP than a Bard, on average/if using static HP which almost everyone does). That vs literally the largest HD in the game, on a class that gets AC from having higher Constitution and which can naturally use a shield, and which naturally gets resistance to all damage types more often than a Bladesinger gets their AC boost. (Keep in mind, Bladesong per day is actually less frequent than Rage per day at level 3-4, 6-8, and 12; it is never more frequent than Rage, and for the levels most people play, it's behind a bout as often as not.)
You see this principle in Pokémon: You have Shuckle, who has an ABSURB 230 in both base Defense and base Special Defense but only 20 base HP, then you have Blissey who has a tiny 10 Defense, a big 135 in Special Defense and a MONSTROUS 255 in HP. Guess which one is more commonly used as a Tank? Nobody uses Shuckle. Similarly, you have Shedinja, a Pokémon with an ability that makes it immune to any attack that is not Rock, Dark, Ghost, Flying or Fire, but it never has more than 1 HP, ven at level 100. Nobody uses Shedinja either.
(Actually, people usually prefer to use Blissey's pre-evolution Chansey, because it make use of the Eviolite item, which doubles the defensive stats of a Pokémon who can still evolve and ends up more defensive than Blissey. But that's splitting hair at this point as Chansey's stats have a similar spread to Blissey's).
You can have the best AC you want (and, let's not forget, the Monk doesn't get to use Magic Armor), but if you get folded in half by a single hit you're a terrible tank.
My assumption is, those four places mean, additional choices for an Invocation, that then can be a high slot spell or a different, equally powerful, feature if the player prefers.
In any case, it is probably better for the Warlord to avoid "daily" powers, but to access powers that are as effective and gamechanging as high slot spells are.
For the level 17 power, the Warlord needs to be able to do something as amazing as Wish.
Maybe instead of invocations you have powers that sacrifices large ammounts of Hit Dice? That way you don't NEED an explicit daily limit, because it'll sort itself out. Like, yeah, you can sacrifice, like, 10 HD and turn their result into extra damage anytime you want, but you ain't gonna be able to use it more than once per day.
personally i think the skill system is mostly adequate but i'd move intimidation to be a STR skill and split athletics into might (burst strength, things like lifting weights and breaking stuff) and stamina (extended exertion, things like climbing, running distances).
i realise there is more to intimidation than physical strength but i feel like this balances out the utility of each of the stats, and the idea behind splitting athletics is making two more specific skills that are capable of being able to achieve more with each.
maybe let investigation be used as a social skill for interrogating people (without violence)
Stamina is just the 4e skill Endurance.
Back to Warlords.
Since D&D characters don't get tired in combat, a Warlord class could have be a way to introduce a "Mana" system to core d&D without getting into Psionics.
The Warlord could have Mind Points or MP and use them to devise Strategies (buffs), Schemes (debuffs), and.... Scans (alterations).
When they get low on MP, the Warlord suffers headaches.
How about... no?
