"Warlord" build for D&Dnext

Hey @pemerton. Your reasoning above was pretty much what I used for this 5e Warlord build design in this thread and presumably @Kamikaze Midget's better iteration here in the same thread.

As far as subclasses go, the Warlord has multiple diverse incarnations. The Field Marshall/Battle Captain a la Captain Winters in Band of Brothers or Captain Miller in Saving Private Ryan. The Lazylord build and the Princess build a la Tyrian Lannister or Daenyrys Targaryen. I personally would like a functional subclass of the "Warlord" package that is a nothing but a force-multiplier for the PCs, solely as a non-physical, metagame construct; destiny, veteran teamwork, etc.

There are several aspects to the Warlord and the Leader role.

1) It can replace a Cleric as the party "healer".
This was probably one of the foremost mechanical motivations behind the class - if your setting doesn't have room for Clerics, or your players just don't like Clerics, the Warlord (and other classes) where the alternative.
2) A leader often lead by rewarding taking certain actions. For example, if you give a +4 bonus to damage against a particular enemy, that means there is a reward for attacking that enemy.
3) The Warlord could serve as the "tactical mastermind" of the group. That's what the Tactical Warlord is all about.
4) The Warlord could serve as the centre of the group, the one that inspires and motivates (whether he actually leads is another matter). That's what the Inspiring and Bravura Warlords where all about.

It also had neat gimmicks - like abilities that let other players act instead of the Warlord.

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I think the last 2 are really the ones that make the subclasses. They might also be mappable to offense vs defenses, but not necessarily so.
The "Tactician" subclass is intelligence focus and should probably play around a lot with positioning (in so far as it is relevant for D&D Next) or maybe the advantage mechanic.
The "Inspiration" subclass would be charisma-focused and be about buffing actions and helping people overcome injuries or negative effects. Basically he's the one that will help to free the Fighter from the domination spell.
There could also be an "obedience" subclass (which obviously won't fly with every party and player composition), which would grant bonuses if the party members do as he asks.

The Warlord could be a Fighter, but it could also be its own class.

Cyberen said:

In order to fit in Next Cavalier niche, I would design a specific Oath (Arthur pledges to serve and protect the Kingdom, Aragorn to serve and protect the Fellowship) at the source of the Captain's extraordinary powers. It would do a lot to spare some sensibilities about mundane/magic and the nature of HP... Also, it would justify keeping signature abilities on a "Daily" schedule, (namely : spiked healing through Laying hands) which would avoid cheapening those (in order to stay true to source material, hp restoration would rather fall under "spend a Fate point to do something awesome" rather than a routine skill) and, once again, spare some sensibilities (including mine !) expressing concern in the original thread for D&Desque healing.

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At this point how is the class any different from the cavalier? And how is it addressing my desire to be able to sit on the non-magical side of the fence that D&D runs through the middle of this archetype?

Not saying that the cavalier is bad - just that I'm interested in a non-magical alternative to it.

pemerton said:

The thematic ideal of a warlord that I'm interested in is the inspiring "battle captain" of Tolkien or Arthurian romance. This a staple of the romantic/heroic fantasy genre; Aragorn, Faramir, Arthur and Richard the Lionheart all fall within this archetype. In D&Dnext, the current version of the cavalier paladin gives us a magical version of this archetype. I'm interested in what a non-magical version might look like.

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I haven't followed the playtests packet since the first one (other games running and no opportunity to use them) so I can't comment on the specifics of these mechanics.

If I look at boardgames and wargames as a starting point there are basically two functions leaders have - improving morale (including rallying broken troops) and mitigating command and control limitations. I think if you want a strong leader archetype a game needs to feature all those problems that happen in battle in the absence of good leadership.

The RPG premise of being in full control of your character runs contrary to what happens in battle. Real people fighting in melee break and run long before they get to 0 HP. They don't 'decide' to run. They run. Real people are overwhelmed by the carnage and mayhem around them in the absence of organisation and leadership. Real people look around for the reassuring presence of allies while taking offensive action. RPGs generally do a very poor job of modelling the psychology of the battlefield.

So I guess where I'm going with this is that my idea of modelling a leader in battle first requires a different modelling of combat than AC and HP. Imagine a game featuring the conditions: Confident, Shaken, Falling Back and Broken. Imagine they provide some pretty harsh penalties on what actions you can choose (and penalties on doing them). Imagine each time you lose HP you have to Save vs Fear or move one step down the track (confident to shaken, shaken to falling back etc).

Now you have a combat system where victory and defeat can be based on morale. It's easy to imagine how interesting, useful and potentially heroic it could be to have leadership, inspiration skills or traits like indomitable or strong-willed. And being cowardly would really mean being cowardly - unable to cope with danger! It could also provide another balancing mechanic (for those that need it) in terms of magic vs martial classes. An arrow nicking past the mage's head (3hp damage) and that guy isn't casting, he's running for cover.

In summary; In the absence of meaningful penalties for poor leadership, morale and organisation, trying to model the effects of good leadership, morale and organisation is - in my view - something of a losing proposition.

Sorry for the tangent.

chaochou said:

Sorry for the tangent.

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Not at all.

I think there is certainly space in RPG design for a separate "morale" track, like your example. Burning Wheel's Steel attribute is a comparable example, I think.

But that would be a big change to D&D.

The 4e-style approach of folding morale into hit points doesn't produce the same fictional details as a separte morale track might. But it still produces effects at the table comparable to morale effects: for instance, PCs rally around the leader (because s/he can provide the healing); players are more confident when the leader is present (because they know their PCs can be healed); etc.

The sense of it being non-magical rather than magical then plays out via keywords, which not only effect narration/colour but also set the limits on p 42 effects.

chaochou said:

Imagine a game featuring the conditions: Confident, Shaken, Falling Back and Broken. Imagine they provide some pretty harsh penalties on what actions you can choose (and penalties on doing them). Imagine each time you lose HP you have to Save vs Fear or move one step down the track (confident to shaken, shaken to falling back etc).

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I think this is the core of the matter and not a tangent at all. The pro-warlord crowd sees all of this reflected in Hp - because this is the only mechanic we have. This also conveniently explains why there are no penalties until zero hp - until you get to zero, you are not physically hurt in a serious way - it is just fatigue, scrapes, and morale.

chaochou said:

If I look at boardgames and wargames as a starting point there are basically two functions leaders have - improving morale (including rallying broken troops) and mitigating command and control limitations. I think if you want a strong leader archetype a game needs to feature all those problems that happen in battle in the absence of good leadership.

The RPG premise of being in full control of your character runs contrary to what happens in battle. Real people fighting in melee break and run long before they get to 0 HP. They don't 'decide' to run. They run. Real people are overwhelmed by the carnage and mayhem around them in the absence of organisation and leadership. Real people look around for the reassuring presence of allies while taking offensive action. RPGs generally do a very poor job of modelling the psychology of the battlefield.

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Its a fine point you make here. Typifying this is the story of Norman "Dutch" Cota rallying the pinned-down, shell-shocked troops of Omaha Beach of the D-Day invasion; "HP as morale" and "Psychic Damage as HP attrition" and "Inspired resolve to push on and fight despite your mental and physical (most of the men he inspired to take the beach were wounded with shrapnel, or worse)". A moral track would certainly facilitate that recovery well but I find that the abstract HP system can handle stress damage well enough (as well as it handles anything else with all of its unwieldiness!). A separation of stress/emotional damage would serve but D&D doesn't have that system like MHRP or Fate.

There is a reason that words such as "Rangers lead the way!" are memorialized and become the motto of the Rangers. Its because the valiant example and the sincere words of a battle captain, such as Norman "Dutch" Cota (who was definitely not a great warrior himself, eg not a Fighter), can inspire troops who have witnessed more horror in 1 hour than most people witness in the entirety of their lives.

He didn't "shout any arms back on" but:

- Cota asked "What outfit is this?" Someone yelled "5th Rangers!" To this, Cota replied "Well, God damn it then, Rangers, lead the way!"

and

- "Gentlemen, we are being killed on the beaches. Let us go inland and be killed."
and

- "There are only two kinds of people who are staying on this beach: those who are already dead and those that are gonna die. Now get off your butts, you're the fightin' 29th."

are remembered (by the men who were there) because they did the equivalent of restoring Morale HP or Psychic Damage or convincing men to fight on despite their physical (sometimes grievous) wounds, along with his presence and willingness to shout them amidst a cacophony of artillery and high caliber machine gun fire, and inspired men to stand up and fight in the face of utter annhilation (despite pretty much everything going wrong in the operation) and win the day.

Reading all of the posts invoking "sensibilities" reveals that the Warlord issue is just a proxy war over HP as meat exclusively (or at least almost wholly) versus HP as amorphous, abstract, ablative resource to facilitate varying genres. Due to its inherent interpretation of HP in accords with the latter camp, having a Warlord in a book ....even if the "HP as meat exclusively" table doesn't have to touch it with a 10 foot poll...and it facilitates genre preferences for the 2nd group of which the 1st group will never have to interact with...affects those in the "HP as meat exclusively" camps' "sensitivities" enough that the 2nd group can't have their complete play experience (of which this malleable HP interpretation is fundamental to) because those "sensitivities" must be paramount in all phases of the design ethos of 5e. Unity edition indeed.

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[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] [MENTION=2303]Starfox[/MENTION] [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]

Plenty of good stuff all round.

I had no problems with the 4e Warlord and am on board with HP as morale, fatigue, will to win etc.

However, look, if my character has 30hp we know what 0hp means. But where on the scale of 0 to 30 has my character given up, lost heart or courage, got confused and disoriented, lost track of his allies, decided to run?

This is the problem that HP don't cover. However we divide up the meaning of HP, using HP in play is pure mechanics. The dice say 7hp damage, I mark it on my sheet. The results don't feedback into the fiction, only as color narration or at zero. (Although 4e took a step towards this with bloodied, which I applaud). But still, HP are a blunt, unsophisticated instrument.

I notice opposition to spell effects being negated by HP (ie spells not working unless the target is below certain HP thresholds) which is another interesting way to give HP additional meaning, but which appears to face significant opposition. I predict HP will remain a blunt and unsophisticated instrument.

Given that, I'd much rather see morale rules in a module which opens up a martial leader as an interesting and viable option. It opens up the possibility of not killing the Owlbear, but driving it away with rocks and arrows. It brings the unearthly fearlessness of the undead (or the immortal) to the fore. It makes a character capable of rallying and inspiring a potent force. I'd much, much rather see this than rules for flanking and facing because it adds more than tactics and options to combat - it bring character and personality to the PCs.

chaochou said:

But where on the scale of 0 to 30 has my character given up, lost heart or courage, got confused and disoriented, lost track of his allies, decided to run?

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You're right that you don't get this. What I notice instead is the player anxiety/desperation. It's a sort-of proxy for the PC's emotional state, bu generates appropriate fiction only in an emergent and somewhat approximate way.

The other stuff you mention would be great! I doubt we'll get it, though - whereas a version of the 4e approach I hope would at least be on their radar.