D&D 5E Warlording the fighter

jgsugden · Jul 2, 2015

Play a valor bard. Reskin the spells to be supernatural inspiration. Mix with Fighter (Battlemaster) if you like. Done.

One reason the Warlord was not included is that the 'hole' is filled pretty well with Battlemaster and Bard. I imagine there is a list of prior classes somewhere in WotC home office with notes like "~~Invoker~~ - cleric builds cover it. ~~Warlord~~ - bard/battlemaster. ~~Cavalier~~ - fighter."

Jefe Bergenstein · Jul 2, 2015

fuindordm said:
Agreed. I proposed the new fighting style as one possible way for warlords to do their thing nearly every turn. It might even be too powerful.

Do you have some specific suggestions? Do you think the warlord needs something like a cantrip, or a class ability that adds a temp HP rider to their basic attack?

Yeah, the warlord to me would work somewhat like how the warlock does. Replace non-cantrip spells with maneuvers and expand the dice pool, add higher level maneuvers that use multiple dice, etc. When a warlock would gain invocations, the warlord gains riders or abilities (maybe certain feats like healer). For example, let them make an attack as a bonus action when they take the "help" action. In terms of buffing, hobgoblin leaders can add d4 to ally attack rolls already. There's design space within the parameters of 5E for a non-magical support character.

Obryn · Jul 2, 2015

jgsugden said:
Play a valor bard. Reskin the spells to be supernatural inspiration. Mix with Fighter (Battlemaster) if you like. Done.

One reason the Warlord was not included is that the 'hole' is filled pretty well with Battlemaster and Bard. I imagine there is a list of prior classes somewhere in WotC home office with notes like "~~Invoker~~ - cleric builds cover it. ~~Warlord~~ - bard/battlemaster. ~~Cavalier~~ - fighter."

If there's room for Paladins, Rangers, Sorcerers, etc., there's room for Warlords.

jgsugden · Jul 2, 2015

Obryn said:
If there's room for Paladins, Rangers, Sorcerers, etc., there's room for Warlords.

That means you consider Warlords to be more essential to the game than these classes. All three of those have a longer history with the game, which is why they deserve more attention. You can make a decent Paladin from Cleric + Fighter. You can make a decent ranger from Druid + fighter. You can make a decent Sorcerer with a high charisma wizard... so to that extent they're equally as replaceable as the warlord. However, their iconic positions in the game as elements for many more editions gives them priority. If they did a poll and ranked all of the classes we've seen in the game in all editions from "most essential" to "least essential", I think the poll results would put every class in the PHB well ahead of Warlord... but I grant you that it'd be in the upper third of the 60 or so classes, in a second tier behind the PHB classes. I expect we'll get a PHB 2 and it will be a class in that book.

Obryn · Jul 2, 2015

jgsugden said:
That means you consider Warlords to be more essential to the game than these classes. All three of those have a longer history with the game, which is why they deserve more attention. You can make a decent Paladin from Cleric + Fighter. You can make a decent ranger from Druid + fighter. You can make a decent Sorcerer with a high charisma wizard... so to that extent they're equally as replaceable as the warlord. However, their iconic positions in the game as elements for many more editions gives them priority. If they did a poll and ranked all of the classes we've seen in the game in all editions from "most essential" to "least essential", I think the poll results would put every class in the PHB well ahead of Warlord... but I grant you that it'd be in the upper third of the 60 or so classes, in a second tier behind the PHB classes. I expect we'll get a PHB 2 and it will be a class in that book.

Sorcerers and Warlocks hardly have that long a pedigree.

I was specifically talking about mechanical and conceptual overlap, though. If the overlap among those classes isn't a concern, it can't be a concern for warlords.

Ashrym · Jul 2, 2015

The problem with warlords is they didn't fit the design goals based on perceived abilities on top of not being one of the more popular classes (I base this on the public poll) and creating concerns about the level of martial healing available.

Historically, similar things like the marshal existed, simply under a different name. The healer feat does create the non-magical healer concept and it's just less than bigger healing spells. It's better than low level spells because it does have basic scaling and a large numberserker of uses. For example, healer at 20th level in a party of 4 with a 2 short rest standard is over 20 cure wounds spells worth of healing on a fighter frame.

I don't disagree that it would have been and could be possible to create a specific class. We have martial oriented classes with fighters, barbarians, rogues, monks, and rangers just like we have magic oriented classes with wizards, sorcerers, bards, clerics, and druids; both main options have already been split into several classes. The need isn't really there.

Now for desire and within the current design, I might recommend adding a battlemaster maneuver that spends one superiority to allow an ally to use 1 HD healing die without requiring a short rest, and adds the amount of the die roll to the healing. That adds more to using the feat, provides options to heal someone multiple times, and creates more effective use of the hit dice mechanics if healing is what's important to the player.

I might work on a separate class later if I have time. I don't see the need but don't mind helping other players who might want the option.

DEFCON 1 · Jul 2, 2015

The big question is not whether the Warlord as a full class can be made (I think we can all agree that a non-magical "full caster" class is easy enough to build)... but whether it has to be made and released in an official WotC product to "count"?

Can someone else or some other company make a Warlord and would that satisfy people? Or does it HAVE to be WotC just so that no one ever has to argue with any potential DM about whether they can play it?

Jefe Bergenstein · Jul 2, 2015

I'd totally take a well designed 3rd party class over an average WOTC one. I use the Pathfinder world as my 5E game setting. A good product is a good product!

Jester David · Jul 2, 2015

I did my attempt here: clicky.

An official one will never satisfy or end these arguments because it's unlikely to include martial healing beyond what occurs in the Rally combat maneuver. It's too divisive a mechanic.
Because classes don't have set roles anymore, it's also unlikely to exist as a separate class, as it overlaps too much with the fighter.

jgsugden · Jul 2, 2015

Obryn said:
Sorcerers and Warlocks hardly have that long a pedigree.

And yet it is double that of the Warlord.

Warlords: 4E (2008). Sorcerers and Warlocks: 3E (2000).

You could argue that Marshal (2003) was a form of Warlord, but that is a bit of a stretch... the Marshal was not widely used while Warlock and Sorcerer were main book components; and the Marshal in 3E was much further in design from the Warlord than 4E and 5E Warlocks and Sorcerers are from their origins in 3E. Warlord was the first mainstream representation of the idea and it came in 2008.