Looks like it's time for a Warlord Sub-Forum Again...somehow.

Sacrosanct said:

Can you see how these two statements are contradictory? First, you're saying the warlord doesn't have to be OP because you can limit what it does to keep it balanced with other classes, and then say that the problem with the PDK is that it was limited in its abilities (to balance it with the other classes).

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Not at all.

The PDK has as much warlord as you can fit into a fighter sub-class.
No one is asking for a full warlord class to be inside a fighter sub-class. That would be OP. (as would full spell slots for the Eldritch Knight).

They want a full warlord class, with no fighter. That gives you a lot more room to do warlord-y things. (as having a full wizard class give you more room for spell things).

Corwin said:

That's simply inaccurate.

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That is correct. I used some hyperbole.

At 18th level the Champion has infinite hit points within certain parameters. I forgot about that because we've never been beyond 14th level.

steeldragons said:

Seriously. Half the threads in the top ten of the 5e forum are all rehashing Warlords: yay/naye, how, why, what do they get....

Didn't we do all of this already last year?

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Those who do not learn from history...

Yunru said:

I would of been happier with the purple dragon knight if they hadn't been so afraid of vitriolic, rabid anti-Warlord fans that they put the defining feature at level 10 rather than level 3.

If those two had been swapped, I would of been fine (though somewhat disappointed) with a multiclass of Mastermind, Purple Knight, and Bard.

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as it stands, isn't using battle master with the right maneuvers in that mix better than using purple dragon knight?

ppaladin123 said:

as it stands, isn't using battle master with the right maneuvers in that mix better than using purple dragon knight?

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As it stands a Mastermind with Inspiring Leader is better than using a PDK.

I remember the great Warlord Wars of 2015 (long stare off). I remember two big problems with the warlords that got bandied around the first time.

The first is that the belief that a warlord who is simply attacking isn't being a warlord; a warlord should be commanding allies and granting bonuses every round. Most of the earlier debates hinged around things like 4e warlords having commander's strike as an at-will power, thus assuming a 5e warlord should have the ability at will as well. That debate spiraled into how a warlord should track resources for his abilities (comparable to spell slots, ki points, or martial dice) with nobody agreeing on how, how much, and how powerful the warlord's powers should be. Some believed they should rival a cleric in raw power (being able to use a variety of abilities eventually equaling 9th level magic), some believed a more buffed battlemaster (limited powers, keyed off martial dice) would do fine. Another group vouched for a warlock-like "very limited list, but nearly unlimited use" method. Others I swear had no idea and simply wanted warlords granting free attacks every round to their allies without cost.

The other was exactly what a warlord should be doing. Granting free attacks, allowing casters to additional spells/round, healing wounds vs. temporary hp, healing statuses like blindness, poison, fear, charm, and even death, and buffing everything from AC to skill checks. Since there was never a consensus on how a warlord should track resources (aside from a very visceral dislike of a "slot" system) there was no way to gauge what strength a walord's powers should rate as.

There is no answer at this point that I think WotC could give that will satisfy even the most ardent of warlord supporters at this point. The fact the community hasn't even been able to create/rally around a DM's Guild/OGL version (and WotC has literally given you everything you need to make one at this point) is telling of that. Until there is a bit more concensus of how a warlord does things and what exactly it supposed to do, I don't think there will be anything more than these random outbursts of warlord threads ever-so-often.

Oh, and its time to bring back the subforum again.

I had a thought that I feel is worthy of throwing my hat into this ring. What if one were to play around with the Spell-less ranger from UA, and make Warlord a subclass of that? It comes with some BM in it already, and some martial non-magical healing already. Give it a bard/PDK subclass, and it might work, right?

EDIT: looking the ranger over, it has a few changes that need to be made first, to cut out some of the "Nature", like removing call Natural Allies. Good news is, that leaves more room for adding in Warlord abilities. Having never played a warlord, or even seen a warlord in play, I can say that this seems to work for what I have seen people describing at least.

EDIT 2.0: Another thought. There is a spell-less ranger, why not a spell-less bard?

Obviously the warlord should be a subclass of the mystic. Both are all about "not being magic" and "telling other people what to do" is good for warlords and telepaths.

Lanliss said:

EDIT 2.0: Another thought. There is a spell-less ranger, why not a spell-less bard?

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There's one in adventure in middle-earth called the Warden. Its more or less exactly the PHB bard, but with refluffed features to remove the word ''magic'' from the text. There's a refluffed valor bard (the herald), the emissary; a social warlord with buff/debuff in combat thru speech and the bounder, a defending warlord.

The problem with the discussion isn't that there is disagreement over what a warlord should be able to do. That's what sub-classes are FOR after all.

The problem is, that every... single... discussion... gets derailed by multiple posters jumping in and telling all and sundry that warlords shouldn't be in the game at all. Which winds up doing exactly what those posters want - derailing any actual discussion of value while not having to actually bring any argument of substance to the conversation.

How many umpteen thousand times do you have to justify the archetype? Good grief, even in this, the what tenth thread in a week, we have people questioning whether or not the very concept of a warlord actually exists as a class. So, we spend pages trying to defend just the notion that we want this class, and every single thread gets derailed.

And then it gets shoved into the forum ghetto where these self-same "defenders of all things D&D" pounce out in every single thread, continuing to derail thread after thread until people just give up in frustration.

It's sanctioned trolling.

My vote? One week ban to ANYONE who goes into a warlord thread and questions whether we should have warlords in the game or not. Want to talk about new mechanics or how to actually implement concepts in a game? Fantastic. Want to come into yet another thread and tell all and sundry that warlords are an anathema to role play because they tell players how to feel? Welcome to a one week holiday from the forum.

Then, maybe, we can actually have constructive conversations about warlords.