Water, water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink

Oh here's a thought. Errata the fighter so that multi-attack takes a bonus action.

Then you'll be able to trade off 1 bonus attack attack, for 1 bonus buff.

Just because I'm having so much fun with this...

Rogue Subclass: The Princess

(Look at the Rogue abilities and tell me you can't flavor those as things a princess could do through her courtly training or dumb luck. Except Sneak Attack I guess, but she isn't going to be doing that much.)

3rd level: Order Attack: Use an action to order one of your allies within 30' to attack. They can make a single melee or ranged weapon attack. The ally must be able to see or hear you for this ability to work.

3rd level: Comfort the Injured: As an action a Princess can allow an an ally within 5' to use a number of Hit Die equal to 1/3 their level (rounded up) to heal themselves. Add the Princess's Charisma modifier to each Hit Die rolled. This ability may be used even if the target is unconscious.

9th level: Diplomat: You have advantage on all Diplomacy skill checks and you gain proficiency in Charisma saves.

13th level: Irresistible Target: As an Action you taunt, annoy or entice up to 3 enemies within 60' to attack you. They must make a Wisdom save (DC 8+ your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier). If they fail their next action must be the attack or cast a spell action. Any attacks they make or spells they cast must target you. If they can not legally target you with an attack or spell then they take the Disengage action and must move towards you. All of the targets' attack rolls have Disadvantage and you gain Advantage on any saves the attacks or spells require.

17th level: Off with Their Heads!: When you use Order Attack you can allow two of your allies within 30' to make a single melee or ranged weapon attack and their attacks have Advantage.

Edit: Boosted the healing. Modified the Irresistible Target ability.

mellored said:

You missed the part where it's balanced at 2 attacks at level 11. Fighter has 3.
And no fighting style or action surge either.

Which is exactly why it doesn't fit in with the fighter.


That said, i like all those features. So good job on the concept.

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What am I missing? It is still a Fighter, definitely. It has extra attacks and Action Surge and all that. In addition he grants bonuses and attacks and temp hit points and lots of Warlordy things. This is not a Lazy Lord build, for that, see the Princess above.

I keep thinking about the Irresistible Target ability above and think it needs some help. Should it force the targets to use the Attack action? Or move towards the Princess? Can they cast spells? Do those spells have to target her? I'm thinking yes to some or all of those. Not sure yet though.

Edit: fixed it up a bit.

And to prove ChirsCarlson's original point, the subclasses I posted (assuming they were playtested and tweaked until they were actually well balanced) would still leave Warlord fans thirsty. Yes?

ChrisCarlson said:

The opposite. I'm saying that's a pretty awesome representation of a warlord in 5e. Works for me.

Why does it not for you?

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I guess the whole "can't do it until 7th thing" - especially when a typical campaign stalls out before 10th.

Plus all the non-warlordy baggage that comes with it. Sneak at +2d6, Action Surge, Second Wind, proficiency in Thieves Tools, must use feats.

I'm still reading my way through your 600+ posts as instructed. But I expect to offer more discussion when I finish.

Most of the informative "my solutions" posts are buried in the 174 page Warlord thread so I can understand how common people wouldn't have come across them.

Jester Canuck said:

No, it's going to be "what type of character do you want to play?" which is the exact same meaning but in a more common phrasing.

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If you ask someone what type of character they want to play, they are likely to reply in terms of archetype or function or capabilities.

There are then various mechanical builds that answer to or express those archetypes, functions and capabilities.

If someone says "I want to play Merlin the Magician" or "I want to play Gandalf", would you really tell them "Build a champion fighter and then at the table play it as a wise old mage?" I mean, maybe you would, but I think most D&D players wouldn't.

Jester Canuck said:

That's nice. But we're not talking about AD&D. We're talking about 5e. And have you looked at the 5e cleric?

The main role section of the 5e cleric is "Healers and Warriors" and puts as much focus on "call[ing] down flames from heaven to consume their enemies" as using "the helpful magic of healing and inspiring their allies".

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Yes, not all clerics are top-tier support characters. Nevertheless, top tier support characters tend to be clerics or bards (or, with slightly more trickiness pf build, druids, paladins or maybe rangers or battlemasters). Rather than (say) champion fighters.

So if someone wants to play a support character, absolutely you would point them to some classes - clerics and bards foremost - rather than others. The fact that the advice needs supplementing (eg some sub-classes provide better support than others) doesn't undermine the fact that (i) some PC builds have capabilities that others lack, and (ii) class is an important component of PC build.

I mean, in AD&D not all fighters are good melee combatants (eg some might be built with low-ish STR, high DEX and prof/specialisation in missile weapons), but if someone building a PC for AD&D says "I want to play a hand-to-hand fighter" you would generally point them to the fighter class (or one of its sub-classes).

You seem to be trying to argue that choice of mechanical features in PC build makes no difference to what the PC can actually do in play. If you really think that is so, then what do you think the point of those mechanical features is?

I've always both understood, and eperienced, the point of those varying features to be to affect what it is the PC can do in play. For instance, if I want my PC to be a healer, I choose mechanical features that permit the restoration of hit points. If I want my PC to be a melee combatant, I choose mechanical features that permit the making of melee attacks with good weapons, and that provide my PC with high hp, high AC and/or damage reduction. Etc.

Jester Canuck said:

pemerton said:

What have combat roles got to do with anything? I didn't mention them.

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Other than "buffer".

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Why would buffing be limited to combat?

Lord Twig said:

Jester Canuck has a good point. Is there any class in 5e that is more than half buffer or support?

Every cleric, wizard or bard I have seen played has spent more than half their actions doing direct damage of some sort. Buffing is just something you do one or twice in a battle. Healing is done at the end, or rarely to stand someone up who has fallen. But most of the time is spent dealing damage.

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I don't see how this is really relevant, though.

Suppose that the most supportive cleric spends half his/her resources doing damage.
Champion fighters, by contrast, spend more than half their resources doing damage - nearly all of them, in fact.

The warlord would be closer on this spectrum to the cleric than the fighter.

Lord Twig said:

But the caster isn't spending every round convincing the Fighter he should attack more. He casts a spell then does some damage himself. The Bard casts Greater Invisibility (a 4th level spell btw) then throws some damage down range. The Cleric casts Bless then starts bashing heads. Etc.

In every case the caster is using a spell that they are not going to get back until they rest, and probably 8 hours of rest.

So perhaps that is the direction we should be looking for the Warlord? He rallies the troops (or whatever) on the first turn then spend the remaining rounds actually fighting. Then he needs to rest for 8 hours before he can encourage people to fight better than they would normal be fighting if he wasn't there telling them they should fight better.

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That's not the only possibility, though.

Warlocks use spells on a mix of at-will, short-rest and long-rest timetables which is different from "standard" 9-level casters. I don't see any in-principle reason why something similar couldn't be done with more buff-y/heal-y type abilities.

Possible resource models for the warlord would include the barbarian's rage or the battle masters manoeuvres or every classes' hit dice. Just like spells, non-magical abilities work on the full spectrum of recovery, from at-will to short rest recovery to long rest recovery.

Lord Twig said:

And to prove ChirsCarlson's original point, the subclasses I posted (assuming they were playtested and tweaked until they were actually well balanced) would still leave Warlord fans thirsty. Yes?

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jodyjohnson said:

I guess the whole "can't do it until 7th thing" - especially when a typical campaign stalls out before 10th.

Plus all the non-warlordy baggage that comes with it. Sneak at +2d6, Action Surge, Second Wind, proficiency in Thieves Tools, must use feats.

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I think jodyjohnson pretty much answer Lord Twig here.

A warlord class would be similar to some of the suggested builds, but with less extraneous baggage (less multi-attack, no sneak attack etc) and slightly neater integration of the various capabilities (somewhat like spell-casters integrate many of their abilities into a single spell-casting framework).