D&D 5E Which classes would you like to see added to D&D 5e, if any? (check all that apply)

[Jester David]

Didn't the Warlord fare well in the initial polls that WotC did for most popular classes back during the testing of D&D Next? It was not as high as the usual heavy hitters (e.g., fighter, wizard), but I recall that it fared better than a number of the classes that made the PHB.

You're recalling an unofficial poll done on the WotC Community site at the very, very start of the D&D playtest (February 2012). Possibly before the playtest documents even started circulating.
The latest report on numbers I can find that survived the Community purging showed warlord as the #9 class, ahead of the barbarian, druid, assassin, sorcerer, and warlock!

But, again, this was of people who had an account at WotC and followed the official message boards. So it skewed heavily in favour of 4e fans. And even then there was some warlord dislike and questions if that class would/should survive, so the poll also likely attracted warlord supporters. I believe it only had a few thousand respondents (under 4k). So waaaay more than ever vote on polls here, but still a far from from the hundreds of thousands of playtesters.

I imagine has WotC found a huge swelling of support for the warlord it would have remained a class. Like they received for the sorcerer and warlock, which prevent those classes from being merged with the wizard into the "mage" class.
So there's logically three possibilities:
1) The designers just hate the warlord and didn't want to make it ignoring the fans. (But if that's the case... would warlord fans want them making the class?)
2) There's fewer warlord fans than the vocal minority on the internet would imply.
3) There's so many warlord haters, that the designers decided it would be too controversial to add.

 

[mellored]

Didn't the Warlord fare well in the initial polls that WotC did for most popular classes back during the testing of D&D Next? It was not as high as the usual heavy hitters (e.g., fighter, wizard), but I recall that it fared better than a number of the classes that made the PHB.

Yes. It was about the same as psion and monk.

But again, WoTC tried to include it with the battlemaster. And again with PDK. So it's not like they didn't hear, they just didn't understand what was wanted.


But it seems like Mystic (Order of Avatar) might be the best, last, hope to see an official support for warlord playstyle in 5e.
Int-based, attack granting, movement granting, bonus to initiative, etc.. With optional healing, weapon attacks, and skills boosts.

Just avoid the obviously supernatural abilities and it works well. At least once you get past the first few levels.

 

[Guest 6801328]

So it's not like they didn't hear, they just didn't understand what was wanted.

Oh, there are lots of possible interpretations other than "they just didn't understand."

1. They understood but decided it was bad game design.
2. They understood but decided it would be a bad business decision.
3. They understood and just didn't care.
4. They understood that the pro-Warlord community is so riven by disagreement that any attempt at an actual Warlord would only please 10% of them and make the other 90% even angrier.
5. They hate Warlords.
6. They hate Warlord fans.
7. They hate one specific Warlord fan so much that they would be willing to sacrifice the entire franchise to thwart this person. I won't conjecture which fan it is.
8. There weren't any women on the team at that point. (Sorry..couldn't resist throwing this one in.)

I'm guessing the real reason is some combination of 1, 4, and 7.

 

[Zardnaar]

You're recalling an unofficial poll done on the WotC Community site at the very, very start of the D&D playtest (February 2012). Possibly before the playtest documents even started circulating.
The latest report on numbers I can find that survived the Community purging showed warlord as the #9 class, ahead of the barbarian, druid, assassin, sorcerer, and warlock!

But, again, this was of people who had an account at WotC and followed the official message boards. So it skewed heavily in favour of 4e fans. And even then there was some warlord dislike and questions if that class would/should survive, so the poll also likely attracted warlord supporters. I believe it only had a few thousand respondents (under 4k). So waaaay more than ever vote on polls here, but still a far from from the hundreds of thousands of playtesters.

I imagine has WotC found a huge swelling of support for the warlord it would have remained a class. Like they received for the sorcerer and warlock, which prevent those classes from being merged with the wizard into the "mage" class.
So there's logically three possibilities:
1) The designers just hate the warlord and didn't want to make it ignoring the fans. (But if that's the case... would warlord fans want them making the class?)
2) There's fewer warlord fans than the vocal minority on the internet would imply.
3) There's so many warlord haters, that the designers decided it would be too controversial to add.

It did poll higher than some classes to the PHB, but it was still low IIRC (5% or less IIRC).

THey know how disliked the class is and one cann also look at sales data. Editions with warlord in it do not do very well, editions without it sell like gangbusters .

 

[Zardnaar]

I believe so. Warlord came off of the Commander class, which appeared late in the 3.5 run, but was well received. The Warlord in 4e was also popular. There is a Commander class in 13 True Ways, a supplement for 13th Age. Also popular. EN' s Noble class in A Touch of Class seems to be one of the more popular choices in that book, and its very commander like. So yes, I think that there is an appetite for the class. Wouldn't call it Warlord, though. I think of a tyrant in black spikey armour wearing a huge horned helmet as a warlord.

Virtually no one actually plays 13th age though the game is mostly a myth outside online forums. Even on online VTT's the % of people playing 13th age is very low and 4E is less than 3% IIRC. Pathfinder and 3.5 arestill putting up respectable number between them (15-20% IIRC). And then you realise those rules are basically 18 years old.

Warlord can't be that popular.

 

[Zardnaar]

Here you go.
A full warlord class, with limited-per-short rest attack granting, and none of the "commander" flavor.
Scaling more or less the same as what a support caster could do.

Tactican.

It costs money;
).

Ok I'll bite and buy the damn thing its 50 cents.

 

[mellored]

It costs money;
).

Ok I'll bite and buy the damn thing its 50 cents.

No, it's pay what you want. Which could be 0.

But thanks.

 

[MoonSong]

[MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION]
I would love to try selling to you the class, but at this point too many people seem to have piled on you, and I don't want to make you angry. (that and my ten-paragraph post was eaten by the system) So at this point all I want to ask is, what is you opinion on the En5ider Noble? (part of it is here as OGL http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1359 ) particularly on the flavor and how it interacts with the issues you have? Any and all feedback is welcome.

The Divine Soul fills the function of a Priest Class, I mean seriously, the Sorcerer class really only provides a spell list, sorcery points and the metamagic/flexible magic to use it, it's a very bare bones base class, it has very few features, compared to the Rogue, Wizard, Cleric, Warlock, Barbarian, Bard, Druid, and so on with almost all it's meat coming from the subclass, so with the different origins it's almost like playing different classes, especially the Divine Soul.

The Divine Soul is amazingly flexible. You can use it to build anything from a white mage/priest to a demigod(dess), and many thematic spellcasters in-between.

I believe so. Warlord came off of the Commander class, which appeared late in the 3.5 run, but was well received. The Warlord in 4e was also popular. There is a Commander class in 13 True Ways, a supplement for 13th Age. Also popular. EN' s Noble class in A Touch of Class seems to be one of the more popular choices in that book, and its very commander like. So yes, I think that there is an appetite for the class. Wouldn't call it Warlord, though. I think of a tyrant in black spikey armour wearing a huge horned helmet as a warlord.

I'm liking you already n_n

No, it's pay what you want. Which could be 0.

But thanks.

Oh but how greedy! Why not release it as OGL instead? (And what do you mean I got paid first? Nop don't remember it happening, not at all.......... I got a bunch of books around the time but that has to be a coincidence for sure n_n)

 

[Arilyn]

Virtually no one actually plays 13th age though the game is mostly a myth outside online forums. Even on online VTT's the % of people playing 13th age is very low and 4E is less than 3% IIRC. Pathfinder and 3.5 arestill putting up respectable number between them (15-20% IIRC). And then you realise those rules are basically 18 years old.

Warlord can't be that popular.

Are you kidding? 13th Age is very popular. Pelgrane' s top seller. DnD dominates, but there's lots of other really cool games out there. Go take a look.

 

[Guest 6801328]

(Note to anybody: is there a way to reset all the chain-reply-with-quote toggles in a thread, without going back through the pages and unchecking them?)

@Elfcrusher
I would love to try selling to you the class, but at this point too many people seem to have piled on you, and I don't want to make you angry. (that and my ten-paragraph post was eaten by the system) So at this point all I want to ask is, what is you opinion on the En5ider Noble? (part of it is here as OGL http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1359 ) particularly on the flavor and how it interacts with the issues you have? Any and all feedback is welcome.

It's less offensive than other versions I've seen. (And at least it's not called "Warlord"!) The one paragraph description at the beginning still has that leader/officer cast to it (e.g. "guiding others to their full potential"), and some of the ability names raise red flags ("Devoted Commander"? Really?) but because the actual ability descriptions don't contain much/any fluff it could be a lot worse.

On the other hand, the absence of any narrative fluff in the abilities still leaves me asking "how?" How does this person get my character to move extra, or take an extra attack, instantly heal 1d8, etc.? The only reasonable explanation, based on the evidence, seems to be that it's because he's inspiring and guiding. And thus my character must feel inspired and guided. No thanks.

So...no. This just doesn't work for me. (Again, I'm just one guy, and I don't work for WotC, so I have zero influence on whether anything like this becomes official. I'm only offering this opinion in the hope that maybe it will illuminate why others don't like Warlords, other than "edition war baggage".)

On the other hand, I don't understand why the existence of homebrews like the Noble don't make everybody happy. For anybody who wants the Warlord, just use unofficial content. Why does it have to be official?

By the way, I did take a pass at a "tactical, Int-based, non-magical support" sub-class with my Bravura that I just posted. Partly to play with a mechanics idea I had, and partly to illustrate how "tactical" could be done without dictating what other characters think.

The Divine Soul is amazingly flexible. You can use it to build anything from a white mage/priest to a demigod(dess), and many thematic spellcasters in-between.

I've been playing around building an Aasimar Divine Soul Sorcerer, seeing what she looks like at various levels. Can't wait for an excuse to play her. One tricky thing is that the "cleric" role traditionally means a few spells available that you rarely use, but are godsends (get it?) when they are needed. But with a Sorcerer chassis the number of available spells is so tight that it's tricky. But fun.