FrogReaver said:
This sounds like a critique that could be copied almost word for word regarding the 5e rogue concept.
There is a huge swathe of rogue concepts that are not fighters. There
is overlap in some ideas (eg: Conan, the Barbarian/Rogue), but everything from Gentleman Thief to Street Rat to Cat Burglar to Master Spy are pretty isolated from other character concepts. It is very easy to find a character concept that neatly fits within the Rogue concept space.
Yes. It's more of a team than a coach/player relationship. The reason coach/player gets brought up is more to illustrate healing abilities and such than it is to illustrate a full fledged warlord class.
I think for your best examples you will have to take a close look at war movies. Sometimes there's an order given that means almost certain death and there's that one team member (not always the one in charge either) that urges everyone on and helps them and provides sound tactical advice so much that the team leader usually listens to him. Sometimes he's even able to yell at comrades and have them get up and fight on. That's the kind of warlord we are looking for. Many times that character is the person in charge of the group as well. In those cases it's harder to separate out what we are talking about. But you'll find what you are looking for in war movies I think. I can't name any explicit examples off the top of my head.
With all this said, a warlord is almost always a fighting man of sorts. But the way he helps others fight better and longer is always he's defining trait. He doesn't have to be the most accurate, he doesn't have to kill the most enemy soldiers, he doesn't even have to be the team leader. He just has to help his allies fight better. Give them a reason for fighting on etc. This is opposed to the fighter whose defining trait is he's one the biggest bad@$$es around.
I'd like to combine this with Remathilis's comment about the Barbarian being in a somewhat similar relationship to the Fighter as the Warlord.
The Barbarian is, by and large, a solo/small group fighter. He's strongly built around being able to survive on his own, and will almost certainly be the best bet in a one-on-one fight. While he does have
some tools that link with allies (wolf totem, ancestors, etc), they are not defining features for the class as a whole. A Barbarian is, "I can take your hit, laugh it off, and hit you back harder."
The Fighter is, by and large, a professional soldier. He's been trained in all manner of weapons and armor. He can work solo, or he can work in a group. You can easily fit a Fighter into a regiment and have him be able to smoothly work alongside all the rest, just like you can post him on guard duty and expect him to do fine. He's comfortable at either end of the spectrum.
The Warlord, as far as I can see, is on the opposite side of the Fighter from the Barbarian. He is
not the soloist. He works best in a large group. He
needs the group. And, as noted with your suggestion about war stories, he is very strongly inclined to be a group commander (for ever larger groups).
Note: Rogue and Ranger are closer to Barbarian on the above axis, and Paladin is closer to Fighter.
So if you want to look at Warlord from a class perspective, balancing him against the Barbarian, as a sort of mirror image, seems like a good start. (You could also work against the Rogue and Ranger, though they feel like weaker balances because of other differences.) However if you don't consider that, he slides right in with Fighter, which makes it a clash with subclassing.
Then rogues shouldn't exist. They aren't strong enough to stand on their own.
OK, this is just a nonsensical statement. The number of rogue concepts could very well outnumber the number of fighter concepts, even after merging in Barbarian and Ranger. Saying that Rogues shouldn't exist because of a lack of concept space is being willfully obtuse, veering into arguing in bad faith.
Every d&d rogue is just a person that can fight decently well and is good at skills.
Remember what I said about people arguing mechanics rather than concepts? You're doing that. Please stop.
The best examples that can be given are all characters that are in a position of leadership which are automatically disqualified from this discussion because you and others will always blame their abilities on their leadership position instead of their leadership position on their abilities.
This statement doesn't make any sense.
The only reason I've disqualified people in leadership is because they are almost never actually adventurers. They are people who have gained enough experience (possibly as adventurers) to have graduated to a different level of play. The Warlord concept there is
easy. The Warlord-as-adventurer, not so much.