Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour: The Warlord

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, you should. If you were going to do that in the first place, then that would’ve been perfectly viable. Instead we have 5 flavors of the same fighter with various subclasses and 6 flavors of the same spellcaster with various subclasses.

That should definitely have been 4 very different classes with a whole grip of subclasses that might be viable on any base class. But whatever.

The classic D&D classes are heavily based on things from myth, literature and history or some combination of all of the above. Ranger= Aragon, fighter= Knight/gritty soldier, Paladin=Knight ideal, Cleric= templar etc. Hell a few classic cleric spells are from the bible.

The warlord is weak in literature at least in the way 4E had it. Sure there have been things like Fighter generals (Caesar, Alexander, Richard the Lionheart etc), but that maps more to things like the AD&D fighter with followers as a core of an army than the 4E warlord.

Its easier to find other things as well, Merlin=wizard, Morgan Le Feyy sorcerer or warlock, Arthur Paladin or Fighter.

The Warlord is not drawn from similar sources it was purely a gamist creation for the 4E rules system as another leader type for clerics. It was not an organic creation as such perhaps derived from the 3.5 Marshall which was basically designed for the D&D miniatures game (designed by Heinsoo and Tweet). Quite a few D&Disms also date back to the classical/biblical world (polymorph, magic weapons to hit, clerics and cleric spells etc). The names also a problem although its not unique there (Ardent, Warden, Duskblade,etc). You get a basic idea for a D&D class from the name at least the PHB ones if you are remotely familiar with pop culture, myths, literature etc.

You could boil the game down to 3 or 4 classes (probably 4 minimum if you merged cleric/mage you may no longer be playing D&D). For a generic d20 game Warrior, Expert, Magic would be your 3 classes I suppose.

 

[Eubani]

Can someone please provide the link for the 3rd episode.

 

[Aldarc]

The classic D&D classes are heavily based on things from myth, literature and history or some combination of all of the above. Ranger= Aragon, fighter= Knight/gritty soldier, Paladin=Knight ideal, Cleric= templar etc. Hell a few classic cleric spells are from the bible.

Warlord = warlord / commander / tactician. Not too difficult really.

The warlord is weak in literature at least in the way 4E had it. Sure there have been things like Fighter generals (Caesar, Alexander, Richard the Lionheart etc), but that maps more to things like the AD&D fighter with followers as a core of an army than the 4E warlord.

I think there is a difference between what a warlord does and simply having an entourage of followers. Caesar, for example, strikes me less as a "figther" and more as a "warlord." I don't think he necessarily would have been a "high level fighter," but, rather, a moderately levelled warlord. But I also think that a lot of mytho-historical figures that I think of as warlord also come out of literature such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms (e.g., Sun Quan, Cao Cao, Zhuge Liang, etc.).

The Warlord is not drawn from similar sources it was purely a gamist creation for the 4E rules system as another leader type for clerics.

The 3e Sorcerer says hello. The 3e Warlock also says hello.

 

[mellored]

Can someone please provide the link for the 3rd episode.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/240927621

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

That was a problem with BM maneuvers, some of them started out a bit strong for level 3, and then as you leveled, you picked your 4th-string and later choices, so it ended up front-loaded. Aside from that BM CS dice are strongly analogous to spell slots, say, of a Warlock. As you level up, your slots get higher level or your CS dice bigger, and they do more, even when you use them to use a maneuver or cast a low-level spell you first learned at 3rd level.

Level gating, in general, in D&D is a major way of showing advancement within a class, and the way the BM lost sight of it didn't work out to well, IMHO.

I don't think gambits should get a half-level rating like spells, nor a level-you-picked-'em-at rating like 4e powers, rather it'd be pretty intuitive and reasonable to level-gate them by Tiers of play. So 'maneuvers' like the BM's half-dozen vaguely-warlordly maneuvers, could be Apprentice-Tier gambits, then you graduate to heroic battle-plans, then grand stratagems, and finally pass down a legacy of a new military doctrine, or something like that. ::shrug::

That was pretty much the route that I took, with my warlord maneuvers gated by class level and prerequisite maneuvers, similar to warlock invocations.

Most consisted of sets of three tiers, where the first tier was similar to the BM maneuvers, and the later two grew off that at higher levels.

For example
Fortify! tier 1 is an action that grants an ally a superiority dice to the next save that they make, and has no prerequisites
Fortify! 2 grants the same effect, but can be used as a reaction, pre-empting a spell hitting your ally in the first place. It requires Warlord level 5 and knowing Fortify! 1 to select.
Fortify! 3 affects a current effect on your ally that either: allows periodic saves to resist, is a mind-affecting effect, or is an illusion that the warlord has successfully saved against. The ally gets to make an immediate new saving throw against the effect. This maneuver has prerequisites of Warlord level 11 and Fortify! 2.

Likewise the maneuver that gave your ally an attack as a reaction as per BM was available at level 3. Highest tier required level 13 and the previous stage, but granted an additional action.
etc.

 

[Remathilis]

That was pretty much the route that I took, with my warlord maneuvers gated by class level and prerequisite maneuvers, similar to warlock invocations.

Most consisted of sets of three tiers, where the first tier was similar to the BM maneuvers, and the later two grew off that at higher levels.

For example
Fortify! tier 1 is an action that grants an ally a superiority dice to the next save that they make, and has no prerequisites
Fortify! 2 grants the same effect, but can be used as a reaction, pre-empting a spell hitting your ally in the first place. It requires Warlord level 5 and knowing Fortify! 1 to select.
Fortify! 3 affects a current effect on your ally that either: allows periodic saves to resist, is a mind-affecting effect, or is an illusion that the warlord has successfully saved against. The ally gets to make an immediate new saving throw against the effect. This maneuver has prerequisites of Warlord level 11 and Fortify! 2.

Likewise the maneuver that gave your ally an attack as a reaction as per BM was available at level 3. Highest tier required level 13 and the previous stage, but granted an additional action.
etc.

This was my idea as well, three tiers of maneuvers (some lifted from BM, some new and some warlord exclusive) fueled by lots of superiority dice. More powerful maneuvers were level locked.

 

[Aldarc]

This was my idea as well, three tiers of maneuvers (some lifted from BM, some new and some warlord exclusive) fueled by lots of superiority dice. More powerful maneuvers were level locked.

This unsurprisingly reminds me of Mearls's work back in Malhavoc Press's Arcana Evolved with the "Ritual Warrior" class he designed. The class had tiers of martial rites/maneuvers that operated in a similar fashion as spells. At high enough level, some of those rites became at-will. It even used Concentration checks to maintain some of its abilities.

 

[mellored]

The classic D&D classes are heavily based on things from myth, literature and history or some combination of all of the above. Ranger= Aragon, fighter= Knight/gritty soldier, Paladin=Knight ideal, Cleric= templar etc. Hell a few classic cleric spells are from the bible.

The warlord is weak in literature at least in the way 4E had it. Sure there have been things like Fighter generals (Caesar, Alexander, Richard the Lionheart etc), but that maps more to things like the AD&D fighter with followers as a core of an army than the 4E warlord.

Its easier to find other things as well, Merlin=wizard, Morgan Le Feyy sorcerer or warlock, Arthur Paladin or Fighter.

The Warlord is not drawn from similar sources it was purely a gamist creation for the 4E rules system as another leader type for clerics. It was not an organic creation as such perhaps derived from the 3.5 Marshall which was basically designed for the D&D miniatures game (designed by Heinsoo and Tweet). Quite a few D&Disms also date back to the classical/biblical world (polymorph, magic weapons to hit, clerics and cleric spells etc). The names also a problem although its not unique there (Ardent, Warden, Duskblade,etc). You get a basic idea for a D&D class from the name at least the PHB ones if you are remotely familiar with pop culture, myths, literature etc.

You could boil the game down to 3 or 4 classes (probably 4 minimum if you merged cleric/mage you may no longer be playing D&D). For a generic d20 game Warrior, Expert, Magic would be your 3 classes I suppose.

Conceptually putting the warlord under the fighter is fine.
The issues is mechanicly fitting the warlord into a 5e fighter.

Too much of the fighter is damage, which doesn't leaves room for effects.

It's like if the wizard could only cast evokation spells.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

Conceptually putting the warlord under the fighter is fine.
The issues is mechanicly fitting the warlord into a 5e fighter.

Too much of the fighter is damage, which doesn't leaves room for effects.

It's like if the wizard could only cast evokation spells.

Another question then.

Why shouldn't the Warlord be able to fight well?

 

[mellored]

Another question then.

Why shouldn't the Warlord be able to fight well?

The same reason he shouldn't be able to cast spells. He spent her time learning strategy and tactics, instead of practicing his sword swing.

Ideally (IMO), a fighter would be able to choose between fireball, mass healing word, and haste multi-attacking, inspiring, and buffing. With some options to specialize in one or the other.