Lets design a Warlord for 5th edition

[mellored]

The obvious fix for flexibility in short rest abilities is to give a warlord point that can be spent on any short rest warlord invocation any time you take a warlord short rest invocation.

The obvious fix for scalability is to grant access to new stronger invocations at appropriate levels. Maybe level 3, level 5 and level 11.

I have a mix of those.

You get 1 warlord point at level 1, 2 at level 5, 3 at level 11, and 4 at level 17.
Invocations automatically upgrade.
And there are short rest limits on some abilities.

I just call my warlord points "reactions".
The auto scaling "half your warlord level", "your proficiency bonus", or "your Int modifier".
And short rest abilities are either "when you roll initiative" or "a creature can only benifit/fall for this trick once".

Also, things like advantage work just as well at level 1 as they do at level 20. So no scaling needed on those.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

That's not really what I'm concerned with. The solutions required to make invocations work are opposed to each other. It almost seems like it's either flexibility in short rest abilities or scalability for them.

The obvious fix for flexibility in short rest abilities is to give a warlord point that can be spent on any short rest warlord invocation any time you take a warlord short rest invocation.

The obvious fix for scalability is to grant access to new stronger invocations at appropriate levels. Maybe level 3, level 5 and level 11.

However, if you adopt this fix for flexibility and this fix for scalability you end up with a system that's inflexible as all the warlord points will go into your higher level short rest abilities and so you might as well not even have the lower level ones

Possible solution: invocation upgrades where each invocations had maybe a level 1 effect, level 3 effect, level 5 effect and level 11 effect and as soon as you hit level 3 you would automatically upgrade to the level 3 effect. Then just add in a few more invocations as you level and that might take care of scaling. For flexibility follow the previous solution for granting a warlord point for each choice of short rest invocation and allow that point to be used on any warlord short rest invocation ability.

But I think that's quite a bit different than the implementation you were thinking of. There's not another implementation I can really see working right. Any thoughts?

I used maneuvers with a 3 tier system but as separate picks, with the previous ones plus class levels as prerequisites. Each tier generally did something different or used different actions, so having tier 3 didn't always invalidate using tier 2 for example.

My suggested WL is 1 invocation per level same rate as warlock (+ healing+ other stuff). I have not written than many though.

I'm pretty sure that Warlocks don't get an invocation at each level. Its closer to 1 every 2-3 levels.
They get to swap an invocation with a different one every level. That might be the source of the confusion.

 

[FrogReaver]

You can do that with my warlord who doesn't get at will attack granting.

Level 5 sorcerer can do haste twice a day. In theory 20 rounds in practice 6 to 8 often less. Which is less than a level 5 battlemaster.

He can do it 3 times a day. You can trade 5 sorcery points for a level 3 spell. Then you can trade your remaining spells below level 3 for sorcery points to twin all the hastes.

3 twinned hastes in 3 different 4 round combats is 24 attacks granted.

How does your warlord grant 24 attacks per day?

 

[FrogReaver]

I have a mix of those.

You get 1 warlord point at level 1, 2 at level 5, 3 at level 11, and 4 at level 17.
Invocations automatically upgrade.
And there are short rest limits on some abilities.

I just call my warlord points "reactions".
The auto scaling "half your warlord level", "your proficiency bonus", or "your Int modifier".
And short rest abilities are either "when you roll initiative" or "a creature can only benifit/fall for this trick once".

Also, things like advantage work just as well at level 1 as they do at level 20. So no scaling needed on those.

So I have to pick things to use warlord points on and then I'm still limited by warlord points?

It would seem the optimal strategy would be to pick 1 warlord point ability and then pick the rest to be non-warlord point abilities?

 

[Zardnaar]

He can do it 3 times a day. You can trade 5 sorcery points for a level 3 spell. Then you can trade your remaining spells below level 3 for sorcery points to twin all the hastes.

3 twinned hastes in 3 different 4 round combats is 24 attacks granted.

How does your warlord grant 24 attacks per day?

Tactical one takes invocation to get two more and picks two invocations that allow it. Gives you 8 which is roughly 2 to 3 fights. Two short rests brings it up to 24.

Sure you have to devote 3 things to do it but it's not unlike the sorcerer example you gave plus you get the built in generous amount of scaling healing and the other benefits.

That Sorcerer is also tanked for the rest of the day. 6 to 8 encounters you nova off 3 rounds.

Also 4 rounds is generous if haste is involved it's probably more like 3.

It's kind of the assumption I went with thinking about attack granting and my warlord is still rough. My warlord level 5 is looking good vs the Sorcerer who tanked himself

My logic was BM fighter and why can't we have an option at being better than that. Lead me to more dice and invocations.

 

[FrogReaver]

I have a mix of those.

You get 1 warlord point at level 1, 2 at level 5, 3 at level 11, and 4 at level 17.
Invocations automatically upgrade.
And there are short rest limits on some abilities.

I just call my warlord points "reactions".
The auto scaling "half your warlord level", "your proficiency bonus", or "your Int modifier".
And short rest abilities are either "when you roll initiative" or "a creature can only benifit/fall for this trick once".

Also, things like advantage work just as well at level 1 as they do at level 20. So no scaling needed on those.

I see. I'm having more trouble than I thought fitting battle plans or strategies or anything like that into my at will warlord so I may adopt an invocation style approach as well.

 

[FrogReaver]

Since we all seem to be going toward the invocation route, can we think of a better name for them than invocations?

Tactics and Strategies?

errr something?

 

[Kinematics]

I'm not sure what a shonen is.

Shonen is a term for anime aimed at young boys, often with a protagonist with an enthusiastic attitude, but not necessarily bright. Often long-running series, where they demonstrate the power of friendship, and never giving up (aka: the boys' version of magical girl series). The epitome of bullheadedness and a never-give-up attitude inspiring their friends forward against the big bad. Naruto, My Hero Academia, Bleach; that sort of thing.


Replying to other stuff will take longer, so I'll get to it later.

 

[Zardnaar]

Since we all seem to be going toward the invocation route, can we think of a better name for them than invocations?

Tactics and Strategies?

errr something?

Gambit and exploits have come up.

 

[Guest 6801328]

If that's what it took to get an accepted warlord I'm good with a no flavor text version of the ability. Do you think others in your camp will go for that kind of compromise?

Some, but not all. Some people have edition wars baggage.

I think it's non-magical mundane scare factor. Animals can make known their dislike of some people and their indifference to others. As such it's only going to be those the dragon want to frighten that will rise to the level of the 5e fear mechanic.

Wait...what? Give me an example of an animal selectively intimidating a group of enemies.

It's a common DM technique to make some NPC's have PC abilities. If such a NPC used that on your PC?

DMs do lots of things that aren't in the book that I don't agree with.