Threaddddd Necromancy!!!
Okay, finishing up a revision I'm making of the Tactician I started seven or eight months back.
When I started designing this, I had the following concepts in mind:
1) Do what the concept should do. I wanted to think about what a "warlord" type character would do and make that. I didn't want to limit it to "just what it did in 4e" but what you might expect a smart, field commander to do. Really, I wanted to update the
concept and not just update the previous implementation.
2) Encourage teamwork. I wanted this class to work with its allies and use abilities that implied teamwork, either overtly in the mechanics, or via the story.
3) Be Smart. I wanted it to use Intelligence over Charisma. The charming, inspiring leader is already the bard. Doubling down on the cunning, intelligent leader gives the tactician/ warlord a more unique place in the game.
4) Choices but Limited Complexity. As this was the class designed to appeal to the person wanting to be a "tactical genius", I wanted to give interesting choices each round. But not so many that you actually needed to be a master tactician to play the class.
Other design thoughts:
Replacing the Cleric. This is less necessary in 5e as the druid and bard can heal in the PHB just fine. And through other subclasses, the warlock and sorcerer can unlock healing.
Replacing the cleric feels like a less necessary design goal. (Just like designing the sorcerer as the "wizard replacement" or the barbarian as the "fighter replacement".) Classes should be designed around the concept, not around another class.
I wanted to focus more on what made the warlord conceptually interesting and less on replacing the cleric. This also allows a "warlord" to be in the same party as a cleric without completely overlapping and stepping on each other's toes or feeling redundant.
Plus, this also sidestepped trying to find "replacements" for cleric features, such as raising the dead, removing disease, or unpetrifying a stone PC.
Party Role. The above said, I still wanted this to potentially be a martial healer. However, I also wanted this to be a "simple" healer. There's not a lot of "simple healing" in 5e. Keeping the "warlord" complexity lite allowed it to also fill this gap. It's an option if "no one wants to play the cleric" except the one player who dislikes spellcasters.
Which is the point of the warlord: to be the healer that doesn't use magic. If the "cleric replacement" works and feels just like the cleric… it's not really a *different* option.
That said, 5e doesn't tie classes to a single combat role. While the cleric can excel as a healer, they can also work quite well as the party face, the tank, a striker/DPR character, or even a tricky rogue type. As such, it was important to make a 5e "warlord" inspired class do more than the single role. But to do so in a warlordy way.
Going to take any feedback and sit on this design for a few days. And then maybe do a final edit pass and throw this on the DMsGuild.
PDF link
Curious if any of the other posters in this thread have a PDF to show off as well...