D&D 5E The core issue of the martial/caster gap is just the fundamental design of d20 fantasy casters.

[Micah Sweet]

'Counterspell' and 'Anti-Magic Field' are the two most overused complaints and so-called "reasons" why things can't be magic, here on the boards . It's ridiculous. There are 10,000% more complaints about the possibility of so-called magic being "dispelled" or "countered" then ever actually occur within the game itself. When's the last campaign you actually saw something with "Anti-magic"? My guess is... the only time is when you faced a Beholder. Despite all the claims to the contrary... 99.99% of DMs just don't plop down random anti-magic fields into their campaigns or have their NPCs dispel all kinds of meaningless magical effects, because it's dumb and a waste of resources.

If you actually play at a table with a DM who would spend their NPCs' precious actions and reactions on dispelling or countering simplistic 1st and 2nd level buff spells (of which Rage and Sneak Attack would be, were they magic)... you should be wiping the floor of that campaign. Because that DM's tactical acumen is exceedingly suspect. "Let's see... I could spend one of my two precious 3rd level spell slots of mine to Counterspell that Cone of Cold coming at me... OR I can Dispel that Ranger's Hunter's Mark buff. I wonder what the better play?"

Antimagic maybe not much (outside of the beholder, which I love), but Counterspell has been used extensively in games I've played and run, mostly by PCs because I personally hate the concept. It's definitely a concern.

 

[Voadam]

Or what I would actually do if I was playing a non-magical Warlord using the Bard chassis... is just strip all the flavor off that spell (were I to take it) and use it strictly for its useful mechanics only.

I grant all allies Advantage on attacks against a group of enemies within 20 feet of each other up to 60' away from me if they fail a DEX save.

There we go. Warlord ability. And I would refluff it with whatever sort of inspirational ra-ra flavor I'd want.

Now of course you will ask about the whole "glowing lights" thing. And frankly, I would just ignore that part of the spell, because it's merely a ribbon ability attached to the actual useful mechanic of granting allies Advantage against a bunch of enemies. So I couldn't care less whether or not those enemies were outlined in green or purple, that's not why I'm using the ability (spell)... so I'd just pretend like that part of the ability didn't exist. Not missing much.

And I'm sure you will ask about the use of the DEX save for a 'Warlord ability', rather than a WIS or CHA save. And that's one where I'd just handwave it and not even bother trying to invent some sort of reason to justify why it's a DEX save. I'm not going to try to game the game by asking the DM to change the type of save it is just to make it feel "correct"... rather, since it's a simplistic and fast game mechanic that will be over and done with in three seconds once the DM rolls the saves, we can all just ignore what type of save it actually was.

Long story short... the actual useful mechanic of granting allies Advantage on attacks against a small group of enemies can easily be a Warlord ability, so were I to use it, that's what I'd do.

There can be points of friction in reskinning.

I would be interested in your reflavoring "whatever sort of inspirational ra-ra flavor I'd want", because that can matter and be really fun and cool or cause dissonance depending on how it is done and how it interacts with the situation.

So you ignore completely that the verbal advantage power works great against slow things with poor dex saves but not so great against fast type opponents.

So you discard the creating dim light aspect entirely. Presumably the can't benefit from invisibility aspect as well. So now it is a variant stealth advantage spell effect instead of a light up display grant advantage spell.

The concentration? Can it be disrupted by damage to the warlord type? What happens narratively?

Able to be dispelled with dispel magic? Able to be counterspelled?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

To fix this problem, we need three things.

1. Fighters (and to a lesser extent Rogues and Barbarians) must get class-unique, genuinely effective tools which support play outside of the combat pillar.
2. Full casters must choose areas of actual specialty, meaning, they can perform little to no magic outside their core competence, or if they do, it will be noticeably weaker or reduced.
3. If a book publishes new spells, it must publish at least as many new options, features, etc. that don't involve or even interact with spellcasting.

Unless and until these three conditions are met, the caster/martial disparity will always return, sooner or later. Either it is baked in (failing point 1), or it will build up over the course of several levels (failing point 2), or it will grow as a result of magic-favoring power creep (failing point 3.)

Did you know that 5e has printed almost three times as many new spells (159) as it has new feats (62)? And that there were almost nine times as many spells as feats in the PHB (361 spells, 42 feats)?

 

[DEFCON 1]

There can be points of friction in reskinning.

I would be interested in your reflavoring "whatever sort of inspirational ra-ra flavor I'd want", because that can matter and be really fun and cool or cause dissonance depending on how it is done and how it interacts with the situation.

So you ignore completely that the verbal advantage power works great against slow things with poor dex saves but not so great against fast type opponents.

So you discard the creating dim light aspect entirely. Presumably the can't benefit from invisibility aspect as well. So now it is a variant stealth advantage spell effect instead of a light up display grant advantage spell.

The concentration? Can it be disrupted by damage to the warlord type? What happens narratively?

Able to be dispelled with dispel magic? Able to be counterspelled?

Not to get too deep into the weeds, because I've never actually played a 'Warlord' using the Bard chassis... but it all comes down to what I would find most important.

If I really want to play a Warlord archetype in 5E... I will make do with whatever I have available to do so. Whether that's a 3rd party class write-up... using the Battlemaster and take all the requisite abilities that the game gives to us right now to do it... or do any sort of re-fluffing if there are things I feel like would be important for my Warlord to have in the particular game I was playing. In the latter case... if for example I was to be the only potential healer in the group then I'd probably want to refluff a Bard so that I'd have access to Cure Wounds and Healing Word so that we had those features available. And that would mean stripping away the "magical healing" fluff and layering "inspiring ra-ra" healing instead.

But you also have to remember who I am here-- I'm the yo-yo here on the boards that doesn't really give two craps about game mechanics... what matters to me is the story of the party and the adventure. So I have absolutely zero concerns about re-fluffing, and any re-fluffing that doesn't match up 100% from the mechanic to the story I will happily handwave away. Because once the mechanic has been used... it's the resultant story that came out of the mechanic's use that actually has import and is what we care about and remember.

And this is absolutely something that most other people don't do, don't agree with, and argue with me about. So I'm probably not the best person to try and come to an accord with on this issue. Either you are with me on the idea that I don't need to try and explain away every single Bard feature and ability in a non-magical format otherwise the whole endeavor breaks down... or you can't handle the idea that yes indeed, it is theoretically possible that my DM could Counterspell my supposedly non-magical Warlord ability that uses the spell slot mechanic if that sort of "balancing metric" really mattered THAT MUCH to the DM that they'd still feel the need to do it. (Even though in all likelihood the DM and I would have come to an easy accord way back during Session Zero where they agreed with my premise of just wiping all references to magic and spells off the Bard chassis to allow me to play my "Warlord", in which case the DM would never bother to dispel or counter my "non-magical" features to begin with.)

 

[Staffan]

Let’s be honest here, baddies never have enough actions to make counterspell a viable strategy. It’s entirely plausible that the pcs are casting three to five spells per round. Nothing has that many reactions.

You only need to counterspell the revivify.

Not to get too deep into the weeds, because I've never actually played a 'Warlord' using the Bard chassis... but it all comes down to what I would find most important.

If I really want to play a Warlord archetype in 5E... I will make do with whatever I have available to do so. Whether that's a 3rd party class write-up... using the Battlemaster and take all the requisite abilities that the game gives to us right now to do it... or do any sort of re-fluffing if there are things I feel like would be important for my Warlord to have in the particular game I was playing. In the latter case... if for example I was to be the only potential healer in the group then I'd probably want to refluff a Bard so that I'd have access to Cure Wounds and Healing Word so that we had those features available. And that would mean stripping away the "magical healing" fluff and layering "inspiring ra-ra" healing instead.

This goes back to something I've argued about regarding psionics. There's a huge difference between being able to reskin and tweak an existing thing so it kind of looks like another thing if you squint, and for that other thing actually being supported. Those of us who want Warlords in the game want them to be a thing unto themselves, with sufficient variety that you could make numerous different Warlord characters that are mechanically distinct, much like you can make rogues, fighters, and wizards that are mechanically distinct from other people with the same classes.

 

[Voadam]

I reskin all the time. I am playing a narratively nonmagical but action movie awesome viking warrior with the mechanics of a 5e paladin and it has been fantastic (anime punching, warlord style healing, paladin aura being inherently awesome enough to inspire allies).

In my game I DM we have a warforged artificer as a full on alien robot technologist. A cleric of a trickster inventor god has steam punk space marine armor with power glove (reskinned plate mail and +1 mace), and they have a figurine of carrion crawling, which is a traveling goat figurine reskinned into a crayfish looking motorcycle. A hexblade tortle whose base weapon was reskinned to narratively be his bite for a while.

You can do a lot with reskinning and being on board with the narrative concepts, but I know from experience that there are points of friction that can come up.

What narratively makes sense when a robot is hit with a ghoul's paralysis attack and the underlying warforged mechanics means they would be affected the same as the other PCs? I've got this on both ends with a PC warforged/robot who faces ghouls, and lots of NPC robots and a PC who can summon a ghoul.

 

[DEFCON 1]

You only need to counterspell the revivify.


This goes back to something I've argued about regarding psionics. There's a huge difference between being able to reskin and tweak an existing thing so it kind of looks like another thing if you squint, and for that other thing actually being supported. Those of us who want Warlords in the game want them to be a thing unto themselves, with sufficient variety that you could make numerous different Warlord characters that are mechanically distinct, much like you can make rogues, fighters, and wizards that are mechanically distinct from other people with the same classes.

Heh, yeah, except of course the irony being that you'd get three Warlords that were much more mechanically distinct by using a refluffed Bard, a refluffed Cleric, and a Fighter Battlemaster as your Warlord options than you would by having WotC make a single Warlord class with three subclasses, LOL.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Heh, yeah, except of course the irony being that you'd get three Warlords that were much more mechanically distinct by using a refluffed Bard, a refluffed Cleric, and a Fighter Battlemaster as your Warlord options than you would by having WotC make a single Warlord class with three subclasses, LOL.

Of course, WotC isn't going to make a warlord class anyway, so the point is moot.

I recommend the Level Up Marshall. The Captain from Mage Hand Press is good too.

 

[Undrave]

I said it before: the base Wizard should have a MUCH smaller spell list. Half (or more) of their spell list should come from their subclass, so that specialists can be ACTUAL SPECIALISTS. The fact that two different subclasses of Wizards can end up with the exact same spell list is stupid and a grave mistake.

If you pick Diviner, you're gonna get a TON of Divination spells. If you pick a War Wizard, most of your spells will be close range option so you HAVE to wade into battle. Illusiontist? Don't even THINK of picking up that Fireball!

The class can have flexibility without giving free reign over that flexibility to every character of that class.

That's a huge part of the problem. The core fantasy of the D&D wizard is "I'm a baby god, the rest of you peons get to protect me while I gain exponentially more power." That's clearly untenable. Trouble is, that's exactly what a lot of wizard fans want. They like that unbalance and they will not be happy with anything less. The design of the game, the fun of the rest of the players, all of it be damned. They will accept nothing less than exactly what's in the books now and they'd really like more thank you very much.

Wizard fans are the worst. They can't accept not being top dog and they have WAY too much power over the discourse. WotC always folding backwards in four to please them...

Is it?

The core fantasy of the D&D Wizard to me is "I'm a studious caster, looking for old lore and spells to increase my power and contribution to the group."

That's because you're not a Wizard Fan. The Wizard Fan fantasy is really simple:

DM: I’m afraid your progresses are being stopped by [Obstacle]!

Fighter: I will attempt to overcome [Obstacle] with my STRENGTH!

DM: Your strength is not enough!

Rogue: I will attempt to over [Obstacle] with my skullduggery SKILLS!

DM: Your mundane skills are not enough! Sadly, you’ll need to go on a length quest to overcome [Obstacle].

Wizard: Not so fast! After the last rest I prepared a SPELL! And I can use this spell [in a clever way] to overcome [Obstacle], thus rendering your side quest useless!

DM: Curses! You foiled my plans with this incredibly clever and imaginative use of SPELL! Once again you are the superior player!

Fighter & Rogue: Hurray! Wizard saves the day!

Fighter: You’re so smart, Wizard! The best player I’ve ever seen in action!

Rogue: And handsome too! I will tell the tale of your clever SPELL for years to come!

 

[Tony Vargas]

Not to get too deep into the weeds, because I've never actually played a 'Warlord' using the Bard chassis... but it all comes down to what I would find most important.

I kinda did, actually, back in 3.5 - built, not played, because the build ultimately was not satisfactory - but the concept wasn't warlord. It was, humorously, "back-seat adventurer" that is, a Sage who knew all about monsters, treasures, history, tactics, etc, on an academic level, but no experience or talent for the actual work of exploration and little for fighting. The initial thought for a Sage was, of course, Wizard, but that came with so much spell power it'd be the inevitable focus of the character. So, Bard, it's 'song' giving everyone a bonus could be re-skinned as annoying advice - all the more annoying because it sometimes helped! But, ultimately, anemic a full caster as it was, the 3.5 Bard was still a full caster, and it wasn't practical in terms of either available choices or overall contribution, to downplay that enough to fit the concept.

An actual warlord would run into the same issues. Re-skinning spells to the point they're immune to anti-magic &c is squirrelly, and downplaying them enough to fly under the not-magic-I-swear radar would leave you under-contributing.

Heh, yeah, except of course the irony being that you'd get three Warlords that were much more mechanically distinct by using a refluffed Bard, a refluffed Cleric, and a Fighter Battlemaster as your Warlord options than you would by having WotC make a single Warlord class with three subclasses, LOL.

Mechanically distinct in the sense that the BM would be profoundly inferior and unable to pull it's weight in a support role, while rivaling the dedicated melee types.
OK, and in the sense that the two superior warlords are shut down by antimagic.
And the annoying way you'd have to willfully pick sub-optimal spells every day as the cleric (at least the Bard need only do so at level-up).


Ultimately, the Bard is a fair touchstone for how powerful/effective/versatile a warlord class would need to be for basic viability, tho.

But you also have to remember who I am here-- I'm the yo-yo here on the boards that doesn't really give two craps about game mechanics... what matters to me is the story of the party and the adventure. So I have absolutely zero concerns about re-fluffing, and any re-fluffing that doesn't match up 100% from the mechanic to the story I will happily handwave away. Because once the mechanic has been used... it's the resultant story that came out of the mechanic's use that actually has import and is what we care about and remember.
And this is absolutely something that most other people don't do, don't agree with, and argue with me about.

Re-skinning is awesome, yes. 3e let you do some explicitly (you could describe your character & gear as you liked, re-skinning spells apparently required Spell Thematics - better than 2e, where you needed to cast a spell, Sense Shifting, to re-skin other spells); 4e you could re-skin more (even spells) and very easily, since fluff was separated from crunch to a degree, but you couldn't change keywords which means re-fluffing Source was out; 5e ask your DM the rules are vague with little to differentiate re-skinnable fuff from sacrosanct rules text (and, even then, the rules text is often vague and begs for rulings).