At some point, people decided that only direct, specific magic could be fantastic and there could be no badass normals--even to the level of real people like Jack Lalane. 20th level fighters wish they were capable of half as awesome a feat as that man was capable of at 70.
So many magical archetypes have been given the chance to grow because they were unshackled from the wizard. I think it's fine to unshackle a few more archetypes, including the warlord, from the fighter.
Yeah, but I think that was a mistake too...
Yeah, that's fair, and I agree. I wish subclasses had a bit more meat on them.
Just because you dislike the choices made doesn't make it a "mistake." That said, I don't really think that these other classes or archetypes would sit comfortably within the wizard chassis for much the same reason that you agree above with Campbell about other archetypes on the fighter chassis, particularly in regards to the wizard being closely associated with Intelligence and spellbooks.
I like them as separate classes in modern D&D. Too many many fiddly bits to put all that in one. In an OSR game it would be, and should be, a different story.
A 5e version of Warlord can even use the Warlock chassis. The Warlord class would have Martial spells, namely "maneuvers", written up using the spell format with its flavors carefully nonmagical. That the spell points refresh per Short Rest, to recover from fatigue, is perfect.
Well that brings us round to the OP, doesn't it?
I've said in the past that Commander's Strike/Direct the Strike should be a fighting style. And Inspiring Word (complete with spending a hit die) should be a BM maneuver, as should Powerful Warning. Possibly Inspiring Word should be an option you can take in place of Second Wind.
