Lets design a Warlord for 5th edition

[Zardnaar]

Meh. 5e fans, like D&D fans in general just like D&D, not only one specific edition, nor harbor particular malice for one particular edition. Each if the supposedly problematic elements of the Warlord is already present in 5e.

Anyone who finds the bundle of them as a whole, the Warlord name, or it's 4e pedigree, ditastefully can decline to opt into it. It's similar to feats: fans of 3e & 4e tend to like 'em, old-schoolers not s'much, so they're optional, even if in the PH.

No one's burning SCAG for having the PDK in it.


It'd also render individual warlords too inflexible to be viable as sole support for a party, undermining a key benefit of adding the class: expanding the range of play styles under 5e.

Strawman argument alot of us have agreed in principle you can have a warlord as an independent class wit the name warlord and it can do most of what it can do in 4E (heal, support, grant attacks etc). You can even have scaling martial healing that is short rest based.

The only real sticking point at will attack granting its like getting hung on on exact mechanics an 2E of 3E.

Assume for a moment you don't have a warlord that can grant attacks at will. Assume that they get something else but attack granting is still an option and that includes granting attacks to Rogues (just not at will).

The 4E warlord was built to take advantage of 4E rules, why not have a 5E one that does the same thing in 5E. Another point is even if you grant an attack to the Rogue the amount of damage that rogue is roughly equivalent to 2 or 3 rounds of Rogue damage in 4E. So even if you can only grant 1 attack every second or third round relatively speaking you're doing the same amount as 4E (or even more 5E critters have less hp). Instead of spreading the damage out you are front loading it.

You're so focused on duplicating the 4E ability exactly I don;t think most of you have put much thought into how it works in 5E except maybe "its a bit good for a rogue".

Its obvious that you won't get agreement on that ability its just to good in 5E mechanics doesn't port well. You warlord will still be doing the same or very similar things it did in 4E so whats the problem?

It also opens up design space to do other things, a 4E rifder that grants +2 to hit can get upgraded to advantage which is better for example.

Healing is also more iconic to the Warlord than attack granting, itt was built intot he basic class. To function in 5E you are going to need more than the ability to grant second winds 1/short rest there is room there for power creep.

And even if you did convince these board member to sign off on this and you went to Mearls (as a group) and said you want at wil attack granting what do you think his response would be (its 3 times as strong as a 5E mechanic).

Its obvious you're not going to get it in anything official. There is no vast popular support for the WL class, a dozen people at best demanding an exact replica of an ability in 4E is not enough momentum and most 5E players seem happy with valor bard, BM fighters and a warlord as fighter.

If you want at will attack granting there is already 3pp support for it. You don't need to design anything new if you really want to stand or die on it. It seems people will just shift the goal posts again.

Its more fun trolling the forums I suppose as the last 4venger hold outs. Fighters had weapon specialization for over 20 years that is gone, I can still play a fighter.

You basically have 3 options for at will attack granting.

1. Make a one trick pony class (aka the Heart Noble) that is broken/useless or player quit the class both times as she was broken/useless.

2. Break the game (you won't get an official Warlord doing this)

3. Make up a heap of complicated rules that won't catch everything and are just confusing and end up with a crap class anyway.

You can't balance at wil attack granting due to the Rogue and keep the game simple which violates the 5E design paradigm. Easier way to do it I suppose would be to have a side bar like in 3.5 for that "minor/bonus" action thing (name eludes me atm) and define a basic attack in that (1W+ability mod) and make it clear you can't put extra damage on it. Sure that is would work but its kinda boring I personally would rather have a limited use grant attack to rogue like the BM.

Basically you would need to define a basic attack, however you want to word that. And then you could add an extra dice of damage at say level 8 and 14 a'la the cleric. You could probably even give yourself 2 attacks (level 5 or 6) and 1 of the attacks could be an attack grant and the other a normal one.

 

[Jester David]

Because Thus Saith Jester David?

No. Because a class where a single character can learn every single power available to the class with enough time and money doesn't map very well to any other class in the game, making it a poor analogy for class design.

Even without the full princess build that eventually emerged commander's strike was a power that was very often used.

Yeah. By half of walords at the start and then a shrinking number.
If a third or quarter of warlords regularly use the power, then that maps very nicely to a subclass, where a third to a quarter of people might take that subclass and get its abilities.

I'm fine with saying just as important. Creating a class is not about trying to be distinct for the purpose of being distinct. It's about using mechanics that invoke the class concept all by themselves. Leaving out either inspirational or tactical aspects as at least options of the primary class is going to be a problem for many. Leaving out attack granting or at least the option of it from the base class is also going to be a problem.

In a vacuum, creating a class is about expressing the concept of the class as mechanics, yes. But you don't design classes in a vacuum. It needs to work as part of a group and not overshadow other classes.

If making a new class, lets say the ninja, then you need to make a class that does what people would expect a ninja to do. If someone who hasn't played a ninja in 3e or 2e won't be surprised by the mechanics of the class or implementation of its powers. There shouldn't be a disconnect between what you expect the class to do based on its story and what it actually does.
But it also shouldn't diminish the other classes. The rogue is the "sneaky class", making the ninja problematic. Either it's sneakier than the rogue, thereby making the rogue less special and desirably, or it's less sneaky and the class might not fulfil the expectations of players. That's a dilemma.
Furthermore, it leads to a situation where a player goes "I want to play a sneaky character. Which class is the best?" and there's no obvious answer.

As such, it'd be better to shift the ninja in other directions beyond focusing on sneakiness, but that still map to the overall concept. Magical ki powers work. Invisibility and vanishing in a puff of smoke to teleport somewhere. Focus on the myths of ninjas as if the superstitions were real. Being able to teleport and being trained and a high stealth can still allow it to be functionally sneaky if they player wants, but isn't as reliably sneaky as the rogue. So the rogue remains the "sneaker" while the ninja can focus its design work elsewhere and be a different class.

This is the same with the warlord, which shouldn't overlap with the bard. Because the bard gets so few unique elements. Giving the warlord the ability to inspire would feel like, well, giving the bard the ability to grant allies attacks at-will.

It's not about new, it's about increasing in power. People stick in fighter till level 11 for the 3rd extra attack and not really any other ability he gives. As long as abilities continue to increase in power like mine do then this isn't even a concern.

1) The fighter is designed as "the simple" class. By design it's not supposed to get much at higher levels. But that's an exception compared to other classes.

2) How large is your sample size to say what "people stick in the fighter" for? How many people have you talked to and played with that have played fighters?

Wait you do realize those were only 2 examples of easily 20+ possible abilities right?

1) You get three at level 1, another at level 5, and a final one at level 11. So from level 12 onward you don't get anything new. You're just doing the same thing again and again and again.

2) This design also means that at level 5 and 11 you're not picking a "new" ability, you're picking from abilities you passed over the first time. Abilities you decided weren't interesting enough to make the cut.

3) What are the other 18 then? Making that many abilities without getting into magical effects is not easy.

This honestly is the most boring criticism in the book. At-will effects are not spells. Sorry.

You're missing the point.

It's just like how people didn't like 4e because everyone got "spells". Not everyone wants to have the character with the dozen power cards they can pick between. Some people want the character that doesn't have "spells".

You're designing a class that works like a spellcaster. Specifically, one that works a little like the warlock with a focus on At-Will spells. But you're using that as the basis of a non-spellcasting class. People will go into the class not expecting powers—because it's not a spellcaster—and then find it has powers that are more complicated that spells, with multiple powers to pick from each round and daily resource management.

You don't need to spend warlord points to gain effects. You need to spend a warlord point to enhance your at will ability.

What do the warlord points trigger? All I'm setting is the "level 1 effect" and the "level 5 effect"?

If you have the Empowering Strike ability, what does it do before you have Warlord Points to spend?
If you get the level 1 effect automatically, then what can you spend the Warlord Points on prior to level 5?

 

[Tony Vargas]

You can even have scaling martial healing that is short rest based.

Mike seems to think healing needs to be daily resource driven, since he came right out and said that in the podcast, so, sounds like we probably cant't.

The only real sticking point at will attack granting

You're the only one who seems to feel that way.

You can't balance at wil attack granting due to the Rogue

In the same podcast, Mearls dismissed even considering the case of an attack grant 'always going to the rogue,' thats simply noy how 5e does balance.

 

[FrogReaver]

[MENTION=6716779]Zardnaar[/MENTION]

Why do you never talk about the specific implantation of at-will attack granting that we talk about here? Why do you repeatedly bring rogues up when the implementation for it here doesn't allow an extra sneak attack? Why do you base your decision for it being OP on a rogue being present in the party when it won't matter with our implementation at all?

You continually ignore just how many attacks a sorcerer is capable of granting in a day and try to justify that such is okay because it's on a daily resource.

It's like you aren't even trying to objectively look at such an ability anymore. You are irrational in regards to it. Heck, you've stopped giving sensible rebuttals and offering sensible discussion in relation to it long ago.

 

[Hussar]

[MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] - I really believe your definition of iconic is not the same as mine. To me, iconic means that this is what you think of when you envisage some concept. So, fireball and magic missile are iconic to wizards in D&D, despite the fact that you certainly don't need to have them on your casting list. The notion that you could remove those spells from the game is pretty much a non-starter. While wizards may be doing all sorts of other things, the thing that people associate most strongly with wizards is magic missile and fire ball.

Same with healing and clerics. After all, you cannot actually play a cleric that absolutely cannot heal. Cure light is on every cleric's spell list, even if this or that individual cleric hasn't prepared it that day. You claimed that only paladins have healing baked in. That's actually not true. Both clerics and druids have healing baked right into the class. They can opt out of healing by not prepping that spell, but, it's ALWAYS available.

Iconic to fighters is heavy armor, weapons and multiple attacks. I'd argue that being the best weapon user should be iconic, but, apparently, 5e isn't interested in giving us strong fighters. Meh, it's a livable trade off.

When you think of a warlord, healing is not iconic. Yup, they could heal, but, that wasn't why people played them. They played them for the tactical aspects. Healing was just a nice bit of bonus. They healed because they were a leader class, not because the concept absolutely demanded healing. But a warlord that could not grant any actions whatsoever? That would be a bizarre looking warlord. You'd have to be pretty careful about what dailies and encounter powers you took. Like you say, about a third of the powers were action granting of some sort. Never minding that several of the dailies granted actions to the entire party at the same time.

Look at it this way. NONE of the PHB at wills grant healing to a warlord. Yup, you had Inspiring word, but, that was 2/encounter. In fact, not a single 1st level PHB power granted healing. There is a single 2nd level encounter and your next chance of a healing power is a 6th level encounter power. By 10th level you could have, at most 3 encounter and 1 daily healing power. Out of THIRTY SEVEN POWERS to choose from. 10% of warlord powers in the first tier had anything to do with healing.

Can you please stop with this? You are wrong. Healing was not iconic to warlords. It simply wasn't.

I mean, good grief, of the 4 at wills in the PHB, 2 grant attacks, 1 grants a buff and 1 grants movement.

 

[FrogReaver]

Mike seems to think healing needs to be daily resource driven, since he came right out and said that in the podcast, so, sounds like we probably cant't.

I don't know whether it's worse that Mearls said it or that you bought it as D&D Gospel hook line and sinker. If it was such an important issue they wouldn't have made numerous exceptions to it by now. There wouldn't be a Healer Feat. There wouldn't be Fighter's 2nd wind. They wouldn't have made a class that can do short rest healing in Xanathar's. They wouldn't have allowed multiclassing with warlocks and clerics or bards or druids.

In short, Mearls was obviously giving you a guideline more than a must adhere to rule for all time.

In the same podcast, Mearls dismissed even considering the case of an attack grant 'always going to the rogue,' thats simply noy how 5e does balance.

Mearls says a lot of things that aren't quite true. More guidelines than rules really. In general 5e isn't designed by theorycrafting for the most powerful combinations and then balancing from there. However, most powerful combinations require a little more than "have any rouge in the party". When the conditions met for achieving a powerful combination are so low, then it really must be considered and I'm sure it is.

But perhaps most importantly, we aren't creating stuff for official D&D 5e and the actual developers get more leeway than community originated classes. So we have a bit stricter design principles we need to follow for a community project than the 5e team itself. We don't get to just make a class official and watch it be adopted at most tables with little scrutiny. Instead our class will face great scrutiny as it's a totally opt in class in the first place.

 

[Jester David]

[MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] - I really believe your definition of iconic is not the same as mine. To me, iconic means that this is what you think of when you envisage some concept. So, fireball and magic missile are iconic to wizards in D&D, despite the fact that you certainly don't need to have them on your casting list. The notion that you could remove those spells from the game is pretty much a non-starter. While wizards may be doing all sorts of other things, the thing that people associate most strongly with wizards is magic missile and fire ball.

Same with healing and clerics. After all, you cannot actually play a cleric that absolutely cannot heal. Cure light is on every cleric's spell list, even if this or that individual cleric hasn't prepared it that day. You claimed that only paladins have healing baked in. That's actually not true. Both clerics and druids have healing baked right into the class. They can opt out of healing by not prepping that spell, but, it's ALWAYS available.

Iconic to fighters is heavy armor, weapons and multiple attacks. I'd argue that being the best weapon user should be iconic, but, apparently, 5e isn't interested in giving us strong fighters. Meh, it's a livable trade off.

When you think of a warlord, healing is not iconic. Yup, they could heal, but, that wasn't why people played them. They played them for the tactical aspects. Healing was just a nice bit of bonus. They healed because they were a leader class, not because the concept absolutely demanded healing. But a warlord that could not grant any actions whatsoever? That would be a bizarre looking warlord. You'd have to be pretty careful about what dailies and encounter powers you took. Like you say, about a third of the powers were action granting of some sort. Never minding that several of the dailies granted actions to the entire party at the same time.

Look at it this way. NONE of the PHB at wills grant healing to a warlord. Yup, you had Inspiring word, but, that was 2/encounter. In fact, not a single 1st level PHB power granted healing. There is a single 2nd level encounter and your next chance of a healing power is a 6th level encounter power. By 10th level you could have, at most 3 encounter and 1 daily healing power. Out of THIRTY SEVEN POWERS to choose from. 10% of warlord powers in the first tier had anything to do with healing.

Can you please stop with this? You are wrong. Healing was not iconic to warlords. It simply wasn't.

I mean, good grief, of the 4 at wills in the PHB, 2 grant attacks, 1 grants a buff and 1 grants movement.

... we weren't talking about healing. We were talking about At-will attack granting and action granting. Healing hasn't come up in a few pages.

The thing is... I do think granting movement & attacks/actions is iconic. Granting move actions unites the 3e marshal and the warlord, while granting attacks is unique to the warlord. Some warlords should absolutely be able to grant attacks and movement. I just believe that should be the focus of a subclass, where you can go all-in on granting attacks.
That should be the "default" subclass even, like the Life cleric, Thief rogue, and Evocation wizard. Because while it's iconic, it's not what everyone thinks of as the warlord.

I just don't think it's an essential mechanical that needs to be baked into the class features, so every warlord has to get it OR you have to work in a second set of decision points into the class. (As a martial class, the warlord should only have the single decision point: the subclass.)

Trying to design the class so every warlord, regardless of subclass, can grant attacks while also not making it mandatory just leads to needless complexity in the design. It's forced and inelegant.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't know whether it's worse that Mearls said it or that you bought it as D&D Gospel

He didn't go to dailies with the BM or PDK, so even entertaining the idea, let alone spelling it out like that seemed significant.

Mearls says a lot of things that aren't quite true

Heh. And they rarely come down on my side of an issue, so I'm enjoying it while I can.

He could be back to turnip carts & shouting hands back on at any time.

. In general 5e isn't designed by theorycrafting for the most powerful combinations and then balancing from there.

which is the way Zard is approaching it.
There will be a rogue in the party it will have .CA on your turn, every round and will be positioned to attack the current focus fire victim, who will also be be where you can designate him, and will never need his reaction for anything else. And thus state of affairs will go on for every one of the hallowed 6-8 encounters that day, with none of them pwnd by some clever spell use or being something in any way resistant to being stabbed by 'surprise every 3 seconds.

And, his hypothetical warlord will never have a legitimate action of its own to take.

When the conditions met for achieving a powerful combination are so low, then it really must be considered and I'm sure it is.

IDK. The rogue is only one class, Advantage isn't automatic. Reactions have other uses. Actions have other uses.

But perhaps most importantly, we aren't creating stuff for official D&D 5e and the actual developers get more leeway than community originated classes.

Sounds backwards, to me. Professionals should work to a higher standard than amateurs.

Instead our class will face great scrutiny as it's a totally opt in class in the first place.

Any class not in the PH is totally opt-in.

 

[FrogReaver]

[MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] - I really believe your definition of iconic is not the same as mine. To me, iconic means that this is what you think of when you envisage some concept. So, fireball and magic missile are iconic to wizards in D&D, despite the fact that you certainly don't need to have them on your casting list. The notion that you could remove those spells from the game is pretty much a non-starter. While wizards may be doing all sorts of other things, the thing that people associate most strongly with wizards is magic missile and fire ball.

agreed

Same with healing and clerics. After all, you cannot actually play a cleric that absolutely cannot heal. Cure light is on every cleric's spell list, even if this or that individual cleric hasn't prepared it that day. You claimed that only paladins have healing baked in. That's actually not true. Both clerics and druids have healing baked right into the class. They can opt out of healing by not prepping that spell, but, it's ALWAYS available.

agreed

Iconic to fighters is heavy armor, weapons and multiple attacks. I'd argue that being the best weapon user should be iconic, but, apparently, 5e isn't interested in giving us strong fighters. Meh, it's a livable trade off.

agreed

When you think of a warlord, healing is not iconic. Yup, they could heal, but, that wasn't why people played them.

Being able to be a martial character that could heal and support is why the people I knew played them.

They played them for the tactical aspects.

Not really. The fascination with tactical and lazy lords evolved later on in the edition. It wasn't there from the start.

Healing was just a nice bit of bonus.

Early on it was probably the #1 reason to play a warlord. So that you could be a martial character with all that flavor and still function as a support character because of the healing. That changed some later on after a lot of theorycrafting and some very good guides but please don't discount the initial draw the warlord had.

They healed because they were a leader class, not because the concept absolutely demanded healing.

Does any concept demand healing? Even clerics don't demand it. Instead it's a fitting concept for a cleric. Healing is also a fitting concept for a Warlord - A warrior focused on helping his allies prevail in battle. It's a very iconic concept as well - "I yell at you and instill in you a will to keep fighting" - That's warlord healing and it's absolutely a concept that demands mechanical support.

But a warlord that could not grant any actions whatsoever?

They could be made, though perhaps weren't as common as the ones that could attack grant IME.

That would be a bizarre looking warlord. You'd have to be pretty careful about what dailies and encounter powers you took. Like you say, about a third of the powers were action granting of some sort. Never minding that several of the dailies granted actions to the entire party at the same time.

I think you mean attacks not actions. I don't recall if there even was an ability that could grant encounter or daily powers to allies.

Look at it this way. NONE of the PHB at wills grant healing to a warlord.

None of the PHB at wills for any class granted healing

Yup, you had Inspiring word, but, that was 2/encounter.

In 4e that was impressive as it was the same as a cleric.

In fact, not a single 1st level PHB power granted healing.

There was at least 1 Daily Power that granted healing for a Warlord at level 1. "Fearless Rescue" I think was the name of it.

There is a single 2nd level encounter and your next chance of a healing power is a 6th level encounter power.

In 4e, the 2nd and 6th level powers were your utility powers and generally where extra healing would be found for any class that got it.

By 10th level you could have, at most 3 encounter and 1 daily healing power. Out of THIRTY SEVEN POWERS to choose from. 10% of warlord powers in the first tier had anything to do with healing.

I don't seem to recall bards or clerics fairing much better.

Can you please stop with this? You are wrong. Healing was not iconic to warlords. It simply wasn't.

Martial powered Healing and attack granting were the 2 most iconic abilities a warlord got. I know we all fell in love with the KillSwitch build and that such nostalgia about that makes it feel like tactical warlords were the only warlords and the most iconic warlords and possibly by the end of 4e that was the case, but it wasn't what the warlord class really was, it was just the most effective 4e builds/abilities revolved around those fronts.

I mean, good grief, of the 4 at wills in the PHB, 2 grant attacks, 1 grants a buff and 1 grants movement.

Yep.

 

[FrogReaver]

... we weren't talking about healing. We were talking about At-will attack granting and action granting. Healing hasn't come up in a few pages.

The thing is... I do think granting movement & attacks/actions is iconic. Granting move actions unites the 3e marshal and the warlord, while granting attacks is unique to the warlord. Some warlords should absolutely be able to grant attacks and movement. I just believe that should be the focus of a subclass, where you can go all-in on granting attacks.
That should be the "default" subclass even, like the Life cleric, Thief rogue, and Evocation wizard. Because while it's iconic, it's not what everyone thinks of as the warlord.

I just don't think it's an essential mechanical that needs to be baked into the class features, so every warlord has to get it OR you have to work in a second set of decision points into the class. (As a martial class, the warlord should only have the single decision point: the subclass.)

Trying to design the class so every warlord, regardless of subclass, can grant attacks while also not making it mandatory just leads to needless complexity in the design. It's forced and inelegant.

What's your thoughts about battlemaster superiority dice?