Are you not the guy who wants D&D to not really support deities though? I mean, I get that, but it's also never ever going to be a mainstream well-supported option.
D&D isn't mainstream, and likely never will be. Though, I suppose a D&D that didn't step into the minefield of vaguely promoting polytheism, and instead eschewed all mention of religion, just might have a better shot at going mainstream. :shrug:
Over the years, I've seen many players put off by the religious aspect of the Cleric and Paladin. Moreso than put off by Demons & Devils, now that I think of it.
After hearing these podcasts and seeing some of the spells in Xanathars I wonder if they actually playtest the games in the office ....
It's clearly an idea in the earliest stages. But I do find seeing the process interesting, and it is consistent with the kind of material we've seen from him over the years. I've always felt like his stuff exudes a certain enthusiasm and a sense of improvisation, and I feel like I've seen where that comes from, now.
Still, abjuration is a miscellaneous assortment of different kinds of magic. The only thing these spells have in common is, they are all protective and restorative.
Magic that's all protective isn't miscellaneous, it's protective. Intent is significant in magic in a way it's not in physics.
Though I'm used to abjuration being protect or dispel, more than protect or restore. 'Abjure' means to reject.
I still feel the paladin (½ caster) makes a better design space for building a warlord, than the eldritch knight (⅓ caster) does.
And the Cleric or Bard, better still. In the sense of spending a budget of spell-equivalency. (Though, I's still a little surprised that's what he's working from.).
Also, the alternate recharge scheme of the Warlock might be more useful as a touchstone...
Interestingly, Mike's proposal touches on a lot of what these builds supposedly bring to the table.
There's nothing 'supposedly' about it, 7 of them were in B&W, built right into the class options, and used certain exploits better than others. The 8th, ironically, is probably the most-talked-about.
But, sure, in the sense that a hypothetical 1/3rd caster with a dozen 1st-3rd level spells, at least one of which came from each of 6 of the 8 schools would "touch on a lot of what the wizard brings to the table."
As simple as Mike's Warlord is
I would characterize it as oddly, perhaps needlessly, complex.
it already incorporates a huge chunk of what the former Warlord class was able to do, thematically. (At least as described by Tony.)
I once ballparked the BM as representing about 3% of the Warlord, I might spot this attempt a few more percentage points. Maybe even low double-digits - heck, if it's completed and the ultimate expression of the sub-class turns out to be just superlative, it might even rise to a 1/3rd Warlord in the sense the EK gets characterized as a 1/3rd-caster. That'd be pretty sweet.
Even then, though, it'd just tick the Bravura box. Because it is ultimately still a fighter, and the Bravura was the faux-fighter-MC 'build' that'd off-tank.
Yeah, that would have been useful. Feels vaguely similar to the spell points mechanic, which ended up a very low-tier optional rule. On the other hand, you may still want to be able to use those dice in different ways, and even if they had a universal system on the design side, it may not manifest that way in what the player can see (the actual implementations), and what the player can see is what users have to work with when designing their own subclasses.
Nod. There seems to be a "expendable dice mechanic" being vaguely suggested. Maybe it's in a black box, and, unlike the spell-slot/damage table, they haven't published it, or maybe it's just a matter of convergent designs suggesting a connection that isn't really there. :shrug:
The use of dice you choose when to use up for some benefit based on the result of rolling that die seems to have cropped up several times. Maybe I see it more because of MDD's in the first playtest having had several incarnations, and the playtest proficiency even having been a die for a bit. CS dice are the obvious example, but there's also bardic inspiration and, of course, HD, in the PH. The there's rolled but not expended dice-as-modifiers like bless/guidance. Then there's re-rolls, like inspiration, and, taken proactively, even Adv/Dis, again.
If he does add these dice to another fighter sub-class, without just making them CS dice in some sense, that'd be yet another. If they get used for a full class years down the road, then, just like CA consolidated multiple modifiers and modifier-negators into one simple bonus, and Adv/Dis eschewed modifiers almost altogether, all those uses of dice, almost like dice pools in some other games, might be ripe for simplification & consolidation.
The Int damage bonus is on top of Str/Dex. He did mention that it might be too powerful, but set it aside as an issue to be dealt with on Jerry's side (general balance adjustments) or playtesting.
I'm glad to hear he gets to delegate something!
He did actually mention that he considered the possibility of adding it to the attack roll rather than the damage roll, but had decided against it, after other considerations. I don't remember exactly what he said, though.
Since it is a fighter build that's apparently supposed to invest more in INT and/or CHA, letting it shore up the fighter's own attack rolls if he prioritizes one of those over STR or DEX doesn't sound like a bad idea. So long as it doesn't lead to dumping STR like the 'lazy' build could (fine for that archetype, not plausible for a fighter sub-class).
But, yeah, it seems to move in the opposite direction from the general idea, even of the Bravura. Now keying buffs of INT or CHA, certainly.
The Warlord was being explicitly designed for those who are more interested in the tactical nature of the game, and thus more suited to those who might use miniatures and maps. Having a more complex design was explicitly considered OK.
'Tactical' <> 'grid dependence.'
That conflation has been going since the edition war, heck, since criticisms of 3.0 or maybe even C&T, for that matter (I kinda lost track of 2e around that time).
And, like I alluded to, above, complexity is something that has to be worth it, it's a side-effect you put up with to get where you want, not a goal in itself.
So, yeah, a more complex design for a Warlord class? Certainly. Just not needlessly so. Leverage as much as you can out of any added complexity. And, really, that dovetails with adapting the class to 5e.
There'd be less added complexity to the game, overall, for instance, if instead of creating entirely new sub-systems for yet another mutually-incompatible fighter sub-class, the Warlord class were done with Gambits (of which Maneuvers could be the Apprentice-tier sub-set) that used CS (or 'Inspiration') dice, in a ratio to the BM, comparable to the Full-Caster:EK ratio.
