Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour: The Warlord

[cbwjm]

They might make it to UA but doubtful they'll be officially published.
Jeremy Crawford would be involved then. Crawford commented that the UA he's involved in tend to be stuff planned for books while the ones that are just Mearls are where he's just toying with ideas.

We'll see. 5e still has a few years left in it, who knows what will make it into a book. No reason not to refine and use something from the HFH is it fits. As is, if we can get something finalised for UA that will be enough for me to use. One or two of them may be useable now but I haven't copied down what he'd written.

 

[FrogReaver]

His outline, yes. I think he hit all the key points. Fight smarter, not harder.
His ideas, yes. I like the overheal and very much like tactical zone.
His implementation, I don't know yet. It still seems like you would spend most of your time muli-attacking. Which is the main problem of the other sub-classes. You could do a cool warlord thing once, and then you go back to being a fighter.

But I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Yep. If Mearls makes either the tactical zone or the healing matter enough (and whatever other ability he adds) then he's probably making the strongest fighter subclass yet available.

For example, the battlemaster in all it's glory add's somewhere between about (daily totals):

Level 3: 54 damage + effects (most maneuvers) to 138 damage mitigation (parry or rally) to 192 damage (with precision and GWM)
Level 20: 117 damage + effects (most maneuvers) to 217 damage mitigation (parry or rally) to 350 damage (with precision and GWM)

So basically, if he provides any mechanics that are easy to use that can easily go over the numbers provided above in most parties then he's made too strong a subclass. Making any kind of decent heal ability will take a good chunk of numbers from his possible balanced implementation. Trying to add very much numbers meat onto his tactical focus ability will then prove very problematic for a balanced class to achieve.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Who are the prototype characters (fictional/historical) for the Warlord concept? Napoleon Bonaparte? Julius Caesar? Captain Kirk? The Doctor? The last of these is the only one who does anything resembling healing, and then not as often as the name suggests.

 

[Yaarel]

Who are the prototype characters (fictional/historical) for the Warlord concept? Napoleon Bonaparte? Julius Caesar? Captain Kirk? The Doctor? The last of these is the only one who does anything resembling healing, and then not as often as the name suggests.

An important reallife model of the warlord is the sports fight coach. Imbuing morale and tactical guidance, grants nonphysical hit points.

Moreover, the sports fighter clearly typifies the hit point behavior. Round 1. Fresh and alert, at full hit points. Round 3. Fatigue becomes notable, at diminishing nonphysical hit points. Say, Round 6. The sports fighter is fatigued, sloppy, and dropping ones guard. Bam. ‘Bloodied’. The opponent pierces the vulnerable opening. Now the sports fighter has an open cut on the eyelid. The coach patches the cut with a butterfly bandaid. Perhaps the coach can inspire a second wind. Hopeful the sports fighter doesnt go down in a knock out at zero hit points.

 

[Pauln6]

An important reallife model of the warlord is the sports fight coach. Imbuing morale and tactical guidance, grants nonphysical hit points.

Moreover, the sports fighter clearly typifies the hit point behavior. Round 1. Fresh and alert, at full hit points. Round 3. Fatigue becomes notable, at diminishing nonphysical hit points. Say, Round 6. The sports fighter is fatigued, sloppy, and dropping ones guard. Bam. ‘Bloodied’. The opponent pierces the vulnerable opening. Now the sports fighter has an open cut on the eyelid. The coach patches the cut with a butterfly bandaid. Perhaps the coach can inspire a second wind. Hopeful the sports fighter doesnt go down in a knock out at zero hit points.

Captain America is the main one that springs to mind. He certainly inspires exhausted and wounded allies to redouble their efforts and perform greater deeds so inspirational healing is a thing.

 

[Imaro]

Captain America is the main one that springs to mind. He certainly inspires exhausted and wounded allies to redouble their efforts and perform greater deeds so inspirational healing is a thing.

I always find this example of a "warlord" interesting since Captain America is also considered one of the best HTH combatants in the Marvel Universe... thus this example always strengthens the fighter connection for me as opposed to the argument of it not being a subclass.

 

[Pauln6]

I always find this example of a "warlord" interesting since Captain America is also considered one of the best HTH combatants in the Marvel Universe... thus this example always strengthens the fighter connection for me as opposed to the argument of it not being a subclass.

Yes, the Mastermind Rogue build cross over is blurry for less martial builds but part of that is the d&d focus on monster killing. Building a pure enabler character is very niche and possibly best left to fan created versions such as the aforementioned noble class.

An alternative is to use Cleric chassis but I'm dubious that martial abilities can take up the slack left by lack of spells. The spelless Ranger from UA was lacking but might provide some guidance I guess. Less spells equals more Martial might tends to be the pattern.

 

[Remathilis]

Who are the prototype characters (fictional/historical) for the Warlord concept? Napoleon Bonaparte? Julius Caesar? Captain Kirk? The Doctor? The last of these is the only one who does anything resembling healing, and then not as often as the name suggests.

Well, much like how the D&D versions of barbarian and ranger are poor models for Conan and Aragorn, warlord examples are going to be a bit fuzzy.

My first thought was someone like Farmir, Eomer, or Jon Snow: warriors who have enough intellect to survive and charisma to get people to listen to them. I'd also consider Princess/General Leia or her mother Padme Amidala to be good candidates. Duke or Hawk from GI Joe, Optimus Prime from Transformers, and many other "team leaders" could work too. On the evil side, someone like the Shredder (not the 80s cartoon but the later ones), General Grievous or Admiral Thrawn could be candidates also.

 

[OB1]

Is there a Class Designer's guide somewhere that spells that out? Is so, link it. If not, don't pretend that there's anything so bizarre as a requirement for single-player or single-class party viability in an essentially cooperative game that runs on spotlight balance.
...
I know 5e has a rep for being 'too easy,' but if you do follow those guidelines, you'll end up with 6-8 medium/hard encounters (by including some encounters where the party is outnumbered, resulting in hard encounters with less-than-hard exp value), and single class parties will likely choke on that, especially indifferently optimized ones at 1st level. Some of the more versatile classes, though, you could optimize a party of them to cover everything it needs, and, if you heavily optimize a single-class party it could probably blow it's way through at least a full day of standard encounters, even if they're all hard.
...
Again, that is a baseless assertion. You'll need to find it in print, or get a designer to swear to it, before I even start to take you seriously.
I mean, Mearls /is/ on record with goals for 5e's inclusiveness and integration of all past editions to the point different players could enjoy the 'styles' of different editions, at the same table. No one takes that seriously.

The requirement is for any combination of classes to be viable, of which a single party class is a subset, and is achieved primarily through ensuring the combat effectiveness of each individual class. Spotlight balance in 5e is not a result of mechanics but rather by the DM focusing on the ideals and bonds of the PCs. If there is a Class Designers guide that references this, I haven't seen it published, my hypothesis comes from reasoned observation of the system. Those observations come from discussions here on EnWorld and from having played and completed published adventures with single class parties, as well as from running a campaign from 1st to 16th level for a party made up of a Monk, Fighter, Ranger and Rogue. In that game, there has been no problem not having a healer, leader, buffer or support character.

It's not that the game is 'too easy' it's that the balance point of the base game is set to allow players to pick characters with total disregard for what others in the group are picking. If you create a class that is only effective when mixed with certain other classes, you risk losing that balance throughout the game.

The business plan of 5e has likely pivoted from the original design goals based on feedback from players and the explosive sales of the product. If you want a Warlord in 5e, it will be much easier to fit it to what 5e has become than to fight against the design of the system. Which is what Mearls did. As I said earlier, I think this sub-class could show a path towards a full class, but if it does it will be done in a way to fit into what 5e is.

 

[Jester David]

An important reallife model of the warlord is the sports fight coach. Imbuing morale and tactical guidance, grants nonphysical hit points.

Moreover, the sports fighter clearly typifies the hit point behavior. Round 1. Fresh and alert, at full hit points. Round 3. Fatigue becomes notable, at diminishing nonphysical hit points. Say, Round 6. The sports fighter is fatigued, sloppy, and dropping ones guard. Bam. ‘Bloodied’. The opponent pierces the vulnerable opening. Now the sports fighter has an open cut on the eyelid. The coach patches the cut with a butterfly bandaid. Perhaps the coach can inspire a second wind. Hopeful the sports fighter doesnt go down in a knock out at zero hit points.

I always found that metaphor stretching things and a backwards way of design.
Rather than designing the class for what conceptual warlords in literature/ history did, you defined the class and then seek analogies that justify it's abilities.

When someone unfamiliar with the class looks at the warlord, it needs to do what they expect it to. When you hear the name of the class, the first assumptions you have of what it does should match what it actually does. If you hear one thing and it does something else entirely, it probably has the wrong name.
(Which is why they renamed the "favoured soul" sorcerer, because what they wanted the subclass to do and what people expected a favoured soul to look like were different.)

If one of the primary abilities of the subclass requires an analogy that has little to do with literary implementations of the archetype, that implies a disconnect.