Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour: The Warlord

[Azzy]

Yeah, let's make paladins, rangers, barbarians, rogues, and monks all fighter subclasses. None of them are really unique enough to deserve a full class (by the anti-warlord crowd's metric).

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

Yeah, let's make paladins, rangers, barbarians, rogues, and monks all fighter subclasses. None of them are really unique enough to deserve a full class (by the anti-warlord crowd's metric).

But the Warlord is, because they really really really like it. Also, it's about yelling at people instead of fighting, ignore the War part of the name.

Every character who fights is not pretty much a fighter subclass. Rogue does in fact have an identity outside of sneak attack and can carve it's own niche in a party.

 

[Azzy]

But the Warlord is, because they really really really like it. Also, it's about yelling at people instead of fighting, ignore the War part of the name.

Every character who fights is not pretty much a fighter subclass. Rogue does in fact have an identity outside of sneak attack and can carve it's own niche in a party.

My post was a parody of the ant-warlord crowd's position, not an actual argument to make those other classes subclasses. :/

 

[Kinematics]

This sounds like a critique that could be copied almost word for word regarding the 5e rogue concept.

There is a huge swathe of rogue concepts that are not fighters. There is overlap in some ideas (eg: Conan, the Barbarian/Rogue), but everything from Gentleman Thief to Street Rat to Cat Burglar to Master Spy are pretty isolated from other character concepts. It is very easy to find a character concept that neatly fits within the Rogue concept space.

Yes. It's more of a team than a coach/player relationship. The reason coach/player gets brought up is more to illustrate healing abilities and such than it is to illustrate a full fledged warlord class.

I think for your best examples you will have to take a close look at war movies. Sometimes there's an order given that means almost certain death and there's that one team member (not always the one in charge either) that urges everyone on and helps them and provides sound tactical advice so much that the team leader usually listens to him. Sometimes he's even able to yell at comrades and have them get up and fight on. That's the kind of warlord we are looking for. Many times that character is the person in charge of the group as well. In those cases it's harder to separate out what we are talking about. But you'll find what you are looking for in war movies I think. I can't name any explicit examples off the top of my head.

With all this said, a warlord is almost always a fighting man of sorts. But the way he helps others fight better and longer is always he's defining trait. He doesn't have to be the most accurate, he doesn't have to kill the most enemy soldiers, he doesn't even have to be the team leader. He just has to help his allies fight better. Give them a reason for fighting on etc. This is opposed to the fighter whose defining trait is he's one the biggest bad@$$es around.

I'd like to combine this with Remathilis's comment about the Barbarian being in a somewhat similar relationship to the Fighter as the Warlord.

The Barbarian is, by and large, a solo/small group fighter. He's strongly built around being able to survive on his own, and will almost certainly be the best bet in a one-on-one fight. While he does have some tools that link with allies (wolf totem, ancestors, etc), they are not defining features for the class as a whole. A Barbarian is, "I can take your hit, laugh it off, and hit you back harder."

The Fighter is, by and large, a professional soldier. He's been trained in all manner of weapons and armor. He can work solo, or he can work in a group. You can easily fit a Fighter into a regiment and have him be able to smoothly work alongside all the rest, just like you can post him on guard duty and expect him to do fine. He's comfortable at either end of the spectrum.

The Warlord, as far as I can see, is on the opposite side of the Fighter from the Barbarian. He is not the soloist. He works best in a large group. He needs the group. And, as noted with your suggestion about war stories, he is very strongly inclined to be a group commander (for ever larger groups).

Note: Rogue and Ranger are closer to Barbarian on the above axis, and Paladin is closer to Fighter.


So if you want to look at Warlord from a class perspective, balancing him against the Barbarian, as a sort of mirror image, seems like a good start. (You could also work against the Rogue and Ranger, though they feel like weaker balances because of other differences.) However if you don't consider that, he slides right in with Fighter, which makes it a clash with subclassing.

Then rogues shouldn't exist. They aren't strong enough to stand on their own.

OK, this is just a nonsensical statement. The number of rogue concepts could very well outnumber the number of fighter concepts, even after merging in Barbarian and Ranger. Saying that Rogues shouldn't exist because of a lack of concept space is being willfully obtuse, veering into arguing in bad faith.

Every d&d rogue is just a person that can fight decently well and is good at skills.

Remember what I said about people arguing mechanics rather than concepts? You're doing that. Please stop.

The best examples that can be given are all characters that are in a position of leadership which are automatically disqualified from this discussion because you and others will always blame their abilities on their leadership position instead of their leadership position on their abilities.

This statement doesn't make any sense.

The only reason I've disqualified people in leadership is because they are almost never actually adventurers. They are people who have gained enough experience (possibly as adventurers) to have graduated to a different level of play. The Warlord concept there is easy. The Warlord-as-adventurer, not so much.

 

[FrogReaver]

But the Warlord is, because they really really really like it. Also, it's about yelling at people instead of fighting, ignore the War part of the name.

Every character who fights is now pretty much a fighter subclass. Rogue does in fact have an identity outside of sneak attack and can carve it's own niche in a party.

Every class that fights could be rebranded into a fighter subclass about as well as well as the warlord can be rebranded into a fighter subclass just because it fights.

Even rogues can't escape their identity as fighting men in 5e. They fight and are good at skills. Paladins fight and use divine magic. Rangers fight and use nature magic. Barbarians fight and Rage.

Everything fights in 5e. If it fights it can be a subclass of fighter right?

Yes, but most of the classes that fight aren't fighter subclasses. They are their own classes for various reasons.

 

[mellored]

It's pretty clear Merls does not think there is enough warlord variant to make a full class and 10+ sub-classes.

Why he's ok with that, I don't know, but that's how he's going. Few classes, many sub-classes.

So... we should actually try and figure out 10+ sub-classes.
Or a broader class that can fully fit a warlord as a sub-class along with 10+ other ideas.

 

[FrogReaver]

There is a huge swathe of rogue concepts that are not fighters. There is overlap in some ideas (eg: Conan, the Barbarian/Rogue), but everything from Gentleman Thief to Street Rat to Cat Burglar to Master Spy are pretty isolated from other character concepts. It is very easy to find a character concept that neatly fits within the Rogue concept space.

Let me say it this way. Any Character concept that maps to a rogue in 5e can easily map to a Rogue Subclass for Fighter in 5e. If you don't believe me then find me 1 character concept that maps to the 5e Rogue that would be impossible to map to a Rogue subclass in fighter?

I'd like to combine this with Remathilis's comment about the Barbarian being in a somewhat similar relationship to the Fighter as the Warlord.

Considering he has me blocked this means nothing to me.

The Barbarian is, by and large, a solo/small group fighter. He's strongly built around being able to survive on his own, and will almost certainly be the best bet in a one-on-one fight. While he does have some tools that link with allies (wolf totem, ancestors, etc), they are not defining features for the class as a whole. A Barbarian is, "I can take your hit, laugh it off, and hit you back harder."

The Fighter is, by and large, a professional soldier. He's been trained in all manner of weapons and armor. He can work solo, or he can work in a group. You can easily fit a Fighter into a regiment and have him be able to smoothly work alongside all the rest, just like you can post him on guard duty and expect him to do fine. He's comfortable at either end of the spectrum.

The Warlord, as far as I can see, is on the opposite side of the Fighter from the Barbarian. He is not the soloist. He works best in a large group. He needs the group. And, as noted with your suggestion about war stories, he is very strongly inclined to be a group commander (for ever larger groups).

Note: Rogue and Ranger are closer to Barbarian on the above axis, and Paladin is closer to Fighter.

So if you want to look at Warlord from a class perspective, balancing him against the Barbarian, as a sort of mirror image, seems like a good start. (You could also work against the Rogue and Ranger, though they feel like weaker balances because of other differences.) However if you don't consider that, he slides right in with Fighter, which makes it a clash with subclassing.

Now you are starting to sound kinda like you are agreeing Warlord should be a class instead of a subclass?

By the way I don't know what the bolded means.

I'll follow up with the rest in a moment

 

[FrogReaver]

OK, this is just a nonsensical statement. The number of rogue concepts could very well outnumber the number of fighter concepts, even after merging in Barbarian and Ranger. Saying that Rogues shouldn't exist because of a lack of concept space is being willfully obtuse, veering into arguing in bad faith.

It wasn't bad faith. Now please justify how you broke what I actually said which was this: "Then rogues shouldn't exist. They aren't strong enough to stand on their own. Every d&d rogue is just a person that can fight decently well and is good at skills. A fighter subclass would have been sufficient. If rogues exist as their own class in the design space then so should warlords. If barbarians exists as their own class in the design space then so should warlords."

into 2 single statements:
"Then rogues shouldn't exist. They aren't strong enough to stand on their own. "
"Every d&d rogue is just a person that can fight decently well and is good at skills. "

Care to explain how your going to accuse someone of bad faith when you willfully cut their words so short that it would appear to anyone reading your quote that one of my primary points was that a rogue shouldn't exist when it's quite the opposite. I'm arguing that because the rogue exists then the warlord should too.

Actually don't. Just don't imply bad faith again or this conversation is over. As soon as bad faith starts getting mentioned again and again the conversation usually might as well be over anyways.

Remember what I said about people arguing mechanics rather than concepts? You're doing that. Please stop.

But that is concept. Character concepts containing being good at some skillsets and being able to fight are the only concepts that map to the rogue. A general statement like that isn't getting into the mechanics no matter how much you try to claim it is. Speaking of, you've done that multiple times now. You try to act as if something is mechanics when it's not. Please stop doing that.

Ultimately the point is that if desired we could make a rogue subclass for fighter and everyone of those concepts would map to it too.

This statement doesn't make any sense.

The only reason I've disqualified people in leadership is because they are almost never actually adventurers. They are people who have gained enough experience (possibly as adventurers) to have graduated to a different level of play. The Warlord concept there is easy. The Warlord-as-adventurer, not so much.

It's not just you that's disqualified them. It's you and everyone else that's against a warlord class/subclass. All leadership positions are disqualified as examples. Tried it before. Witnessed it before. Not worth doing again.

 

[Enkhidu]

For 4e Warlord fans there's almost certainly not enough design space + crunch to back up the warlord in a subclass.

I'm just not seeing it how a subclass has a "lack of design space." It sounds like an artificial justification for "because I want a full class to justify it."

Which, to be clear, is a perfectly reasonable thing for someone to say. Its not required to justify individual taste, and no artificial justification is required.

Perhaps Mearls can pull off a miracle and I hope he can but I find it doubtful. What I think Mearls will do is create an OP subclass which will then later get toned back way to far and no one will be happy with it. Perhaps that's what happened to the Purple Dragon Knight and such as well.

Nah - the Purple Dragon Knight fails because it concentrates on "the PC does this cool thing, and then the team gets a minor benefit." For a Warlord class to work, that needs to be reversed.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm just not seeing it how a subclass has a "lack of design space." It sounds like an artificial justification for "because I want a full class to justify it."

Which, to be clear, is a perfectly reasonable thing for someone to say. Its not required to justify individual taste, and no artificial justification is required.



Nah - the Purple Dragon Knight fails because it concentrates on "the PC does this cool thing, and then the team gets a minor benefit." For a Warlord class to work, that needs to be reversed.

You have 5 levels worth of abilities over all 20 levels of fighter to introduce war lord abilities. On top of that there is definitely a certain power level that would be too much for those abilities. On top of that most of the warlord abilities need to be gained fairly early in the fighters career or playing whatever it is will not feel much like a warlord but a fighter with 1 party focused ability. I have reasons for why I think the subclass design space is insufficient. Do you have reasons for why you think it is?

Purple Dragon Knight has the right kind of abilities (maybe a bit wrong on the flavor but meh, lets talk mechanics). He gets an ability that lets him heal allies! Awesome. He gets an ability that grants attacks. Heck, he even gets the ability to have an ally make a saving throw reroll. Who has almost all the abilities everyone wants a Warlord to have. The problem? He doesn't feel like he heals enough, he doesn't feel like he grants attacks early enough and the amount he can grant is so miniscule. Same thing with saving throw rerolls.

Unless you are telling me that it's okay for the new warlord subclass to greatly exceed the purple dragon knight in power I don't see where a fighter warlord subclass can give enough and give enough early on in your career to make you feel like you are playing a warlord.