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Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour: The Warlord
- Thread starter Leatherhead
- Start date
Remathilis
Legend
That's my thought on it. There is a niche for a charismatic warrior: paladin.
bedir than
Full Moon Storyteller
Though the Artificer was used as Wizard: Artificer in an Unearthed Arcana it eventually got tested as a full class.
Kinematics
Hero
So, review time.
~~~
The extra damage from Int was dropped entirely. The bonus to heal/damage can be applied to the warlord himself, so I guess it seemed redundant and just extra mess that didn't need to be there.
The Tactical Focus got blobbed into a 10'x10' square, which Mike seemed to think was OK when he first wrote it up, but when thinking about it during the stream, he realized that that only works in tiny little dungeon areas, and not out in the field, or in a forest, etc. Pretty sure it will have growth capability, but it may have issues with making something that isn't too weak for the outdoors while not being too strong for indoors.
You get three tactics (cantrip-level region effects) that you can apply to the tactical focus when you get it at 3rd level, out of the six possible (at least, of the set he wrote up). However, contrary to the issue with how Battlemaster maneuvers and Sorcerer metamagic work, the tactics can be swapped out on a long rest. That means you're not locked in to picking the three best ones, and essentially ignoring all the rest. You can swap around the three you have selected during the course of a battle, and swap the tactics you have "in mind" each day.
You gain another at 7th and 15th levels. 7th is early enough to be something that will benefit you in most campaigns, while 15th gives you more flexibility at endgame. (Battlemaster gets another choice at 10th level, which Warlord might conceivably match if they went crazy with a lot more tactics available.)
Honestly, I'd wish for both the Battlemaster and the Sorcerer to use this mechanic instead. You're still restricted in how much you can do in any given battle, but your character isn't hamstrung for the rest of its career because of those choices, or considered overly front-loaded.
Tactician's Insight is the bit where you can grant healing or bonus damage. The healing has to be used immediately, whereas the bonus damage can be held until you actually land a hit (don't want the benefit to be wasted). The number of uses increases dramatically at 7th level, and again at 13th level. Also at 7th level, the number of "insights" that can be granted as a single action increases to 2 (and then 3 at 13th level, and 4 at 19th level), so you can affect multiple people per turn. There will probably be a limit of only being affected by one insight at a time, to prevent people from stacking multiple insights and trying to add +6d10 damage on a single hit.
You start getting gambits (spell-like abilities) at 7th level. That gates it off from multiclassing a fair bit. You gain 2 at 7th, and another at 10th and 18th. It uses the same mechanic as tactics, of being allowed to swap your active gambits after a long rest.
Gambits can be used as actions, but all of them allow you to make an attack at the same time as their use, so they don't interfere with your damage output. This is where one of Mike's issues with bonus actions come into play. Per the bonus action design, these feel like things that would fall under that, but since dual-wielding uses your bonus action, and Mike doesn't want to cripple that fighting style, he had to do an end run around the global game mechanic.
The table shows the progression on how many gambits you can use each long rest: You start with 3 at 7th level, and gain another use every few levels, to a maximum of 7.
At 10th level you get a minor bonus, where if you hit a target, they're at disadvantage on saves vs gambit effects. Handy.
15th level gives you some movement shenanigans. You can give up your own move to give three allies half their movement without them needing to use a reaction. A movement complement to the typical demands of granting actions by giving up actions. Much easier to add this than worry about the balance problems of granted actions.
And the final ability is the "give everyone an extra action" ability. Kind of expected, and a nice capstone.
~~~
Tactics — These are effects you put in place when you define your tactical focus, and remain there until you change them (or get knocked out).
Advance and Cover that Flank are likely to get merged into a single tactic. The idea is to speed up control over the area that the tactical focus covers, and a specific application of closing in on an enemy that enters the focus area. On the Cover that Flank side, it costs a reaction to move, but if you can get next to the creature that triggered the movement, you get your reaction back.
Clear the Area is the one to knock targets back if hit. Mike considered the issue of this affecting huge+ creatures, but decided that it's really OK. It's situational enough, and with enough situational counters, that it doesn't give an unbalanced advantage against over-sized creatures.
Get Down was the one to move out of the area of an AOE spell/effect. However considerations at the end, and comments from the watchers, had Mike consider some tweaks, including basically giving the offer to drop prone in order to gain advantage on the saving roll against the effect, rather than move out of the area entirely (since moving out to avoid the effect, then back in to keep fighting, then out of the area to avoid the next effect, etc, just seemed a bit silly).
Shield Wall is simple, but handy. If you're next to an ally with a shield, you get the shield bonus to AC as well (if you didn't already have a shield).
Reorder Ranks was a consolidation of the 'swap positions' movement idea, and the 'avoid opportunity attacks' idea. Rather than just a free channel to avoid opportunity attacks, you instead can't be attacked with an AO if you're next to an ally, with the assumption that they'd be able to provide cover for your movement/retreat. Makes the effect feel more realistic, while also putting in hints on limits that may help mitigate issues of increasing tactical focus area sizes.
Gambits — These are one-time, spell-like effects. You can choose a new set each day, and use your selected gambits a certain number of times. DC uses your Intelligence. All gambits let you attack at the same time as using the gambit itself.
Aggressive Advance — Cause fear in the enemy, preventing them from approaching your tactical focus. While there was some consideration for being afraid of allies within the tactical focus, Mike also posited the scenario where you're firing bows down at a spot that the enemy wants to avoid, so whether or not the ally presence in the area is required is debatable.
Cut Them Down! — This is the one to knock the enemies prone when hit by an attack in the focus area. Proper sequencing can set things up for some nice advantage and sneak attacks.
Luring Gambit — This is a nice one. Get an enemy so focused on you that they lose sight of everyone else around them, making your allies essentially invisible (with all the benefits thereof). This is like a better implementation of those abilities that give a creature disadvantage if it doesn't attack you (eg: level 14 bear Barbarian effect). Inspired by "tunnel vision" from FPS games.
Pile On — This gives you a chance to stun a creature, with the chance going on the more people hit the creature. For stuff with a lot of hit points (such that it doesn't seem a waste to have everyone pounding on it), this can be a handle control mechanism.
Pincers Movement — Another control gambit, you can position yourself and a couple allies in order to restrain enemies within your focus area. Able to affect up to 5 targets at a time (if I have my geometry right).
Vexing Maneuvers — Yet another control gambit, this one is to prevent targets from leaving your tactical focus area.
~~~
Overall, the tactics and gambits felt more solid than the general brainstorming from previous weeks. The mechanics for swapping them out each long rest is very nice, and I want to steal the mechanic for Sorcerer and Battlemaster.
It can probably use a few more tactics and gambits to choose from, but I don't see any real problems with the subclass as a whole. It's at a level that it's worth preliminary playtesting.
~~~
The extra damage from Int was dropped entirely. The bonus to heal/damage can be applied to the warlord himself, so I guess it seemed redundant and just extra mess that didn't need to be there.
The Tactical Focus got blobbed into a 10'x10' square, which Mike seemed to think was OK when he first wrote it up, but when thinking about it during the stream, he realized that that only works in tiny little dungeon areas, and not out in the field, or in a forest, etc. Pretty sure it will have growth capability, but it may have issues with making something that isn't too weak for the outdoors while not being too strong for indoors.
You get three tactics (cantrip-level region effects) that you can apply to the tactical focus when you get it at 3rd level, out of the six possible (at least, of the set he wrote up). However, contrary to the issue with how Battlemaster maneuvers and Sorcerer metamagic work, the tactics can be swapped out on a long rest. That means you're not locked in to picking the three best ones, and essentially ignoring all the rest. You can swap around the three you have selected during the course of a battle, and swap the tactics you have "in mind" each day.
You gain another at 7th and 15th levels. 7th is early enough to be something that will benefit you in most campaigns, while 15th gives you more flexibility at endgame. (Battlemaster gets another choice at 10th level, which Warlord might conceivably match if they went crazy with a lot more tactics available.)
Honestly, I'd wish for both the Battlemaster and the Sorcerer to use this mechanic instead. You're still restricted in how much you can do in any given battle, but your character isn't hamstrung for the rest of its career because of those choices, or considered overly front-loaded.
Tactician's Insight is the bit where you can grant healing or bonus damage. The healing has to be used immediately, whereas the bonus damage can be held until you actually land a hit (don't want the benefit to be wasted). The number of uses increases dramatically at 7th level, and again at 13th level. Also at 7th level, the number of "insights" that can be granted as a single action increases to 2 (and then 3 at 13th level, and 4 at 19th level), so you can affect multiple people per turn. There will probably be a limit of only being affected by one insight at a time, to prevent people from stacking multiple insights and trying to add +6d10 damage on a single hit.
You start getting gambits (spell-like abilities) at 7th level. That gates it off from multiclassing a fair bit. You gain 2 at 7th, and another at 10th and 18th. It uses the same mechanic as tactics, of being allowed to swap your active gambits after a long rest.
Gambits can be used as actions, but all of them allow you to make an attack at the same time as their use, so they don't interfere with your damage output. This is where one of Mike's issues with bonus actions come into play. Per the bonus action design, these feel like things that would fall under that, but since dual-wielding uses your bonus action, and Mike doesn't want to cripple that fighting style, he had to do an end run around the global game mechanic.
The table shows the progression on how many gambits you can use each long rest: You start with 3 at 7th level, and gain another use every few levels, to a maximum of 7.
At 10th level you get a minor bonus, where if you hit a target, they're at disadvantage on saves vs gambit effects. Handy.
15th level gives you some movement shenanigans. You can give up your own move to give three allies half their movement without them needing to use a reaction. A movement complement to the typical demands of granting actions by giving up actions. Much easier to add this than worry about the balance problems of granted actions.
And the final ability is the "give everyone an extra action" ability. Kind of expected, and a nice capstone.
~~~
Tactics — These are effects you put in place when you define your tactical focus, and remain there until you change them (or get knocked out).
Advance and Cover that Flank are likely to get merged into a single tactic. The idea is to speed up control over the area that the tactical focus covers, and a specific application of closing in on an enemy that enters the focus area. On the Cover that Flank side, it costs a reaction to move, but if you can get next to the creature that triggered the movement, you get your reaction back.
Clear the Area is the one to knock targets back if hit. Mike considered the issue of this affecting huge+ creatures, but decided that it's really OK. It's situational enough, and with enough situational counters, that it doesn't give an unbalanced advantage against over-sized creatures.
Get Down was the one to move out of the area of an AOE spell/effect. However considerations at the end, and comments from the watchers, had Mike consider some tweaks, including basically giving the offer to drop prone in order to gain advantage on the saving roll against the effect, rather than move out of the area entirely (since moving out to avoid the effect, then back in to keep fighting, then out of the area to avoid the next effect, etc, just seemed a bit silly).
Shield Wall is simple, but handy. If you're next to an ally with a shield, you get the shield bonus to AC as well (if you didn't already have a shield).
Reorder Ranks was a consolidation of the 'swap positions' movement idea, and the 'avoid opportunity attacks' idea. Rather than just a free channel to avoid opportunity attacks, you instead can't be attacked with an AO if you're next to an ally, with the assumption that they'd be able to provide cover for your movement/retreat. Makes the effect feel more realistic, while also putting in hints on limits that may help mitigate issues of increasing tactical focus area sizes.
Gambits — These are one-time, spell-like effects. You can choose a new set each day, and use your selected gambits a certain number of times. DC uses your Intelligence. All gambits let you attack at the same time as using the gambit itself.
Aggressive Advance — Cause fear in the enemy, preventing them from approaching your tactical focus. While there was some consideration for being afraid of allies within the tactical focus, Mike also posited the scenario where you're firing bows down at a spot that the enemy wants to avoid, so whether or not the ally presence in the area is required is debatable.
Cut Them Down! — This is the one to knock the enemies prone when hit by an attack in the focus area. Proper sequencing can set things up for some nice advantage and sneak attacks.
Luring Gambit — This is a nice one. Get an enemy so focused on you that they lose sight of everyone else around them, making your allies essentially invisible (with all the benefits thereof). This is like a better implementation of those abilities that give a creature disadvantage if it doesn't attack you (eg: level 14 bear Barbarian effect). Inspired by "tunnel vision" from FPS games.
Pile On — This gives you a chance to stun a creature, with the chance going on the more people hit the creature. For stuff with a lot of hit points (such that it doesn't seem a waste to have everyone pounding on it), this can be a handle control mechanism.
Pincers Movement — Another control gambit, you can position yourself and a couple allies in order to restrain enemies within your focus area. Able to affect up to 5 targets at a time (if I have my geometry right).
Vexing Maneuvers — Yet another control gambit, this one is to prevent targets from leaving your tactical focus area.
~~~
Overall, the tactics and gambits felt more solid than the general brainstorming from previous weeks. The mechanics for swapping them out each long rest is very nice, and I want to steal the mechanic for Sorcerer and Battlemaster.
It can probably use a few more tactics and gambits to choose from, but I don't see any real problems with the subclass as a whole. It's at a level that it's worth preliminary playtesting.
CakeOfCheese
First Post
Its interesting to see his train of thought evolve as he trudges through a class. Makes you wonder if this is really from nothing, or if he has an end goal in mind at the beginning.
Aldarc
Legend
Odysseus is an excellent choice as an archetype for the Warlord, and I recall that he had been mentioned before in Warlord discussions. Naming Odysseus for inspiration is also smart because it indirectly addresses one of the criticisms lobbed at the Warlord: what would an adventuring Warlord look like? Well, here is Odysseus and you may recall one of the most famous literary adventures ever. Odysseus also creates a nice contrast between him and other warriors from the Trojan War. Odysseus is the Warlord while Achilles, Ajax, and Hector were the Fighters.
Yaarel
He Mage
It seems like both. On the one hand, he has a vision from the beginning, of what a warlord should feel like. Then comes the process of negotiating and navigating the mechanics to see what works and what doesnt.
Like any artwork, the process lends an unpredictable quality to the original intention, which imbues the project with a life of its own, sotospeak.
Yaarel
He Mage
If I remember correctly, the Tactical Focus is a 10-foot square on each side of a targeted creature. Thus it is 10-foot by 20-foot rectangle (or a 10-foot by 25-foot rectangle depending on the size of the creature?).
Mearls mentioned the size of the Focus might be too small, and it is still in flux.
I suspect he wants a focus definition that is both easy to visualize for mind-style, and also easy to convert into squares for grid-style. 10 feet on opposite sides of a creature, does this.
Mearls also mentions being torn between defining the Focus according to an actual space (emphasizing control of territory) versus according to being nearby an ally (emphasizing teamwork, group tactics, and leadership).
Personally, I strongly prefer the concept of defining focus by proximity to teammates.
Hussar
Legend
Gee, with that write up, I'm getting more and more sold on the idea. Seems to be hitting the right notes. I'd love to see the finished product.
On a side note, on the naming conversation, what about Sirdar? Yes, I realize it's a real world word, but, it's esoteric enough to not really have any particularly connotations for anyone, kind of like a paladin in that sense. Let's be honest, if it wasn't for D&D, would anyone know what a paladin was, other than someone on an old TV Western?
Dunno. Just thought the name sounded cool to my ears. I'm a Sirdar.
On a side note, on the naming conversation, what about Sirdar? Yes, I realize it's a real world word, but, it's esoteric enough to not really have any particularly connotations for anyone, kind of like a paladin in that sense. Let's be honest, if it wasn't for D&D, would anyone know what a paladin was, other than someone on an old TV Western?
Dunno. Just thought the name sounded cool to my ears. I'm a Sirdar.
G
Guest 6801328
Guest
I haven't actually watched the vid(s), but has Mearls said anything to the effect of "...the name 'Warlord' is wretched, and if this subclass ever saw the light of day it would get changed, but we'll use it as a placeholder for now..."
I hope so.
I hope so.
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