D&D 5E READ AND REPLY TO THIS 5E WARLORD THREAD, SOLDIER

[I'm A Banana]

Anyway, if it's just supposed to be inspiring words, it feels weird that:

you can do it during an intense battle ("Go on Redgar, you can do it!" "Do you mind? I have a troll in my face and I'm trying to focus!")
you can target it so specifically ("Go on Regdar, you can do it! ..but Mialee, you can't.")
it's tied to the mechanical representation of martial expertise, rather than something like a skill trick
the Warlord can (and will) do it pretty much every round ("Go on Regdar, you can do it!" "I know, you've told me 50 times already!")
no one else can do it ("Go on Regdar, you can do it!" "Shut up Mialee, no one likes you.")
it ever even does anything useful ("Go on Redgar, you can do it!" "Uhh, thanks?")

Bard.

That wasn't an accidental choice for the parent class.

Bards know the power inherent in words. They calm storms, they raise the dead, they know the cadence and the rhythm of life, the threads of power upon which mortal souls vibrate. They know the moment at which to speak, and they speak with piercing skill. Words are their weapons and their spells and their divine power. Words are their tools to shape the world they live in. Words are what they use to fight back the tide of darkness, to explore the unknown frontier, and to achieve their desires.

This particular bard focuses the power of his words on the rhythm and cadence of battle. This isn't just arbitrary flavor text, but key to how the character functions. He knows when to speak, how to speak, and who to speak to, in the moment when blades clang and warriors cry.

A bard's word carries with it a power, a potency that others cannot invest in their words. Perhaps it is magic -- sometimes, like calming a storm, it almost certainly is. Perhaps it's just an elite skill -- certainly a war bard or a trickster bard could credit their subtle power to control and precision.

A lot of your points seem to pretty much ignore the "I'm a frickin' bard, so when I speak, the world itself turns to listen to me" side of the equation, here.

And this particular bard is a master of the ebb and flow and rhythm of a fight, conducting the combatants like an orchestra. He knows just when to turn up the strings and cause an ally to stab, just when to turn down the percussion to force an enemy to flinch.

Yeah, of course Mialee and Tordek can't do this. They don't have this skill, this power, this ability, this focus and dedication. They haven't trained their Voices under the tutelage of bards known to destroy city walls or convert demons to sainthood. It's not just talking, it's the Bardic Voice.

Directed Strike still doesn't make sense to me--are you just shouting "hey, hit that guy again"? If it's supposed to be an abstract tactical advantage, why not make the mechanic more abstract (+1 to X while you can see and hear the warlord)?

A few of your other points, like this, seem to view D&D combat differently than I do. I don't see D&D combat as a stop-motion scene of stop-and-start actions. I see it as a slow motion scene, where the rules don't specify each thing your character does. In between attack rolls, you're constantly weaving, dodging, parrying, feinting, watching, waiting, and otherwise anticipating your opening (or your enemy's).

So when the bard, the Bard! looks at you and calmly, in a moment of silence, intones the word "MOVE.", and points at your left side (which you've surprisingly left open!), you can, in the moment, while your foe is harassing you, slide your gauntleted arm a little to the left, helping to deflect the blow. Or, when the bard makes a stabbing gesture and says "NOW," you can take advantage of that little gap in the goblin's armor before that goblin shifts.

With that in mind, Directed Strike is the bard telling you the goblin's left his flank open, Threaten is the bard telling the goblin he better not hurt you, Burst of Speed is the bard telling you to move more quickly. You listen to the bard because that's what the Bard does -- makes you listen -- and this particular bard knows the cadence and flow of battle intimately enough that they're as aware of when to strike or fall back as a highly trained fighter.

The whole Warlord part is represented by maneuvers, which are the Fighter's thing (according to a recent L&L, expertise dice and maneuvers are fighter-only in the version the designers are currently working on). There's no reason that shouldn't be a Fighter build. This is probably what the designers meant when they said that when they tried to design the Warlord as its own class, it wanted to do the same things the Fighter was doing.

The bard was chosen because of the Voice, and the fact that the baseline Fighter likes high armor, high HP, and has an ability score bonus that isn't Warlord-esque. As I pointed out in the post, I think the fighter could do this, too, just not the current playtest version of the fighter (export some of the proficiencies to fighting styles, make the high HP thing perhaps a specialty feature, and allow any ability score bonus, and we're good!).

Encouragement: Do these temp HP stack? How long do they last? What's to stop me from using this 500 times before combat? (Note: "free actions" don't exist in 5e either, and MDD recharge on each character's turn, not just once per round.)

Like I pointed out in the post, the rules fobs need some massaging. That's not a dissociation/metagame issue, though, it's just an issue with iteration of the thing. It's rough. As a post on a message board intended to get across a conceptual idea, I figured that would be fine.

Let me end by pointing out that the intent with this class design isn't to make everyone under the sun want to play as one, either. I think the best case scenario is that the people who love the warlord are happy with it, and the people who hate the 4e warlord wouldn't mind as much of a character played one of these -- it wouldn't ruin the game for them. I'd expect this bardic tradition to be as optional as the paladin or the monk, really: an option in the standard game, but just an option, and one that a DM is under no obligation to include.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Then they should ALL be in the DMG, or ALL in the PHB - wherever it is that skills are going to go.

The thing is, they have to choose one way to do it, and call that "standard." That is the core for people who aren't sure what they want. Then they have another product ("Advanced rules") for people who already know what they want, which has all kinds of non-standard options that you can choose to run your game the way you want.

If you already know what you want, you are going to use the advanced rules. If you already know you want this class, and this class is in the advanced rules, then the system is doing its job.

Here are the reasons it makes sense to put it in the advanced rules:

• It's easier to add an option than to take it away.
• It introduces a whole game design philosophy that's different from the core game (metagame mechanics, disassociated mechanics) that fit better with a slightly non-standard way of playing (storygame).
• There are two kinds of people: people who don't want to see it at all in their games, and people who don't mind. In order to do both, it has to be a DM option (see #1).
• The people who want it already know what kind of game they want, so they'll be using the advanced rules anyway.

What are the reasons it should be in the Standard rules?

Edit:

Bards know the power inherent in words. They calm storms, they raise the dead, they know the cadence and the rhythm of life, the threads of power upon which mortal souls vibrate...words are...their spells...A bard's word carries with it a power...Perhaps it is magic...sometimes...it almost certainly is...I'm a frickin' bard, so when I speak, the world itself turns to listen to me...this skill, this power, this ability...to destroy city walls or convert demons to sainthood...It's not just talking, it's the Bardic Voice.

Interesting take. You can get away with a lot if you say it's magic--and even more if you say it's this weird, uncanny, bardic thing that may or may not be magic as we know it. It can be reskinned in either direction. I like it.

I think the best case scenario is...the people who hate the 4e warlord wouldn't mind as much of a character played one of these -- it wouldn't ruin the game for them.

Works for me.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

The thing is, they have to choose one way to do it, and call that "standard." That is the core for people who aren't sure what they want. Then they have another product ("Advanced rules") for people who already know what they want, which has all kinds of non-standard options that you can choose to run your game the way you want.

If you already know what you want, you are going to use the advanced rules. If you already know you want this class, and this class is in the advanced rules, then the system is doing its job.

Here are the reasons it makes sense to put it in the advanced rules:

• It's easier to add an option than to take it away.
• It introduces a whole game design philosophy that's different from the core game (metagame mechanics, disassociated mechanics) that fit better with a slightly non-standard way of playing (storygame).
• There are two kinds of people: people who don't want to see it at all in their games, and people who don't mind. In order to do both, it has to be a DM option (see #1).
• The people who want it already know what kind of game they want, so they'll be using the advanced rules anyway.

What are the reasons it should be in the Standard rules?

Mostly? Because I think the current version is awful. Are we still talking about skills?

As for the Warlord, it should be included in the standard rules because it's a core PHB class from an edition of the game. One that many players are fond of. It was a stated aim. If they're revising that aim, they should come out and say it.

I find your binary categorizing of people in your third bullet to be grossly narrow. There are far more than two kinds of people as it regards their opinion on the issue. You're missing the people who go beyond "don't mind" and who want it included just as badly as those people who don't want to see it. By that rationale, every class should be a DM option. Oh, wait. They already are, and pretty much always have been.

I want to run a campaign with no Divine magic (Dark Sun) so no clerics, paladins, or similar. Done.
I want to run a game with no magic, so no Wizards, no magical Bards, and no Sorcerers or Warlocks. Done.
I want to run a game with a gritty Swords & Sorcery feel, so no inspirational healing from Warlords and Bards. Done.
I arbitrarily don't like class X, Y, and Z, so they're not usable at my table. Done.

 

[GX.Sigma]

As for the Warlord, it should be included in the standard rules because it's a core PHB class from an edition of the game. One that many players are fond of. It was a stated aim. If they're revising that aim, they should come out and say it.

They never said they would have all PHB1 classes as classes in the PHB. They've reiterated this with regards to the Warlord.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

They never said they would have all PHB1 classes as classes in the PHB. They've reiterated this with regards to the Warlord.

My mistake then.

I still think it should be there, because I like it, as do a lot of other people, and because it deserves its own design space.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I still think it should be there, because I like it, as do a lot of other people, and because it deserves its own design space.

I totally agree. I just think that the design space it occupies is so different from all the other classes that it doesn't really fit in the "standard" label. I think you'll agree that 4e was not really a "standard" version of D&D.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I totally agree. I just think that the design space it occupies is so different from all the other classes that it doesn't really fit in the "standard" label. I think you'll agree that 4e was not really a "standard" version of D&D.

I won't actually agree to that. It's *my* standard D&D, and it does all the "standard" things D&D is supposed to do.

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't like the drill sergeant warlord flavor. I feel like it's a name change and a picture of R. Lee Ermey away from being an actual joke class, to be honest with you. I just don't see the appeal at all. If I was playing another character and the warlord player was really getting into ordering my character around that would get old pretty fast.

Gotcha. I just threw pulpy names on a mechanical framework. You can call any of those things whatever you want. You can make it more thematically rigid (a la the Paladin) or more thematically neutral (a la the Fighter). I just contrived some generic stuff up there to test metagame thresholds for folks and whether people thought that this version of the Warlord (which was not based off of the 5e Fighter chassis) was more tactically robust and truer to the concept than an alternative that was just Fighter (maneuver-bot) + specialty and background.

There should be plenty of other Warlord builds such that a metagame heavy lazy-lord like the "princess build" (who is just a metagame, plot device, force-multiplier) is functional. You can make a "warlord" a complete metagame construct that isn't even a sentient entity. We did that in my game. It was just an action economy and a collection of powers that the PC group of 3 got to add to their unit to make a "4th PC". It let them do fun things with the running narrative.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Interesting take. You can get away with a lot if you say it's magic--and even more if you say it's this weird, uncanny, bardic thing that may or may not be magic as we know it. It can be reskinned in either direction. I like it.

Awesome.

I think it's an interesting place to put a dial you can turn just with how you describe the things. In some games, even War Bards will be explicitly magical just because that's how the DM rolls. In other games, they won't be (they don't cast spells, they work fine when traditional magic is suppressed, etc., they're just that skilled), because that's how the DM rolls, and as long as the rules options presented are martially-feasible, they shouldn't hurt the suspension of disbelief of those who prefer a non-magical drill-sergeant flair, with all the flowery "conducting" analogies really just applying to the fact that Sarge has been in more than a few big fights in his life, and knows what's going on in one.

Seems like the bard might be a fairly comfortable fit for the warlord playstyle. Very cool.

You can make a "warlord" a complete metagame construct that isn't even a sentient entity. We did that in my game. It was just an action economy and a collection of powers that the PC group of 3 got to add to their unit to make a "4th PC". It let them do fun things with the running narrative.

Hahaha, that's pretty cool, I'd like to see how that worked.

 

[Manbearcat]

Hahaha, that's pretty cool, I'd like to see how that worked.

Easily enough done for you and your group for a single, epic battle if you want to give the group (i) a force-multiplier, (ii) extra healing/tactical mobility, and (iii) more author/director stance narrative control. Its basically "action points +" as an extra "character". We took a lazy-lord build, rolled initiative, and all 3 PC's took turns using that initiative throughout the course of the fight to either grant themselves the ability or to use themselves as the conduit for the lazy-lord ability. Everyone received + 2 Initiative from Combat Leader aura and Bravura Prescence buff to action points. This was treated as a full extra PC for the encounter formula. They didn't have an extra PC to soak damage and flank with but that was offset through other means. In play it basically worked like this:

- Bladesinger uses this turn's "Warlord" Initiative for Provocative Order on himself; "Entranced in the Bladesong and having slain the enemy before me, the battle has a will unto its own and it leads me into my next strike." He charges a target and does + 1W.

- Rogue/Mariner uses the next "Warlord" turn for Inspiring Word to aid the Druid; "Out of the corner of my eye I catch a trio of orcs closing in on a snarling wolf. I've seen this a thousand times at sea and pulled my men out of the fire. I tear a dagger from my belt, hurl it at one of the orcs' heads and it buries into the tree right next to them, drawing their attention for a moment. All that is needed for a moments reprieve and a swift death for one of them." Move Action for Reorient the Axis (lets the Druid shift away out of the flanking position), Standard Action for Commander's Strike (druid MBA kills one of the orcs). "The fresh kill leaves her muzzle, bloodstained...an invigorated howl ensues", Minor Action for Inspiring Word to heal the Druid.