D&D 5E Warlording the fighter

[Obryn]

And yet it is double that of the Warlord.

Warlords: 4E (2008). Sorcerers and Warlocks: 3E (2000).

You could argue that Marshal (2003) was a form of Warlord, but that is a bit of a stretch... the Marshal was not widely used while Warlock and Sorcerer were main book components; and the Marshal in 3E was much further in design from the Warlord than 4E and 5E Warlocks and Sorcerers are from their origins in 3E. Warlord was the first mainstream representation of the idea and it came in 2008.

Eh? The Warlock was in Complete Arcane (2004).

I don't think it's a stretch at all; the concept was certainly there. That gives it more history than the Warlock. Implementations varied for most classes from their 3e versions.

 

[MoonSong]

That means you consider Warlords to be more essential to the game than these classes. All three of those have a longer history with the game, which is why they deserve more attention. You can make a decent Paladin from Cleric + Fighter. You can make a decent ranger from Druid + fighter. You can make a decent Sorcerer with a high charisma wizard... so to that extent they're equally as replaceable as the warlord. However, their iconic positions in the game as elements for many more editions gives them priority. If they did a poll and ranked all of the classes we've seen in the game in all editions from "most essential" to "least essential", I think the poll results would put every class in the PHB well ahead of Warlord... but I grant you that it'd be in the upper third of the 60 or so classes, in a second tier behind the PHB classes. I expect we'll get a PHB 2 and it will be a class in that book.

I doubt we'll ever have a PHB2. But just to let you know, you can't really replace a sorcerer with a High-cha wizard. Wizards are awfully specific, many sorcerer PCs are impossible to do in 2e and 1e. Heck a lot of them cannot be done in 5e at all. Not having a sorcerer would have been a HUGE lose, well more huge than what we have lost so far.

Sorcerers and Warlocks hardly have that long a pedigree.

I was specifically talking about mechanical and conceptual overlap, though. If the overlap among those classes isn't a concern, it can't be a concern for warlords.

Well, they did protect the wizard too much from sorcerer competition. So it is kind of a concern.

I did my attempt here: clicky.

An official one will never satisfy or end these arguments because it's unlikely to include martial healing beyond what occurs in the Rally combat maneuver. It's too divisive a mechanic.
Because classes don't have set roles anymore, it's also unlikely to exist as a separate class, as it overlaps too much with the fighter.

Well, it is different from what I did. Feels a little better than Battlemaster, Hopefully soon I get to share details of what I did. We'll never know how an official class/subclass would look, unless they give us one. Let's see how many people ask for it. I know it is possible to reduce the overlap with fighters, in fact I think I did.

Of topic: I like the ideas of your clases. Your barbarian subclass could use some adjustments, though. Limiting them by school feels odd, if they are taking after the sorcerer, the school shouldn't matter. They also get too many spells known -just three less than a full sorcerer-. There are very few spells that fit the criteria so faery hunters would feel very samey. Maybe just remove the restriction and make them follow the sorcerer spells known progression. It looks strong.

 

[Jester David]

If there's room for Paladins, Rangers, Sorcerers, etc., there's room for Warlords.

They also tried really hard to remove the sorcerer and warlock from the game during the playtest.

The paladin and ranger are even harder to omit since they were grandfathered in, having existed since OD&D.

 

[Jester David]

Of topic: I like the ideas of your clases. Your barbarian subclass could use some adjustments, though. Limiting them by school feels odd, if they are taking after the sorcerer, the school shouldn't matter. They also get too many spells known -just three less than a full sorcerer-. There are very few spells that fit the criteria so faery hunters would feel very samey. Maybe just remove the restriction and make them follow the sorcerer spells known progression. It looks strong.

Thanks!
The spellcasting of the barbarian is based heavily on the casting eldritch knight and arcane trickster, which also limit spell schools. Giving free rein of schools could theoretically make it more potent than those subclasses by way of options/flexibility.

 

[MoonSong]

Thanks!
The spellcasting of the barbarian is based heavily on the casting eldritch knight and arcane trickster, which also limit spell schools. Giving free rein of schools could theoretically make it more potent than those subclasses by way of options/flexibility.

Well, the amount of spells known makes them quite more potent than sorcerers. Maybe just make them learn less spells (up to 7-8) and remove the school restrictions, then just change the other abilities to "cast a spell that only targets yourself" and "concentrate on a spell that only targets yourself"... wait a minute... -runs to write down the idea.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Spinning off from another thread, what sort of tweaks to the fighter class would support the Warlord play style? The purpose of this thread is to propose and critique minor variations on the fighter that would help.

The problem is that the Fighter is really painted into a DPR ('Striker') corner, design-wise, and that's not what a Warlord is.

The Fighter's DPR isn't just high (everyone can generate reasonable DPR), it based on multiple attacks, which, experience with every prior edition has shown, are a pretty tense/breakable way to deliver DPR. All it takes is a few static bonuses, or extra damage that can be added more than once/turn, and the top comes right off.

Taking away multiple attacks, the lion's share of the fighter's class features, is far more than any sub-class has done.

So you'd be talking unprecedented change, rather than 'tweaks.'

The main criteria a Warlord needs to fit, imo, is that it works as a Cleric (or Bard) replacement. Just like you don't give Clerics or Bards action surge/second wind/multiple attacks, you shouldn't give them to a Warlord.

You mean a 'leader?' 5e design really doesn't tend that way. The warlord gets to cleave close to it's concept. Yes, it should be a suitable replacement for either of those classes in the sense of in-combat healing/buffing, but in a lot of other ways it wouldn't be, anymore than they are complete replacements for eachother - no spellcaster /just/ does one role or one thing, Clerics and Bards both have lots of magical offense, for instance, but they're very different from eachother in the nature of those attack spells.

Yeah, a Battlemaster has those warlordish maneuvers. But that's basically the Eldritch Knight approach. You're still mostly a Fighter.

Well put. A warlord might use maneuvers like the Battlemaster, maybe not /quite/ like, but have many more to choose from, with several recharge types (including a couple at-will), and more powerful options.

The big question is not whether the Warlord as a full class can be made (I think we can all agree that a non-magical "full caster" class is easy enough to build)... but whether it has to be made and released in an official WotC product to "count"?

It's easier if people don't perpetuate the edition-war lie that 4e martial classes were casters.

Can someone else or some other company make a Warlord and would that satisfy people? Or does it HAVE to be WotC just so that no one ever has to argue with any potential DM about whether they can play it?

I would never want a DM - especially a 5e DM - to feel they 'must' accept a given class into their game. At this point, any new material is going to be deep in the 'option ghetto,' anyway. But, yes, if WotC wanted to farm the Warlord out, who cares - as long as the result is good.

 

[fuindordm]

Tony, those are all good points and make me think that a "true" warlord is better modeled as a spell-less valor bard.

This limits extra attack to 2, so its DPR is respectable but never goes through the roof.
Song of rest can be reskinned.
Inspiration can be adjusted a little to allow people to spend HD in combat.
Then give a subset of maneuvers and superiority dice instead of spells.

My only concern is that this class would be too weak, given that the designers felt a half-caster could give up spells for a few superiority dice.

 

[kerbarian]

As others have mentioned, Battle Master and Valor bard are the two things that get you pretty close in the current rules. In particular, I think a Battle Master with the Healer and Inspiring Leader and using maneuvers for Commander's Strike and Rally is a good fit.

I think it would be pretty simple to add a subclass that focuses directly on that stuff without having to make up much in the way of new rules.

For example:

Level 3: You gain the Healer feat. You have four superiority dice and know the maneuvers Commander's Strike and Rally. To use these maneuvers, you must spend your action (rather than spending one attack and/or a bonus action). Your Warlord superiority dice may only be used in this way (to prevent issues with Martial Adept).
Level 7: You gain the Inspiring Leader feat and now have unlimited superiority dice for use with Commander's Strike and Rally as above.

Not sure about the higher level features. Basically, you get all of the feat-based healing (which is quite good) and two maneuvers that you can use on an unlimited basis but instead of rather than in addition to your normal attacks.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Tony, those are all good points and make me think that a "true" warlord is better modeled as a spell-less valor bard.

The Bard has a lot of conceptual baggage that'd have to be jettisoned, too. But, it might have a mechanic or two that could be lifted, just like the Bard lifted expertise from the rogue, I suppose.

My only concern is that this class would be too weak, given that the designers felt a half-caster could give up spells for a few superiority dice.

Balance isn't really an issue. EK is even less than a half-caster, so think of the gulf between that and a Wizard when it comes to giving up the Bards full casting for maneuvers, it'd be that extreme a difference. Don't really think you could even draw the parallel in a meaningful way.

So, really, not a lot of help starting with the Bard.

As others have mentioned, Battle Master and Valor bard are the two things that get you pretty close in the current rules.

Imagine the Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard were not in the PH1. Someone says "the Eldritch Knight gets you pretty close, a few tweaks and you're there." That's what this thread sounds like to me.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Even if you scratched out "temporary," the scaling on Rally is pretty terrible.

Sure, though that seems like a pretty straightforward fix (a feat or something that ups the amount of healing you give someone), if all we're looking for is "can function as a party healer."

IMXP, party healers in 5e are pretty opt-in anyway, and I'm sympathetic to the philosophy espoused by Guild Wars 2 Designer Jon Peters with regards to "healing classes": "Healing is the least dynamic kind of support there is" (a philosophy I find 5e in general and the Battlemaster specifically to be pretty comfortable with), but we can agree that someone looking to play a healer class would not be well-served with a Battlemaster.

As I said in the other thread, the main bits missing are (1) Something that lets you "warlord" full-time, enabling and/or buffing, much like Cantrips let a caster Cleric or Wizard full-time.

Okay, so some sort of at-will buffing ability that is defined as non-magical, yeah, that's not something the BM can do.

And (2) More potent higher-level effects; all the Maneuvers are balanced for a 1st level character with some scaling in magnitude and frequency but nothing else.

Here's where I think I'd like a more concrete definition.

A higher-level battlemaster at the moment has 6d10 superiority dice that all recharge with a short rest, so they're typically spending every round with +1d10 and some fancy skill.

Where does that fall short as a high-level effect?