D&D 5E What classes do you want added to 5e?

[Andor]

Saying the Battlemaster is a Warlord is like saying the Arcane Trickster is a Wizard - if it had only 3 wizard spells on it's list and they were all 1st level.

I don't mean to threadcrap, and I certainly don't want to start an edition war of all pointless things, but: Can you explain to me what a Warlord is, or means in 5e?

I mean, I understand that in 4e it was a Leader type who used the Martial power source, and that it drew on elements of the Marshal class and White Raven school from 3e.

But both Leader as a formalized concept and power sources as explicit and yet mechanically almost meaningless things are gone from 5e. So what is it that you want to accomplish, that you want a Warlord for, that you cannot do with a Battlemaster, or Valor Bard, or some hybrid build? What heroic archetype, or fictional character do you want to emulate?

 

[Tony Vargas]

It does everything you'd want a basic warlord to do

No, the Battlemaster does not, with 3 3rd-level-appropariate maneuvers do everything I'd want even a very basic warlord to be able to do. For instance, it doesn't restore hps. Just for one instance.

, it just doesn't do them often.

Less of a problem.

I think they were choosing to hold back psionics until they could go in rather than just giving an unsatisfying tease (apart from content that they needed feedback and playtested). Which I can understand. Better to go all in than have a single small feat.

Sounds reasonable.

Cleric is largely neutral in tone. There can be good or bad. Warlord is used exclusively negatively.

Not in genre.

And it's not the media co-opting the term.

It's the media translating a term, in both cases. It has no bearing on D&D.

That's just the modern usage of the term.

D&D doesn't cleave to modern or ancient uses of class names when building classes.

You'll notice the complete absence of the term "warlord" in the advertising for the John Carter movie.

The story it was adapted from was 'A Princess of Mars,' do you also conclude Princesses and Mars are evil?

The whole name-based attack is nonsense. If you didn't apply it selectively, we'd be left with nothing but the Fighter.

Warlord was a contentious name when the class was announced, well before the books were released/leaked and the edition war really got started.

The edition war had already started.

Putting in a class explicitly to placate a single small fraction of the group is very much taking a side.

Excluding a class explicitly to placate a single small faction of the group is very much taking a side. /And/ it's against the tenets of a game meant to be inclusive, not exclusionary.

Inclusive means being welcoming and not pushing people away

Yes, it does. D&D is an RPG, a kind of game that includes lots of option for players. Denying options is a way of pushing people away from it. Including options is not - if you don't like an option, you don't opt for it.

That's really the bottom line. Adding the Warlord to the 'Advanced Game' so that people who might want to play it can opt in, while people who object to it need never be exposed to it is perfectly reasonable and in keeping with the professed goals of 5e. Excluding from the game entirely to validate the preferences of a few is antithetical to those same goals.

How would a class option "outside the Standard Game" be released exactly?

It would not be in the PH. Pretty simple, really. UA > Playtesting > publication in some supplement would be the obvious path. Also, presumably, it would not be adopted by AL. This was something that they've been talking about since early in the playtest. There's a Basic Game (free on-line), a Standard Game (contained in the core books, with no options chosen), and there's the Advanced Game (adding any of those options, plus anything outside of Core). AL has gone and complicated it by flipping on options like Feats, but there's no reason to think they'd put a specific optional class in AL - unless demand for it was much higher than expected.

Also... how is it a compromise?

It's compromise between Warlord in the Standard game & AL vs no Warlord ever.

The warlord fans are getting exactly what they want (a warlord class) while everyone else who doesn't want a warlord class still has to know that WotC put time and money and hours and playtesting into content they'll never, every use.

No one uses ever speck of content every created for the game.

It means once side gets something rather than content being produced that at least has the potential to appeal to everyone.

Any new content has that potential, since it may turn out better than expected.

By that argument they didn't update the fighter, as there's only 17 battlemaster maneuvers compared to the 417 fighter powers. That's 4%. Not much.

Only 14 of them really emulate fighter exploits, so less.

And, yes, that's a valid argument. The 5e fighter is a more-than-adequate expression of the 2e fighter, and leaves earlier fighters in the dust. It is an inadequate expression of the 3.5 and 4e fighter. There's a lot more that could be done there, either with more archetypes or new classes.

But a 5e "maneuver master" class would still potentially only have a warlord subclass. With other subclasses doing very different things.
And it's still unlikely to do EVERYTHING the 4e warlord did

The Illusionist, as we already discussed, is 'only' sub-class, but does far more than the original Illusionist ever did. No reason to think an expansive martial class couldn't encompass the Warlord and more.

While a full class would be a symbol that the edition war really is over and even fans of 4e have a place at the 5e table, a sub-class that's as much better than the original Warlord as the 5e Illusionist is to it's original version wouldn't be anything to complain about. And that greater class could have other archetypes that handle the 4e fighter and more of what the 3.5 fighter could be used to create. It'd probably take a list of maneuvers with a pagecount to rival that devoted to spell in the PH, but that list could be leveraged the same way to produce more classes for more refined concepts.

A lot of potential there. It'd be a shame to let lingering edition war resentment of one class close it all off.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The universe in which I live. I saw it happen. I was there. Of course, that's just my analysis of what happened.

Fascinating. What was this point of divergence for D&D? In what year did it happen? (assuming you use the same calendar)

I don't mean to threadcrap, and I certainly don't want to start an edition war of all pointless things, but: Can you explain to me what a Warlord is, or means in 5e?

Same thing it was in 4e: a character who could use tactics, inspiration, and martial training to help a D&D party through the challenges of adventuring, filling the critical support role that had traditionally been done by the cleric.

But both Leader as a formalized concept and power sources as explicit and yet mechanically almost meaningless things are gone from 5e.

But support characters and non-casters are still there, so the lack of a formal label really doesn't matter.

So what is it that you want to accomplish, that you want a Warlord for, that you cannot do with a Battlemaster

Get a downed ally back into the fight, for one example. Out of a potential 336.

, or Valor Bard

Play a character without having to deal with neo-Vancian casting.

or some hybrid build?

Play in a campaign that's not using the multi-classing rules.

What heroic archetype, or fictional character do you want to emulate?

Just the stereotypical hero who 1) doesn't have supernatural powers, 2) is competent, 3) provides inspiration and/or leadership and/or tactical insights &c as a way of getting things done. It's a very common archetype in genre. Much, much more common than the 'Cleric' who stands behind the hero and touches him periodically to make his wounds disappear, or the 'Wizard' who memorizes spells but forgets them when he casts them.

The small number of non-caster sub-classes in 5e - and the relatively small number of such classes in D&D traditionally - does make it hard to narrow them down to unique archetypes. A 0e Fighter, for instance, was anyone who didn't cast spells. Then the Thief got broken out from that, and it became anyone who didn't cast spells and also wasn't so great at climbing walls & stealing stuff (or donning disguises & committing stealthy murder, lest we forget the Assassin sub-class of Thief) for quite a long while, really.

I mean, that's really the vast majority of characters from history/myth/legend/literature/fantasy-genres, ALL fighters. In 5e, we have slightly more sub-classes carrying that burden - Champions, Battlemasters, Thieves & Assassins and arguably Berserkers - to cover that same vast expanse of characters. Some of them, they do well. Grey Mouser? Definitely a Thief. All those annoying ninjas? Assassins. You can tell the Berserkers by the whole rage thing. That leaves the Champions & Battlemasters - 2/3rds of a class - to handle everyone else, and it's not like there's all that much to either of 'em.

Contrast that to the casters sub-classes available and what they represent in Genre. We have 7 flavors of Cleric, and there's not a single glowy-handed-healing, heavy-armored, forgets-his-prayers-as-he-recites-them character outside actual D&D licensed fiction. We have 8 wizards and do any of them play remotely like Gandalf or Harry Potter or anything in-between? Warlocks at least start to cover archetypes actually in genre - mostly villains, but at least they're in genre - and their Vancianism is less pronounced, so you can kinda squint & see them looking like something you might actually see in a story. The Sorcerer comes closest to modeling magical powers something like you might expect a character in genre to display (maybe not talk up 'I know hundreds of spells of opening..,' but actually use to some effect).

 

[ChrisCarlson]

Oh look. Another thread to spin 'round and 'round about warlords in. Wonderful...

 

[Minigiant]

Dragon Disciple? Psssshhh! Give me a full on DRAGON class like in 2e where you have to collect X amount of gold in addition to X amount of experience to level up to the next age category.

GASP
Are you suggesting playing a dragon and sharing won treasure with others?

 

[Minigiant]

Essentially the question is:

Do you have a character concept which cannot fit in a subclass because the subclass of the closest matching class is too low a percentage of the class?


Let's say someone wanted the archivist from 3rd edition. The main gimmick was the Dark Knowledge, Prayerbook, and Int based spellcasting of divine spells.

The closest classes are the cleric and the wizard.

The wizard has Int based classes and a spellbook. All that is needed is adding some Divine spells and Dark Knowledge. But a wizard subclass, Traditions, are a minor part of a wizard. There's not real for to add any spells to the wizard's list. Plus it comes at level 2 so a wizard's magic suddenly becoming divine is stupid.

The Cleric has the divine spells. So Dark Knowledge and Prayerbook would have to come from the cleric subclass: Cleric Domains. Domains are about...20% of the class with magic being the other 80% You could fit Dark Knowledge and Prayerbook in the cleric however it would be weak.

So the question is if the fan is willing to acccept that power level.

 

[Jester David]

D&D doesn't cleave to modern or ancient uses of class names when building classes.

That doesn't mean D&D should choose to name their character classes after people who give prepubescent children addictive drugs and then send them off to fight with automatic weapons.

Excluding a class explicitly to placate a single small faction of the group is very much taking a side. /And/ it's against the tenets of a game meant to be inclusive, not exclusionary.

This assumes that the warlord was excluded "placate a single small faction of the group" and not for other reasons. There is no evidence whatsoever that the editon war played any part in the decision not to make the warlord its own class any more than the D&D hysteria of the '80s was to blame for the assassin not being its own class in 5e.

Yes, it does. D&D is an RPG, a kind of game that includes lots of option for players. Denying options is a way of pushing people away from it. Including options is not - if you don't like an option, you don't opt for it.

What's an option you hate? Gunslinger? Cavalier?
How would you feel if WotC spent six months making that instead of the warlord? Instead of content you want to use.
That's the problem. Time spent making content for 25% of the fans means content that 75% of the fan cannot use. It's inefficient at best. And when said option is a class, the time spent on that class is coming at the expense of dozens of subclasses.

It would not be in the PH. Pretty simple, really. UA > Playtesting > publication in some supplement would be the obvious path. Also, presumably, it would not be adopted by AL. This was something that they've been talking about since early in the playtest. There's a Basic Game (free on-line), a Standard Game (contained in the core books, with no options chosen), and there's the Advanced Game (adding any of those options, plus anything outside of Core). AL has gone and complicated it by flipping on options like Feats, but there's no reason to think they'd put a specific optional class in AL - unless demand for it was much higher than expected.

That's your personal definition and does not seem to be reflected at all in how the game is being presented or sold. Advanced doesn't really exist beyond using the DMG and customizing via rules modules. "Standard" and "Advanced" seemed to be internal design terms limited to Legends & Lore with no impact beyond that.

It seems highly unlikely WotC is going to invest the time and resources it takes to make a class only to exclude it from the Adventurer's League. The only content banned from the AL is DMG options and the aarakokra. None of which likely involved intensive playtesting over months.
It's very likely that most of the content from the SCAG will also be open for AL play, at least for a season or two. Because they want people to buy their books. Content that people are not encouraged to buy and play is a poor business decision and inevitably leads to someone showing up at an AL game with a character they cannot play.

And, really, other than the AL - which has no impact on the majority of player's - there's no real way to distinguish "Standard" content from "Advanced" as both are incorporated into the same rulebook.

It's compromise between Warlord in the Standard game & AL vs no Warlord ever.

It's funny how in your compromise you still get exactly what you want without giving up anything.

No one uses ever speck of content every created for the game.

Didn't LFR? And wasn't that the intent of the "everything is core" design of 4e?
I remember hearing about a heck of a lot of "kitchen sink" games in 4e and many currently for Pathfinder. My own game is pretty content inclusive with even some 3PP allowed. I've only banned a single book and class.

While a full class would be a symbol that the edition war really is over and even fans of 4e have a place at the 5e table

The edition war is over. 4e fans are more than welcome. I'll play with anyone. And the DM of my 5e game is a HUGE 4e fan who still partly wants to play that edition. And I've likely spent 2x as much on 4e as on 5e. Heck, I likely spent more on DDI alone than 5e.
It's only not over for people who don't want to let it go. But the fight's over. It sucked. No one one. It was our Nam. We all need to let it go.

And that greater class could have other archetypes that handle the 4e fighter and more of what the 3.5 fighter could be used to create. It'd probably take a list of maneuvers with a pagecount to rival that devoted to spell in the PH, but that list could be leveraged the same way to produce more classes for more refined concepts.

I can't even begin to think of enough maneuvers to fill five pages, let alone 20+.
Heck, I tried to think of more maneuvers for my homebrew commander subclass and could only think of a half dozen. A page count to rival spells? That's unneeded bloat right there.

A lot of potential there. It'd be a shame to let lingering edition war resentment of one class close it all off.

But it's not lingering edition war resentment. That's a fallacious argument. It's the bastard child of a false dilema and no true scotsman, by arguing that:
a) you can either be a fan of the warlord or hate 4e
and
b) no real 4e fan would hate the warlord
It's perfectly reasonable to be just fine with 4e but hate the warlord. Or hate the warlord but be generally neutral or even ignorant of 4e.

The edition war is completely, 100% irrelevant to the current discussion. Any problems people have with the warlord they have with the warlord. In the same way people can hate the 3e cleric or druid (CoDzilla!!!) while still liking the edition itself.

 

[steeldragons]

But it's not lingering edition war resentment. That's a fallacious argument. It's the bastard child of a false dilema and no true scotsman, by arguing that:
a) you can either be a fan of the warlord or hate 4e
and
b) no real 4e fan would hate the warlord
It's perfectly reasonable to be just fine with 4e but hate the warlord. Or hate the warlord but be generally neutral or even ignorant of 4e.

The edition war is completely, 100% irrelevant to the current discussion. Any problems people have with the warlord they have with the warlord. In the same way people can hate the 3e cleric or druid (CoDzilla!!!) while still liking the edition itself.

Quoted For [so much] Truth.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This assumes that the warlord was excluded "placate a single small faction of the group" and not for other reasons.

The Warlord hasn't been excluded yet, it just wasn't in the Standard Game, and hasn't appeared in the Advanced Game, as yet. So there's, at worst, an appearance of exclusion at the moment.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the editon war played any part in the decision not to make the warlord its own class any more than the D&D hysteria of the '80s was to blame for the assassin not being its own class.

2e, on the heels of said hysteria, removed the 'evil' Assassin class, and changed the names of Demons & Devils, and avoided having quite as racy art-work, among other things. No, not much more evidence.

What's an option you hate?

Psionics. The Monk.

How would you feel if WotC spent six months making that instead of the warlord? Instead of content you want to use.

I'm fine with it. I advocated for the addition of the Psion right here. Because, while I find it a horribly counter-genre sci-fi bit, that's no reason to exclude it from the game when others love it.

It seems highly unlikely WotC is going to invest the time and resources it takes to make a class only to exclude it from the Adventurer's League.

Well, I certainly wouldn't mind having a class worth playing available in AL, but, /if/ opposition is as strong as you seem to believe, it would be a reasonable compromise to give both fans and detractors of the Warlord some of what they want.

And, really, other than the AL - which has no impact on the majority of player's - there's no real way to distinguish "Standard" content from "Advanced" as both are incorporated into the same rulebook.

Outside of AL, DMs are free to opt in or out of whatever they want, so a Warlord is no problem for anyone who doesn't want one - they just don't use it.

It's funny how in your compromise you still get exactly what you want without giving up anything.

I've already given up being able to play a Warlord for over a year, and conceded to never being able to play one in AL.

My own game is pretty content inclusive with even some 3PP allowed. I've only banned a single book and class.

In 5e, that class could be the Warlord, and you'd have nothing to complain about.

But it's not lingering edition war resentment.

Like I said above, whether you can prove it is or isn't, the appearance of it is there, and that will keep the edition-war toxicity from dissipating.

The edition war is over. 4e fans are more than welcome. I'll play with anyone.

The edition war never needed to happen, fans of earlier editions were more than welcome in 2008. But WotC created this impression that they were showing contempt for them, and *boom.*

We all need to let it go.

Here's an exercise: Try continuing your participating in this thread without repeating any arguments that had already been made during the edition war.

I can't even begin to think of enough maneuvers to fill five pages, let alone 20+.

The Warlord had 339, the fighter over 400, the Ranger and Rogue, not many fewer. You could probably consolidate them down to just a hundred or two, though, between 5e's looser style letting one stand in for several, and the duplication among the separate class lists (not nearly as much sharing as among spells, but not trivial).

 

[shadowmane]

As someone who has never even heard of the Warlord class, what is so very special about that class that everyone wants it? I don't see the necessity.