What makes a Warlord differ from a Bard?

[dmnqwk]

I see people wanting a "Martial-type character who commands others" but I was wondering what makes people think that a leader can fight better than those under their command?

If you consider a tactical commander, how often is the commander the best combatant in the group, versus how often she is merely the smartest and most analytical of the group? Whenever I picture Warlord, I imagine people desire Hannibal from the A-Team, a character with their own skills PLUS the ability to lead.

If a Martial character possessed the ability to actively dominate the support zone as well, where do people feel this would not be overpowered? We have the Battle Commander abilities with the ability to order others to attack on a fighter already but I understand people also want the Bardic abilities to heal... so I was curious what people feel is missing from a Skald (Bard subtype) that would make a Warlord balanced but superior for their playstyle?

Couldn't you just make an effective Warlord by piecing together the Fighter subtype of Battle Commander, with a lot of the Bard powers, and just ensure you don't cherry pick only the finest ingredients? What, other than a combination of Bard and Battle Commander subtype, would make a balanced Warlord in 5th edition?

 

[mellored]

If a Martial character possessed the ability to actively dominate the support zone as well, where do people feel this would not be overpowered?

Yes.

Which is why it's not really possible to have the warlord as a fighter sub-class. Fighter has too much fighting ability in it's base class.

Consensus is to have warlords deal cantrip level damage.

We have the Battle Commander abilities with the ability to order others to attack on a fighter already but I understand people also want the Bardic abilities to heal... so I was curious what people feel is missing from a Skald (Bard subtype) that would make a Warlord balanced but superior for their playstyle?

The main difference is that bard is that he's a spell caster. Though warlords have been described as spell-less bards.

Also, they are more Int primary with Cha secondary. But that's minor.

Couldn't you just make an effective Warlord by piecing together the Fighter subtype of Battle Commander, with a lot of the Bard powers, and just ensure you don't cherry pick only the finest ingredients? What, other than a combination of Bard and Battle Commander subtype, would make a balanced Warlord in 5th edition?

Yes. I pieced together a warlord from other martial sub-classes here.
And yes, i think it would be a pretty effective warlord. It certainly needs playtested and tweaked, but it's not in a bad starting place. Possibly trade in some paladin aura's too (aura sub-class).


However, you can't do that with normal multi-classing.

 

[ccs]

What makes a Warlord different than a Bard you ask?

Easy;
The former sparks edition wars/bad flashbacks.
The later doesn't.

 

[GreenTengu]

The Bard is master of knowledge, skills and trickery who uses a mix of fighting and arcane magic by use of a musical instrument in order to achieve his ends and by use of the musical instruments can encourage and thus enhance his allies.

The Warlord is a warrior of sorts who uses tactical knowledge and encouragement to enhance his allies rather than dominating personal single combat skills, particularly restoring their lost spirit of fighting without using overtly magical methods.

What this means is that a Bard will generally be wearing very little armor and will be the one to throw out illusions or even fire blasts, sneaking around, unlocking doors, chests and detecting and removing traps as well as the one who is going to be a wealth of knowledge. Honestly, the Bard is already part Fighter, part Wizard, part Cleric and part Thief and part unique mastery of knowledge skills and the best party buff.

But the Warlord is going to generally be the one wearing slightly heavier armor and far more likely to get into the thick of things and make themselves the target of the enemy ire, at least to the extent this is true of a Cleric. Basically ideally you should be pulling the Thief and Wizard part of the Bard out and almost certainly the mastery of lore skills as well, but leaving the Fighter, Cleric and party boosting parts.

The comparison to the Cleric would be better. The Warlord should be a lot like a cleric, but giving up the ability to communicate with a god, destroy undead by waving a magical symbol or doing overtly miraculous things (at least much more so than a Fighter or Rogue or Barbarian or spell-less Ranger would do), instead being able to get into the thick of things more and be able to set up openings for the Rogue or Fighter to take advantage of.

And mechanically what this should mean is that instead of at high level having two dozen different spells arranged across 9 different levels and having to track 9 different levels of expendable spell slots and remembering which spells use which spell slots and have which effects if used at different spell slots.... Instead you should have a list of less than a dozen things you can do, all of which is pulled from a single resource pool and when that resource pool runs dry, you can fall back on your ability to get in there and mix it up (which, to be honest, most Cleric types can as well).

 

[dmnqwk]

So most people feel a Warlord should have nothing to do with Inspiration, but moreover specific orders/commands such as

"Go for the Throat" 11th level Battle Order. Your order inspire a ruthlessness in your comrades that causes their attacks to become more lethal. As a bonus action you may expend one major tactic slot to cause all allies within 60' to deal triple damage on a critical hit until the start of your next turn.

"Look Out!" 1st level Battle Order. You let out a cry of wariness to instil a defensive posture in comrades. As a bonus action you may expend one minor tactic slot to cause attacks against allies within 10' to be made with disadvantage until the start of your next turn. (note this does not benefit you.)

"Through the pain" 7th level Battle Order. You let out a heroic cry of determination that instils hope in your allies. As an action you may expend one minor tactic slot to grant allies within 60' Temporary Hit Points equal to twice your Warlord level. Allies who benefit from this Order may not receive additional temporary hit points until after a long rest.

So a Warlord could actually function as someone with battle maneuvers that, instead of benefitting himself, were designed to be short-range temporary shouts that could change the course of combat when used? If so it does sound like it could function as it's own class, with archetypes of strategist (designed to boost stealth mechanics and other group checks) or paragon (your actions can instil bonuses in others such as when you hit a foe they get advantage on attack rolls)

 

[Tony Vargas]

What makes a Warlord differ from a Bard?

No magic or music for the Warlord. So the Bard, as an arcane full-caster, is just not a potential component of a Warlord-alternative build. You can cobble together a little something out of Noble or Soldier for Background, Inspiring Leader & Martial Adept as feats, and PDK/Battlemaster or Mastermind as an archetype, and that's about it. There's lots more functionality already available that'd be appropriate, but it's silo'd in caster & magic-using sub-classses.

So most people feel a Warlord should have nothing to do with Inspiration, but moreover specific orders/commands such as

No. The concept really requires a lot of flexibility. Both to contribute adequate support to keep a party going while remaining viable as an individual PC, and to allow players with very different visions or specific bugaboos to come up with a build that works for them.

I was wondering what makes people think that a leader can fight better than those under their command?

As a general rule the Warlord was not deadliest of the martial classes, on his own. So, no, nothing should make you think that, really.

If a Martial character possessed the ability to actively dominate the support zone as well, where do people feel this would not be overpowered?

Don't see how. Support is a critically important, but not terribly spot-light-grabbing role. The extant 5e support-oriented characters are all full casters with a great deal of versatility on top of support (indeed, they can ignore support almost entirely via spell choice on a day to day basis), and they tend to have better basic combat abilities than other full casters (like the Wizard), as well. Even if you had a Warlord class or fighter archetype that was a fully-capable support character on top of being equal to other fighters in every way, it wouldn't be over-powered or over-versatile compared to existing support characters - just in comparison to said fighters. So it's problematic to try to start with a the fighter and trim away and add things until you have a workable support class.

 

[GreenTengu]

So most people feel a Warlord should have nothing to do with Inspiration, but moreover specific orders/commands such as

All your commands imply inspiration of a sort. "Inspiration" or "Orders" or "Commands" or "Encouragement", however you want to phrase it... similar effect that the Bard's music or the Paladin's auras give.

So a Warlord could actually function as someone with battle maneuvers that, instead of benefitting himself, were designed to be short-range temporary shouts that could change the course of combat when used? If so it does sound like it could function as it's own class, with archetypes of strategist (designed to boost stealth mechanics and other group checks) or paragon (your actions can instil bonuses in others such as when you hit a foe they get advantage on attack rolls)

Yes, and if you look at the threads on this forum you will see half a dozen people trying to figure out how to build the thing. We just can't come to an agreement about how exactly to do it.... whether it involves creating dozens of class features that everyone gets or just swiping various abilities from other classes and I am trying to get it to work via turning the Battlemaster Maneuvers from a secondary feature to a core one.

 

[Miladoon]

Tights. A warlord would not be caught dead in them.

Conceptually, I can create a Bard or a Warlord using a monk as the class. Mechanically, the bard uses musical magic, long and short rest features, and a Warlord does not exist in 5E so I don't know.

 

[Uchawi]

I believe you would have to look at the 4E bard and warlord for a start since they are both leader classes. And most likely you would have to develop a sub-system for the warlord that presented an alternative to magic from being an innate caster (bard) to using magic as a tool (scrolls, rituals) or non-magic equivalent of certain spells via command presence, tactics, fast down time recovery, etc. It would also be broken down into weaker effects that can impact the entire group based on at-will, or a short recovery, or where the warlord spends limited resources to impact a specific party member or the warlord that are on a daily cycle.

 

[mellored]

Bards are like...

Warlords are like...