Couple of quick thoughts.
Number 1 - spells don't take 6 seconds to cast. They take one action (unless otherwise stated). Meaning it takes no longer to cast a spell than swing a sword. So, right off the bat, [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION]'s example of the warlord allowing 12 seconds of actions in 6 seconds is directly countered by the actual rules.
Agreed. I've backed away from this...illustration...a couple of times already.
Number 2 - I had never really considered allowing Warlords to allow casters to cast two spells. I honestly think it's probably too powerful. There's no way you could allow that many castings and keep game balance. And, since warlords never had this ability, I'm not sure why it's a problem.
Number 3 - for myself, [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION], I'm not dismissing your criticisms, I just find them so illogical. You don't have an issue with the fact that every single Warlord ability is already in the game, but, you vehemently oppose a warlord class because it doesn't fit with your sensibilities.
Oh boy. I JUST re-explained this...again...to Aldarc.
I don't love those other abilities you are talking about. If we ever had threads discussing them I would probably chime in. But having them dispersed makes them less offensive. The classes they are in have concepts much larger than those abilities.
It's the idea of concentrating them all in one class that really bugs me.
To improve on the already wonderful analogy I gave Aldarc: a few things I dislike are rapiers, dual-wielding, Dexadins, and Drow as player characters. But somehow I struggle through each day anyway. If we were discussing a new Paladin sub-class that was restricted to Drow and had abilities designed around dual-wielding rapiers I would be pretty vocally opposed.
I mean, what would you do if I insisted that my bard was non-magical? That I sit down and say that my bard is 100% non-magical, and that my inspiration dice are just that - inspiration that makes your character so happy that that character does a better job.
Would that be acceptable?
Far more so. It might get tiring whenever you keep insisting that your Bard is non-magical (because your insistence on "non-magical" I find just as illogical as you find my stance on Warlords) but it would be far, far better than a whole class designed around non-magical inspiration. Fluff matters to me.
[quoteNumber 4 - EVERY single poll that we've done on this shows warlords to be in the top three most wanted class. Every time. Well, every time that they have included warlords on the list.
It's pretty frustrating to see WotC talk about class popularity of former edition classes and then leave warlords off the poll. But, at the end of the day, warlords top (or show up near the top) of every single poll. It's frustrating to see this year after year and still get absolutely no movement on the issue, mostly because the discussion gets so poisoned and toxic by edition warring rhetoric, even years after the fact.[/quote]
Every poll done on Enworld? You...you
do realize what a skewed sample set that is, in so many ways. I mean, even ignoring the probable concentration of the kind of people who miss 3.5e and 4e, relative to the (new, much larger) D&D population as a whole, there's also the reality that probably everybody who could care less about Warlords sees yet another class poll and rolls their eyes, ignoring it like the plague because they know it's going to be another debate about Warlords. Meanwhile the Warlord proponents think, "Yes! Another opportunity to blind people with the shining Light of Truth! Count me in!" (Or something to that effect). I would have skipped this poll except the "None...D&D is already perfect in every way" was so irksome and biased that I had to jump in.
IOW, we're not going to get a warlord because edition warring has so poisoned the well that WotC simply refuses to come anywhere near an attempt.
The only reason I have these debates about Warlords is in the hope of getting some of you to realize that there's a simple, non-conspiracy-theory explanation: there's an aspect of the Warlord concept that is different from every other class, and some people think we shouldn't go there.
I may find myself unable to resist coming back in, but with that I'm going to try my best to exit this particular debate. Happy gaming.