Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Why is There No Warlord Equivalent in 5E?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 9336785" data-attributes="member: 907"><p>Part of this is not just found in the Warlord class, but also in the Fighter class. In 4e, the Fighter was a Defender – or a tank, in MMO parlance. They could take a lot of damage, and dish out OK but not amazing damage, and penalize enemies for attacking their allies. The 5e fighter is a much more generic class.</p><p></p><p>The Warlord was a Leader, although I think it would have been better to use Support. They heal, buff, remove conditions, "shield" via temporary hp, and move allies into position. So they fill a very different role than a 4e Fighter.</p><p></p><p>However, even ignoring that I do not think 5e works very well for a 4e-style Warlord, because many of their abilities relied on specifics of how 4e worked:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">4e assumed you were playing on a grid, and positioning on that grid was pretty important in order to gain flanking/combat advantage, fit things into smaller AOEs, and so on. 5e by comparison does not assume the use of a grid, and does not have many abilities that depend on positioning (e.g. flanking). So moving allies around isn't as useful.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">4e healing was based on healing surges: batches of healing equal to 25% of your max hp, of which you had a limited number per day. Almost all healing in the game was in the form of "spend a healing surge", possibly with an added upside. Since the healing scaled with your actual hp, it was always relevant. In 5e, you instead have Hit Dice, which stay the same in power but you get more of them as you level up. So an ability that lets you spend a healing surge will always remain relevant, but one that lets you spend a HD will pretty soon become fairly useless.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In 4e, almost all offensive abilities were attacks. If a wizard cast a fireball, they roll an attack against each target in the area. This means that an ability that gives an ally a bonus to attack rolls will always help that ally. But in 5e, most spells use saves, so unless your wizard buddy is planning to cast <em>fire bolt</em> instead of <em>fireball</em>, a +2 to attack won't help them.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In 4e, most debuffs and persistent damage effects were "save ends", which meant that at the end of each of your turns you would roll d20 for each such effect, and on a 10+ you got rid of it. So condition relief mostly came in the form of letting an ally roll an extra save out of turn. But in 5e, most debuffs have a fixed duration – some do have a "save ends" clause, but that uses the same save as when suffering the ability in the first place.</li> </ul><p>So basically, every tool in the Warlord's toolbox works differently. It's like having a full set of metric wrenches, but all the bolts are in imperial measurements. It's just not going to work as well.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Staffan, post: 9336785, member: 907"] Part of this is not just found in the Warlord class, but also in the Fighter class. In 4e, the Fighter was a Defender – or a tank, in MMO parlance. They could take a lot of damage, and dish out OK but not amazing damage, and penalize enemies for attacking their allies. The 5e fighter is a much more generic class. The Warlord was a Leader, although I think it would have been better to use Support. They heal, buff, remove conditions, "shield" via temporary hp, and move allies into position. So they fill a very different role than a 4e Fighter. However, even ignoring that I do not think 5e works very well for a 4e-style Warlord, because many of their abilities relied on specifics of how 4e worked: [LIST] [*]4e assumed you were playing on a grid, and positioning on that grid was pretty important in order to gain flanking/combat advantage, fit things into smaller AOEs, and so on. 5e by comparison does not assume the use of a grid, and does not have many abilities that depend on positioning (e.g. flanking). So moving allies around isn't as useful. [*]4e healing was based on healing surges: batches of healing equal to 25% of your max hp, of which you had a limited number per day. Almost all healing in the game was in the form of "spend a healing surge", possibly with an added upside. Since the healing scaled with your actual hp, it was always relevant. In 5e, you instead have Hit Dice, which stay the same in power but you get more of them as you level up. So an ability that lets you spend a healing surge will always remain relevant, but one that lets you spend a HD will pretty soon become fairly useless. [*]In 4e, almost all offensive abilities were attacks. If a wizard cast a fireball, they roll an attack against each target in the area. This means that an ability that gives an ally a bonus to attack rolls will always help that ally. But in 5e, most spells use saves, so unless your wizard buddy is planning to cast [I]fire bolt[/I] instead of [I]fireball[/I], a +2 to attack won't help them. [*]In 4e, most debuffs and persistent damage effects were "save ends", which meant that at the end of each of your turns you would roll d20 for each such effect, and on a 10+ you got rid of it. So condition relief mostly came in the form of letting an ally roll an extra save out of turn. But in 5e, most debuffs have a fixed duration – some do have a "save ends" clause, but that uses the same save as when suffering the ability in the first place. [/LIST] So basically, every tool in the Warlord's toolbox works differently. It's like having a full set of metric wrenches, but all the bolts are in imperial measurements. It's just not going to work as well. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Why is There No Warlord Equivalent in 5E?
Top