D&D 5E Evaluating the warlord-y Fighter

Now I want to play a paladin, but with paladin "spells" being fueled by inspiration and leadership rather than divine benefits

I really like the 4e warlord as a concept and agree that it currently can't be replicated exactly in 5e.

However, I feel that the Battlemaster comes really quite close thematically, especially if you take feats like Inspiring Leader and Martial Adept. If you want to allow home-brew, I'd think it is easy to tweak the Fighter class to have a more warlord-y flavor, simply by ruling that its Action Surge & Second Wind abilities don't give the character itself the extra turn or hit points, but allow him or her to give it to an ally. I am not really an expert on the rules, but I don't think it would break the balance too much of the game, although I'm sure there would be some way to take advantage of this.

EDIT: Also, don't forget about the Protection Fighting style. This is another 'warlord power'-like thing you can do as a reaction during combat instead of using your dice.

Sacrosanct said:

*edit* I guess what I'm trying to say is that if the BM's actions effectively increase the effectiveness of casters' spells, that's pretty darn important and of equal magnitude to the spell itself. 25 pts without the BM, or 50 pts with. So the BM's actions are equally important to the spell itself, damage wise. For save or suck, it certainly helps because then without the BM, the spell wouldn't have any effect.

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I agree with this my 4e warlord certainly claims most of the damage in a fight from the attacks he grants & the bonuses to damage he gives plus the attacks that are made because he allowed people to move into position (or hit due to a bonus).

I am not sure the BM has quite enough oomph for this with limited dice but you can certainly make an effective martial healer - it's more a combat medic than an inspiring leader or tactical guide though.

In response to a later point for me Legendary resistance is a purely metagame ability. The DM invokes it to protect his monsters & make them more epic, the monster does not use it if he fancies ignoring a taunt.

DEFCON 1 said:

I haven't yet played a warlord-ish character in 5E, but speaking personally... if I wanted to I'd either use the Battlemaster and its maneuvers like you mentioned, or I'd play a War Cleric and strip the fluff off of it. Spells are basically a pool of maneuvers just like the Battlemaster's are, just in a different pyramidal scheme.

After all... when it comes to the game mechanics itself, there's really no difference between the 4E Warlord and the 4E Cleric. They both use the same AEDU format, their powers accomplish the same exact sorts of things (granting bonuses to hit, bonuses to AC, extra attacks, the regaining of HP, penalties to enemy attacks and AC etc. etc.) It's just the fluff that was different that dressed up these powers as "magical" or "mundane". Which is why using the spell slot pyramid and just stripping off the "magic" from them and calling them mundane maneuvers doesn't bother me a bit.

It's also the same reason why I've never seen the need for a "non-magical" paladin or ranger... because I can just as easily strip the magic off of their spells and call them mundane abilities (editing a bit of fluff in the process.)

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As someone who is endlessly irritated by 4e knockers who wanted fighters not to be defenders or whatever (then play the class that does what you want it to - forget what it is called) I should agree with this.
Part of my problem at the moment is that I cannot quite get enough things to do by any of the builds I have tinkered with . The best is probably Battlemaster/Lore Bard, like GMforPGs but it's a long slog to get what I want (& bard spells are not quite as supportive as I would have liked - for a pure bard let alone a Warlord stand in. I think it's a good class just not what I want).

There is also a little more to the style of abilities than just fluff. There are some things that just feel more clericy and others that feel more martial. This is a bit (!) wishy washy I concede.

CapnZapp said:

My biggest problem is that almost all of the warlord-y features must compete against regular fighter-y features. This is not just an issue of lack-of-direction. It's a fatal weakness when you feel you must sacrifice plain better options in order to get the look and feel right for your intended class concept.

Then there's the issue of healing and buffing. Not only does magical effects destroy the core attractiveness of a warlord (and spells are the only way to gain healing and buffing currently in the game), they - by definition - can't be handed out to the Battlemaster; since that would destroy niche protection.

In conclusion; to really work, the Warlord concept absolutely must be its own class, where warlord-y features doesn't compete with or have to be balanced against the features of other classes.

Also, for many, a successful Warlord means breaking the core assumption of 5e brought along from 3e, namely that non-magical abilities can't get access to the really good stuff.

Specifically, I want healing on par with perhaps bard or druid healing (if not life Cleric levels of uber healing!), but this needs to work perfectly fine in an antimagic field. Same with Warlord buffing. I'm just saying this, so nobody expects otherwise. My guess is that a Warlord class won't ever become part of 5e core (at least not one that would satisfy the above). But perhaps it could be akin to a "DMG class" (like oathbreakers and death clerics) and be added to the forthcoming 4e compatibility articles?

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Well 4e warlords have to give up fighter abilities to get their warlord ones - they lose HP, weapon & armour proficiencies, attack bonus, marking & combat superiority . I think the issue with 5e pseudo warlords is that they do not have the option of giving up enough fighter abilities to really function as a leader.

& I mean "leader" not healer. I can do without the perfect symmetry of 4 healing if I get other abilities that replace it - damage mitigation, movement increases, boosts to attack or damage that reflect the function of having a great team leader either an inspiration or a tactician or just a nudger who keeps everyone performing to the best of their ability.
It is frustrating with all the martial/magical nerd warring that this archetype, which exists in the real world, has not been carried into the game.

koga305 said:

What are your opinions on 5E's martial support options? Are they adequate to represent a 4E-style Warlord character? Do they fit within the 5E framework well?

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The battlemaster is a poor man's 4E fighter, and an even poorer 4E warlord. If you regained superiority dice 1/round, it might be OK. But the power effects are weak and bland, and don't scale compared to magical buffs. I can't imagine one actually being more effective in the "dude with a sword support role) than a paladin/cleric.

We need higher level maneuvers that burn multiple dice, and WOTC not designing classes for the 1e grognards who don't want to use said class in the first place. They have the simple, crappy fighter already for the guys who supposedly like fighters but don't want them to have nice things. Now give us one worth using, and a warlord to match.

DEFCON 1 said:

After all... when it comes to the game mechanics itself, there's really no difference between the 4E Warlord and the 4E Cleric. They both use the same AEDU format, their powers accomplish the same exact sorts of things (granting bonuses to hit, bonuses to AC, extra attacks, the regaining of HP, penalties to enemy attacks and AC etc. etc.) It's just the fluff that was different that dressed up these powers as "magical" or "mundane". Which is why using the spell slot pyramid and just stripping off the "magic" from them and calling them mundane maneuvers doesn't bother me a bit.

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Gotta disagree with you, here. These things were important for the warlord, but what defined it was its focus on granting off-turn actions (and movement) to its allies. In other words, there was an element of battlefield control, only with allies instead of enemies. The 4e cleric did not do this, and neither does the 5e cleric.

(Don't get me wrong, though. The buffing was great, too. For instance, all of those buffs each warlord granted when someone used an action point stacked (except, I think, the attack bonus buff). So a party of warlords could all use an action point in one round for a ferocious nova. )

Sacrosanct said:

Are you talking about 5e? Non magical healing and buffing do exist in 5e. Many of the BMs maneuvers can grant bonuses to allies, and between second wind, inspiration, healer feat, and how hit dice work, there are plenty of non magical healing options.

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Yes, they grant them, they're just crappy compared to magic. When they can toss out effects on par with Bless, a first level spell, I might be interested.

Sacrosanct said:

Well, it did use one of it's reactions to tail swipe me, smashing me against the wall. But the larger cavern we were all in wasn't big enough to keep it out of bow shot (or eldritch blast shot) range. It first tried to freeze us with breath weapons, and used it's freezing fog (which worked quite well to mess up our plans). We were all spread apart and in position when it first came out. And to be honest, it just missed us when trying to grapple. Such is how the dice fall.

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Which just goes to show, when scouting out a new dragon lair, make sure it has multiple dragon-sized exits (or create your own). Vertical shafts or natural chimneys are great, because they offer immediate access to the sky and are difficult for earth-bound mortals to access.

A proper supporting fighter would be able to spend his reactions to buff allies. I have a very different and complex system for 3e, but the general idea here in 5e terms would be: "Spend your reaction to give a +2 bonus to hit to an ally." You just build from there as the character invest build resources in the concept: "+4 bonus to an ally", "+2 bonus to all allies", "+2 bonus to AC to an ally", "+2 bonus to a reflex defense of an ally", "flank a target you and at least one ally are adjacent to, even if you aren't in a flanking position", "If you have advantage on an attack, you may sacrifice it to give any of the above to an ally", and so on and so forth.

The trick is balancing these options to be a combination front line fighter and support character with the options to simply be a strong front line fighter. This is a bit tricky, since being a support character is always less reliable than being self-reliant, since being a support character requires that you have available allies to actually assist.

DEFCON 1 said:

We accept in 4E that martial and casting classes have the same power format of at-wills, encounters, and dailies acquired at the same times and in the same quantities (with just the fluff being different)... so why is the idea of a 5E "Warlord" using the same power format of the cleric or bard (IE the spell slot pyramid) harder to accept? I realize that for some people it is... but I'm just not one of those people. I can just handwave the fluff off of a 5E War Cleric and just use the mechanics if I need a Warlord with more options than what I would get with the Battlemaster that badly. But that's just me.

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Warlock is IMO the better chassis to build upon, as its short rest driven. Call Invocations "Stratagems" and have them act as passive buffs or attack riders. Something like a "Comrades in Arms - When you take the 'Aid' action, you may also make a melee attack" or "Into the Breach - your allies add your charisma modifier to damage against unwounded targets" type thing.

Then you replace spells with maneuvers that grant actually impressive abilities. Have two subclasses, Bravura (the risky frontline guy) and a tacitcal/lazylord type and you're by and large good to go.

ehren37 said:

Warlock is IMO the better chassis to build upon.

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A Warlock that is not selffish! A premiere!

Or maybe just adding new invocations, or new Pact Boon: helm of tactical genius.

But, no. The least tinkering is the best. I created a lot of Homebrew stuff, but always as sub-classes, not classes (except for monsters as a race).

It is the 1st time I consider a warlord as something else than a fighter, thus...

We can change the protection fighting style, adding a rule that Battlemaster maneuvers can affect allies in a 10' radius ex: parry. Protection with shield AND words.