D&D 5E Evaluating the warlord-y Fighter

[DEFCON 1]

If the choice is
a) I play the character I want and, as a result, I am not as effective in the game as the other players, or
b) I am as effective as the rest of my party, and, as a result, I cannot play the character I want to play

This is not a choice that a player should have to make.

Sure it is. D&D is a Class-based game. Not every conceivable option is available to players unless a class is made for it. Which means a player needs to accept that a highly retrofitted character might not get to use all the bells and whistles a more natural fitting character does... or needs to suspend a bit more disbelief, more than the player already has to with the game itself... or needs to slightly amend their ideas and designs to work with the options available.

In the first case... a non-magical "warlord" Cleric player accepts that Hold Person cannot work in their concept, and accepts they will not ever prepare or cast that spell. In the second case... the same player decides that they *can* use Hold Person, but that they will only ever use it as a touch-style attack and never at range, and accept the idea that it's like a vulcan nerve pinch that paralyzes the enemy. And in the third case... the player decides that while their warlord isn't blessed by the gods and given their power, they do have preternatural or perhaps supernatural physical ability of a master fantasy warrior that allows them to pull off the same feats that an actual Cleric does. Their abilities aren't *purely* mundane, but with so many other so-called mundane abilities for martial characters that really seem supernatural in the game already, it's a compromise in their visualization of a "warlord" the player accepts in order to play their warlord with all the same bells and whistles a regular cleric gets.

The entire game is about compromise and accepting the restrictions in place. You either do it, or remain disgruntled. And then just hope against hope WotC decides to throw you a bone some time down the line.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Sure it is. D&D is a Class-based game. Not every conceivable option is available to players unless a class is made for it.

The developers of D&D have a responsibility to know what character types there is a demand for and to serve that demand. They're never going to get it perfect (there will always be demands not anticipated, or demands not able to be served), but saying "suck it up" to those who can't play the characters they want in an effective way isn't a useful response. D&D is a voluntary activity, and if someone can't have the kind of fun they want with it, they're not going to suck it up, they're just not going to play. As someone who loves this weird little dork game, I think that's the worst possible result.

A more useful response is, "lets figure out what you need and if we can meet those needs and if we can't, what can."

The entire game is about compromise and accepting the restrictions in place. You either do it, or remain disgruntled. And then just hope against hope WotC decides to throw you a bone some time down the line.

You only accept the restrictions and compromise if it helps you have more fun. Having to choose between ineffective and uncharacteristic isn't a fun choice, so there's no reason to accept those compromises and restrictions. D&D isn't something you have to do, it's something you can do if you want to.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The developers of D&D have a responsibility to know what character types there is a demand for and to serve that demand. They're never going to get it perfect (there will always be demands not anticipated, or demands not able to be served), but saying "suck it up" to those who can't play the characters they want in an effective way isn't a useful response.

A more useful response is, "lets figure out what you need and if we can meet those needs and if we can't, what can."

No one's saying "suck it up"... in fact they are saying "Right now we can't give you *exactly* what you want. Our compromise is there are many different methods for getting *close* to what you want, and there are all kinds of instructions in the DMG to change, adapt, and massage the rules to accomplish it, assuming you're willing to listen and work with us. Now to get there the rest of the way, you just need to loosen your rock-hard grip on this character idea that you have to play using this system that wasn't built for it... or you don't play it."

If you have an character idea that you can't possibly deviate from... one that doesn't fall within the literally *hundreds* of character ideas that the game can and does easily support and which you *could* play... then WotC is going to just have to say "You know... we just can't give you what you want at the moment. Maybe D&D isn't the game for you if that's the only character idea you're willing to play."

Maybe in six months, one year, a couple years they may decide to give you exactly what you want. If you get it... all the best! But if you don't... hey, it happens.

 

[CM]

At the risk of venturing into material more appropriate for the house rules forum, I did a little back-of-the-envelope math a few months ago and came up with this attempt to lessen the fightery aspect of the 5e battlemaster fighter and boost the warlordy aspect. It has undergone zero playtesting. I'm not sure if the trade-off of action surge and the 3rd and 4th attacks is too big a nerf in exchange for more maneuvers and superiority dice or not. It's sort of a necessary evil because there's not much else you can do, other than possibly remove some armor proficiencies or lower the hit die size.

Warlord (Battlemaster Variant) - House Rule

• Motivator: You gain proficiency in the Persuasion skill.
• Action Surge: You lose the fighter’s Action Surge ability.
• Extra Attacks: You gain Extra Attack at 5th level only. You do not gain Extra Attack at 11th or 20th level.
• Maneuvers: At levels 7, 10, and 15 you learn three maneuvers instead of two.
• Superiority Dice: At levels 7 and 15 you gain two additional superiority dice instead of one.
• Clever: If your Intelligence is 13 or higher, you learn one additional maneuver.
• Inspiring: If your Charisma is 13 or higher, you have one additional superiority die.
• Resourceful: If your Wisdom is 13 or higher, you either learn one additional maneuver or have one additional superiority die (your choice).

 

[Wednesday Boy]

As a house rule would it unbalance things for the "Warlord" to have the ability to grant another character an attack in place of one of their own? It would suffer from off-turn actions but it would have a similar tradeoff as the beastmaster ranger and their pet.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The developers of D&D have a responsibility to know what character types there is a demand for and to serve that demand. They're never going to get it perfect (there will always be demands not anticipated, or demands not able to be served), but saying "suck it up" to those who can't play the characters they want in an effective way isn't a useful response. D&D is a voluntary activity, and if someone can't have the kind of fun they want with it, they're not going to suck it up, they're just not going to play. As someone who loves this weird little dork game, I think that's the worst possible result.

A more useful response is, "lets figure out what you need and if we can meet those needs and if we can't, what can."



You only accept the restrictions and compromise if it helps you have more fun. Having to choose between ineffective and uncharacteristic isn't a fun choice, so there's no reason to accept those compromises and restrictions. D&D isn't something you have to do, it's something you can do if you want to.

You realize this argument can easily be applied to 4e. So you're saying that the designers of 4e should have gone the extra effort to make sure people who liked classes without powers, and people who liked things like vancian magic should have had options in that game too and not be told to "just deal with it". And you're essentially saying that by not giving those options, the designers of 4e designed the game in the "worst possible" way.

 

[Sailor Moon]

No edition has ever been tailored to fit everyone's needs so what's the problem here?

You basically have a few people trying to turn a feature into a fault.

 

[aramis erak]

Warlord (Battlemaster Variant) - House Rule

• Clever: If your Intelligence is 13 or higher, you learn one additional maneuver.
• Inspiring: If your Charisma is 13 or higher, you have one additional superiority die.
• Resourceful: If your Wisdom is 13 or higher, you either learn one additional maneuver or have one additional superiority die (your choice).

Those three are mechanically unlike anything else in the game engine. Everywhere the game engine gives a bonus for attributes that I can think of, it's X many where X is the attribute modifier, minimum 1. Further, this gives the class (in essence) 14 attributes that are requisite; that also is unusual. it's required attribute creep along the lines of the 0E and 1E Paladins...

I'd suggest changing it superiority dice of "4 plus (Stat mod), minimum 1" (So if you really want to, you can play with that stat at 1-3)... and putting in 4 specific ability changes for the 3 types elsewhere. Plus take away heavy armor, and martial ranged weapons to match the 4E PHB.

 

[Sacrosanct]

No edition has ever been tailored to fit everyone's needs so what's the problem here?

You basically have a few people trying to turn a feature into a fault.

Yeah, pretty much this. I have never played a game that I felt was "perfectly designed" for me or my tastes. I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect someone to not have to compromise about anything. We're all different players with different styles. If the game does a good job being able to handle the most amount of players and those styles (like 5e seems to do), then it's a success. WFRP isn't my favorite game, and I make compromises all the time in that game, but I still have fun because I enjoy the company of my friends and those compromises aren't game breaking at all.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You realize this argument can easily be applied to 4e. So you're saying that the designers of 4e should have gone the extra effort to make sure people who liked classes without powers, and people who liked things like vancian magic should have had options in that game too and not be told to "just deal with it". And you're essentially saying that by not giving those options, the designers of 4e designed the game in the "worst possible" way.

I wouldn't really retreat from that, but there's some nuance that you're losing.

I said pushing people out of the game was the "worst possible" result, which isn't necessarily a commentary on the quality of design. If 4e's designers, by their choices, pushed people out of the game, they achieved the worst possible result of their design (that is, fewer people playing and enjoying RPGs -- opting instead to spend their entertainment time and money elsewhere). It could've been the most elegant and brilliant game in the universe, but if that was the result, it was the worst possible result. I think you'd find plenty of 4e fans who believed the system was unfairly maligned by an unappreciative fanbase -- the idea that 4e was awesome and unappreciated is one with some traction.

The reality of 4e was more nuanced than that effect (it attracted some people, repulsed others), but I wouldn't retreat from the idea that 4e, by locking people into powers and non-vancian magic and telling players that this upset to "just deal with it" (by not including options that they should've been aware would be desired) absolutely made a decision that ultimately hurt 4e. It wasn't a system that was so inflexible that it couldn't handle these variations (as things like psionics and Essentials and Gamma World began to bare out) -- it was a system more flexible than even the people designing for it really allowed it to be most of the time. Given the possibility space there, designing a game that didn't support other (especially older) playstyles was a big mistake in my mind.

I'd argue that the WotC of today seems to agree with that assessment, too. Part of the playtest was there as an audience study, trying to get a sense of what the public actually wanted out of D&D. One of the goals of 5e was to not lock in a playstyle like 4e did. The 5e marketing has not at all been about ridiculing 4e players (indeed, I believe Mearls or Crawford is on record as saying something like, "If 4e is your favorite edition, keep playing it."). The DMG is frickin' cavalier about the changes you can make to your game without harming the underlying system. 5e isn't about One True Way, pretty transparently.

Which means that a character even MORE like the 4e warlord than the current battle master is certainly not out of the question. Core 5e is designed with big decisions and abstract combat in mind, but that doesn't remove the possibility of a "Skirmish" or "Tactics" or "Advanced" supplement (perhaps linked to a board game!) that lets you play 5e's fundamental system in a more grid-and-cards way. Not having that at launch is understandable (that's not what their data told them most D&D players wanted), but if it's something that there's significant demand for, there's no reason they can't make it in 5e. Also no reason a 3rd party couldn't publish it if 5e goes totally OGL like I think it should!

Which ultimately means that advice along the lines of "stop complaining and make due with what we've been given, just compromise" (aka, "suck it up") is not as useful as "what is still missing? what is the experience you can't have? what are you looking for that this doesn't offer?" That first response dead-ends, and often dead-ends at people just not playing D&D. The second response gives us some new design goals. If we were to meet these peoples' needs in 5e, what would we need to do? What might that look like? Is it worthwhile to do it? And such.

Now to get there the rest of the way, you just need to loosen your rock-hard grip on this character idea that you have to play using this system that wasn't built for it... or you don't play it."

If you have an character idea that you can't possibly deviate from... one that doesn't fall within the literally *hundreds* of character ideas that the game can and does easily support and which you *could* play... then WotC is going to just have to say "You know... we just can't give you what you want at the moment. Maybe D&D isn't the game for you if that's the only character idea you're willing to play."

The flaw here is in the indication that the person who wants to do X is flawed, inflexible, and unreasonable.

That's not really the case, though.

The person who wants to do X has a desire that they've had D&D meet before, and they expect D&D to continue to meet. And if D&D doesn't meet that desire, what reason do they have to continue to play D&D?

It's not unreasonable to expect the next Batman movie to be a dark, brooding, atmospheric story about a wealthy playboy vigilante fighting the horrible people that terrorize his city. If it is instead a campy romp through cornball characters with eye-rolling one-liners with plenty of laffs and yuks and maybe a catchphrase-spouting dog or something, then the people looking for the first film aren't going to like the second film. It's not because they're being unreasonable or inflexible, it's just because they're not looking for what that second film is offering. Their time and money won't be rewarded with the kind of fun they're looking for.

Our useful question there is: what is it about X that you liked, and what is the reason that this doesn't happen when you play the game now?