D&D 5E Warlording the fighter

[Tony Vargas]

I've no objection to such a thing existing, merely an objection to the statement that the current situation is one where fighters are ineffective at helping party members. They are quite effective at helping party members.

Help is available to everyone, so, has no bearing on how effective one class is relative to another.

A fighter doesn't call upon divine guidance to help their allies, so the thing that represents calling on divine guidance should not be the same mechanic as giving a morale-boosting speech or some sound tactical advice

Seems unlikely it'd be a cantrip, yes.

Depends on your play goals. If you want to play a character who helps allies more than you want to play a character who attacks in a flurry of blows, trading your extra attacks for the Help action is viable

It's still non-viable, it's just a non-viable choice that you're often tempted to make. What optimizers call a 'trap option.' If you want to play a character that's going to help allies meaningfully, then you'd want to choose a sub-class for whom that is a viable, fully-contributing choice. The fighter is not that class. A hypothetical warlord should have at least one sub-class that is.

It's just not true that a fighter can't be an effective support character in play.

If you set the bar for 'effective' on the ground so that anyone can casually step over it, maybe. It's probably ties with all the other non-casters, and maybe even a few of the casters (depending on spell lists) for worst in that role. Much like the way it's 'best at fighting' (there's no one else definitively better at fighting with weapons, all the time), it's also the 'worst support character' (there's no other class definitively worse at aiding allies, in every way, all the time).

If the question is "why," the answer is pretty straightforward: because when a character drops to 0 hp, they aren't just temporarily overcome, they are suffering from an actual life-threatening wound, and shouting doesn't fix that. To fix that, you'd need some actual miracles.

An untrained check and a nap later (and decent rolls on HD), that character can be at full hps with absolutely no miracles required. What kind of life-threatening wound is gone a matter of hours? Even gone after a night's sleep? None. Either taking hp damage doesn't necessarily mean taking realistic/serious wounds, or recovering all hps doesn't necessarily mean healing wounds completely - or both.

Yes, hps are screwy, they're effing 'plot armor,' at best, and D&D throws realism out the window by using them. But, they leave plenty of room for the kind of hp-restoration the Warlord has always had - and, that the fighter already has in 5e, for personal use, anyway.

If you want to re-interpret hps as representing serious and/or realistic wounds, though, you can. You just use a series of optional and house rules to do away with HD and make natural healing a long, slow, uncertain process, and brushing all the remaining inconsistencies under the rug via magic. You have to blow away (or rationalize) the odd class ability, like Second Wind (it's 'warrior's magic,' from painting yourself blue, or eating the heart of a boar or something), as well, but you can house-rule your way to that version of hps if you're determined to do so.
Of course, if you're doing that, you wouldn't be opting-in a necessarily (ex post Standard Game) optional class like some hypothetical Warlord, either. At least not without modding or rationalizing it like you would the fighter.

 

[El Mahdi]

If the question is "why," the answer is pretty straightforward: because when a character drops to 0 hp, they aren't just temporarily overcome, they are suffering from an actual life-threatening wound, and shouting doesn't fix that. To fix that, you'd need some actual miracles.

That's not entirely true. They are suffering from a life threatening condition - not necessarily a wound - or they may simply be knocked unconscious (if the DM decided an enemy did so with the hit that took the character to zero, or the DM just arbitrarily decides this is how they want it - players can choose this also when they take an enemy to 0 HP, per the rules).

A life threatening condition could just as likely take the form of shock (physiological shock), a dangerous level of exhaustion, etc. - however the DM wants to describe it. The rules don't limit this to just physical wounds, leaving it purposely vague. In fact, the rules highlight this in a sidebar, presenting it as optional or supplementary information - guidance, not a directive, on how to adjudicate and narrate hit points.

Also, 0 HP is not only that last blow that took them to zero, or even that last wound (if that's how you've narrated it or envision it), it's an accumulation of everything that brought them to that point. Since Hit Points are defined as "...a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck", that means that all the damage one takes is not necessarily in the form of wounds. A Warlord "shouting" at a character can be "healing" those non-wound hit points, of which the net effect is a recovery of HP. This especially works in D&D since the system doesn't differentiate between the different forms of damage one might take.*


It may not make sense to you, but that doesn't mean it's not sensible.





*Personally, this is why I houserule effects for significant losses of HP - usually imposing a penalty (like -1 when HP is reduced below 50%, -1 and/or specific condition for critical hits, etc.). If a Warlord restores HP through an inspirational route (like Sarah Connor and Reese), any conditions imposed due to critical hits would still remain (only magic and time/rests can heal these wounds). But again, that's my houserule and not necessary for HP to make sense, and doesn't change the very flexible conceits of 5E Hit Points.


The Sidebar

Describing the Effects of Damage

Dungeon Masters describe hit point loss in different ways. When your current hit point total is half or more of your hit point maximum, you typically show no signs of injury. When you drop below half your hit point maximum, you show signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises. An attack that reduced you to 0 hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious.

 

[Hussar]

Outside of combat, Help action > the Guidance spell.

"Thanks for the 1d4 when you could've been giving me Advantage."

Guidance has a niche use when you are trying to hit a really high DC or have to roll with a penalty or something, but in general another chance to roll a 20 is so much better than +5-20%.

It wouldn't hurt, but it's pretty redundant, and it's in-character for priests to offer divine assistance when you're doing a thing, while it's in-character for the fighter to say, "I oil up the rogue's leather so it creaks less." It helps with making those character types feel different. When all you need is good luck, your friends give you advice. If what you're doing is nearly hopeless - you pray for success (AND get your buddies to help!).

Umm, you can do both. It's not like Guidance has to be used the next round. So the cleric oils up the rogues armour AND asks for divine guidance.

What can the fighter do that no one else can?

 

[Hussar]

I've no objection to such a thing existing, merely an objection to the statement that the current situation is one where fighters are ineffective at helping party members. They are quite effective at helping party members. More effective in many situations (ie, a fight) than others. It's fine if we get a fighter that is even better at it, but that's different than saying that the current fighter fails at it.



A fighter doesn't call upon divine guidance to help their allies, so the thing that represents calling on divine guidance should not be the same mechanic as giving a morale-boosting speech or some sound tactical advice (a la the Help action). A cleric's plea that the gods help you in your next endeavor could certainly be the Help action (adds a little of that "you don't need to cast a spell to be magical" thing). Bardic inspiration could work the same way if someone wanted it to, though its fiction as it exists is similar to the idea of a morale-boosting speech or word of encouragement (which, I think, is part of why it's not a full action - Help or casting a spell is a more intensive thing than a few words).

/snip

Umm, how is Action Surge actually an advantage here? Once per short rest my fighter can effectively Help someone as a bonus action? Of course, he's also giving up 1-4 attacks to do so, but, hey, he gave advantage to one other PC to do so. How is this better than any other character simply forgoing 1-2 attacks to grant advantage? Isn't the cost of a fighter using his Action Surge to help someone much higher than for any other character?

I mean, good grief the Bard can add Inspiration Dice AND perform the Help action in the same round, every round, until his dice run out.

Again, it's not that the fighter is ineffective, please don't take it that far. It's that at best he's no better at anyone else at anything other than single target DPS. And frequently he's worse at everything else than single target DPS.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Again, it's not that the fighter is ineffective, please don't take it that far. It's that at best he's no better at anyone else at anything other than single target DPS. And frequently he's worse at everything else than single target DPS.

Just to be sure I'm parsing this correctly, you are saying:

Comparing classes, the Fighter is never strictly better than anyone else at any activity other than heavily reducing the HP of individual enemies.

Within just the Fighter class, the Fighter is strictly better at heavily reducing the HP of individual enemies than he is at any other activity he can perform.

Is this correct?

 

[epithet]

...
An untrained check and a nap later (and decent rolls on HD), that character can be at full hps with absolutely no miracles required. What kind of life-threatening wound is gone a matter of hours? Even gone after a night's sleep? None. Either taking hp damage doesn't necessarily mean taking realistic/serious wounds, or recovering all hps doesn't necessarily mean healing wounds completely - or both.

Yes, hps are screwy, they're effing 'plot armor,' at best, and D&D throws realism out the window by using them. But, they leave plenty of room for the kind of hp-restoration the Warlord has always had - and, that the fighter already has in 5e, for personal use, anyway.
...

The DMG has alternatives that include much slower hit point recovery and wounds that might not ever fully heal without magic. When you're talking about a Warlord's potential ability to restore hit points, you have to keep in mind that the system is designed to provide flexibility among campaigns, and not assume that everyone is using the "sleep off a deathblow in one night" default.

Sure, you can reply with "If your DM goes for the optional slower recovery rules, then he can just disallow the Warlord as a class." I think it is a much better idea, though, to have a class that accommodates the options enumerated in the DMG.

That's why I think the Warlord's direct healing should be limited. Since there are no negative hit points in 5e, one HP is enough to wake your buddy up, which is what makes the Healer feat such a useful thing. I would give the Warlord direct healing that was on about the level of the Healer feat (and wording it such that the Healer feat would stack with the class feature) and then let the Warlord empower allies to use a limited number of hit dice to recover HP, once per rest per ally (the ability should not remove the utility of the short rest.) Combined with an ability to grant temp HP, that would make the Warlord a very strong "leader" type character.

It seems to me that you want the Warlord to be able to heal as well as Cleric, buff better than a Bard, and control the battlefield in a way no Battlemaster could hope to match. I understand the temptation to start at maximum awesome and pare it down until it approaches a reasonable level, but that kind of uber class has really harmed other editions and games (just look at some of the exotic classes in Pathfinder.) I think it's a lot better to build a class with balanced abilities and fun mechanics, and tweak it until you find a sweet spot. Leave room in your initial write-up for improvement.

 

[Leatherhead]

The same reason a fighter with Survival doesn't make a good ranger, or a fighter with stealth doesn't make a good rogue... when people are saying they want a class, with powers that go above and beyond skills and support the archetype they want to play, what's the point of telling them that choosing a couple of skills could be enough?

This is really a problem here. Being proficient in a skill is supposed to mean that you are a professional in that field (and every edition they make the math tighter to push this idea). But class features are the new specialization. If you don't have a feature that augments, enhances, or bypasses the check, it feels as if it isn't sufficient despite the math saying it is supposed to be.

 

[El Mahdi]

The DMG has alternatives that include much slower hit point recovery and wounds that might not ever fully heal without magic. When you're talking about a Warlord's potential ability to restore hit points, you have to keep in mind that the system is designed to provide flexibility among campaigns, and not assume that everyone is using the "sleep off a deathblow in one night" default.

Sure, you can reply with "If your DM goes for the optional slower recovery rules, then he can just disallow the Warlord as a class." I think it is a much better idea, though, to have a class that accommodates the options enumerated in the DMG.

Whoa. Faulty logic alert.

Yes, the system is designed for flexibility, but nowhere are the rules in the Basic Game or in the PHB designed with the DMG options in mind. In fact, incorporating a DMG option requires either modifying the system or living with the problems such options create. The section in the DMG that contains these options expresses this caveat right up front.

Designing the game - or any game for that matter - to work with any option or combination of options in the DMG, is simply not possible. If that's your criteria, then the Basic Game and the PHB are already abysmal failures, because no class fulfills that expectation.

It seems to me that you want the Warlord to be able to heal as well as Cleric, buff better than a Bard, and control the battlefield in a way no Battlemaster could hope to match. I understand the temptation to start at maximum awesome and pare it down until it approaches a reasonable level, but that kind of uber class has really harmed other editions and games (just look at some of the exotic classes in Pathfinder.) I think it's a lot better to build a class with balanced abilities and fun mechanics, and tweak it until you find a sweet spot. Leave room in your initial write-up for improvement.

I'll let Tony Vargas speak for himself, though I will say that nowhere in any of his comments have I seen him say anything remotely similar to what you just implied. He and I are far from agreement on a lot of things, but this is most certainly something that he has not said or implied.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The DMG has alternatives that include much slower hit point recovery

I know, I pointed that out, above. The Warlord doesn't exist yet, so it can't be part of the Standard Game. It's like any other potential opt-in module that way. Different opt-in modules don't really need to be compatible with eachother the way opt-in modules need to be compatible with (or at least change in a feasible way) elements of the Standard Game.

So if you're opting into more 'realistic' hps, you wouldn't also opt into the Warlord, at least, not without modding it. You'd probably also have to modify the Fighter's Second Wind to make it fit that vision of hps.

Worrying about how a Warlord might impact such a campaign is like worrying about how variations on the Cleric might impact a Dark Sun campaign.

It's a non-issue.

Conversely, designing the Warlord so that it worked specifically with pre-existing opt-in module, like the slow-healing modules or the 'tactical' module would also be a mistake. The only sensible way to prioritize how optional material works, is that it work smoothly when added to the standard game first and foremost. How well it works with antithetical modules (how well will spellpoints work in a no-magic campaign?) is the lowest possible priority. Lower even than class balance in 5e.

Sure, you can reply with "If your DM goes for the optional slower recovery rules, then he can just disallow the Warlord as a class." I think it is a much better idea, though, to have a class that accommodates the options enumerated in the DMG.

If it had been a PH class, sure, you'd want an alternative. Still, the PH Fighter isn't fully compliant with the implications of those variants, either - clearly, if you want to vary what hps mean that much, you need to be willing to do at least a little work, or ban a few things.

It seems to me that you want the Warlord to be able to heal as well as Cleric, buff better than a Bard, and control the battlefield in a way no Battlemaster could hope to match.

I just want something that's worthy and recognizeable as the Warlord and gives as similar a play experience as you can wring from 5e. 5e's design philosophy is to design around the class concept, not to design around a formal 'leader' or informal "like a Cleric" or 'healer' role. So, that doesn't mean 'healing' like a Cleric, but it does mean standing up fallen allies in the heat of battle, which requires a hp-restoration mechanic. And, yes, of course it means doing the few, vestigial, vaguely warlord-like things the Battlemaster can do far better than the Battlemaster could hope to do them (though not while multi-attacking for potentially broken DPR like a Battlemaster - quite possibly, instead of attacking, at all, really). Much like how a Wizard can expect to be a much, much better spellcaster than an Arcane Trickster.

Complaining that any ballpark Warlord ideas might be too powerful compared to the Cleric or Bard - Full Casters, FCOL - is really jumping the gun. I mean, how /could/ a Warlord be OP compared to a caster with loads of cool tricks like the Bard, let alone a traditionally Tier 1 class like the Cleric? Has anything even close to the breadth of Clerical spell casting even been remotely alluded to? No! It's a tad laughable, as a concern, really. And, it's the kind of thing that'd be hammered out in playtesting, anyway.

I think it's a lot better to build a class with balanced abilities and fun mechanics, and tweak it until you find a sweet spot.

I would agree, in general, but 5e didn't go that way. In any case, nothing in this discussion has gotten very close to that. There's nothing inherently imbalancing about restoring hps, for instance - lots of classes do quite a lot of it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

An untrained check and a nap later (and decent rolls on HD), that character can be at full hps with absolutely no miracles required. What kind of life-threatening wound is gone a matter of hours? Even gone after a night's sleep? None.

Incorrect. That is precisely the kind of life-threatening wound that befalls heroic fantasy characters.

Yes, hps are screwy, they're effing 'plot armor,' at best, and D&D throws realism out the window by using them. But, they leave plenty of room for the kind of hp-restoration the Warlord has always had - and, that the fighter already has in 5e, for personal use, anyway.

I'm pretty sure you've been in enough hp debates at this point to know better than to One True Way it. Why is shout-healing sometimes a problem? Because some folks don't agree with that take on hp. That's not what hp means in those games.

A life threatening condition could just as likely take the form of shock (physiological shock), a dangerous level of exhaustion, etc. - however the DM wants to describe it.

Some like to describe it as a life-threatening wound, and those DM's won't like non-miraculous healing. In my usual book, anything that could reduce you to 0 hp should be something that could kill you, and anything that could give you HP back should be something that could likewise undo an effect that could kill you. Screaming "get up!" is more akin to what Juliet does - ineffective, tragic, and falling upon deaf ears.

Umm, you can do both. It's not like Guidance has to be used the next round. So the cleric oils up the rogues armour AND asks for divine guidance.

What can the fighter do that no one else can?

Help is available to everyone, so, has no bearing on how effective one class is relative to another.

Lets not shift goalposts, now. The statement that brought me into this was

But a fighter would make a terrible ship's captain.

and the double-down was

fighters make very poor commanders

Those assertions are what I'm calling out as false.

Those things can be false and you could still want a an extra-special super unique class feature or something that lets you be extra good at bossing around NPC's or whatever. I'm not saying you shouldn't have that, I'm just saying not having that doesn't make the fighter suck at being a commander.

"I want a special ability to command folks" is a very different assertion than "Fighters make very poor commanders and would make terrible ship's captains." I'm into the former. The latter sets off my BS alarm because people have been using the fighter as commanders and ship's captains since before I was born and have been doing just fine with that. You can want a special "I'm the boss and do what I say" class feature. You've got a more difficult case if you want to show that people without that feature are somehow inadequate at being the boss and making people do what they say.

...though as far as I can tell the only feature in the game that is anything like that is probably the Noble background features, combined perhaps with Battlemaster manuevers that give allies movement and attacks, so a Noble Battlemaster would literally have all the abilities that 5e currently has that lets you be the boss and tell your minions what to do. Even an enchanter ain't THAT bossy, short of maybe Dominate. I admit that I'm not clear how that falls short. But regardless, I don't object to more special abilities like that.

it's not that the fighter is ineffective

That was your claim a few posts back.

It's that at best he's no better at anyone else at anything other than single target DPS. And frequently he's worse at everything else than single target DPS.

And now we're talking about DPS? I thought this was about how fighters make horrible commanders. We can talk about DPS if you'd like, but lets first establish that fighters are not more horrible commanders than anyone else and agree on that, kay?