D&D 5E How many fans want a 5E Warlord?

[Minigiant]

My appeal to the warlord was always having a PC who could have a high Intelligence or Charisma score and an actively use it without resorting to fireballs and illusions.

I enjoy roleplaying warriors and rogues with strong personalities or powerful intellects. Unfortunately Intelligence in 5e is mostly useless for active use unless your a wizard. Same with Charisma for non bards/paladins/sorcerers/warlocks and Wisdom for non clerics/druid/rangers.

One could claim "Lore" skills are useful but those are more reactive and their usefulness varyies based on the DM and Campaign style.

I mean. We got along well without much magic here on Earth and our explorers and adventurers were not blithering idiots and unsavory dolt loaded up with muscle or top tier stealth skills.

I wanna play a nonmagical smart or sauve character and not resort to bribing the DM.

 

[TwoSix]

I want more classes. 4e Warlord is a great class. Why not?

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I enjoy roleplaying warriors and rogues with strong personalities or powerful intellects. Unfortunately Intelligence in 5e is mostly useless for active use unless your a wizard.

Fixable by houseruling initiative so that actions are declared in order of Intelligence, lowest to highest. Int winds up a very important stat for fighters who are fighting humanoid opponents and want to anticipate enemy actions. My players love boosting Int on their Shadow Monks/Death Clerics.

 

[Minigiant]

Fixable by houseruling initiative so that actions are declared in order of Intelligence, lowest to highest. Int winds up a very important stat for fighters who are fighting humanoid opponents and want to anticipate enemy actions. My players love boosting Int on their Shadow Monks/Death Clerics.

I am planning an intelligence based fighter myself. It gets "gambits" equal to Into score and can spend gambits to boost damage, initiative, AC, and other things.

 

[Hussar]

Bottom line..."How many fans want a 5e Warlord?"

The answer, according to the poll of this thread, is "Not as many as don't care and/or don't want one and/or would prefer some lemon curry."

There's your answer. Sorry if it's not the one people wanted to see.

Pulling this one out from way upthread, but, it's been repeated a few more times since then.

I'd point to the idea of the Gnome Effect. Every poll when 4e released without the gnome showed gnomes to only have a very small minority appeal. Something around the area of 10%. Yet, 5e has gnomes. Why? Well, because even if it's only 1 in 10 gamers that want's a gnome that means that half of the groups out there have someone who wants a gnome, so it becomes an issue for half the groups out there.

Even if the majority of voters don't care if there's a warlord or not, that's not the point. Is there enough desire for a warlord out there that it would be a good idea for WOTC to make one?

I'd say that there certainly is. But, then again, I want a warlord. So, my group is in the same boat as those groups that had a gnome wanting player - IOW, part of that 50%.

If you can sell the idea of a given class to half the groups out there, that's a pretty darn successful idea.

 

[Henry]

I voted for the big "LC".

As much as Warlord fans will disagree, I feel that the Battlemaster is as much Warlord as I want in the game. I think a few more warlord-controllery deeds added to the battlemaster would give it the feel it needs, because to me the core of a warlord is battlefield control, and the Battlemaster deeds that already exist show that this can be done pretty well. I just do not like the whole warlord "heal tons of damage nonmagically" thing, and the closest I like coming is either temporary hit points, or a way to trigger the regular hit dice expenditures for short rests in combat.

 

[Hussar]

I voted for the big "LC".

As much as Warlord fans will disagree, I feel that the Battlemaster is as much Warlord as I want in the game. I think a few more warlord-controllery deeds added to the battlemaster would give it the feel it needs, because to me the core of a warlord is battlefield control, and the Battlemaster deeds that already exist show that this can be done pretty well. I just do not like the whole warlord "heal tons of damage nonmagically" thing, and the closest I like coming is either temporary hit points, or a way to trigger the regular hit dice expenditures for short rests in combat.

Y'know, I largely agree with this. I never saw the Warlord as "the Healer". I saw him as a Fight Guy with some healing tacked on. It wasn't that hard to make a warlord that, outside of the basic healing he could do, didn't actually do much healing at all.

The problem I have with the Battlemaster warlord is that he just doesn't grant enough actions. There are only two maneuvers that grant actions - Commander's Strike and Maneuvering Attack. Realistically, at best, you're only granting an action to one PC per round. Yes, you can do more than one, but, then again, the max is 8 (4 attacks, Action Surge) and that's only going to possibly happen 1/short rest and likely isn't going to happen at all. Also, since you burn your allies reactions when you do this, it isn't really a full extra action. Many classes need those reactions - using Commander's Strike on a Protection Fighter means that fighter trades protection for a single attack. The casters lose their abilities to cast reaction spells, which can be a big cost. Plus, you lose your Opportunity Attacks which screws over any Sentinal feat fighter.

Warlords had a number of powers which allowed them to grant true extra actions to the party and often to multiple characters in the party. Which added a very large amount of tactical considerations that the Battlemaster just doesn't allow for. If I'm a protection or sentinal fighter, I likely will never want the Battlemaster granting me extra actions. Sure, you can grant an extra attack to the rogue, but, who cares? He can't backstab. A Giant Killer Ranger gets screwed over by this too, since it burns reactions.

IOW, the Battlemaster can replace the Warlord, but, only if the rest of the group isn't playing certain classes. The BM features don't play nicely with the class features of other classes.

 

[Lanefan]

Every poll when 4e released without the gnome showed gnomes to only have a very small minority appeal. Something around the area of 10%. Yet, 5e has gnomes. Why?

Easy. Because Gnomes were a core race in at least one previous edition's PH, which automatically puts them in initial-release 5e along with some other things best done without.

Even if the majority of voters don't care if there's a warlord or not, that's not the point. Is there enough desire for a warlord out there that it would be a good idea for WOTC to make one?

More to the point, is there enough desire around your table for you to make one? This is the kitbasher's edition, after all.

Lan-"which of these is not like the other ones"-efan

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Sure, you can grant an extra attack to the rogue, but, who cares? He can't backstab.

The Rogue is the best possible person to grant an extra attack to, because he can sneak attack. Sneak attack works once per turn, and he's acting on your turn, not his.

Sentinel rogues are awesome for the same reason: double sneak attack. Arcane Tricksters can pull off a similar trick by Hasting themselves and using their Hasted action to attack while the regular action is used to Ready an attack on the monster's turn.