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

[Aldarc]

And...again, it can't just be a Fighter subclass why?

2 features at 3rd level, 1 at 7th, 10th, 15th, and 18th. Do you really need more than that to get the job done?

Again, let's ask the Paladin and Barbarian why they need to be separate classes from the Fighter.

 

[Lanefan]

Umm, what's wrong with wanting to play Genghis Khan?

Nothing at all, in and of itself.

But if you're going in with the intent of playing Genghis Khan such that the rest of the party have to always do what you say 'cause you're the leader and they ain't, good luck finding people to play with.

Do people play fighters to be "Nameless Redshirt 52" or to be Conan or a Three Musketeer? Do people play rangers to be some nameless poacher or to be Robin Hood?

I play most Fighter types with the intent of taking Nameless Redshirt #52 and turning him into Conan, or a Musketeer, as a result of what he does with his adventuring career; Rangers start as nameless wanderers and if I'm lucky eventually become as famous as Robin Hood.

But if you start out already playing Robin Hood or Conan or D'artangnan, where do you go from there?

Lan-"but this game goes to 11"-efan

 

[Hussar]

Again, let's ask the Paladin and Barbarian why they need to be separate classes from the Fighter.

Because, frankly, you couldn't get a Barbarian, as it is in 5e, using a fighter chassis. Paladin? Nope, still not going to work. At least, not the way 5e fighters are written. So, there is a pretty good reason why we get paladin and barbarian as full classes and not sub-classes. You could get something barbarianish or paladinish using a subclass, but, it's going to be missing a lot.

Nothing at all, in and of itself.

But if you're going in with the intent of playing Genghis Khan such that the rest of the party have to always do what you say 'cause you're the leader and they ain't, good luck finding people to play with.

I play most Fighter types with the intent of taking Nameless Redshirt #52 and turning him into Conan, or a Musketeer, as a result of what he does with his adventuring career; Rangers start as nameless wanderers and if I'm lucky eventually become as famous as Robin Hood.

But if you start out already playing Robin Hood or Conan or D'artangnan, where do you go from there?

Lan-"but this game goes to 11"-efan

Who said anything about starting there? Do you really think a 1st level warlord is Ghengis Khan?

And, what exactly do you think a warlord does? Do you freak out when the cleric adds a d4 to your skill check using a Guidance spell? Does it offend you when he casts Bless? When the paladin grants you a bonus to your saves, does that cause you to leave the table?

Good grief, half the classes in 5e do stuff to other PC's without their permission. Bards automatically add healing. Paladins automatically buff saving throws. Clerics and druids have Guidance spells. A wizard has a dozen or more buff spells. When a wizard grants you extra actions with a Haste spell, is he telling you what to do?

So why on earth would, "I grant you an extra move" or "I grant you an extra attack" ((Things that a 5e Battlemaster CAN DO RIGHT NOW)) possibly bother you?

Warlords never directly told you what you could do with your character. Or, at least, extremely rarely (knights move, IIRC, allowed you to switch places with a nearby ally, not that you were ever forced to). All warlords ever did was grant additional actions that you get to choose how to expend. I'm sorry, but, exactly what can a warlord in 4e do to directly tell another player to do? How many powers in 4e forced another player to do something? By the tail end of 4e, there were something like 300 warlord powers (give or take). I'll bet dollars to donuts that less than 5 of them actually forced an ally to do anything.

 

[Lanefan]

Who said anything about starting there? Do you really think a 1st level warlord is Ghengis Khan?

No. But its player might...

And, what exactly do you think a warlord does? [etc.] ....

My points were not about the actual warlord abilities, but the roleplaying (im)possibilities if someone goes into the game thinking they're the party boss; which perception the 4e warlord class (and, more broadly, its horribly-named leader role) does little to discourage. Any attempt at a 5e warlord-type needs to be abundantly clear that it is first and foremost a support class; simply changing the name would be a good start here.

Lan-"I'm the only warlord around here - now fetch me a beer, and polish my sword"-efan

 

[Jessica]

I'm going to refuse to play with divine classes now. I don't want to have to be forced to listen to their proselytizing or receive spells from their gods(that I don't believe in).

 

[Jessica]

TBH, I have always thought that Fighter is a worse name for a class than Warlord. I mean Warlord might sound like a guy with a fleet of technicals that rules the local populace with an iron fist, but the Fighter just sounds like a boxer or a professional wrestler. I don't know why in changing Magic User to Wizard(in 2e iirc) and changing Thief to Rogue in 3.X, why they couldn't change Fighter to Warrior.

 

[Imaro]

"Especially D&D" makes that begging the question, in essence you're just saying "because that's how it is!" Paladins are actually pretty obscure to 'most people' and 'ranger' probably doesn't suggest a spell-casting Grizzly Adams wielding paired scimitars to them, either. Barbarian could just as easily be a background, since it is just a cultural background (a point that's been made countless times ever since the class first appeared). So, no, those excuses do not work, not for me, not for anyone inclined to be reasonable for fair.

On top of that, the Warlord /is/ a recognizable archetype from history & genre. Maybe not /quite/ as readily as Barbarian, thanks to Conan, but probably more so than the Paladin and much more so than the virtually-non-existent-in-genre D&D-style Cleric.

Even, however, were none of that the case, why would a concept being a little weak in genre representation, make it unsuitable for even an optional class?

Ok, how about I turn this around... What makes the "warlord" suitable for a separate class as opposed to being a subclass of a current class?

The article comes right out and said that D&D solidified Paladin tropes. You're just saying "It should be a class because it already is," yet again.

Self-referent again, the illo is even from their D&D section.

We're talking about D&D classes for 5e... why wouldn't the fact that it's recognizable as a D&D class by fans of various editions not be a good reason to keep them separate classes? Especially when one of the goals of this edition was to unify fans across editions? How many editions has "warlord" been an actual class in (not necessarily corebooks but editions)? I believe exactly one... even the Warlock has been in more editions than that.

Guess what is, and without benefit of self-referencing D&D:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLeader

They've even got tropes that the Tactical, Bravura and Inspiring builds neatly model.

and, what the heck...

We're talking about classes not roles... isn't "leader" a role? And isn't it covered by other classes already? So again why should "Warlord" be a separate class?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeroicSecondWind

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RousingSpeech

Uhm... ok. I never said these weren't tropes... though I note the rousing speech article states at the end that it can be pretty much any character (not just the leader) that gives it (I also note it makes no mention of this speech actually healing anyone)... and in the Heroic Second Wind article it's not an outside force that grants this, it's the stakes involved for the hero that awaken it... again why should there be a separate class for these types of abilities when as tropes they don't tend to work that way?

 

[mellored]

Ok, how about I turn this around... What makes the "warlord" suitable for a separate class as opposed to being a subclass of a current class?

There is not enough in a sub-classes power budget to fit a full support class. You would have to make it limited, like the battlemaster, rather then at-will. The same way you can't fit a wizard into a sub-class.
If you gave the EK full casting progression on top of all the fighter abilities, it would be overpowered.

We're talking about D&D classes for 5e... why wouldn't the fact that it's recognizable as a D&D class by fans of various editions not be a good reason to keep them separate classes? Especially when one of the goals of this edition was to unify fans across editions? How many editions has "warlord" been an actual class in (not necessarily corebooks but editions)? I believe exactly one... even the Warlock has been in more editions than that.

The name warlord has been in 1.
Marshal was in 3. Noble was around in 2e.
So the idea was there for a long time. Just under different names.

We're talking about classes not roles... isn't "leader" a role? And isn't it covered by other classes already? So again why should "Warlord" be a separate class?

what class offers non-magical support as their main thing?
battlemasters offer a little support, but is too limited.
bards are probably closer, but he's magical, and more about disabling. though heroism is spot on.

 

[Imaro]

There is not enough in a sub-classes power budget to fit a full support class. You would have to make it limited, like the battlemaster, rather then at-will. The same way you can't fit a wizard into a sub-class.
If you gave the EK full casting progression on top of all the fighter abilities, it would be overpowered.

Wouldn't this depend on the specific mechanics? Like how @Hussar suggested an ability where a Fighter/Warlord sub-class trades some or more of his attacks out for the ability to grant those attacks to others...

The name warlord has been in 1.
Marshal was in 3. Noble was around in 2e.
So the idea was there for a long time. Just under different names.

Hmmm, I didn't know that about the Marshal... I knew it was in 3e but what other 2 editions was it in... Was the "noble" a class in 2e? I didn't think it was. Also my point isn't about the "idea" because there have been numerous "ideas" in D&D but they all don't warrant classes.

EDIT: Hmmm... you got me to go look at the Marshal class, and I think it might be a good basis for a 5e inspirer class... I like the concept of auras, and the granting of Move Actions... I think the only things missing are granting of attacks and healing...

what class offers non-magical support as their main thing?
battlemasters offer a little support, but is too limited.
bards are probably closer, but he's magical, and more about disabling. though heroism is spot on.

The "leader" role doesn't have to be a non-magical class... my point was the role of leader and the Warlord class are two different things. D&D has for the most part always had classes that could fill a leader role, what it hasn't always had is a warlord class...

 

[Manbearcat]

Also still a dedicated high-DPR class, and fails for the lead-from-the-front concepts. The Warlord, even just one as broad as the 4e Warlord, requires a full class. It's too different from the few existing non-casters, and 5e has left so much open in the martial arena that the Warlord could take up, it would just be folly to try to squeeze it into a sub-class or series of sub-classes.

As you know, you'll get no arguments from me that there is absolutely no reason (outside of the gatekeeping reasons I've mentioned upthread and before) that a Warlord was't included as a base class. The thematics of the "Battle Captain" are tight and potent in both the squad-based genre stuff (Hannibal from A-Team, Frodo as Princess build Warlord, tons of examples in comic books) and in real life (Captain Winters of Easy Company of the 101st Airborne).

My post was mostly musings. I think a more generic Rogue class for the first 2 levels (one that doesn't have Thieves Cant and all the embedded baggage that goes with thievery) and that can give out his SA as Insightful Strike 1/turn (rather than manipulating the action economy), give out Cunning Action, and do all the other Warlordy stuff (get medium armor proficiency and shield, skill dice, initiative bonus, let players expend HD during combat to "Rally" - Martial Inspirational Healing, have tactical movement for advances/withdraws/flanking et al) in Subclass might be nifty. But again, at that point, you are likely just as well creating the full-fledged class rather than trying to have the Subclass and a pair of feats do all the load-bearing.

I attempted that, and it wasn't bad.

Cunning action could help.
And you could use commander's strike at-will, except you add your sneak attack damage. (which counted as your 1/turn).

Closer then the BM but it wasn't quite good enough.

Though i didn't try to dipping battlemaster. That could make it passable, if not ideal.

That sounds about right.

mmm I do, sorry.

My personal favorite aspect of the 4e Warlord (as GM) was the versatility of the Princess Build to accomplish various tropes. As I mentioned above, the tropes that follow from "Frodo/Bilbo as Warlord" (the plucky adventurer who is in so far over his head but "mans up" anyway couldn't be more inspiring...that can't help but rub off on companions) are vast in genre fiction and profoundly awesome in play (both as a PC and as a GM-side tool).

Lions fan in Colorado here. We actually have a weekly Meetup.

Here's where I stand: Warlords and Fighters were my favorite classes in 4e because they embodied the emotional component of battle as much as the physical. 5e (outside the bard) takes a piss on viewing characters as living breathing human beings that ruled by their hearts as much as their heads. I'd like to see more of a focus on emotional immersion. What can I say? I'm obviously more of a heart than a head guy. After all, I'm a Lions fan!

+1 (except for you being a Lions fan in Colorado...you get -1 for that )