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

[Manbearcat]

However, there's one very different aspect to this sort of thing than you'd find in the average D&D battle in that here one side is specifically trying to avoid contact while the other is trying to initiate it; and all in a rather closed environment (football has rules; war often doesn't). In a D&D battle most of the participants are usually trying to initiate something, usually involving damage to the enemy if successful.

Well, I would just say that in any "squad-based genre stuff" (comic books specifically or genre fiction generally, et al...which is pretty much the only place you see this stuff...small recon or infil/exfil units in the military as well), everyone is trying to accomplish the same macro goal in any given conflict while each having discrete, primary micro goals (with secondary and tertiary goals as well).

Group: Escort the princess.
Dude 1: Keep bad guys on you and off the princess and your pals.
Dude 2, 3: Kill the bad guys.
Dude 4, 5: Make it easier/feasible for Dudes 1, 2, 3 to do their respective jobs.

Every sport has an analogue to that with the Group goal being "Win the game."

But neither of those realities really have much to say about the legitimacy of the phenomenon of "martial forced movement" in general or "martial forced movement at a distance - eg 12 - 15 feet or so".

Which is fine for as long as the script holds true. But if the QB has to scramble to avoid pressure and a 3-second play suddenly spans into 7, all bets are off. The receivers do what they can (on their own initiative and choice) to get open, the backs do what they can (at their own choice) to cover them, and the QB just tries not to get killed. (side note: often the quickest way to tell who the best players really are is by how well they do when off-script; how they react when the designed play falls apart)

A D&D battle (almost always) has no pre-set script or series of play calls. Some parties try to design standard operating procedures but every situation is different, and if the party insists on sticking to the SOP all the time they're actually putting themselves at an overall disadvantage..

Lan-"thanks for the primer on what all the pass routes are called"-efan

Again, I think the premise that you and I are addressing might be diverging a little bit. The premise I'm addressing is:

"Martial Forced Movement is a real thing (in both genre fiction and real life) and Martial Forced Movement At a Distance is a healthy portion of it."

That is really all I'm addressing. It is a real phenomena whereby the OODA Loop that participants in a martial exchange inhabit is significantly about (a) being where you want to be and putting your adversary in a spot (often a Catch-22) that they don't want to be in and then (b) exploiting that competitive advantage you've attained in doing so. The specificities of the dynamics will vary situation to situation contingent upon the context of the situation, but broadly, the general gist remains the same. Threaten (on the rare occasion this might be verbal, but for most purposes, this is nonverbal and is probably the primary "forced movement at a distance" effect), deke/juke, wrongfoot, imposition of will. All of these things force an adversary to respond in a split second with a (basically) subconscious routine of permutations and spit out a response. In many/most cases, the borderline automated response will be some sort of "movement that was forced upon it." This might include a collection of territorial bears wrangling over a fishing spot, a pair of lion packs both going after the same kill, the X-Men, Weekend Warrior Basketball, NFL Football, the 4 pm brawl at the flagpole between two cliques, or Easy Company of the 101st Airborne assaulting multiple, fortified gun positions on D-Day.

 

[JohnLynch]

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?

It has enough mechanical depth and thematic aspects to warrant being it's own class. If you don't believe me, you can check out the Noble Class I linked to before. Or you can simply believe me when I say it is mechnically distinct enough to be ill suited to ONLY existing as a fighter subcass.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

The warlord might be hard to capture in a fighter subclass if done to the extent warlord fans want.

I almost start to think you should go fighter 2/ bard 2 then pick the warlord subclass for both, so you can have subclass options that play with the wider amount of recources given by the dual class.
Some of the abilities might for example use the spell slots the bard class gets to power things that would not be considered spells.

So you could very within the warlord by what balance you chose between fighter and bard levels.

 

[Imaro]

The warlord might be hard to capture in a fighter subclass if done to the extent warlord fans want.

Yeah I think I've been looking for some factual reason or detailed explanation when really this is what it boils down to... And since I'm not necessarily looking for a Warlord type class for 5e, maybe it's less important to me... though looking over the Marshal for 3e is making me curious to see what a 5e martial-leader type character would look like... there are just so many other archetypes like psionic using characters (not to mention expansions to the current classes) that I want... that a new warlord class is not at the top of my want list... but I guess for others it's number 1.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

I loved the Warlord in 4e - it was my favorite class in the first player's handbook, and one of my favorites through the run of the edition. The only tactician class I've ever liked better was Iron Heroes's Hunter.

But I don't think it really needs to be a full class in 5e. I could see importing both it and IH's Hunter as Fighter or Paladin and Ranger subclasses, respectively.

 

[El Mahdi]

Sarah Connor displaying her burgeoning "Warlord" abilities...and Yes, I want a different name also.


[video=youtube;N71d7BF1fZ4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N71d7BF1fZ4[/video]

 

[Hussar]

No. But its player might...

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

So, your issues have nothing to do with the actual class but rather what some player "might" do with it? That's your beef?

Have you actually seen anyone playing a 4e warlord do this? Has this actually come up in your game?

I mean, do people who play battle masters insist that they do the most damage in combat? After all, how can you be the master of battles if someone else is doing more damage? Do the necromancers in your groups insist that no one else can have any effect on undead, since necromancers are supposed to be the undead guy? if someone else tracks, do your ranger players throw a fit? Heck, do they insist that they are the only ones that can kill giants since their class ability is named colossus slayer?

This is some pretty ivory tower theory crafting AFAIC.

 

[Guest 6801328]

So, your issues have nothing to do with the actual class but rather what some player "might" do with it? That's your beef?

Have you actually seen anyone playing a 4e warlord do this? Has this actually come up in your game?

If you claim to have not seen the sort of roleplaying that would lead to this problem, even if you haven't seen exactly this problem, then you're either being disingenuous or you've led a sheltered roleplaying life.

Furthermore, the problem doesn't even require roleplaying by the Warlord player: the official fluff can be offensive and story-killing to other players at the table regardless of how the class is played.

I'll try to be clear about this: I don't want to play in an RPG where another character's role, as defined by his class, is to be my commanding officer. And it's even worse if he doesn't roleplay it: now I'm stuck at the table with a commanding officer AND a non-roleplayer.

As for re-fluffing it, an argument I hear over and over (and over) again is that the Warlord's healing has to be non-magical. That having healing spells and pretending it's inspiration doesn't cut it. In other words, those folks don't want to re-fluff, but then they turn around and say, "If you don't like the 'officer' archetype, just re-fluff it." Disingenuous and/or hypocritical, take your pick.

I mean, do people who play battle masters insist that they do the most damage in combat? After all, how can you be the master of battles if someone else is doing more damage? Do the necromancers in your groups insist that no one else can have any effect on undead, since necromancers are supposed to be the undead guy? if someone else tracks, do your ranger players throw a fit? Heck, do they insist that they are the only ones that can kill giants since their class ability is named colossus slayer?

Seriously? That's your argument? Do you really need it spelled out why those analogies are categorically different?

This is some pretty ivory tower theory crafting AFAIC.

I'm glad you added the "AFAIC" to that.

I've been hearing for a couple years now how it's not the officer fluff, it's the tactical play. And yet I haven't seen any proposed homebrews that incorporate the tactics but leave out the officer fluff. (Except my own Caddy class, of course.)

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

If you claim to have not seen the sort of roleplaying that would lead to this problem, even if you haven't seen exactly this problem, then you're either being disingenuous or you've led a sheltered roleplaying life.

Furthermore, the problem doesn't even require roleplaying by the Warlord player: the official fluff can be offensive and story-killing to other players at the table regardless of how the class is played.

I'll try to be clear about this: I don't want to play in an RPG where another character's role, as defined by his class, is to be my commanding officer. And it's even worse if he doesn't roleplay it: now I'm stuck at the table with a commanding officer AND a non-roleplayer.

Do you also feal the same way about the soldies background ( that has a military rank) and the noble that in many setting would be asumed to be in charge of the groups of civilans they are traveling with ?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'll try to be clear about this: I don't want to play in an RPG where another character's role, as defined by his class, is to be my commanding officer. And it's even worse if he doesn't roleplay it: now I'm stuck at the table with a commanding officer AND a non-roleplayer.

You know, I've played in games where one player played the protagonist (level 20 when everyone else is level 8-10; has a ton of magic items; gifted by the Overgod as the first cleric in thousands of years; etc.). My experience was that it's not so bad having a PC protagonist in the group; it wasn't even a real problem that he tried to be the boss and the leader of the group. The problem was that the player was a tactical imbecile who thought he wasn't, so he would try to play the Gandalf trope and be all secretive while issuing commands to the other players, and those commands turned out to be bad ideas. (It was also aggravating to me as a powergamer to see a PC with 20 Intelligence blowing 9th level spell slots on Chromatic Orb, of all things. Your stats say "Int 20" but you act like you're Int 8, dude. 9th level Mass Healing Word, outside of combat, was pretty painful too.)

It would be interesting to experience competent PC-protagonist leadership. I don't think I would mind.