D&D 5E A WOTC 5e Warlord That Would Be Acceptable To Skeptics

[Leatherhead]

Yes, but that's not sufficient description of the sweetmeat. I've watched several arguments between warlord proponents over what is an acceptable warlord, largely based on what "non-magical, non-supernatural" really means.

For example, there's, "Not magical or supernatural, in that things like anti-magic shell or dispel magic don't effect it, but really I'm okay with them being pretty spectacular and unexplainable". Then there's, "not magical or supernatural, in that it is limited to effects that I personally imagine happening in my own *mundane* real world".

Yeah, 5e took a step away from listing power sources. Mostly because the D&D world doesn't run on proper physics to begin with, it stifled re-fluffing, and outside of AMF and weapon resistances it's largely mechanically irrelevant anyway. Everything in D&D is made out of magic and intelligent design to begin with, except for the Far-Realm (which is canonically outside of the normal multiverce), so such a distinction shouldn't even come into play when discussing martial prowess.

But realistically, the actual problem with the Warlord in 5e is Action Economy. Too many people want the Warlord to hand out free out-of-turn attacks, and 5e just doesn't support that kind of thing without breaking in half.

 

[I'm A Banana]

This, "Well, non-magical healing is okay so long as it isn't from a warlord" schtick is just edition warring with a funny set of glasses and a fake moustache.

I addressed this issue of presuming bad faith once already in this thread. An accusation of bad faith is just like any other name-calling: not a part of civil discourse. If you feel that someone is operating in bad faith, report their post and move on, don't try to call them out in the thread.

There will be no third warning.

 

[Zalabim]

But realistically, the actual problem with the Warlord in 5e is Action Economy. Too many people want the Warlord to hand out free out-of-turn attacks, and 5e just doesn't support that kind of thing without breaking in half.

There's already spell effects that break the action economy. Haste gives someone extra movement and an extra action. Spiritual Weapon lets a cleric trade a bonus action for a pseudo-weapon attack. Summon spells let the caster command multiple creatures with just a bonus action or only speech (no action at all). If the warlord is using their own action to enable an attack, it's not outside of the action economy in any case. A warlord enabling attacks is entirely within the realm of existing 5E mechanics, and it doesn't have to be trading in three actions for one attack, as commander's strike.

 

[Hussar]

Perhaps, but I've seen it done intentionally often enough to never want it encouraged.

Nothing wrong with that*; Druids (or Nature Clerics) have never really been intended as front-line bangers in any edition, 3e's char-ops wackiness notwithstanding. You're probably set for a long career! (there's a similar character in my current game - an Elf Nature Cleric with unusually high Con. has the second-highest h.p. total in a party of 11; and its player plays it like a front-line banger too, much to the concern of the rest of the party as they watch most of their cures potentially get squashed in every combat!)

* - though it'll take me a while to wrap my head around the concept of Dwarven Druid; in most games I've seen Dwarves see trees as so many board-feet of lumber waiting to be harvested, and they ain't exactly kind about it.

Lanefan

Actually really starting to get into the idea. The idea is that this particular dwarf loves open spaces, rather than being underground, and is a Plains Druid, loving nature and whatnot. Totally playing against type. Been a blast.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I'm not for a Warlord "remake" in 5e. Now that everyone knows where I stand on that...

IF someone was to do a write up of a "Warlord", my biggest hang-ups with the class is that, at it's core, it feels like the designers are saying "Fighters are master at fighting, battle and war!...well, sort of. The actually don't really know anything about tactics or maneuvers or, uh, fighting tricks...Warlords do because Warlords are the only ones who can use tactics, maneuvers and other fighting-tricks to 'fight'." That's how it feels to me. Why does a Warlord get to be able to learn/use some tactic to force some creature to 'shift' to the left when a Fighter, Barbarian, Monk, or virtually *anyone* else can't? If we are talking "tactics and maneuvers", it should be something *everyone* should be able to do.

So, a "warlord", IMHO, should come along with an optional set of combat rules for such "tactics" that anyone can attempt (like anyone can attempt to Shove, Grapple or Trip...these aren't "class specific", and shouldn't be). Once those were implemented into the core rules, a Warlord could have abilities that simply made it 'better' at doing those. I'd remove any "damage/combat" oriented abilities that directly involve the Warlord.... he isn't trained to go toe-to-toe with enemies (that's what a Fighter, Cleric or Barbarian is for), he's trained to sit on his horse at the top of a hill and direct the armies under his command. Intelligence and Wisdom (or maybe Charisma) should be his two 'stats' (for Saves), his HD should be d8, extra attacks as a Bard. No spells or "magic powers" (like "Can cast Mage Armor 1/day"). Everything should be mundane (exceptions could be argued for high... 14+... level) and focused on using intellect and experience to direct others...not himself.

Something like that I could get behind. Alas, I don't think many Warlord fans are going for that sort of interpretation.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

I liked the warlord in 4th edition but is you go back to the basics of what the warlord class sais it is being a battlefield comander there are some issues.

When I think tactics I think things that often needs more bodies then the 4 to 6 person adventuring party, things like forming and holding a shield wall, and focus fire with a unit of archers.
therefor it wasen't strange the marshall that led to the warlord was introduced in the minatures game where you had more bodies to work with.

They did a article on Mass combat and that might have been a nice place to re introduce a marshall that would have special abilities that worked in that mass combat system.
Though that means the class would be less suited for games where mass combat is rare.


A difrent out of the box re-imagining of the warlord might be as a pet class.
so he would come with some soldiers he has comand of, and those got bonuses for things like forming a shoeld wal and other players could chose to be part of that formation.

 

[Tony Vargas]

IF someone was to do a write up of a "Warlord", my biggest hang-ups with the class is that, at it's core, it feels like the designers are saying "Fighters are master at fighting, battle and war!...well, sort of. The actually don't really know anything about tactics or maneuvers or, uh, fighting tricks...Warlords do because Warlords are the only ones who can use tactics, maneuvers and other fighting-tricks to 'fight'." That's how it feels to me.

To an extent, the Warlord, Rogue, Ranger, Cavalier, Barbarian, Duelist, Thief, Monk, Assassin, Bandit, Pirate, Swashbuckler, Archer, Knight, Scout, and quite a few other classes, sub-classes, attempted classes, speculative class ideas, PrCs, variants, and whatnot (heck whole 'fantasy heartbreaker' game systems) over the years, have all stemmed from the marked inadequacy of the traditional D&D fighter.

5e chose not to address that issue by vastly broadening the Fighter class, so here we are.

So, a "warlord", IMHO, should come along with an optional set of combat rules for such "tactics" that anyone can attempt.

This has been a problem that's kept the fighter in the dog house so much of the time. Propose something remotely cool/interesting/useful/effective for the fighter, and you get a refrain of 'well everyone should be able to do that,' followed by the conclusion that, 'well, gee, everyone does that, so it's not really adding anything to the game but complexity,' and *snip* gone. See, for instance, virtually everything they tried giving the fighter in the Next playtest, but, particularly, Martial Damage Dice.

Once those were implemented into the core rules, a Warlord could have abilities that simply made it 'better' at doing those. I'd remove any "damage/combat" oriented abilities that directly involve the Warlord.... he isn't trained to go toe-to-toe with enemies, he's trained to sit on his horse at the top of a hill and direct the armies under his command. Intelligence and Wisdom (or maybe Charisma) should be his two 'stats', his HD should be d8, extra attacks as a Bard. No spells or "magic powers". Everything should be mundane and focused on using intellect and experience to direct others...not himself.

Something like that I could get behind. Alas, I don't think many Warlord fans are going for that sort of interpretation.

It's certainly within the range of concepts the Warlord could reasonably be expected to cover.

But, no, bundling the Warlord with a large set of variants isn't a great idea. Options modules should be, well, modular. If you want just the warlord, you opt into just the Warlord. If you want just some battlesystem-esque battlefield rules, you pull in just those. Modular.

That's me objecting as a 5e fan, BTW, just to be clear. I'm more sanguine about it thinking strictly as a warlord fan, though it'd have to be part of a general system re-design to really work.

A difrent out of the box re-imagining of the warlord might be as a pet class.
so he would come with some soldiers he has comand of, and those got bonuses for things like forming a shoeld wal and other players could chose to be part of that formation.

Not much of a stretch, and given 5e's more open design, bounded accuracy, and treatment of 'pet' classes, animating undead, and the like, I'd have to think something like that would be almost inevitable. Hopefully, it'd be kept as an option, a matter of customization or other player choices, as it certainly wouldn't be for everyone, nor every table.

 

[Lanefan]

There's already spell effects that break the action economy. Haste gives someone extra movement and an extra action. Spiritual Weapon lets a cleric trade a bonus action for a pseudo-weapon attack. Summon spells let the caster command multiple creatures with just a bonus action or only speech (no action at all). If the warlord is using their own action to enable an attack, it's not outside of the action economy in any case. A warlord enabling attacks is entirely within the realm of existing 5E mechanics, and it doesn't have to be trading in three actions for one attack, as commander's strike.

True, but spells are a limited resource: you can only cast so many of them in a day and when you cast them for these purposes it means you're not casting them for something else. A warlord just keeps on keepin' on, so to not break the overall action economy you have to very carefully restrict what sort of benefits it can give.

Tony Vargas]To an extent, the Warlord, Rogue, Ranger, Cavalier, Barbarian, Duelist, Thief, Monk, Assassin, Bandit, Pirate, Swashbuckler, Archer, Knight, Scout, and quite a few other classes, sub-classes, attempted classes, speculative class ideas, PrCs, variants, and whatnot (heck whole 'fantasy heartbreaker' game systems) over the years, have all stemmed from the marked inadequacy of the traditional D&D fighter.

Except not all of us see the traditional D&D Fighter as inadequate, at least from a 0e-1e-2e perspective. 3e left them behind when it a) took almost all the restrictions and risks out of spellcasting and b) went nuts on adding buff spells.

The 1e Ranger was hard to achieve stat-wise. The 1e Cavalier was an attempt to fill the Knight-in-shining-armour niche in a non-Paladinic way (in hindsight I'd rather have seen the Cavalier in the original game and the Paladin come later, so many arguments would not have happened...). The Thief, Assassin and Monk aren't intended to replace Fighters at all, they're their own thing; and if I play one I'm not at all going to play it the same way I play a Fighter. And it's not like I don't play Fighters; they're my go-to class when trying out any new rules system, and my longest-serving character in our established games is - you guessed it - a Fighter! (his name is to the left of this post )

I sometimes find the people (including some I've played with) who see the 0-1-2e Fighter as inadequate are also those who insist on having a game-mechanics reflection of things better left to roleplay.

Lan-"I'll admit, however, that the 1e Barbarian class was a complete disaster"-efan

 

[Hussar]

I don'T think anyone considers a 2e fighter to be inadequate. No other class came even close to the amount of damage that a 2e fighter could do, right at 1st level. And, you're right, AD&D casters were so limited that fighters got more than their fair chance to shine. Although, IME, I saw a lot more dual and multiclass fighters than single class ones. Fighter is what you added to your cleric or wizard, rather than something you generally saw on its own. But, I certainly did see single class fighters being played.

Only thing is, we can't go back to that. There's no way that 5e fans are going to accept clerics having about a dozen spells to choose from at a given level. Wizards with not a whole lot more. It's just not going to happen, and pointing to 1e and 2e doesn't really do anything.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Only thing is, we can't go back to that. There's no way that 5e fans are going to accept clerics having about a dozen spells to choose from at a given level. Wizards with not a whole lot more. It's just not going to happen, and pointing to 1e and 2e doesn't really do anything.

I think you over-estimate a caster's versatility. A 5e cleric does have about 15 spells to choose from at a given level (not much more than your dozen). Wizards only get a guarantee of knowing two spells for every level they gain. Furthermore, a fighter probably IS the highest-damage-output at most levels. Compare a wizard who fire bolts (1d10) to a fighter who longbows (1d8+DEX bonus), or even better a fighter who Mauls (2d6+STR bonus).

In fact, part of the reason a battlemaster is in some ways a sub-par warlord is that the battlemaster still makes a lot of attacks themselves, and gets their power from that, while warlord fans seem to want a class who gets a lot of their damage potential from giving extra actions to their allies. The battlemaster gives actions to allies as a cherry on top of being an engine of destruction themselves, rather than giving actions to allies as a base part of how they contribute to damage/defense.