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

[mellored]

That is correct. I' not sure what your point is, however.

If you want to play a a fighter with some wizard, you can play eldrich knight.
If you want to play a full wizard, you need a full class. EK just doesn't have room for the full range of wizardry.

If you want to play a fighter with some strategist, you can play battlemaster.
If you want to play a full tactician, you need a full class. BM just doesn't have room for full range of caddy.

 

[Mistwell]

In specific circumstances otherwise... no they aren't...



How is this possible since fighters can take two weapon fighting style, have maneuvers that can protect them from opp. attacks and get the most attacks of all the martial classes?

Uh, it's possible if you read the Ranger, and see they have a very clear path that well-outpaces the fighter in attacking multiple foes and defending from multiple foes? They have an entire horde-themed line of abilities and spells. And they can do all that AND do the two-weapon thing as well.

Where did I say "best at all things combat"... I said they are supposed to be the masters at combat

Master at X does imply best at X to me. If you meant something else, it was not clear.

... which implies in a general sense and with all things being equal. With the classes you listed above they may outshine the fighter given very specific circumstances (and I'm still curious about how the Ranger does what you claim), but all things being equal the fighter is a better combatant. The thing is the warlord is not better then him in a specific circumstance, it is going to be better in general at combat strategy and tactics.

No, that's a misunderstanding of the warlord. The warlord cannot fight in direct combat nearly as well as the fighter. They can only improve the fighting of those around them better - which is a very specific thing, and depends on specific circumstances of positioning and distance relative to the warlord, ability to hear/see the warlord and for the warlord to speak and be seen, etc.. Fighter is the best general direct combatant, while the warlord is a specific buffer when the circumstances are right.

 

[mellored]

And I didn't just say, "it's unbalanced because I think so...". I said it was unbalanced in 4e, and the same could result in 5e, based on reasons which I took the time to spell out. Reasons you avoided quoting or responding to.

It's only the optimal warlords, or builds that the warlord was part of, warlord | bard, or warlord | artificer, that things started to be OP. And even then, it wasn't really broken unless you also had other characters optimized to take advantage of it.

Many of this was due to quadratic scaling. Similar to how the wizard was overpowered in 3e.
i.e. the warlord could give everyone +int to hit (i.e. bless). Which was balanced when you had 3-4 int, but int could be raised to 9 or 10, which made it OP. Then, when combo'd with the ranger's ability to keep attacking until he missed you got infinite damage. They eventually scaled back the ranger to only attack 5 times max, but it still makes for a nasty combo.

Another part is that they expected "basic attacks" to be weak, and thus balanced around that. But you could optimize basic attacks quite a bit. Particularly when then they released some classes that specifically boosted "basic attacks". This same issue actually already exists in 5e. Using BM's commander's strike you might trade 1d8+str, for 2d6+str+1d6 at the cost of 1 die and positioning. A balanced trade. But a BM using commander's strike on a high level rogue, and trade 1d8+str, for 12d6+dex, and that's OP.

4e Warlord was a multiplier, but it needed something to multiply. You can do similar in 5e by having a cleric/bard (bless + insperation) and sorcerer (twin haste) with 2 fighters (sharpshooter+crossbow expertise). High damage * high accuracy * high number of attacks = massive DPR.

Played in a "normal-non-char-op" way, and the 4e warlord was balanced, possibly even slightly under powered.


But, balance is all in the numbers and those can easily be tweaked. Just because bless is powerful, does not mean clerics are inherently flawed characters. You could simply reduce bless to +1.
Likewise, just because casters dominated in 3e, does not make wizards inherently OP. You just need to not scale spells by level.
And again, just because warlords gave +10 to hit in 4e, doesn't mean they need to in 5e. Just prevent the same quadratic scaling.

 

[mellored]

Side note
Quadratic balance is one reason why i don't like multi-attack * accuracy * damage (or DC*slots * spell level). I'd prefer attacks to be 1 roll instead of 2.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

It just sees to me like we're going to always be in a situation where...



To some, it will never be "warlord-y enough". No matter what you give this proposed class.

Until it has too much of a good thing. Then for some it will be almost good enough.

 

[Wuzzard]

I would play a warlord if it had enough cow bell.

 

[mellored]

To some, it will never be "warlord-y enough". No matter what you give this proposed class.

What proposed class?

There's a sub-class (BM), but no, those are not warlord-y enough.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

What proposed class?

There's a sub-class (BM), but no, those are not warlord-y enough.

I do not think we are having the same conversation.

 

[Hussar]

Never said you "can't play whatever the heck you want." Where are you getting that? Make and play a titan stormlord sumsuch and play that. I don't care.


And yet that's not what we've gotten. You are mischaracterizing what "we've had."


Cuz I've yet to see one. Can show me one that is?


Ah, but he can heal. So you are wrong. And you are stepping write into my point again. The actions he does grant are balanced within the 5e system paradigm. What you want is to exceed the limits of 5e's core design framework and action economy principles. There are reasons then lazylord is no more. Mechanical ones, not thematic.

Sorry, nope. Temp HP are not healing.

 

[Hussar]

It just sees to me like we're going to always be in a situation where...


To some, it will never be "warlord-y enough". No matter what you give this proposed class.

Until it has too much of a good thing. Then for some it will be almost good enough.

The only option we've had so far is the Battlemaster, and, no, that's not warlord enough. I suppose you have valor bard as well, but, that's an inherently magic class, so, hopefully, it's understood why that's an issue right out of the chute.

So, yeah, if I want to play a fighter with a bit of warlord, sure, I can play a Battlemaster. For the third time, it's about 60% of the way there. Where's my other 40%:

• the ability to heal on par with an actual healing class - cleric, bard, druid or paladin level healing.
• the ability to grant more than 4 actions per short rest. As it stands, a battle master is only granting about 1 extra action per combat per day. Sure, it's extra actions, but, not exactly a primary thing. The vast majority of the time, a Battlemaster is standing in combat. At best, he's got, what, 7 Superiority dice (books not in front of me). Meaning, again at best, he's granting 7 actions per short rest. Presume 3 combats per short rest, at 4 rounds per combat, that means at best the BM is being a warlord and not just another fighter, half the time. And, again, that's best case scenario. At lower levels, he's got 4 Superiority dice - now he's being a warlord about 1/3 of the time and 2/3 of the time, he's just another fighter. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect my warlord to actually ACT like a warlord at least 51% of the time.
• the ability to grant any sorts of buffs outside of combat.

You're telling me that a class that gives up an action to grant another character an action can't be balanced? Unless there are huge disparities between the classes, that can't be true.