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

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't disagree with any of the above. I don't really care about the Meat vs. Mojo debate, but if I had to vote for a side I'd pick "it's both". It's just not important to me, though.

Right, I don't think there's NO 'meat' in hit points either. I can actually pretty well buy that high level guys are just stupidly tough too, up to a point. Its only relevant in that if you were absolutely dedicated to the idea that every hit point is some sort of physical wound, then inspirational healing doesn't make sense in your context. IME people don't really mostly even resolve this in their heads. They play, its a game, they know its not 'realistic' but the game works and is fun, so it doesn't much matter.

So, I don't disagree with you here, either. One thing I love about the system The One Ring is that there are numerous mechanics that interact with roleplaying and storytelling. D&D largely doesn't have that (Inspiration, I guess) which is too bad. But I don't see using non-magical healing on another player as something that fits into that category. "I shout encouragement" may, in its roots, be more social and interactive than "I cast a spell", but it's not really a roleplaying mechanic. It's a mechanic that represents social relationships. Two very different things.

OK, though I note that your ability to be inspired and what inspires you are part of your character, so anything that touches on them has an RP aspect to it. I thought that was what you were objecting to, at least partly, was being told to RP 'being inspired' and not having a choice to NOT be inspired. Casting spells MIGHT also engage this sort of RP, but we just don't know and can't generalize since magic is so diverse and poorly explained.

If, on the other hand, Inspirational Healing had a greater or lesser effect, depending on the current relationship between the two characters, then I could see your argument. I'd still be leery of it because of the fluff that, to me, implies loss of agency of the recipient. But maybe the mechanic would be fun enough that I'd overlook it.

I don't have an inherent issue with that. In fact its not really that I WANT CLW and 'Inspiring Word' to be the EXACT same mechanic in every detail, but if both of them impact hit points to the extent that you could be a warlord and play the role of what 4e calls 'leader' and replace a cleric at it, then its pretty good.

Also, bear in mind that my objections to all these micro-agency-loss instances are all based on the total picture. If the "Warlord" had a less obnoxious name, and none of the abilities that suggest giving orders and telling other people how to do their job, and fewer people compared the class to an "Officer", then I could probably overlook Inspirational Healing with no more than a twinge of dislike. Sort of like how I feel now about Paladins with halberds. But given that just about every aspect of the Warlord (that I see in homebrews) reinforces this image of "the rest of the party admires my leadership so much that when I jump they ask 'how high?'", this version of Inspirational Healing is one of many straws too many.

Fair enough. I'd call that a more secondary issue. I've seen warlords of this type that worked well, but this is going to be dependent on the PCs, it could be completely unworkable too. Now, 4e's warlord is the sort that you are describing, by default. OTOH people did find it VERY flexible in actuality, such that there are things like 'the princess build' which is a 'warlord' that never attacks, and can reflavor all of its powers as cries for help, hiding behind allies, etc. It can also represent a variety of things, even a psychic mentally influencing his troops. Then its a question of how much reflavoring are you willing to do, and can your group put it all together so that the character works for the player and for the rest of the party. This is actually a pretty interesting issue that isn't touched on a lot for 4e players. A 4e party is VERY much a team, so you almost need to work out how to explain that teamwork narratively.

Did that make any sense at all?

Yes!

I think you're exaggerating the importance of a healbot cleric. I've played in games where our only healing is a Bard or a Ranger and we've gotten by just fine. And if you need more, Druids and Paladins also make good healers. Heck, a Rogue with Healer feat (depending on DM interpretation) can be amazing.

Well, I grant that it appears, due to some quirks in 5e, that bards are pretty seriously good healers, though druids and paladins IME still don't get you enough that you don't miss the cleric. I don't know about the rogue. My experience is that nothing really replaces that instant real-time blast of hit point restoration that the cleric can manage.

Do you need some healing? Probably. Unless your DM is willing to tone things down a little bit. But this ain't 2e, there are other options.

Anyway, I can completely sympathize with the belief that there should be more options for filling critical roles, so new classes that have healing ability are fine (as long as the classes are otherwise justified conceptually and with interesting new mechanics.) That part that I honestly do not get is why some people insist on non-magical healing. The only two reasons that I can comprehend are:
1) To play in campaigns where magical classes are not allowed (and maybe 'magical' subclasses, like Shadow Monks?)
2) To prove on the Internet that HP are not meat. (Although I would think that Second Wind proves this just fine.)
Otherwise, if other people in the party are casting spells right and left, and you're carrying magic weapons and drinking magic potions, why is it so important for this one thing to be non-magical?

I'm not even hung up on calling it 'non-magical'. I think this is another 4e-ism, where there really is no magic/non-magic divide (you really cannot implement an 'anti-magic zone' in 4e, the rules simply don't have a category called 'magic'). I think we generally thought of low level warlord stuff as a bit fantastical, but 'mundane' within the action-heroic genre. Paragon and Epic warlord stuff, pretty much merges into the supernatural IMHO.

(I'm asking it somewhat rhetorically because I've tried to understand it numerous times and it just doesn't add up for me. So if you have an illuminating explanation I'd love to hear it, but if you want to punt because you don't think I'll get it then I won't think less of you.)

I just thought the idea of a guy yelling at the fighter "You worm! You can't die on me like this now! How DARE you, pick up that sword soldier, and FIGHT!" and it REALLY WORKS is damned cool. Truthfully when I started playing 4e I sort of thought that the warlord was odd and not a particularly engaging archetype, but when you actually experience it, they're a seriously cool addition to the game, and even if you call it magic, its not just 'another bard' or whatever (though maybe reflavoring enough can get you most anything, I dunno).

 

[Guest 6801328]

Sorry but I missed this response earlier.

Hehe, but that was exactly the most awesome use we got out of the warlord, was when the character 'Sarge' was giving the other PCs the ropes. "No, idiot, don't push that orc back, FLANK HIM!" (followed by some power or other, I forget which one, that slid the fighter into flanking position). Etc. This was quite possibly the most awesome narrative device I've ever seen mechanically enabled in an RPG.

That's cool that you enjoyed it, but it's exactly what I want to avoid. It seems we want diametrically opposed things out of the game. I want to imagine that my "Fighter" knows a lot about fighting and combat. Maybe I'm picturing him as a former soldier, or ex-gladiator who won his freedom or whatever. I took the Fighter class because I know how to fight.

But...wait...this other class basically just called me a noob, and proves it by giving me Advantage on my next attack if I follow his advice? So, um, what is my class good for again? Taking orders?

More on this in a sec...

Given that practically every party is a team of characters working for a common goal (certainly this is virtually assured in combat, with counterexamples being pretty much corner cases) exactly when is it that the fighter would NOT carry out the warlord's advice or take advantage of the opening created? Given that the mechanics literally make the reality such that it IS advantageous to do so (IE the warlord's power never gives 'bad advice', though I guess you could spin things that way now and then) exactly when would you REALLY, ACTUALLY be wanting your character to NOT participate in any of the narrative flavor that was listed above?

You are absolutely right. Why would you NOT want to boost your powers? In other words, if I want to roleplay my own character ("Sorry, Warlord, but I think you're a self-important windbag and I don't find you very inspiring") it leaves me at mechanical disadvantage. That seems like a crappy trade-off to make, and I think most people would sacrifice the self-agency to get the bonus.

(Not me. If the Warlord ever does become official I would LOVE to be at a table...with Mike Mearls watching...that did this. It would drive home the point that everybody at the table has to accept the Warlord's version of the fiction for the Warlord's mechanics to function.)

Elsewhere I offered an analogy: imagine there's a class with the following ability: "Orthodoxy Correction: when a cleric casts a spell, you can give them advice on how to better to pray to their god, increasing the power of the spell as if it had been cast 1 level higher."

Am I the only one that thinks such an ability would be totally obnoxious? Here I am a devoted Cleric of Beetlejuice (or whoever), and this generalist who couldn't pray his way out of a paper bag is telling me how to do my job better? And the bastard is 1st level? And it works?!?!?! What does that say about my own competence as a Cleric? Pure delusion?

Sure, I could roleplay a bumbling Cleric who's only in it for the altar boys, but that should be my choice. Somebody else's character choices shouldn't narrow the range of viable concepts for my character.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That's cool that you enjoyed it, but it's exactly what I want to avoid. It seems we want diametrically opposed things out of the game. I want to imagine that my "Fighter" knows a lot about fighting and combat. Maybe I'm picturing him as a former soldier, or ex-gladiator who won his freedom or whatever. I took the Fighter class because I know how to fight.

I get it.

You want to play the character concept you have in mind. You want to play a great warrior who's extremely skillful with a weapon. You don't have to spend 6hrs at the gym every day and start taking fencing lessons to that, you just write 'fighter' on your character sheet, because it's a flip'n fantasy game, and that's your fantasy.

And you certainly don't want another player's character to undermine that concept, say by being able to fight much better than you, provided he says 'Shazam!' first.

Perfectly reasonable.

You don't always get that, exactly, because there are some classes that can out-fight your fighter when they're raging or smiting or self-buffing or something. But within reason, with game balance and a basic respect for eachother as players, you can coexist. You're still a great warrior, just not one who can gain superhuman strength or make his sword blaze with undead-vaping divine glory or anything.

There's concept, mechanics, contribution, viability, balance, playability - and consideration for others - all involved there.

In other words, if I want to roleplay my own character ("Sorry, Warlord, but I think you're a self-important windbag and I don't find you very inspiring") it leaves me at mechanical disadvantage. That seems like a crappy trade-off to make, and I think most people would sacrifice the self-agency to get the bonus.

Now, your fellow player wants to play a character to helps his allies through inspiration, tactics, and the like - 'leaderhip' in short-hand. He builds a high-charisma character who's class abilities give his allies bonuses for those reasons.

He shouldn't be expected to spend a few years at West Point or read Sun Tzu in the original Chinese to become a military genius to do that, he just picks the heroic fantasy RPG class that matches the concept.

And he wouldn't want another player's character to undermine that concept.

Now, if you bring those two characters together, it /could/ play out the way you envision. Your skillful fighter is called an incompetent and given belittling basic fighting advice ('take up a higher guard, I've seen jermallines do better!') and you respond by declining bonuses and rendering your fellow player's character worthless, undermining eachother significantly. You've both pointedly ruined the game for eachother.

/Or/, you could RP your characters as close allies, and when he gives you bonus, it's because you've set up a tactical plan together and he's just kicked it off, or because he can just avoid RPing his character in the tongue-in-cheek way you find offensive, but listen to your feedback and RPs something your character /would/ find inspiring or otherwise useful.

The kind of player-interaction problem you envision could happen. It could happen between any two characters in an endless variety of ways. It's just a matter of having a little basic consideration for eachother to prevent it.

Elsewhere I offered an analogy: imagine there's a class with the following ability: "Orthodoxy Correction: when a cleric casts a spell, you can give them advice on how to better to pray to their god, increasing the power of the spell as if it had been cast 1 level higher."

Am I the only one that thinks such an ability would be totally obnoxious?

Well there is that deep double-standard that privileges caster classes. Belittling a fighter doesn't come up against as much resistance as belittling a wizard or even cleric. (You can usually get away with belittling a Bard, though).

Hmm... funny thing, the last 3.5 character I played /could/ give other casters an extra caster level for a minute at a time. By attaching some sort of entity to them. No one reacted badly to it, but you could certainly imagine someone being ticked off about their pious, pure cleric being 'possessed' by a 'sorcerous spirit.'

What I meant, in the post to which [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] replied, is this: when a 4e cleric speaks a Healing Word, it is not the divine magic of the gods that heals the ally. The ally heals because s/he is inspired by the cleric's benediction (mechanically, this inspiration is expressed by spending a Healing Surge). What divine magic does do, in this case, is infuse the cleric with the grace whereby s/he is able to inspire his/her ally. A warlord doesn't need to be infused with grace in this way - s/he inspires by dint of his/her own charisma.

That's one way of fluffing it, sure. Another would be that the divine magic of the gods accelerates the healing process of a short rest into an instant and that expends the surge. That'd probably make more sense with an Artificer or something, but it could work for any sort of magic, explaining why the surge is needed. Or, OK, how 'bout this: the power of the Gods instantly heals the subject, but takes some of his metaphysical power (surge), in return, like sacrificing POW for temporary Rune Magic or Divine Intervention in RQ?

Tying this to the concerns that [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION] has been expressing, if a player takes the view that s/he (or rather, his/her PC) does not find the cleric's divine grace inspiring, s/he is always free not to spend the healing surge!

Or if he's a non-believer or serves and opposed deity, he might do the same. Sure.

In 4e there is very little mechanical incentive to take that sort of approach in playing one's PC, but in 5e it could be linked into the system for earning Inspiration.

So, use Inspiring Word on someone, and they get Inspiration for declining the HPs?

So:

Player1: I could really use a bonus to this next roll.
Player2: "Get in there and fight, we're not beaten yet!"
Player1: Up yours, Warlord, I'm my own man!
DM: *ding* player 1 gets Inspiration.
Player1: I'll use that inspiration on.....

?

OK, whatever, if the players go through that and the DM goes for, why not? It's the DM's prerogative to hand out Inspiration as he sees fit to reward 'good' RP. I'm not about to question the hypothetical judgement of every hypothetical DM who might ever/not run 5e.

To me bardic inspiration is in a grey area of being magical.
One group could say it is magical becouse it fits their game style another group could say it is not. ( not sure if it is efected by anti magic field as that mostly speaks of spells and magic items)

In 3.x, which had specific labels for that sort of thing, like EX and SU and whatnot, bardic music (the source of Inspire Courage & Inspire Competence) was explicitly magical.

So a question to people who do want a warlord would be the following.
Does a warlord have to be totaly non magical, or would something that is not magical in the traditional sense be acceptable ?

Not magical, as in not supernatural. Extraordinary (like EX in 3.x), unrealistic to modern understanding, implausible, or even super-human, sure, but not supernatural.

So, when a person is inspired they can fight better, face greater odds, and push though pain, fatigue and injury to continue to fight. That's natural. So if a warlord inspired someone to fight on in spite of increadible injuries for far longer than a person should have been able to survive such mangling, it's be beyond the bounds of reason, but not super-natural, since inspiration isn't supernatural, it does do that sort of thing, it's just happening to a rediculous extent. Perhaps a clearer example would be flight vs leaping. People can't fly, they can jump. Flying to the top of a mountain would be supernatural. Leaping to the top of a mountain would be unrealistic, even impossible, but it doesn't involve a supernatural mechanism, leaping is natural, it's just leaping taken to an extreme.

In 4th edition the section on martial powers also refered to them as not beeing magic in the traditional sense.

Which is widely mis-interpreted as /being/ magic that's somehow avante-garde or rebellious or something 'un-traditional,' rather than /not being/ magic but accomplishing things traditionally associated with it, sure. 5e should avoid any phrasing quite that squirrelly, and instead punt to the DM any possibility of extreme martial abilities crossing the line into some sort of supernatural category.

and if the warlord would have been in 3.X may of his powers might be refered to as supernatural.

A hypothetical 3.x Warlord would likely have had all EX abilities, much like the Pathfinder Warlord does or Miniatures Handbook Marshal did. Though, hopefully, it'd've been better than either of those...

 

[Aldarc]

If the "Warlord" had a less obnoxious name, and none of the abilities that suggest giving orders and telling other people how to do their job, and fewer people compared the class to an "Officer", then I could probably overlook Inspirational Healing with no more than a twinge of dislike. Sort of like how I feel now about Paladins with halberds. But given that just about every aspect of the Warlord (that I see in homebrews) reinforces this image of "the rest of the party admires my leadership so much that when I jump they ask 'how high?'", this version of Inspirational Healing is one of many straws too many.

How about if it was called the "paragon"? The name admittedly comes from a Guild Wars 1 class/profession that played similarly as a shouting support/buffer warrior.

Sorry but I missed this response earlier.



That's cool that you enjoyed it, but it's exactly what I want to avoid. It seems we want diametrically opposed things out of the game. I want to imagine that my "Fighter" knows a lot about fighting and combat. Maybe I'm picturing him as a former soldier, or ex-gladiator who won his freedom or whatever. I took the Fighter class because I know how to fight.

But...wait...this other class basically just called me a noob, and proves it by giving me Advantage on my next attack if I follow his advice? So, um, what is my class good for again? Taking orders?

More on this in a sec...

You likely would still be better at fighting and combat than the warlord. That's precisely the point. The warlord is support. He boosts your combat efficiency, much as a cleric or bard would do, but through different means.

Elsewhere I offered an analogy: imagine there's a class with the following ability: "Orthodoxy Correction: when a cleric casts a spell, you can give them advice on how to better to pray to their god, increasing the power of the spell as if it had been cast 1 level higher."

Am I the only one that thinks such an ability would be totally obnoxious? Here I am a devoted Cleric of Beetlejuice (or whoever), and this generalist who couldn't pray his way out of a paper bag is telling me how to do my job better? And the bastard is 1st level? And it works?!?!?! What does that say about my own competence as a Cleric? Pure delusion?

Sure, I could roleplay a bumbling Cleric who's only in it for the altar boys, but that should be my choice. Somebody else's character choices shouldn't narrow the range of viable concepts for my character.

A low level battlemaster could do precisely what you describe to a level twenty champion.

 

[Guest 6801328]

A low level battlemaster could do precisely what you describe to a level twenty champion.

Yeah, there are a couple of phrasings in there that trigger my "You're not da boss of me!" reaction, but overall the officer connotations are pretty low-key in the Battle Master (hate the name), so I roll with it.

Again (and again and again) it's not the mechanics, it's the fluff.

 

[mellored]

So as a first step designing a warlord along those lines maybe we should start by creating a more martial non spellcasting bard.

The simplest way to do this would be replacing spllcasting with supriority dice.
My sugestion yould be you start with 4 and gain a aditional dice at levels 3,5,7,9,11,13,15 and 17th, for a maximim of 12

at level 11 you might gain acess to some advanced manuvers these would cost more then one superiority dice to activate.

I'd prefer at-will dice, but thinking of a warlord as a spell-less bard might help bridge the gap.

TBH, I'm not convinced that a "spell-less bard" a la the spell-less ranger wouldn't fix half these issues.

Cha/Int leaning heavy on skills to inspire allies to do great things and deceive enemies into doing stupid things, with a side of healing?
Yea, that fits.

Though "spell-less" is the main factor.

 

[Aldarc]

Yeah, there are a couple of phrasings in there that trigger my "You're not da boss of me!" reaction, but overall the officer connotations are pretty low-key in the Battle Master (hate the name), so I roll with it.

Again (and again and again) it's not the mechanics, it's the fluff.

So what is a list of names that are evocative of the 'warlord' archetype that you would find acceptable?

 

[Guest 6801328]

So what is a list of names that are evocative of the 'warlord' archetype that you would find acceptable?

Honestly I don't have a really good one.

"Warlord" "Officer" "Captain" "Marshall" are all categorically different from "Fighter" "Ranger", etc. They imply rank not profession, and especially connote command and giving orders.

"Tactician" "Strategist" and the like are kind of boring. Like calling Wizards "Casters". Plus they just sound like modern words, whatever the etymology is. (Anybody for "Compleat Strategist"?)

So I don't know what the answer is. It's a tough one. Perhaps partly because the archetype from history, fiction, and myth doesn't exist as a profession: nobody starts as a Warlord. There's no such thing as an apprentice Warlord. It's something you become. That and it's an amalgam of concepts. I.e. giving spur of the moment tactical advantage is not a Marshall/Warlord thing, it's a...well, I don't really know.

Maybe we should just call it "Warlord" and always include the quotes. When speaking we can use air quotes.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Nope!

TBH, I'm not convinced that a "spell-less bard" a la the spell-less ranger wouldn't fix half these issues.

I play a bard in an on off 3.5 game and I wish he was spell-less. I know I don't treat his bardic prowess as magic either, and I don't for bards in my 5e game. The magic of music is just a term for the power of music on the mind, as it exists in RL.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'd prefer at-will dice, but thinking of a warlord as a spell-less bard might help bridge the gap.

Cha/Int leaning heavy on skills to inspire allies to do great things and deceive enemies into doing stupid things, with a side of healing?
Yea, that fits.

Though "spell-less" is the main factor.

It would need some robust "spell-equivalent abilities," since a bard is a primary caster, but that's not the hardest design challenge in the world. It would be a significant departure from the bard as-is, but totally a viable thing.