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

[AbdulAlhazred]

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?

Well, just because a game gives players an OPTION doesn't turn it into a one-dimensional pastiche. A warlord can and will be many different things in different parties, or just non-existent in a lot of them. Just because the Druid exists every party doesn't have to run around kissing trees and being nice to animals. Most parties don't even HAVE a druid in them, and when they do, many of those druids might not care how you treat animals, or etc.

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.)

I think you've way overplayed this. First of all you're predetermining how you always want to play? You never ever play a character that would be inspired? Either you play an incredibly narrow range of characters or you're just theorycrafting an objection. Secondly I see no reason why you couldn't RP your character being annoyed to hell by a warlord. You'll keep fighting because he pisses you off, you'll beat your enemies because of the sheer anger he incites in you, etc. If you actually want to eschew a benefit that you're supposed to get, I see no reason why the GM wouldn't just give you the same benefit for some other narrative reason, which is essentially reflavoring.

I don't think Mike Mearls will help you because, while you might cussedly insist on having your fun spoiled, I suspect the guy is perceptive enough to see through that and understand that this is a player perversity issue, not a rules issue.

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?

I think there are a variety of things you could say about this. First of all I have no problem with it in principle. Who says the guy is a 'generalist'? You're the one creating some fluff that you don't like and then arguing against it, that's silly. Secondly I very much doubt this is ALL this class can do. Thirdly the appropriateness of classes clearly can depend on genre conceits and what the game is trying to do. It could be a great class for some settings, and not really work for others. It seems too niche to me, but warlord is FAR less of a niche concept.

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.

You could RP this thing any number of ways. The 'help' function wouldn't have to be cast as a correction, and probably wouldn't be written up that way to start with any realistic game. You could do exactly what I suggested in terms of the warlord, just RP your character getting really annoyed with the interference and casting his spells better. The notion that you must RP this in some specific way is your own hangup, not the game's.

But beyond all this you still haven't even touched on the central point, which is that even if YOU don't want to play this thing your tastes shouldn't be overriding those of lots of other people. You can avoid playing with certain material or use it in a way that suites you. I'm expected to do that with THE ENTIRETY OF 5E, and yet you can't give me one class that I like? Gosh, what community spirit!

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

Depending on the way it's presented, a minor concern could be the flexibility. Unlike spell slots, this proposed warlord might be able to spam lower level abilities a great deal more finely than a caster can with equivalent low level spells.

We would have to look and see if this would be a problem.
But you have to keep in mind that many cantrips do more damage at higer levels, manuvers don't have scaling build in the only way they scale is by having the ability to use them more often.


For example is a bard giving up his attack ( asuming no subclass so would have only 1 attack each round) to have a ally make a attack with a +1d8 damage bonus realy so powerfull compared to higer level cantrips ?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Just a couple things as it is a wee bit of an aside to the thread. This is definitely one of the great things about 4e. The amount of non-magical healing made available within the system is rife, thus enabling the all martial party (with Warlord as primary Leader) and the (quite common) dedicated-healerless-party. My last 1-30 game featured such a setup.

The only thing I'll say is that I think you're giving a wee bit of short-shrift to Second Wind. Discounting Dwarf, there are an extremely large number of ways to get Second Wind without spending a Standard Action on it (Minor Action, Immediate Action, Free Action, triggered on another turn when someone uses only a Minor Action). There is also the Fighter Feat that lets you sub + 2 to defenses for an MBA with Healing Surge rider on your Second Wind. My last group of players tricked out their PCs with Second Wind shenanigans that took the standard action economy out behind the woodshed (one of them getting 2 SWs for minimal action economy on an encounter basis). It is pretty simply done without much PC build investment. That group had no dedicated healer (the Druid was rebuilt twice, once featuring Warlord hybridizing and the other Shaman hybridizing), but each player had Second Wind shenanigans + a Skill (encounter) Power that triggers HSes for themselves or their allies with Minor or Immediate Actions. The 3 PCs could access 10ish Healing Surges (if necessary) per encounter through solely mundane means.

The other aspect of this was the very great degree of equivalence in trade-offs. One party could have a really nice healy cleric that got +7 points on every HS and could hand out a few points around for free, but did pretty much zilch damage. Another group could eschew that entirely and be like yours, where they could trigger their SWs for little cost. They would just get the basic surge value in healing, but the whole party has 20% more damage output because the 5th character is contributing. 4e came VERY close to making these 2 options exactly balanced. Its arguable avoiding healing was a bit better, tactically, but also a little riskier operationally, but the trade offs were always very close and pretty subtle.

 

[Hussar]

/edit

WHoops, replying to stuff WAY too far upstream. Didn't notice how far back I was when I hit reply. Nothing to see here.

 

[pemerton]

I'm trying to pin down [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's reasons for dubbing temp HP and "die hard" mechanics "madness."

This has been answered by [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION].

In AD&D there are no temp hp so-described. There is the Aid spell, which creates irritating corner cases. In 3E, when temp hp are introduced as a regular thing, how many threads have I read discussing the difference between temp hp and the temporary hit points, that are not temp hp, that a barbarian gets while raging? More than I can recall, and more than the game needs!

As far as die-hard mechanics are concerned, AD&D has them for good cavaliers, sohei and some animals. These also give rise to corner-cases. All in the name of . . . what? The absence of wounding mechanics in D&D means that building in mechanics that revolve around wounds is, in my view, fruitless.

(I also agree with AbdulAlhazred's comments about healing kits - the idea that a warlord is outrageous because someone at 0 hp is dying and so can't recover with inspiration, but that 6 seconds of mucking about with mediaevel-level technology can restore that person to a state where s/he is able to act without penalty, strikes me as too ludicrous for words.)

The ongoing conversation about warlords here is evidence for the thesis that inspirational HP as an assumption in D&D divisive.

<snip>

There are many mechanics that allow one to soldier on from the brink of death that a warlord might use that would allow a character to soldier on past the brink of death and which would still be compatible with the idea of hp loss representing some kind of wound. If you can agree with that statement, we can move on to whatever else you want to talk about.

I think you are missing one point - there are some D&D players for whom building all the mechanics around the assumption that hit point recovery corresponds to biological healing produces a game that is as unsatisfactory for them, as the converse does for you.

In other words, if an issue is "divisive" - ie the object of differing preferences - you don't make it less so by going your preferred way rather than my preferred way. This is the rationale behind AbdulAlhazred ultimately addressing the WotC designers.

 

[Tony Vargas]

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.

Captain and Marshal are actual ranks. Officer isn't, though it implies a rank. On the outside, it can mean anyone holding an office, even one that has nothing whatsoever to do with combat. Warlord implies being outside a legitimate power structure like a government or military hierarchy.

It could quite easily be self-declared by an upstart with no experience.

Not that classes need to be professions, exactly. Warlock isn't a profession, for instance, you don't put that on a resume. Divine classes are a calling. The name Paladin actually means an Knight of Charlemagne - in direct service to the king, a very high rank, indeed.

"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"?)

Well, wizards /were/ called very generically Magic-users for quite a while. And the Fighter is still totally blah and generic. So if there were a blah, generic word for heroic war-leader or helpful-advice-giving caddy or professional victim in need of rescue or whatever you could suit the mechanics to, I suppose it'd be a candidate.

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.

Meh, no one really starts as a Paladin (or other sort of Knight, but there's no 'squire' class, and no objection to being a Knight, so long as you're Eldritch, apparently), Assassin, Wizard or quite a lot of other things, some class names imply a great deal of accomplishment, some less so (Thief). Even one that implied a lot could be self-styled (I am Skeeve, the great & powerful Wizard). Anyone with a band of armed followers, even just an adventuring party's worth, might call himself a warlord.

That and it's an amalgam of concepts.

Fighters cover everything from fencers to pikers to archers to knights to ... It's not unusual for a class to cover a broad concept or a number of related ones. The fighter probably covers too many, the Ranger, perhaps, too few or isn't sure exactly what concepts it's meant to cover.

Maybe we should just call it "Warlord"

Yes, we should.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Just a couple things as it is a wee bit of an aside to the thread. This is definitely one of the great things about 4e. The amount of non-magical healing made available within the system is rife, thus enabling the all martial party (with Warlord as primary Leader) and the (quite common) dedicated-healerless-party. My last 1-30 game featured such a setup.

No doubt about it. I was just pointing out that 1) there were multiple magical leaders and only one non-magical and (2) you could rely primarily or even exclusively on magical healing, via very healing-heavy builds like the Pacifist Cleric, and, as in 5e, plentiful potions, if you wanted (or it fit the theme of the game).

The only thing I'll say is that I think you're giving a wee bit of short-shrift to Second Wind. Discounting Dwarf, there are an extremely large number of ways to get Second Wind without spending a Standard Action on it (Minor Action, Immediate Action, Free Action, triggered on another turn when someone uses only a Minor Action).

Sure. And you can get extra goodies layered on top of it, too.

 

[Hussar]

[MENTION=92511]steeldragons[/MENTION]

That looks pretty good. Although it does need to be cleaned up a bit - there's some typos (you call it a Ranger on the second page). Excellent work though.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

These sort of feel a little 'thin' to me, and of course there is still not much of an option for healing. Honestly I don't have a great feel for 5e classes. Nothing strikes me as inherently bad about any of this.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Ok. Here's my last go 'round on this...

I like how you slipped Ardent in there, it really did feel a bit like a psionic warlord.

These sort of feel a little 'thin' to me, and of course there is still not much of an option for healing. Honestly I don't have a great feel for 5e classes. Nothing strikes me as inherently bad about any of this.

His Inspiring Word, in spite of affecting more targets at higher levels, gets proportionally worse as you go. From restoring an average of about 1/2 hps, occasionally full, at 1st, to downright trivial before too many levels. Damage scales pretty rapidly in 5e, magical healing scales with slot to keep up (though not amazingly well), a HD doesn't scale, they accumulate. Rolling all your HD at a given level is about equivalent.

So if you wanted Inspiring Word to trigger HD, a use of it might trigger a number of HD up to the Warlord's level. That'd be prettymuch treading water. If using it on a lower-level or less-wounded allies, maybe spread dice out among several, if using it on a same-or-high level ally, all at once. Adding a CHA bonus, either per ally or per die, might be good.

Compared to a Battlemaster, seems to have a lot to do, and to contribute in a support role. Compared to a Cleric, Bard, Druid, or Paladin, not so much.

"Weapon Attack" in the jargon of 5e.

Well, sorta. Basic Attack implies that you have some less-basic attacks as an alternative. The Battlemaster does, and there a spells and supernatural powers that enhance or act as riders. It'd be a matter of neatly excluding those...

And honestly, I don't think 5e's loose balance (intra-party balance with respect to combat or across pillars, and the dubiously reliability of the encounter budgeting system - at all - but especially so when considering the effect on Bounded Accuracy and the expectant Saving Throw paradigm that the synergy of a few class features/spells and/or feat combos has) would be too terribly concerned about the terrifying specter of a Warlock + a Warlord.

Very true.

Classic D&D did aim for balance it just missed (it was early days), 3.x was more concerned with rewarding system mastery, 4e delivered robust class-balance....

5e is less concerned with balance than any other edition. Not less balanced, just less concerned. It's better balanced than 3.5, for instance, but that's because it's also less concerned with rewarding system mastery.

It's just a more open design paradigm. It's hard to form a coherent objection to much of anything in the context of 5e. Like as not, however appalling something may seem, there's probably a DM for whom it'll work nicely out there waiting for it.