Well, there's baggage here. In the same way that I don't like to play with Drow (because in my view the 'good' adventurer Drow should be an extreme rarity, but thanks to a certain 3rd rate fictional character whose name rhymes with zits there's now at least one Drow at every table) I find the notion of the 'officer' class highly distasteful. So, being human, I recognize that the first time I have to sit down at a table with a Warlord I'm going to be pretty grumpy about it, perhaps largely as a result of my impressions for forum discussions.
I hope (futilely?) that being open about my now-less-than-objective biases doesn't cause Warlord-proponents to play some kind of high road, "I'm being totally objective" card. We all carry that baggage in one form or another, and it's affecting all of our opinions.
Hehe, sure. I don't think there's really much objective about RPGs. We play them for highly personal reasons, and there are really no constraints on their content except our own likes and dislikes and what will fly with the other people we play with. I just happen to have a very wide range of things that I accept in games, I don't worry about or really much think about the sorts of issues that are discussed here while playing. I may be unusual, at least amongst forum goers.
I meant that in the sense of a non-specialist in this specific narrow domain. (Or "Domain" really.) A cleric of Piblokto should, by definition, know far more about praying to Piblokto than any other class, unless he intentionally chooses to roleplay otherwise.
I would think he would take this class specifically to support a certain type of RP. I suspect this is pretty significantly the case with 4e warlord players too. It turns out that because the class evokes a lot of social interactions players seem to invest a lot into the social aspects of warlord characters. Its interesting.
Again, for me it is the sum of the class, not the details of any one particular piece. When everything about the class...from its name to the description of its abilities to the agency dilemma posed by non-magical healing to the illustrative scenarios described by its proponents (e.g., the Patton-yelling-at-the-private example)...paints a portrait of a class that has authority/command over other player characters, then it's hard for me to just pretend that fluff doesn't exist.
And I suspect it's the same for proponents, or they wouldn't be arguing so hard for that fluff.
Yeah, but I don't see it as really different from other niches that other characters have. The cleric has authority over spiritual matters, and in an RP sense for certain, can and should exercise it over other PCs. I know they often DON'T, but at least back in the old days of D&D you were expected to play to your alignment and the interests of your god, so it was kind of a rule, even if not a mechanic. Paladins also spring to mind, and rangers have a set of assumed ideals as well. Now, not all of those impinge mechanically on the behavior of other PCs, but in an RP sense you're not really playing your druid right if you let the dwarf chop down trees left and right and the wizard start forest fires. So its not like this is really Warlord issue, specifically. Its just harder to avoid perhaps with a warlord, though I still say its a corner case in real play.
My first reaction to that is that if you really don't like everything else 5e, why are you playing it? Will introducing the one class that you do like fix it? I hesitate to say "why don't you stick with 4e?" because that question is clearly overused as a kind of "love it or leave it" denigration, but...why don't you stick with 4e?
Do you always have choices? No. And I haven't said I dislike everything else about 5e either. And yes, the re-introduction of content that was really well-liked by many of us will improve our enjoyment of the game. Is that really surprising?
I love almost everything about 5e. It's by far my favorite edition. I'm an old grognard and it encapsulates a lot of what I loved about AD&D, without the parts I didn't like. There are a few details I'm not crazy about (Eldritch Knight, Polearm and Crossbow Experts, Drow PCs, low barriers to multiclassing, etc.) but overall I think it's awesome.
Furthermore, I don't believe that "more options are always better; you can always ignore the parts you don't like." I like games with fewer options. I never played 4e, but when I've picked up the books I think, "Ugh...too many tables and choices and races and maneuvers and rules." I do not want 5e to be that. I'm not trying to keep "bad" options (or my perception thereof) out of the game to be spiteful or mean, I genuinely do not want the game to bloat with options.
And yet there are a vast array of interesting and potentially fun options. I mean just looking at the holes in the PHB where are other priest domains, bard colleges, warlock pacts, druid circles, etc? These are all things that beg to be defined. Maybe they're not all needed in every game or setting, but surely they CAN add to the game. Likewise there are things like the warlord, and probably a few other things that wouldn't hurt. I'd like to see Eladrin make a reappearance for instance, and several of the other 4e races were pretty cool too, devas, shades, minotaurs, kenku.
I like analogies, so here's another one: I would really hate to see the table on modern weapons in the DMG become a mainstream thing. Just because the devs figured out a way to balance laser rifles so that they're really no more powerful than bows, I just don't want to see players running around with them. "But just pretend they are bows!" No....it changes the flavor of the game. Every game has a different feel to it, and I like the feel of 5e as it is.
Yet the existence of that table hasn't hurt any games. I'm sure someone somewhere has complained about it (and every other page in the DMG) but its not really a big thing, is it?
Would the inclusion of the Warlord (or laser guns) ruin it completely? No...but it's a step in that direction. If the Warlord, what else? Gish? Hexblade? Warden? No and no and no and no thank you.
My attempts in these threads, and my suggestions, is to figure out exactly what the Warlord proponents want to see if something can be designed that provides the necessary mechanics, but with a flavor that fits into the design aesthetic of 5e. Warlord, as proposed, does not feel like a good fit with the rest of 5e*, from the name on down. In my opinion. It's like adding an addition to a building in a totally different architectural style: it can be done well but it's not enough for the addition by itself to be good design: it also has to fit, aesthetically.
But maybe I should explain it this way: just like I truly don't understand why "non-magical, non-supernatural" is so important, but I'm taking it on faith that it is and trying to accommodate it, please take it on faith that I (and I assume others) truly believe that the inclusion of some "options" will adversely affect the overall game. I know you don't understand how that could be true, but it doesn't necessarily mean that I/we are wrong, just that we look at RPGs differently.
*That said, some of the proposed mechanics in that nicely formatted homebrew a few posts up seem perfectly nice. I'll read it again and respond.
Yeah, I can only say that you must expect that we don't agree with that and will continue to advocate for the addition of elements that we enjoy. Honestly, I think that your coming from a much older and different version of D&D. You call yourself a 'grognard'. I've played since 1975, so I know 'classic' D&D intimately. I just got tired of it, way back when. I found 4e a lot less limiting, and while I'm not jumping with joy over 5e it is certainly a lot more open-ended in terms of adding material than B/X or '0e' just in terms of being better able to incorporate it.
I guess I could say 'go play an OSR game', but I don't really have any more desire to say that than you have to tell me to go play 4e. Nobody here is saying 'go away'. I'm at most saying 'try it, you might actually like some of this stuff more than you think'. I thought the hexblade, Warden, Swordmage, etc were all pretty cool additions to the game. They certainly have as solid a basis as druids, rangers, monks, assassins, and illusionists.
