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

[AbdulAlhazred]

The Complete Priests Handbook was written, iirc, by a freelancer who disliked the cleric and tended toward low magic. He even says you should "tone down" (cripple) the cleric. They never even tried to balance them until PO: Spells & Magic.

That said, good idea, poor execution.

Yeah, I LOVED the book, it was the best thing in 2e really, but it just didn't mesh with the rest of the game, as Tony said. This was the whole issue with both 2e and 3e though, there were VERY few real guidelines. The SYSTEM itself didn't help you put together classes and other content. 4e really cut the other way, you can very easily 'get it right' in that edition.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This does not match my considerable experience. Was this perhaps a local phenomenon?

No, I don't know where you were during 4e if you didn't get that message. Its possible in YOUR area it wasn't that popular? I know from a lot of online play and many many 100's of hours of discussions on the WotC boards that it was a quite popular class. I'm sure in sheer numbers of PCs played that the 'big 4' dominated, as in any edition, but I'm equally sure that the warlord was right up there. It was effective, and fun, and there were a number of quite straightforward character concepts that it provided.

 

[Aldarc]

This does not match my considerable experience. Was this perhaps a local phenomenon?

I suspect that the pro-warlord crowd likely had considerable experience in which the warlord was well-loved. so I'm not sure what trying to relegate the class's popularity as a "local phenomenon" sets about to accomplish apart from marginalizing someone else's experience.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

<snip> I know from a lot of online play and many many 100's of hours of discussions on the WotC boards that it was a quite popular class. <snip>

Interesting demo. I've heard it said many times that internet fan site populations (and forumites in particular) are a lousy demo when trying to establish a norm or baseline across the greater population. Has anyone else heard that or know what I'm referring to? Its always rung true to me at least. Kinda makes sense if you think about it.

Anyway, I'm basing my experience on the hundreds of hours and hundreds of players, in Organized Play (RPGA) here at the three large gaming conventions I help run every year in SoCal. As well as the tons of private games and FLGS events I've participated in throughout the 4e run. It was very popular out here for years. In fact I got back into RPGA when it was released because I was unhappy with the 3e living campaigns.

<shrug>

 

[ChrisCarlson]

I suspect that the pro-warlord crowd likely had considerable experience in which the warlord was well-loved.

Kinda circular logic, no? You basically just said that warlords were popular among those who liked the warlord...

Or am I misunderstanding? If I grokked it right, however, I agree with you.

 

[MoonSong]

Interesting demo. I've heard it said many times that internet fan site populations (and forumites in particular) are a lousy demo when trying to establish a norm or baseline across the greater population. Has anyone else heard that or know what I'm referring to? Its always rung true to me at least. Kinda makes sense if you think about it.

Anyway, I'm basing my experience on the hundreds of hours and hundreds of players, in Organized Play (RPGA) here at the three large gaming conventions I help run every year in SoCal. As well as the tons of private games and FLGS events I've participated in throughout the 4e run. It was very popular out here for years. In fact I got back into RPGA when it was released because I was unhappy with the 3e living campaigns.

<shrug>

Well, at least from people I play with that is still with 4e I can say that I've seen 4 warlords in three current games. We have to fight for who gets to play the lazylord. I'm not American based so that might have to be.

 

[Aldarc]

Kinda circular logic, no? You basically just said that warlords were popular among those who liked the warlord...

Or am I misunderstanding? If I grokked it right, however, I agree with you.

I think that the nature of your question lends itself to circular reasoning and circumstantial evidence, nor do you voice the possibility that your experience is also a "local phenomenon," hence my earlier contention that "I'm not sure what trying to relegate the class's popularity as a 'local phenomenon' sets about to accomplish apart from marginalizing someone else's experience." It's not as if all warlord fans exist solely within the "greater" Des Moines, Iowa area on some warlord fan reservation. We exist across the D&D playing globe. We go to the same conventions you do, where we discuss and play with other D&D players who talk about their own enjoyment of the warlord. Asking whether the warlord's popularity is simply a "local phenomenon" strikes me as an attempt to unfairly marginalize that experience or fanbase.

 

[Tony Vargas]

No, not at all. None of it has anything to do with a cursory reading of the books; I never even noticed the Warlord the few times I perused 4e books. I didn't know it existed before the Next playtest forums.

My opposition is based entirely on the descriptions and analogies offered in various forums, the language used in the homebrews, and the rationales offered by their proponents.

Is that a problem?

Forming an opinion solely on bad impressions based on hearsay? Not on an internet forum, no. I'm sure you'd be as welcome to one side of the debate, and as discounted by the other, regardless.

BTW, are you the same Elfcrusher who came up with 'Simulation Tautology?'

if I described a class that nailed all of your hot buttons, would YOU need to playtest it to know that you think it's a bad idea?

To 'know' it? No, not at all, prejudices are easy, they don't need confirmation, they even provide confirmation bias.

But I've relented about things like that in the past, and not gone stomping off just because someone else decided to play something I 'knew' was distasteful. It was never so bad as I expected. In some cases the experience changed my mind.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

I think that the nature of your question lends itself to circular reasoning and circumstantial evidence, nor do you voice the possibility that your experience is also a "local phenomenon," hence my earlier contention that "I'm not sure what trying to relegate the class's popularity as a 'local phenomenon' sets about to accomplish apart from marginalizing someone else's experience." It's not as if all warlord fans exist solely within the "greater" Des Moines, Iowa area on some warlord fan reservation. We exist across the D&D playing globe. We go to the same conventions you do, where we discuss and play with other D&D players who talk about their own enjoyment of the warlord. Asking whether the warlord's popularity is simply a "local phenomenon" strikes me as an attempt to unfairly marginalize that experience or fanbase.

What? I think we may be drifting into the weeds. WotC's own surveys more closely mirror my experience with the popularity of warlords. That they weren't all that. If someone states that their experience indicated that they were widely loved and popular, I'd suggest that maybe that local area has like-minded individuals that perhaps tended towards a particular bent. Have you heard of confirmation bias or clusters? Or even "birds of a feather..."? There are a lot of reasons why an individual may experience something locally they think to be widespread but which is in fact not the case. That's all I said.

And my extensive experience still runs counter to the claim that they were ever widely popular. That's not going to change.

 

[MechaPilot]

Popularity doesn't really matter. The bottom line does.

As long as enough fans want a warlord that WotC will profit from giving or selling a warlord class to those fans, they should do it. That doesn't have to mean a large percentage of fans. It could potentially be as low as five or ten percent.