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

How many fans want a 5E Warlord?

  • I want a 5E Warlord

    Votes: 139 45.9%
  • Lemmon Curry

    Votes: 169 55.8%

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Why do I get the feeling, however, that that's not the only thing this proposed warlord is doing...

It probably isn't the only thing. So he's not going to be able to do his buff every single round all day then, or he's going to have some limited resource that he can use to do X, Y, or Z, but not all of them all the time.

I'd consider an 'until a short rest' sort of mechanic as the most interesting. Clerics pretty much have daily resources, with a little bit of short rest recovery. Warlords could have mostly at-will and short rest mechanics, with a possibility to do something more impressive once a day or in a really tight spot, etc.
 

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AbdulAlhazred said:
I disagree, there are CERTAINLY Martial Archetypes, Arcane Archetypes, and Divine Archetypes (and you could argue that there are also 'Primal' Archetypes). 5e classes tend to be able to do some admixture based on choice of character option, but every class has an easily identifiable core power source.

Likewise roles are NOT a construct of 4e. They are a natural outgrowth of tactical reality and arise spontaneously. 'Defender' is what armies call 'infantry' - guys that can take and hold ground, and deny it to the enemy. Strikers are heavy weapons, artillery and 'cavalry' essentially, which can bring concentration of firepower on critical areas. Leaders are support troops, the 'medical corps' and other such things. Controllers are basically artillery in its role as suppressing fire and area denial, and in some sense skirmishers or light cavalry that restrict the movement and disrupt the timing of the enemy.

And regardless of the lack of such labels you can clearly put a primary role on every 5e class. And the more a class focuses on and embodies one of these natural jobs, the more likely it is to be a coherent and satisfying design.




Myths created to support the rules presented in a previous edition of a game do not equate to truth.

The 'Roles' designed for 4E are a) not archetypal and b) gone in 5E (thank goodness!). That is the truth of the matter.
 

Myths created to support the rules presented in a previous edition of a game do not equate to truth.

The 'Roles' designed for 4E are a) not archetypal and b) gone in 5E (thank goodness!). That is the truth of the matter.

They're still there and they've still always been there though. And its not just D&D, the Tank/Healer/DPS dynamic is a well known thing and is archetypal. 4E didn't design them

4E at least tried to shove a fourth in there in the form of Controller
 

The root of the problem, IMO. The warlord got to forsake needing to bother with physical prowess and personal combat ability, while ensuring their "off-stats" (INT/CHA/WIS) were pumped up to fuel their class abilities, freeing them up to concentrate on social and interaction features of the game, and still got to hit like the rogue using sneak attack or the barbarian charging or whatever other optimal attack was needed in the moment.

Best of both worlds. Overly flexible. Some might say too good a deal...

I think we'd have to see an actual class design to make that kind of critique really. I mean a warlord that tanks STR/CON/DEX is certainly moving to the back ranks with the casters. He's pretty much giving up whatever melee combat capability he could have, which may not be crippling, but presumably limits his options somewhat and reduces his combat utility, possibly in direct proportion to how much the extra CHA or INT or whatever increases it.

And certainly a bard can do the same, can't it? I mean there's no reason you can't be a back-rank bard that has a cranked INT/WIS/CHA. I don't think there's any insurmountable design issues here.
 

I think we'd have to see an actual class design to make that kind of critique really. I mean a warlord that tanks STR/CON/DEX is certainly moving to the back ranks with the casters. He's pretty much giving up whatever melee combat capability he could have, which may not be crippling, but presumably limits his options somewhat and reduces his combat utility, possibly in direct proportion to how much the extra CHA or INT or whatever increases it.

And certainly a bard can do the same, can't it? I mean there's no reason you can't be a back-rank bard that has a cranked INT/WIS/CHA. I don't think there's any insurmountable design issues here.

Whenever it comes to Warlords, my go-to is a certain video of a warlord, you know, just killing a man by speaking

That's what a Warlord does
 

I've actually forgotten nothing. I didn't play 3. I didn't play 4e (other than some online playtesting for EN world's Zeitgeist adventure development and that was fairly shortlived). So whatever happened from 3.5 into 4 and the "edition war" business was completely outside my experience. None of the complaints about 4e that came/were a result of it deviating from 3e can be pinned on me.

If I had been around then, I suspect, I would have been saying the same thing to the 3.x people about 4. It was, quite obviously, not the same game. Which is no reflection, in any way, on whether I like or dislike either or both of them.

Yeah, I was being a little tongue-in-cheek. There MIGHT be some people here that made those arguments in 4e days, I don't honestly know. They were very common arguments, but rather silly ones that most of us didn't take very seriously.

I think 4e DID translate 3.5 characters pretty well, mostly. It just translated them into a sort of different language, being a much more 'super hero/action hero' sort of genre compared to 3.5's kind of oddball mix of simulationism and gonzo. Still, I think "you shouldn't be able to do that" is a bad argument. It SURE didn't work for us back in the day! Those spellthief fans are still mad! ;)
 

The Warlord is it own thing nowerdays

Actually, it *isn't* which is the point of this thread. The Warlord doesn't exist in 5e. The question is -- *should* it?

I have a hard time visualizing a version of the Warlord that would be satisfactory under 5e's design paradigm.

At last count, there were over 1000 3rd edition classes/prestige classes. In 4e there were a couple dozen. There was a lot of overlap in those classes. For 5e, they've tried to pare down the clutter. In my opinion, The Warlords shtick was separated into the Bard and Battle Master and that is a good enough solution. It's not a perfect representation of 4e's Warlord, but I don't see a good way to bring it forward to the new edition.
 

the problem is tnag there is no good way of recombining the warlord now that it's split.

i want an apple, and you give me apple pie.
not quite the same.
 
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They're still there and they've still always been there though. And its not just D&D, the Tank/Healer/DPS dynamic is a well known thing and is archetypal. 4E didn't design them

4E at least tried to shove a fourth in there in the form of Controller
Pre 4e, roles were descriptive: a fighter would tank because he has the best AC and HP. A cleric healed because he has the easiest access to cure spells. A rogue was a dps because he had sneak attack and backstab multipliers. In 4e, they were prescriptive: a paladin got divine challenge because he was a defender, warlord and artificer got healing because they were leaders, rangers got Hunters quarry because they were strikers. Role was also a limiter; fighters sucked at archery because they were supposed to be in melee defending. Druid healing was crippled because they were controllers, etc.

5e went back to descriptive again.
 

They're still there and they've still always been there though. And its not just D&D, the Tank/Healer/DPS dynamic is a well known thing and is archetypal. 4E didn't design them

4E at least tried to shove a fourth in there in the form of Controller
No, they're not, which is why 4E fans complain about 5E. These are things introduced, and exclusive to, D&D 4E. It's simply untrue to suggest that they are part of any other incarnation of D&D (notwithstanding late 3.5 supplements where the formative ideas of 4E were being developed). I wouldn't play D&D if they were part of it.

And I am sick of people trying to conflate the notion of an 'archetype' which is a literary/narrative term, with a 'role' which is a mechanical function of a game. If I wanted to play a MMO version of D&D or whatever it is, I'd buy an Xbox.
 
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