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

[AbdulAlhazred]

As I said before, the roles were DESCRIPTIVE; they described how the character was USUALLY played. Now, it was certainly possible to break the molds (something every edition but 4e did right; allow out of the box thinking) but the fact that they could be broken does not deny that a lot of people DID view the guy with low AC and high HP as the one to get beat up in combat or that the moment you find yourself with half the party in single digit hp or dying, the "gee, maybe someone should have played a character with cure light wounds" didn't happen.

4e got it wrong when it said roles were PRESCRIPTIVE: they defined the class more than described it. Why does a fighter tank? Because he's a defender and that's what defenders do. Why does an artificer heal? Because he's a leader and that's what leaders do. That kind of thinking got 4e in trouble with grid-fillers, boxed thinking ("This is a new leader class. It MUST have encounter-based healing.") and rewriting of flavor to make the old classes conform to the new paradigm (such as druids losing most of their healing magic until Essentials). That was a bad choice, and one that Essentials started running away from pretty hardcore (though as early as PHB2 it was noticeable that classes were often descibed as X, with a little Y)

But to assume that the concept of roles sprung forth whole cloth in 2008 is ridiculous. It was an attempt to give game-mechanics and codify something people had been using unofficially for decades. 4e just went overboard with its implementation.

Well, I agree with the last part, but I think that the first statement you made is just incorrect. 4e can be quite flexible. You're not going to make an archer ranged striker using the fighter class, but a fighter can range anywhere from the GWF builds, which focus on high damage output and are basically strikers, to a 'sword-n-board' DEX fighter that is maximal defender and actually takes hits for his allies, to a super sticky Pole Arm Momentum fighter that is effectively a short-range controller (no enemy can disengage from him, not even with teleport). All of them will have CS/CA and the toughness needed to 'defend' to some degree, but they can quite effectively fill other roles. If you MC or use other options effectively you can achieve even more flexibility.

I don't think there's anything wrong with what you call 'PROSCRIPTIVE' roles. The problem was that pre-4e D&D's classes were very hit-or-miss haphazard designs. A designer wouldn't really have any clarity as to what the class' niche was and what it needed to achieve to work. Just looking at 1e, you had problems with the thief (too weak in combat, just got one backstab per fight and a weak ranged attack), the monk was worthless because it really didn't have a role at all, ranger was cool, but also lacked a real unique shtick in combat, and the wizard was all over everything as a be-all end-all swiss army knife. By 3e where you had lots of complex options per class it was a pure train wreck. Half the classes were really UTTERLY worthless, and the other half could do ANYTHING.

4e was a necessary correction. Sure, some classes were shorn of unneeded parts, and others got access to abilities that were necessary for them to be able to function adequately. The proof of its utility and success is in the pudding. All the 4e classes are VERY solid. Each does its job, does it reasonably well, and its easy to know what job was in mind for it. Yet you can still bend a class to fit at least some other concepts, and beyond that use a different class and bend THAT (IE ranger being your 'bow fighter' option).

 

[I'm A Banana]

And now in 5e, IMXP, class combat roles are not very strictly defined. Forex, there's two sorcerers in one of the campaigns I play in, one basically a "striker" and the other basically a "controller." Healing is less essential, so all you need to be a "leader" is a bit of damage mitigation or reviving capacity (conveniently available via potions of healing), and I could imagine playing a sorcerer as a leader, too, though you'd need to work harder at it. You could even play a sorc with the right spell load out and feats as a defender, if you wanted to.

The "roles" in 5e are much less about what a class is meant to do and much more about what you want to do with the class, though most classes have "default modes" that are easy or readily accessible and obvious (like a healing bard). This is massively helped by 5e's design requiring very little in the way of specialization or constantly escalating effects - you don't need to have The Best AC Ever And The Most Hit Points to be an effective tank, or Deal The Most Damage to be an effective striker, or heal scaling buckets of HP to be an effective "leader." You don't need to be equivalent to a cleric to replace one.

Often, specializations will develop (do you NEED three damage-dealers in a small party?), but even when they don't, it's just a tactical shift ("okay, we know our party doesn't have staying power, so lets ambush, hit fast, and get out of dodge before reinforcements arrive!").

It feels so much more organic than the official roles of 4e or even the unofficial roles of pre-4e felt.

 

[MoonSong]

... and I could imagine playing a sorcerer as a leader, too, though you'd need to work harder at it.

Favored Soul....

 

[I'm A Banana]

Favored Soul....

Yeah, not that much harder in that case. FS is also off to a good "tank mage" start!

For an example on the non-magical side, fighters be good leaders or controllers or strikers or defenders, too. On auto-pilot, they tend toward strikerhood, but Action Surge can be used for potions and grapples just as well, not to mention the "bonus feat" and things like Sentinel and Healer as feats.

It's one of the things I like about 5e a lot, and one of the things that folks coming from older editions seem to suffer a lot of older-edition-itis on ("What do you mean my ROGUE makes a good HEALER? That's not what rogues are for! SOMEONE needs to play the cleric!"). I'm pretty happy with how that turned out!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Okay. Y'know what? I'll bite. I'm not actually sold on this whole "ANYBODY can be ANYTHING, it's what you feel not what you have mechanics for!" argument, but if being "loosely" designed (or whatever it should be called) is a priority for some 5e fans, so be it.

My biggest concerns are these:
1. I have never seen a defense of "mitigation" nor THP that convinced me that they were actually capable of keeping an entire party going. Every description I hear is either just the ideal of it, or simply assumes that they absolutely HAVE to be perfectly equivalent because they're all having some kind of influence on the damage/HP spectrum. I do not, currently, believe that is the case. Actually "restoring" HP strikes me as orders of magnitude more useful, reliable, and meaningful...unless you make the mitigation/THP so big it's impossible to overcome, at which point it's very clearly broken as all hell. I have never seen even a single empirical nor mathematical argument either way; if someone would care to do the honors, I'd be very, very interested.
2. I feel the current Fighter is given far*googol too much incentive to go for heavy peronal damage output, heavy personal defense, or both. I strongly believe that the 5e Fighter is a bad choice for making a 5e translation of the Warlord for that reason. (I am also disappointed in 5e's continued failure, a heritage of all D&D, to give meaningful out-of-combat resources to the Fighter, though I have negative infinity interest in discussing why I'm sooooo wrong for failing to appreciate the non-combat applications of Action Surge). This is less a "sell me" and more a "why I'm not big on Battlemaster-as-Warlord" point. I strongly believe in a mutual shaping relationship between the (mechanically relevant) behavior a player engages in and the options/incentives provided to that player (via class, race, equipment, whatever).
3. I feel that the Warlord was at its best when, as I've said elsewhere, "facilitating" its allies, either directly (physically "leading the attack" and thus making allies better) or indirectly ("leading from the rear," granting attacks or "presence" stuff to allies). I feel these things are really core to the class. I've seen some ideas for how to do this in 5e, but a more...coherent presentation would be welcome.
4. I think it's...dumb (vast understatement to avoid language filter) to require a feat for a concept, particularly when feats are optional and, as I've learned from many a forum debate, very very very often banned completely. If the Warlord is to find a serious home in 5e, I currently believe it MUST be done both (a) without feats, and (b) such that relevant feats (e.g. Inspiring Leader) remain just as beneficial to the Warlord, if not moreso (just as feats supporting archery are highly desirable for anyone with high Dex and the Archery combat style).

It would also be pretty nice if any suggestions would tackle the whole "Warlords in 4e could leverage ANY mental stat into useful benefit," which was lovely and made for interesting, meaningful differences in play and focus.

 

[Yunru]

Okay. Y'know what? I'll bite. I'm not actually sold on this whole "ANYBODY can be ANYTHING, it's what you feel not what you have mechanics for!" argument, but if being "loosely" designed (or whatever it should be called) is a priority for some 5e fans, so be it.

My biggest concerns are these:
1. I have never seen a defense of "mitigation" nor THP that convinced me that they were actually capable of keeping an entire party going. Every description I hear is either just the ideal of it, or simply assumes that they absolutely HAVE to be perfectly equivalent because they're all having some kind of influence on the damage/HP spectrum. I do not, currently, believe that is the case. Actually "restoring" HP strikes me as orders of magnitude more useful, reliable, and meaningful...unless you make the mitigation/THP so big it's impossible to overcome, at which point it's very clearly broken as all hell. I have never seen even a single empirical nor mathematical argument either way; if someone would care to do the honors, I'd be very, very interested.

Proactive always beats reactive, value for value.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Proactive always beats reactive, value for value.

This...literally is no better than the assertion of superiority I've seen all along. People SAY it, and I'm not SEEING it.

I mean, sure, the whole "ounce of prevention"thing. Fine. But permanent it's better than ephemeral, to, and the non-permanent nature is kinda right there in the name.

 

[Yunru]

You have 100 hit points. You can take 25 TempHP now that lasts until tomorrow, or you can be healed for 25 at some point after you take damage.

You take 150 damage: TempHP saves you, healing doesn't.
You take 100 damage from Disintergrate: TempHP saves you, healing doesn't.
You take 100 damage: TempHP stops you falling unconscious, healing doesn't.
Etc.

 

[Bluenose]

When the druid came over to 4e, he was a powerful class. His spells were damn good; healing, buffing, and attack magic. Due to his ability to control elemental magic, he got pegged as a controller. Controllers don't primarily heal. So despite the fact that during 1e, 2e, and 3e a druid had most of the same healing power as a cleric, druids did NOT get a healing ability. In fact, I think they got maybe a few utility powers (number eludes me, but it was minor) and building a "healing druid" in 4e was impossible. Primal healing was handed over the shaman class.

Role-assigned mechanics are prescriptive. They don't describe what the class did, they tell it what to do. In situations like the artificer and druid, it radically altered the description to fit with the new roles prescription.

If all classes were designed around the idea that the right "build" could make them a master at anything, then you might be able to justify some classes being able to master multiple different things each day as they wished. If you don't design that way, and no edition of D&D has ever done that, then it's probably fairer to pick something a class should be good at and not allow them to also be good at multiple other things including ones that their archetype should have no business in.

You have 100 hit points. You can take 25 TempHP now that lasts until tomorrow, or you can be healed for 25 at some point after you take damage.

You take 150 damage: TempHP saves you, healing doesn't.
You take 100 damage from Disintergrate: TempHP saves you, healing doesn't.
You take 100 damage: TempHP stops you falling unconscious, healing doesn't.
Etc.

You take 125 damage. The temporary hit points do nothing for you, healing gets you back on your feet.

 

[Yunru]

You take 50 then 75, TempHP didn't save you, healing after the 50 doesn't save you.

TempHP are providable when you're at any non-zero number, and only loose effectiveness when you already have some. Healing is only providable when you're below MaxHP and is capped by MaxHP.