D&D 5E (2014) How many fans want a 5E Warlord?

[Gnashtooth]

JUST THOUGHT YOU WIMPS WOULD LIKE TO SEE WHAT MY LEVEL 40 PECS AND MAGIC ARMOR LOOK LIKE I MULTICLASSED IN THE SAME CLASS, THAT'S WARLORD/20 + WARLORD/20 FOR YOU HAM AND EGGERS

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

While I personally like the idea of a grappling fighter build as a way of a exerting a little control on enemies, there's two small problems with that suggestion:

1) It's a little weird from a genre perspective: outside of a fairly specific Heracles/strongman archetype, you don't see a whole lot of 'wrestlers' going in against armed opponents and monsters in genre. When you do, it's even rarer to see them in armor, and I can't think of any case of a character in armor, with a shield, grabbing enemies with his free hand as a primary combat strategy.

2) According to the latest Sage Advice, grappling is an action, not an attack action (like it was in 3.x). While DMs are free to rule otherwise, hanging a whole archetype on favorable DM rulings isn't the most compelling case for that archetype being well-supported.

"Genre" arguments aren't my thing because it's never clear what genre is being discussed, but in passing I can think of at least one armored character from literature off the top of my head who was into shield bashes and physical combat: Kurik, from the Elenium by David Eddings. I shouldn't wonder if Colonel van Buskirk would fit comfortably in that mold as well, though of course he is okay with cutting and cleaving as well.

RE: Extra attack, let's review what Sage Advice actually says:

Keep in mind that the grappling rule in the Player’s Handbook requires the Attack action, so a creature must take that action—rather than Multiattack or another action in the creature’s stat block—when it uses that rule.

The logic for disallowing grapples during Multiattack does not apply to Extra Attack, because Extra Attack happens during an Attack action whereas Multiattack happens in lieu of an Attack action.

 

[I'm A Banana]

In my book, I could easily live with the following:

• A New Class. What with bards and paladins being magical and fighters being fight-y, I think the cry for a new class is warranted. Not necessary per se, but I could see a lot of value in it, which is something that I wouldn't say about artificers or psions, necessarily.
• The Class focuses on Cha, then Int, maybe. If we're makin' a new class, we might as well give it the high ability scores that people are lookin' for. I'd be content with an ability score section that read "Make Charisma your highest ability score, followed by Intelligence." Maybe these replace your STR or DEX on attack rolls or AC! I'm in. You could even switch 'em up or whatever. No pony in that race, happy to see Int given a little more love in 5e.
• The class is non-magical. No spells. I think no daily-limited abilities (we're lookin' at a short-rest-recharge class). No supernatural light shows.
• The class gets most of its "nova damage potential" from buffs. The most straightforward and literal example of this would be "give an ally Sneak Attack damage or something like it on an enemy of your choice." "Something like it" might include an enemy debuff ("next person to hit this guy knocks him prone!") or an ally buff ("next person to hit this guy gains 5 temp hp"), maybe, but either way it's based on what allies do, with you enabling it.
• The class does not grant others actions at will. Action-granting is a short-rest-recharge thing, something that consumes a resource, something that is limited. You can be pretty lazy in this class with the above bullet point. You can still help allies take a move or an attack action a few rounds out of the fight, though. At high levels, get the whole party to join in.
• The class can keep an ally going, including waking up an unconscious ally. The class does this without healing hit points. Temp HP, die hard mechanics, damage mitigation, punishment mechanics ("if you hit my friend, he'll get an AC buff, so go ahead."), saving throw bonuses. They should be at least as good at a paladin as these things. Being a damage-remover should be an easy auto-pilot choice.
• Archetypes: The class in general is an "Inspiring Leader," the lady giving the rousing speech and fighting at the front lines who can tell those fighting with her where their efforts might be needed most because, like a high-Int wizard, she sees the battlefield at a remove. She's a clever reader of the battlefield and her presence makes everyone fight a little bit harder. Her class options might include mounted cavaliers, knight-protectors and samurai in shining armor (but without the paladin's supernatural vibe), nobles trained in the arts of war, tactically-minded military commanders, and maybe even an area-effect-specialist magical general.

My understanding is that that's not warlord enough for a lot of warlord fans.

 

[Tony Vargas]

"Genre" arguments aren't my thing because it's never clear what genre is being discussed

The broader heroic fantasy genre in general, I'd think. Anything from low-fantasy & S&S to Lovecraft to High Fantasy, cinematic fantasy, and myth & legend.

And it is hard to call to mind a character who would arm himself with heavy armor and a shield, but not an actual weapon. It's odd. Not that I have a problem with the odd odd character concept, just with it being the only viable way to realize a much broader, more conventional concept. Though Sentinel helps, as well.

And thanks for the clarification, I somehow read multi-attack as 'extra attack.' Danger of having played too many version of the same game. My faith in Sage Advice is somewhat restored.

I've said before I don't care if they make a warlord, but I'm failing to see a place where one exists beyond "it was in 4e".

Maybe you figure that since it was in 4e, there can't be any reason for wanting it besides '4venging,' just as it might seem there's no reason for opposing it but 'h4ting.' It'd be wonderful to get away from that edition-war era taint - until we do, all of D&D - the current edition, the game's history, the reputation of its community - is diminished.

First off, I really don't appreciate that any criticism of 4e is viewed by you as "h4ting." I'll GIVE you reasons to 4venge if you want, but my concerns are in 5e, and now. So knock off the "haters gonna hate" crap, it weakens your argument.

You suggested that the only reason I'd want a Warlord was because it was in 4e. If you think that sort of things weakens arguments, you might want to avoid it - and avoid reading it into others' posts - going forward.

Now, my problem with the warlord is not conceptual. The idea of an intelligence-based warrior has appeal, as does the idea of a leader class of some type. I like the marshal (weak as it was) and allowed it in 3e. Likewise, I liked Pathfinder's cavalier, which borrows some elements of "smart fighter/inspiring leader" as well. On pure basis of that, I hold nothing against the warlord. (I was also an advocate for the "every PHB1 class in 5e" stance, assassin, warlord, and illusionist included).

Love to see you suit your posts to match that assertion some day.

What I have problems with so far, I haven't seen a warlord suggested that I would allow in game. There are a number of reasons why. The biggest is that for all of 5e's "looser" form of balance, most warlords end up tossing out bonuses that wreck bounded accuracy.

That sounds like you've seen what the 5e Warlord class is going to be. Have you seen a playtest version we haven't, or are you just imagining a worst-case scenario? Could you maybe favor us with a best-case scenario for contrast?

Above all, I'm not seeing what a warlord brings to the game other than "battlemaster, but more powerful" or "bard, but nonmagical." Nobody has convinced me that there is a way to MECHANICALLY do a warlord that isn't going break the game in one or more ways.

I'm surprised you're so worried about balance in a game like 5e, especially as a psioinics fan and advocate for the not-magic version which'd introduce a supernatural power set as versatile/powerful as magic, but immune to some of the most dramatic checks that the DM can use against it.

So conceptually, I don't mind the idea. Mechanically, I haven't seen one suggested here or in the other thread that works.

Really, at this point, the conversation is, or should be, mostly conceptual. Design is in the designers' court, and shooting down spit-balled fan speculation about what a warlord mechanic might be like isn't that meaningful (however much fun it may be to shout 'pull' and blow away another dream).

Nor really am I feeling the game is lacking for not having one right now

I guess that's personal. If you don't want a Warlord or don't want to get too deep into the concept, then the lack of one, or the presence a barely-suggestive-of-a-Warlord a feat like Inspiring Leader or sub-class like Battlemaster, is probably adequate.
I can empathize: if I really wanted to play a psion, right now, I'd play a GOO Warlock and be fine with it, since I was never deeply into the distinctiveness and concept of past versions of Psionics. I'd have telepathy, and choose some mind-affecting spells, and re-skin the whole pact thing. Or I could go with a Sorcerer, make similar spell choices and call him a 'Wild Talent.' That'd be all the psion I'd need, and more.

But, I wouldn't expect a fan of psionics to whom psionic combat or psi not being magic or just the full range of things psionic classes have been able to do in past editions were critical aspects, to be satisfied with that.

(whereas I really want a good psionic and artificer class). So overall, I end up neutral. I just haven't seen anything much that doesn't sound like a DM headache.

Speaking of concepts that could break 5e if you assume the worst-case, the Artificer /makes magic items/. That's the concept. In 5e, magic items are very powerful, pretty rare, and almost entirely in the DMs bailiwick (healing potions seem like pretty nearly the only exception - certainly the only one I can call to mind atm). That's a major design stumbling block, and not one that I'd want to tackle, nor one that I would require anyone who wanted to see an artificer in 5e to solve before I'd allow that the class is worthy of possible development.

That said, I love the concept of the Artificer, have had a great time playing one, and playing alongside one, and would love to see what the designers could come up with to make one work in 5e. Afterall, the Artificer was present in the last two editions, and, while I never dealt with the 3.5 version, the 4e version was reasonably balanced, playable, and had a way around the magic-item-creation conundrum. I'm sure if editions as far apart on the balance scale as 3.x and 4e could both handle the Artificer, 5e certainly can.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This has been the exact opposite in my campaign. The Arcane Trickster with the mobile feat is continuously running in, attacking someone else's opponent (at which point he no longer provokes Opp Attks) and then either dashing away or ducking behind cover and hiding (using Cunning Action for either one). He's the slipperiest and hardest character to lock down and do some actual damage to unless some fluke causes him to get caught out in the open on a surprise round...

I think this is the "TOTM Effect" in action. We play on a grid, where you find that zipping all the way into melee and back out to a safe location is simply not going to happen (a character with 35' movement is going to likely be able to move 20', attack, and then POSSIBLY move back within the cover of his allies, though I think this relies on specific readings of Cunning Action). Not that our thief doesn't manage plenty of backstabs and surprise attacks, he does. Sometimes he also slides out of the way and avoids a counterpunch, but that will NOT always work. For example we took on a hydra the other day, you're just not getting away from those heads, not unless you can move faster than a normal character. Nobody actually went down in that fight, because we unleashed everything we had on the beast and fried it in round 3, though it did predictably take a nice chunk out of old Doodle's hit points!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

A 4e character had to be willing to count as an "ally".

Yeah, because he totally won't just support some other character in the party.

Its irrelevant anyway, because its a total corner-case. Basically what they're saying is "We find this class unacceptable because we might someday run some sort of obnoxious special snowflake character that would be imposed on."

Its a crappy argument and the whole issue is one that should be dealt with at table, not in the rules. Even 4e lets you play evil PCs if you want, which is at least as much of an issue as this, and 5e doesn't ban those either. I note that a lot of tables do, and in fact where I play the whole "I hate you, I won't let you heal me because RP!" thing is LIKELY to get you the boot pretty fast.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The broader heroic fantasy genre in general, I'd think. Anything from low-fantasy & S&S to Lovecraft to High Fantasy, cinematic fantasy, and myth & legend.

And it is hard to call to mind a character who would arm himself with heavy armor and a shield, but not an actual weapon. It's odd. Not that I have a problem with the odd odd character concept, just with it being the only viable way to realize a much broader, more conventional concept. Though Sentinel helps, as well.

You don't have to not have a weapon to be a good controller. You just have to sheathe it occasionally when you need some extra control. For standard scenarios, regular old shield bashing works about as well as Sentinel without ever requiring you to sheathe your weapon--but you do have the option, and it is the claim that fighters can't do that which I was addressing.

As far as genre goes, I vaguely recall a certain dwarven Battlerager in R.A. Salvatore's books who loved to grapple enemies and then burrow into them with his spiked armor. A grapple fighter could do that just fine in 5E. Shield Master + Tavern Brawler would mechanically the best implementation of it so you can get your proficiency bonus on your improved weapon attacks (armor spikes, 1d4 + STR), but honestly a plain vanilla melee fighter would do fine too.

But again, I'm not really that interested in "genre" analysis. I'm more interested in what D&D fighters can actually do, regardless of whether or not there's a character in a book somewhere who does something similar.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You don't have to not have a weapon to be a good controller. You just have to sheathe it occasionally when you need some extra control. For standard scenarios, regular old shield bashing works about as well as Sentinel without ever requiring you to sheathe your weapon--but you do have the option, and it is the claim that fighters can't do that which I was addressing.

I don't recall saying anything about fighter's as Controllers (if I did, it'd've probably been in reference to 3.5 battlefield control builds, but maybe I brought up 4e 'brawling' fighters) - I've honestly lost track of that over the weekend.

Edit: Actually, I was going on about martial controllers (and the lack thereof in 4e) last week, but that wasn't what we were talking about. Here it is:

The fighter /is/ deeply committed to high-DPR as it's prime contribution in combat, it's class features put it there with little flexibility to temper it with anything else, and no way at all to opt out of high DPR in favor of something else.

What we're talking about is that little bit of flexibility fighters have to temper DPR with something else. Whether it's really viable compared to sticking with DPR, I'm not so sure...

But this is an interesting topic, and I hope no one minds the digression:

So what about the opposite, the character who uses a one-handed or hand-and-a-half weapon, but takes a hand off it now and then to grapple someone or cling to a much larger enemy (a classic), do you think that's doable? Or is the shield necessary to make the build viable?

But again, I'm not really that interested in "genre" analysis. I'm more interested in what D&D fighters can actually do, regardless of whether or not there's a character in a book somewhere who does something similar.

If it's something you don't see in genre, then not being able to do it is NBD. If it's something you see all the time, then you can feel the lack. Conversely, if something's very prominent in the game, but almost unheard of in genre, it's poor emulation.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Grids were an innovation - in the early/mid 80s, AFAICR. Mini's were part of the game from it's beginnings in Chainmail and 0D&D (which /said/ it was a wargame using miniature figures right on the cover). To say that D&D 'always used minis' in the historical sense was correct - it always had rules for doing so. To say that everyone who played D&D always used minis would be presumptuous & unverifiable, at least. Back in the day, many of us (being quite young) couldn't afford to quickly build large collections of minis, for one instance, or didn't have space for a full-scale play surface to use them on, for another.

The AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide was released in 1979 and includes diagrams showing how to use a square grid and a hex grid to determine how many enemies can attack a character and which ones of them you get a shield bonus against, etc. I can attest to grids being a well-known technique going right back to 1974.

It was pretty common to rule playing surfaces for games like Chainmail (played on a tabletop or other surface with minis) in either squares or hexes. This facilitated movement determination and other rules procedures. Technically Chainmail used a ruler to measure distance and templates to establish AoE, so it didn't use a grid as a core part of the rules, but it was commonly used. OD&D generally used square 10' grids for mapping, but 5' might be used as well. Outdoors the rules were written to use Avalon Hill's Survival game, which is hex-based and the rules reference hexagons a number of times.

I'd also note that there WERE battlemats you could purchase even before 1980, though wet-erase was a bit of a new-fangled thing back then. I know I had one that was hex-ruled that I purchased before 1980.

Basic and AD&D broke from Chainmail being the official combat system, but its conventions were still maintained, so grids were 'sanctioned and recognized', but the rules weren't generally written around them like 3.5 and 4e are. They WERE written explicitly with a map and distance measurement in use though, there was no mention in AD&D of 'ToTM' and, as I said above, it was explained how to use a grid for certain purposes.

 

[MoonSong]

In my book, I could easily live with the following:

• A New Class. What with bards and paladins being magical and fighters being fight-y, I think the cry for a new class is warranted. Not necessary per se, but I could see a lot of value in it, which is something that I wouldn't say about artificers or psions, necessarily.
• The Class focuses on Cha, then Int, maybe. If we're makin' a new class, we might as well give it the high ability scores that people are lookin' for. I'd be content with an ability score section that read "Make Charisma your highest ability score, followed by Intelligence." Maybe these replace your STR or DEX on attack rolls or AC! I'm in. You could even switch 'em up or whatever. No pony in that race, happy to see Int given a little more love in 5e.
• The class is non-magical. No spells. I think no daily-limited abilities (we're lookin' at a short-rest-recharge class). No supernatural light shows.
• The class gets most of its "nova damage potential" from buffs. The most straightforward and literal example of this would be "give an ally Sneak Attack damage or something like it on an enemy of your choice." "Something like it" might include an enemy debuff ("next person to hit this guy knocks him prone!") or an ally buff ("next person to hit this guy gains 5 temp hp"), maybe, but either way it's based on what allies do, with you enabling it.
• The class does not grant others actions at will. Action-granting is a short-rest-recharge thing, something that consumes a resource, something that is limited. You can be pretty lazy in this class with the above bullet point. You can still help allies take a move or an attack action a few rounds out of the fight, though. At high levels, get the whole party to join in.
• The class can keep an ally going, including waking up an unconscious ally. The class does this without healing hit points. Temp HP, die hard mechanics, damage mitigation, punishment mechanics ("if you hit my friend, he'll get an AC buff, so go ahead."), saving throw bonuses. They should be at least as good at a paladin as these things. Being a damage-remover should be an easy auto-pilot choice.
• Archetypes: The class in general is an "Inspiring Leader," the lady giving the rousing speech and fighting at the front lines who can tell those fighting with her where their efforts might be needed most because, like a high-Int wizard, she sees the battlefield at a remove. She's a clever reader of the battlefield and her presence makes everyone fight a little bit harder. Her class options might include mounted cavaliers, knight-protectors and samurai in shining armor (but without the paladin's supernatural vibe), nobles trained in the arts of war, tactically-minded military commanders, and maybe even an area-effect-specialist magical general.

My understanding is that that's not warlord enough for a lot of warlord fans.

Well, I like what you propose, with just two details. It should have the option to surrender your own attack at will -maybe only for a subclass that is about being lazy- and that the easiest way to keep allies going is with a regular healing ability instead of five different ones that cover small aspects of it that in turn need you to keep track of all of them. I wouldn't want to demand game mastery just to do what I think is one of the main jobs of the class. (Could you tell me if the class I made ticks those points for you?)