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

[El Mahdi]

Right now, this thread feels like a presidential campaign policy speech: heavy on promises, light on details. Everyone wants a stronger economy, lower taxes, and more secure borders, but nobody says how they'll do that. My brain is hardwired to be skeptical: I want to see policy, not rhetoric. I like to see the numbers and how they will balance. Especially on something I'm hesitate about.

That said, I'll leave you to your idea tossing. Call me if anyone wants to move on to practical ways of making his happen.

Uhmmm, okay...

Piggybacking off of the Warlording the fighter thread, and since we're gathering feedback on ideas for a potential "official" 5E Warlord (seeking feedback here and here )...

...(P.S.: I'm giving XP to anyone that reads the ideas in the "Warlording the Fighter" thread and leaves feedback.)

Granted, it's taking me quite a bit longer to put together all the feedback and post a polished draft (workable beta) than I expected, but it is coming along...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

CW is limited by the number of cleric spell slots. Potions of healing either cost GP (50 per shot) or are rare and can't be made (without the DM allowing it). Both expend a resource that doesn't refresh quickly, making them valuable to share.

Generally speaking you can't count on replacing potions, though of course you could posit different scenarios where the equation would go the other way (IE potions are easy to replace and you are pretty sure you need your spell slots). USUALLY its pretty obvious to save the potions for a really tight spot and use the guaranteed to renew CLW. Especially when the cleric can regain them at a short rest, so he might as well burn a couple before that.

For your build. You forgo a shield (+2 AC) and the choice to use your Dex (if you want to make a dex-based fighter, a 2-hander is NOT a no-brainer. Quite the opposite). Sure, if you're going GWF and GWM, you want a greatsword, but if you went TWF and Dex-build, its certainly a dumb choice.

Which just illustrates another point, because TWF is numerically inferior in pretty much every way. Yet players still use it? Why? Because numerical superiority isn't the only consideration in play, and thus 'obvious choice' is not always actually going to happen, its just one consideration of many.

Both of your examples have an opportunity cost. What is the cost of spamming Warlord healing vs. taking a short rest? There is none. In fact, there is a reward (+Cha) to using the quicker method.

But there are many other considerations in taking a short rest besides gaining access to hit dice. Its hardly likely that short rest will cease to be important simply because a warlord can give you more hit points some other way. And again, there's no requirement that this be unlimited.

Actually, that makes it worse. Since short rests are generally rarer, the ability to "top off" by using a HD without taking a short rest means PCs no longer have to gauge how hurt they are between combats (the trade off: do we wait and heal or press on) since they can effectively enter every combat again near full hp.

I think this point was part of a discussion of grouping hit dice heals and granting only one +CHA for each, which would mean you'd likely use several dice at once for less advantage while in combat, making the +CHA a smaller bonus. This would ENCOURAGE short rests.

I don't consider a "loophole" to be a good thing. Its just going to escalate the arms race between PCs and DMs seeking to challenge them.

When I say 'loophole' I mean that it was a possible strategy, with its own pluses and minuses that allows you to skirt a limitation, at a cost. Its not 'cheese'. Nor is it unexpected. The possibility is factored into the game already.

And pity poor bards; in an hour they can grant you an extra d6 of healing per HD. Or the warlord can provide a static bonus (and lets be honest, its not going to be +1.) per HD in 6 seconds.

But again, the proposal was for +CHA per heal, not per hit die. So depending on the situation one or the other character might be better. Depending on the exact stat requirements it is also not at all unlikely that 1d6 would be more than +CHA (though chances are there will be an 'inspiration maxing' build that may equal or beat a bard in some situations).

My personal desire for warlord healing is to be situational. Most of the great examples of Inspiring Speeches rousing a fallen comrade to fight on require a FALLEN comrade; maybe grant the warlord a feature like this.

ROUSE: A warlord can inspire even the fallen to rise up for one last shot at glory. As an action, you can cause an ally next to you who is below 0 HP to spend a hit dice and recover those many hp.

Inspirational speeches don't work on healthy people?

It captures the feeling of inspiring someone up, can be flavored however the DM likes (smell salts, triage, inspiring words, or a kick-and-being-told-to-wake-up), doesn't outclass HD in short rests (since it can only be used when the ally is at 0 hp) and doesn't redefine hp, inspiration, or come-off as magical. Warlords who want more healing can inspire allies (Temp HP) or have some sort of medical skill (like the healer feat or a class feature that works similar) or a bonus when the warlord is taking a short-rest (like a bard's song of healing).

I think being able to stand up during a short rest and buck everyone up is also pretty thematic.

That's the problem, everyone is arguing in a void because nobody is agreeing on what the warlord's parameters are beyond "tactics", "buffing" and "healing".

I don't think its a 'problem', its just that this isn't the place to delve too far into the details, unless you're going to propose a specific design. Frankly my interest in 5e is somewhat limited and I have lots of other things to keep me busy, so I'm not super inclined to get that much into it at this time. No doubt some reader or other of this thread will take on the task...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not getting that at all. As I said before, I could go either way on the 5E warlord. I should also point out that I'm a fan of all prior editions, including 4E. But I agree with @Remathilis: "How" is just as important as "what," sometime even more so. Saying it's too early in the conversation to worry about balance or mechanics makes no sense to me; AFAIAC, those go hand-in-hand with the conceptualizing. You can't advance one without the other.

But this thread was "How many fans want a 5E Warlord?", a detailed implementation is literally OT IMHO. Spitballing "here's some ways it could work" is at least tangentially part of the topic as it helps answer the question "what is a warlord", which you obviously can't discuss wanting until you know what it is.

Its not that I disagree with you that all the various mechanical discussions need to happen, but DO THEY NEED TO HAPPEN HERE AND NOW? I say no, not really. Spitballing is sufficient at this point. I'd suggest starting a '5e Warlord Design" thread and crossposting it here so those interested in doing that kind of grunt work can do it on topic .

(I also disagree that 5E has all but discarded class balance. It may not be as strict as 4E, but it's absolutely present, and often far more so than it might appear on the surface.)

Its quite far below the surface IME! Like you don't really see it in play. Actually its more like some classes dominate so thoroughly in some areas and others so thoroughly in other areas that the game is actually kinda wonky, and then there are classes that just play 2nd fiddle everywhere. Perhaps in some cosmic fashion they could all be called 'balanced', but when the Battlemaster fighter is single-handedly crushing boss monsters, and the wizard pretty much rules exploration, its a tough one to appreciate. Not that this is really unique to 5e, but it seems a lot more extreme than in 4e. If you came from 3e, then it must seem like an oasis of sanity, but that's not saying much...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Huh? Allowing a party to heal itself (via expedited HD use) once in 5 minutes rather than 1 hour, by spending all the PCs' HD, doesn't strike me as very god-like.

Maybe it's unbalanced, maybe not - more details would obviously be required - but all it's doing is giving a time advantage. It's not actually increasing the amount of hit points the PCs recover between long rests.

I think my +CHA notion is what ignited the flames of ire that are burning at this instant. Obviously some sort of bonus like that would allow some additional healing beyond what is allowed by raw hit dice. Of course there is some precedence for this, with the bard in particular, but depending on the details of what I proposed (IE is it 'per heal with multiple dice in each heal', is it 'N per short rest', etc) it could be a bunch better than what the bard gets. As to whether that's really problematic, I'm not sure. Bards have many functions, healing is just one of them. OTOH the warlord does fill a pretty similar niche in some other ways as well, potentially even ALL other ways short of "entertain with music" and "cast spells". Even that might not be problematic in that casting spells is a pretty huge thing.

Personally I think [MENTION=1288]Mouseferatu[/MENTION]'s original question "what choices does this class have" was the most interesting question to address, not "how do you balance this individual mechanical detail of a non-existent class."

At its core, what does this class really do, and how does that translate to interesting choices? Granting, there WILL be interesting TACTICAL choices, we can be pretty sure of that, but lets say you're exploring the Forest of Grin, what choices does the warlord bring to the table? Maybe "have some extra hirelings to haul supplies" vs "help make everyone march faster so we get to the other side before we get hungry"? I'm not real sure, but those are some suggestions!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Thanks @Mouseferatu and @Aldarc for the support.

Since bonus and reactions are limited to one (of either) per round, that helps out (at least against multiple warlords granting multiple actions). The concern is how often a warlord can do X, where X is the warlordy stuff everyone wants.

My personal choice is to build a warlord around superiority dice as a full mechanic rather than a subclass option, increasing the number of dice and number of powers to make it competitive as a main class. A warlord might have a few powers at-will (such as granting advantage, giving disadvantage to a foe, granting resistance to an ally, etc) but the bulk comes from spending superiority dice to do the cool stuff (grant an attack as a bonus action, allow an ally to spend a HD in combat, do cool combat tricks like trip and disarm, give allies re-rolls, give them Temporary HP, or even use longer-lasting powers (akin to bless or haste) via concentration. Even more powerful powers could use more dice. When dice are spent, the warlord is out of power (mental fatigue?) until a rest.

The rest of the warlord's powers could be separate abilities (I could see something akin to song of healing; an ability that triggers on rests for example).

Once you have the basic currency, its just a matter of figuring out how much each ability will cost.

Yeah, I think I've always been in favor of that sort of core design concept. I mean, the other option is just something very much 'Champion-like' where its all entirely based on either "in situation X you can do Y" or "Do X one time per short/long rest" or "you just get to do Z all the time", which isn't a terrible way to design a class in some cases, it works OK for Champion because you simply have ONE shtick, beating things senseless and nothing else. Given that the warlord is unlikely to be this sort of laser focused class, I'd say some 'tactical dice' make the most sense, with action/reaction/minor action thrown in as a secondary limiter for your basic bread-n-butter fallback move(s).

I guess the other perspective would be the Rogue, where they have basically always-on capabilities in combat, but then a huge amount of skill versatility and some other tricks that give them several different foci for the class, you could do that too perhaps.

Its probably worth roughing out both approaches in any serious design process. I think [MENTION=22953]SteelDragon[/MENTION] already kinda did that for the 'always on" version.

 

[mellored]

A per-turn tactical die progression i came up with in the other thread.
(which is basically superiority die from the playtest).

Level 1: 1d4
Level 5: 2d6
Level 9: 2d8
Level 11: 3d8
Level 13: 3d10
Level 17: 3d12
*per turn.

Which the warlord can spend on either a maneuver, or to simply boost his own damage.

Simple maneuvers cost 1 die (trip, cutting words).
Advanced maneuvers cost 2. (grant 1 free attack, bonus to save).
Expert maneuvers cost 3 dice. (mass rally, mass charge).

 

[Tony Vargas]

You need to measure not only potency, but versatility.

No risk there. Even if we imagine a hypothetical warlord as the premier feature of a 'tactical module' publication rivaling the PH in pagecount, there's no practical way to stuff as much versatility into it as neo-Vancian casters already enjoy, thanks to sharing the substantial portion of the PH devoted to spells.

You can put that fear to rest, entirely.

A LOT of my argument stemmed from the idea of whether a psionic should be represented by spells or some new power system, not whether psionics should exist or not. This is the same debate: I don't question whether the warlord should exist, but I do have strong feelings on how it should be mechanically expressed.

Call me if anyone wants to move on to practical ways of making his happen.

Resurrect the Warlording the fighter thread. That's exactly what El Mahdi was trying to do, and he'd welcome any constructive input you might come up with.

A per-turn tactical die progression i came up with in the other thread.
(which is basically superiority die from the playtest).

Level 1: 1d4
Level 5: 2d6
Level 9: 2d8
Level 11: 3d8
Level 13: 3d10
Level 17: 3d12
*per turn.

Which the warlord can spend on either a maneuver, or to simply boost his own damage.

Simple maneuvers cost 1 die (trip, cutting words).
Advanced maneuvers cost 2. (grant 1 free attack, bonus to save).
Expert maneuvers cost 3 dice. (mass rally, mass charge).

Playtest MDDs or Superiority Dice were a great alternative to the multiple attacks they finally went with. But, in the context of a game with multiple attacks, already, I'm not sure they're practical to try to re-introduce, not that I'd object to seeing them try. :shrug:

That they went with the multi-attack mechanic, known though it was from long experience to be problematic, emphasized to me, the intent of letting DMs 'balance' the classes their players actually choose, in the context of their campaigns, rather than trying to balance all the classes with eachother, mechanically, from the get-go.

Given the demands of a something-for-everything system, that may have been a good decision. It's certainly a decision that leaves a lot of room to develop an excellent Warlord class.

 

[mellored]

Playtest MDDs or Superiority Dice were a great alternative to the multiple attacks they finally went with. But, in the context of a game with multiple attacks, already, I'm not sure they're practical to try to re-introduce, not that I'd object to seeing them try. :shrug:

That they went with the multi-attack mechanic, known though it was from long experience to be problematic, emphasized to me, the intent of letting DMs 'balance' the classes their players actually choose, in the context of their campaigns, rather than trying to balance all the classes with eachother, mechanically, from the get-go.

Given the demands of a something-for-everything system, that may have been a good decision. It's certainly a decision that leaves a lot of room to develop an excellent Warlord class.

I think part of the problem was that they tried to make every martial class with superiority dice. Rogues, fighters, and rangers all had it, and thus each class felt too much the same. (I have the same issue with casters and spell slots).
Also fighter's have a long history with multi-attack, so people wanted fighters to have multi-attack.

That said, i think it's a good mechanic, and at least 1 class should have it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think part of the problem was that they tried to make every martial class with superiority dice. Rogues, fighters, and rangers all had it, and thus each class felt too much the same. (I have the same issue with casters and spell slots).

They never quite got the trading-in-for-maneuvers idea to work /well/ either. It was too easy for the optimal use to be just damage, and the intended flexibility to disappear.

The phenomenon of coming up with a cool mechanic for the fighter, then giving it to everyone, noticing the fighter has nothing to differentiate it, then throwing the mechanic away and trying another, is not without precedent.

Also fighter's have a long history with multi-attack, so people wanted fighters to have multi-attack.

Only makes it more problematic as a mechanic.

That said, i think it's a good mechanic, and at least 1 class should have it.

MDDs? Certainly wouldn't mind seeing an attempt at that.

 

[mellored]

They never quite got the trading-in-for-maneuvers idea to work /well/ either. It was too easy for the optimal use to be just damage, and the intended flexibility to disappear.

Well the advantage of the warlord is that damage supposed to be secondary so you don't need to look at it like it's an equal trade. You can put support clearly ahead of damage.

i.e.
Spending a die to give someone +1d6 against an attack (cutting words) is worth more then dealing 1d6 extra damage (combat inspiration).

The a warlord would only be using the dice for damage when you where alone, or if you needed a little extra to kill an enemy. Or maybe on a crit.