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

[Tony Vargas]

Well, my suggestion was that rather than have A single warlord class, there could be like three prestige classes. Set the bar fairly low (3rd level, Int 13, Cha 13, History proficiency) but have the three classes focus on different aspects (effectively, acting like mini subclasses).

This has the advantage of allowing the DM to pick which types of warlords he'd allow in his game.

A DM could opt-into only certain sub-classes, or ban specific abilities he didn't like. Just like a DM could opt-out of a sub-class he doesn't like now (don't like 'fighers casting spells' - bye-bye EK, no problem, Battlemaster and Champion still work without'm).


Where they could address some concerns is in taking the less 'apprentice' appropriate concepts that can't already be done via Backgrounds, and pushing them up the level scale. You might be a 1st-level Fighter with the Solider Background with a little rank from your time in the military, but you're not commanding an army or ruling a nation as a despot. A legacy-Tier PrC, OTOH, could represent at least attempting to do those things, if not actually doing them in a campaign where that was appropriate.

More broadly, PrCs could be used to more clearly define & emphasize the Tiers of play if the DM finds that desirable in his campaign. Really take the 'Prestige' part seriously.

The 'base class' approach would have a warlord class as a primary class with presumably 3 level 3 subclass options.

Because that's what the fighter has? The Warlord, in spite of being a warrior of sorts, will probably be less like the fighter than any other melee-type, it has to be, because the fighter has such a tightly defined, consistent contribution to make, that is entirely different from the sorts of varied and situational contributions you get from a support class. No reason it couldn't start it's archetypes at 1st level, for instance (other sub-classes are defined at 1st), or 2nd, or 4th, or even upon emerging from 'Apprentice Tier' at 5th. The later it differentiates, the more functionality needs to be available before then, of course.

Honestly, I'm not saying I think that a PRC warlord would be all bad. The one advantage that PRCs could have, in principle, is some freedom from usual class progressions. As with the Rune Scribe, a small number of levels could compress a lot of advancement into them, with the proviso that the power range can't be much more than what would be true for any other 5 level advancement.

Warlord-appropriate PrCs on top of a full class would provide the same benefit - and could be taken by other classes or MC-builds, to provide a better realization of, say, a caster-as-leader concept, like a Sauruman or something.

The problem of course is that such an 'overlay' is virtually bound to be a power up. Since 5e has unfortunately eschewed any sort of common resource use framework it can't do what 4e did and make an overlay that offers power swaps (even 4e themes are at some level power ups, admittedly, but they COULD have been designed not to be). So, we're probably boxed into PRCs that have to either advance fully to level 20, provide some sort of additional scaling mechanic, or simply become largely irrelevant after a few levels.

3e-style MCing implies that 1st level in any class is roughly equal to the next level of any class, at any level. That's clearly never been the case, and in 3e that led to all kinds of 'problems' with only a tiny fraction of the theoretically possible builds being viable - and some of those being 'optimal.' In 5e, that kind of system-mastery-based empowerment is largely off the table for players, with the ball staying mainly in the DM's court. The DM can spotlight-balance the PCs in his campaign, whether they have classes that have different resource mixes, wildly different specialties - or even MC/PrC builds of wildly different level-efficiency. It's just a natural part of the game, along with balancing encounters and managing magic item drops.

IMO: it gives flexibility to build a character you want.

inspiring cleric? A tactical monk? Maneuver druid? Medic rogue? ect...

Can't do those if you mix them all together in a single warlord class.

Of course you could. Via Multi-classing or/and feats like Inspiring Leader.

But it's not one or the other. You can have a Warlord full class, the warlord-bits-granting feats like Inspiring Leader, /and/ Warlord-appropriate PrCs that other classes/builds can also avail themselves of.

 

[Remathilis]

Viscious Mockery is a magical spell, which is the only reason I can stand it. I'd houserule any effects of verbal damage that wasn't explicitly magical in my game, but others may have a greater tolerance for such things.

I have a bard with that spell and even though its purely "magical" I still have a hard time with it, especially when they "mock the bad guy to death". I'm convinced more goblins have died of aneurysms than sword wounds in my game...

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I have a bard with that spell and even though its purely "magical" I still have a hard time with it, especially when they "mock the bad guy to death". I'm convinced more goblins have died of aneurysms than sword wounds in my game...

I have a player that when playing a class with access to it, regardless if he has a spell that does 10d10 damage, he will try to cast that until the rest of the party yells at him enough about not carrying his weight. When someone gets mocked to death he is in heaven. It took a long time for me to get him to accept that he can't hide and mock people with it, etc.

I really do not like that spell or the concept behind it. For me its stupid. But I try to make sure everyone has fun so...

 

[JediGamemaster]

And adding monks adds a level of wuxia, sure. But you can play a D&D paladin without playing a campaign about knights in shining armor, and you can play a D&D monk without defining your campaign as wuxia. The level they add is localized. You could even play them next to each other and they could both be in, I dunno, a steampunk-y setting (like Eberron). You can't, however, have a class that heals HP with inspiration without defining your HP as inspirational for everyone at the table. Once inspirational healing is "on," it defines the narrative for the game.

lets take this one step father with Players A,b,c,D,and 1... 1 is already the odd man out...

So player A is going to DM at his local store every Friday night for three months. He has his own world that is pretty generic fantasy... his first adventures are re writes of old mods and ideas...

if players B and C don't like warlords, and one is a fighter and the other a ranger, and player D could care less and is a warlock... then player 1 comes along and says "I'm playing a warlord." it could ruin the fun of player B and C...

imagine a fight where the ghoul slams his claw and hits the fighter... paralyzing him for 2 whole rounds of the fight... after the warlod tells him to 'buck up little camper' and that gives the fighter back 3d6hp... the fighter player says "Hey I'm not depressed
I got hit by a frggin claw"

then imagine a second fight where a red dragon breaths fire on the party, and the fighter drops to 0 and the ranger gets really low... mid fight the warlord pulls out pomp pomps to brighten there spirits and heals both 40hp... the ranger asks "Um I got hit in the face with dragon fire, how does that work?" and the fighter adds "Yea, um I got bit by a dragon the size of an elephant, then burnt by it's fire and I;m dying... most likely bleeding and with 3rd degree burns... well maybe 2nd degree... How does you saying non magical stuff help"


see when I get hit by an attack I assume damage... witch is fine with a cleric, they can heal a broken writs, burnt flesh and clawed backs... but make the warlord healing me a joke

 

[mellored]

But it's not one or the other. You can have a Warlord full class, the warlord-bits-granting feats like Inspiring Leader, /and/ Warlord-appropriate PrCs that other classes/builds can also avail themselves of.

I want a warlord, but i don't think having 20 different ways to make one is a good idea. You would simply end up with a char-op guide saying "take these features", and that guide becomes the warlord class. And you end up with a lot of unused options cluttering things with no benefit.

 

[mellored]

lets take this one step father with Players A,b,c,D,and 1... 1 is already the odd man out...

So player A is going to DM at his local store every Friday night for three months. He has his own world that is pretty generic fantasy... his first adventures are re writes of old mods and ideas...

if players B and C don't like warlords clerics, and one is a fighter and the other a ranger, and player D could care less and is a warlock... then player 1 comes along and says "I'm playing a warlord cleric " it could ruin the fun of player B and C...

imagine a fight where the ghoul slams his claw and hits the fighter... paralyzing him for 2 whole rounds of the fight... after the warlod cleric tells him to 'be healed by the power faith" and that gives the fighter back 3d6hp... the fighter player says "Hey I'm not depressed
I got hit by a frggin claw"

then imagine a second fight where a red dragon breaths fire on the party, and the fighter drops to 0 and the ranger gets really low... mid fight the warlord cleric pulls out pomp pomps cross to brighten there spirits and heals both 40hp... the ranger asks "Um I got hit in the face with dragon fire, how does that work?" and the fighter adds "Yea, um I got bit by a dragon the size of an elephant, then burnt by it's fire and I;m dying... most likely bleeding and with 3rd degree burns... well maybe 2nd degree... How does you saying non magical believe in my god help"


see when I get hit by an attack I assume damage... witch is fine with a cleric medic, they can heal a broken writs, burnt flesh and clawed backs... but make the warlord cleric healing me with the power of prayer a joke

Fixed.

 

[JediGamemaster]

Fixed.

not at all you just made it look rediculase, and I think it is very rude of you... faih didn't heal anything the MAGIC did... if your shouting was MAGIC it would not break the game like it did

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't think having 20 different ways to make one is a good idea. You would simply end up with a char-op guide saying "take these features", and end up with a lot of unused options cluttering things with no benefit.

We're prettymuch there already for a lot of classes. What to play a mage. OK, will the be Wizard, Sorcerer or Warlock? Would you like as a side with your Fighter (EK) or Rogue (AT), or perhaps a-la-carte as a Feat, or maybe you'd like to order your mage off-menu and get the DM to cook up a 'Wizard's Apprentice' Background? Oh, and we may have some fresh mage PrCs coming in if you come back later.

For all that 5e tries to be 'simple,' it's still D&D, and still a list-based system (to model anything new, add new mechanics) with the usual complexities and complications. To keep the game 'simple' they made feats & MCing optional, for instance, but since fighter/magic-user is such a hoary classic-D&D concept, they put in a sub-class, the EK. So you have multiple paths to fighter/magic-user, depending upon which options the DM has flipped on, or even what standard choices he has turned off. For instance, if your DM banned the Eldritch Knight because he never liked "fighters casting spells," but has MCing turned on, you could alternate levels of Fighter and Wizard (or Sorcerer or Warlock), even if hasn't opted into anything, and is just using the Basic Game you could play a Fighter with the Sage background or Wizard with the Soldier background.

"Yea, um I got bit by a dragon the size of an elephant, then burnt by it's fire and I;m dying... most likely bleeding and with 3rd degree burns... well maybe 2nd degree... How does you saying non magical stuff help"

You could suffer all that hp loss, from those sources, roll a 20 on your first death save, take a 1-hr lunch break, blow all your HD (roll reasonably well), and be fully healed.

Clearly, 5e hps don't model wounds with either the level of severity or the level or realism - or both - that you wish they did.

0 hp = "you are impeded by the injury, because now you are dying." The injury that drops you to 0 hp is something that impedes you, terminally!

Unless you make 3 successful death saves inside of 5 rounds, or roll a 20 on one of them. So, you can 'naturally,' without supernatural agency (and very little time, from no more than six seconds to 30 sec at the outside), overcome that 'terminal' impediment.

I do expect D&D heroes to be pulp heroes, by and large, so they do not need others to be heroic. The standard rules are comfortable with that narrative, and, I believe, should continue to be so in the material they add to the standard game.

The only class that can remotely 'rally heroically' by itself is the fighter with Second Wind, and that not even from unconsciousness (which requires the blind luck of a natural 20 available to anyone, no matter how un-heroic they may be). Everyone else needs supernatural agency, channeling the power of a god or nature (or primal spirits or whatever you see your Druid/Ranger as doing), or arcane forces (Bard) or a magical healing potion or something.

So, no, the Standard Rules seem downright hostile to individual heroism and pulp action-heroics.

The Warlord would open that up, because, even though a warlord's abilities might exhort something heroic from the ally, it's still the ally coming through with the heroism, the Warlord doesn't make it happen, he enables it (the player could always decline the benefit, afterall, if he felt the circumstances didn't warrant his character rising to the occasion for whatever RP reason).

And, if you /really/ want pulp action heroics, you'd want to adopt indie mechanics like 'plot coupons' that give player input into plot and scene framing - get those 'sudden reversals of fortune' that were stock-in-trade of the pulps.

Which isn't to say that there's no place for inspirational healing, just that it should be part of a campaign style choice you make, not something decided for the table when someone opts into a particular class that seems neat. Rather, a conscious choice of campaign tone, just as horror or wuxia or steampunk is.

The player class choice of Monk brings wuxia to the table, a tinker gnome (I think you can just barely fake one up in 5e, even as it stands) or Artificer would bring steam-punk, a GOO Warlock, overtones of Lovecraftian horror. So, it looks like that ship has sailed.

That also sounds very like the point you were making about the Standard Game 'needing' to continue to support every possible re-imagination of hps that can squeeze under it now. Specifically, this narrative-wound model you're championing. The above brings up some bits of that we haven't resolved yet.

You claim that your model would be torpedoed by Inspiring Word because it doesn't require rest/time & wound-treatment (heal check, healing supplies) or supernatural agency to restore hps. Yet, Second Wind is part of the Standard Game and restores hps, and yet is a mere bonus action on his turn (virtually no time), does not require the fighter apply any healing supplies, have a hand free to so much as apply pressure to the wound, make a heal check, nor in any way treat it. How does your hp model account for Second Wind, which restores hps, includes neither treatment nor time, and is not in any way described as supernatural?

If it's not supported by Second Wind, your model is not supported by the Standard Game, and is no impediment to Inspiring Word.

 

[mellored]

not at all you just made it look rediculase, and I think it is very rude of you... faih didn't heal anything the MAGIC did... if your shouting was MAGIC it would not break the game like it did

"the ability to cast cleric spells is based on devotion and an intuitive sense of a deities wishes".

Faith -> healing.


And what you said was also rude.

 

[JediGamemaster]

"the ability to cast cleric spells is based on devotion and an intuitive sense of a deities wishes".

Faith -> healing.


And what you said was also rude.

it is a magic spell given by a deitie... if you don't understand that then you must be very new to D&D... Divne SPELLS are MAGIC... are you argueing for the warlord to use SPELLS and MAGIC?