D&D 5E Open Interpretation Inspirational Healing Compromise.

[Tony Vargas]

At a certain point, I have to wonder if the idea of a "perfect" warlord is getting in the way of a "good" warlord. There could be a good tactical, buffer, and support class made without using spells, but he might not look exactly like the warlord 4e presented, nor might he have hp recovery by voice or the ability to grant allies attack actions

That would not be a 'good' warlord, so, no, perfect is not getting in the way of good. Rather, when warlord detractors have had all their spurious reasoning for excluding the class thoroughly refuted, they resort to proposing non-viable or unrecognizable (or both) version of the class as if that were somehow a 'compromise.'

at will. Is it more important to have a warlord able to do everything a 4e warlord did (and see such as class barely used) than to have a warlord who can do most everything, but it more widely accepted?

That is a false dilema. A Warlord, simply to be viable along-side the existing support-oriented classes would have to do everything it did in 4e, and more, because those classes (all casters) are much more powerful and flexible in 5e than they were when they were balanced with the Warlord in 4e.

As far as 'more widely accepted,' more options are nice things for classes to have, a warlord that's true to concept, balanced, viable, playable, and customizable, like other 5e classes, would certainly garner a wider audience than one that failed to model it's concept, was under-powered, non-viable, and had coudn't be used to produce many distinct characters.

Its funny. When somebody points out that the warlord is a "4e only class", people grab the Marshal to show there was a 3.5 version of the martial leader concept. Yet when people talk about execution, suddenly the 4e warlord is the only one to model the class on.

The Marshal is not the Warlord, was not even technically a D&D class, and was pretty terrible. Some of the sorts of concepts the Warlord successfully models had been unsuccessfully modeled before. The fighter becoming a 'lord' at 9th in classic D&D, or the Marshal, or the odd PrC, perhaps.

The Warlord, however was a 4e innovation.

I don't consider many of those changes "failings"

I was referring specifically to: "Its impossible to play a 4e-like fighter without extra rules (mark) and feats (sentinel). Its completely impossible to play a 4e ranger (martial striker)."

Those are failings, there things you can't do in 5e. They can be corrected by adding more options to the game.

A battle-master with Sentinel is as faithful as you can get to the spirit on a 4e fighter, but it cannot, nor should not, resemble a one-to-one match of abilities.

I disagree, it could be much more faithful. 5e is not so limited in it's potential that it couldn't have done so.

I just named off a dozen examples of things 4e brought to the table

If you count tiny things like individual spells, yes, maybe there are as many as a dozen bits from 4e included in 5e, I acknowledged that. Likewise, there are lots of things that were in 4e and one or more prior editions - Sorcerer, Warlocks, tieflings, large swaths of d20 rules - that are also unsurprisingly in 5e.

I mean, I might be literally the only person who both didn't like 4e AND still is open to the warlord class, but this notion that the warlord is owed to 4e fans for the game returning to spell-slots or whatever really makes me reconsider.

This has got to be the 7th time you've 'reconsidered' this 'support' for the Warlord that I've never actually seen you show.

I didn't get everything I wanted either: I'm not keen on the name "Mystic" nor do I like the pseudoscience names disappearing. I find the Far Realm flavor unnecessary.

It's unlikely any one individual on one side of these silly internet debates will get exactly what he wants. The point is, you were every bit as strident in demanding, uncompromisingly, everything you wanted from psionics in 5e, as anyone is being in wanting a Warlord.

If WotC gave you a Warlord, but it lacked real hp recovery (in lieu of some other temp hp/field medic mechanic) or tied it to "magic of words", but on the other hand made the class that could grant buffs, allow for out-of-turn actions, and other tactical stuff, would you keep fighting for the perfect, or would you accept this is "warlord enough" like I accepted mystic is "psionics enough"?

You repeatedly said in the psionics threads that you wouldn't accept psionics that didn't live up to your standards, but you have, now that there's something in the pipeline. I will also make the best of whatever Warlord comes down the line.

I didn't ragequit 5e when it came out without a Warlord, in fact I supported 5e, and continued to support its goal of being for all fans, including advocating for psionics, which I personally never cared for, because adding it was important to eventually achieving that goal.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Are you saying that it is technically impossible to build a balanced class that integrates these things?

It's impossible to do so without magic

It's quite possible. It's been done by a previous edition that the current lead developer worked on. I mean, that's incontrovertible proof that it's possible.

 

[JediGamemaster]

It's quite possible. It's been done by a previous edition that the current lead developer worked on. I mean, that's incontrovertible proof that it's possible.

said edition was the shortest run and vastly changed the way D&D was played (weather you liked it or not) so it is far from proven it's possible

 

[Tony Vargas]

said edition was the shortest run and vastly changed the way D&D was played (weather you liked it or not) so it is far from proven it's possible

Irrelevant. It was done successfully. The proof stands.

Even if you want to resurrect edition war talking points like that, if you're willing to acknowledge that 5e is a better system, surely the superior edition, the one that was conceived specifically to handle more styles and bring together fans of all editions, fans of 4e included, can duplicate that success.

I'm a little tired of people denigrating the current edition this way. 5e is a very open design, a versatile system, and can absolutely be used to do a worthy version of any class that was in any prior edition.

 

[JediGamemaster]

Irrelevant. It was done successfully. The proof stands.

Even if you want to resurrect edition war talking points like that,

OK, lets take everything else out of the edition... it was the most different, things from it don't fit in 3e or 5e, regardless of if it was awesome or suck

 

[Tony Vargas]

OK, lets take everything else out of the edition... it was the most different, things from it don't fit in 3e or 5e, regardless of if it was awesome or suck

I don't follow you. You've gone from saying that 5e isn't good enough as a game to mechanically implement the Warlord, to claiming that it can't even handle it's own mechanical sub-systems?

I'm going to have to strongly disagree. 5e has a very open design philosophy that has successfully integrated at least some elements from each edition into a whole that is perfectly playable. Not only that, but it builds DM Empowerment right into the basic resolution systems, giving the DM the ability to deal summarily with any negative issues that do come up. It is absolutely up to handling anything an avid fan of a prior ed might have a hankering for.

 

[Guest 6801328]

But I hope you'll consider, going forward, voicing this concern as a concern, not an objection, and addressing it as a way of making the Warlord a better, more playable class.

Sorry, I somehow missed this update from yesterday.

Yes, I've had some lovely discussions with mellored, Bawylie and others on alternative abilities and language that would address my concerns (although I will admit the nuance between how you are using 'concern' and 'objection' eludes me at the moment.)

 

[Bluenose]

OK, lets take everything else out of the edition... it was the most different, things from it don't fit in 3e or 5e, regardless of if it was awesome or suck

Do you consider 5e to be almost entirely derived from 3e? Does that mean that it isn't staying true to the "D&D Traditions" as established in 1e and 2e and BECM? If it's true to those versions, why would the Warlord be unacceptable as a class in those editions?

 

[Zardnaar]

Do you consider 5e to be almost entirely derived from 3e? Does that mean that it isn't staying true to the "D&D Traditions" as established in 1e and 2e and BECM? If it's true to those versions, why would the Warlord be unacceptable as a class in those editions?

It would fit better in OSR editions. YOu could make the class as powerful as you liked you might just level up slower.

 

[pemerton]

It's impossible to do so without magic

Given that no game designer has magical abilities, I guess you're saying that it's technically impossible.

Of if you mean that all hit point recovery has to be magical in the fiction, then I guess you don't use the fighter's second wind ability?