I am a relatively new player of D&D, having started with the 5e playtest and gone on from there. I have not played any on 1st to 4th edition. I have noticed quite a few threads on Warlords and have stayed away since so many threads seem like just an argument rather than a discussion. But now that it appears to have cooled down a bit I should ask, "What is a Warlord?"
I'm looking for:
a basic overview of the class
specifics of what make the class unique
mechanics that reflect those specifics
And, if you feel one way or the other, why can or can't this be represented by what is currently present?
Thank you.
I gave an answer which, I think, covered most of this in a previous thread, and was relatively well-received by the person who requested it. Technically, they asked for some more information than you did (e.g. whether it had appeared in *other* editions too), but I figure that info can't hurt. Spoilerblocking because it's a bit of a long post.
[sblock="An attempt to answer"]
Well, unfortunately, we get this sort of question a lot, and it's not always asked with an open mind, but I'll try.
The Warlord was the continuation of a concept that appeared in 3e, the Marshal class. The two go about their business in different ways, as I understand it--I'm not very familiar with the 3e Marshal--but they both had a fairly similar core idea. Martial characters (those who use arms, skill, armor, and tactics, rather than arcane secrets, divine favor, or otherwise "mystical" assistance) who rely heavily on one or more mental attributes (Int/Wis/Cha), and who possesses moderate skill at fighting but is more about enabling other characters to be better at what they do. Both the Marshal and the Warlord had abilities to help maneuver allies around the battlefield (though the Warlord was arguably better at it), and both of them had some kind of passive benefit that all allies nearby received (for the Marshal, it was called "auras," while for the Warlord it was called a "presence").
Pathfinder doesn't appear to have any *core* classes that are absolutely equivalent, but it does have a "base" class (not sure what the difference is) called "
Cavalier" which is very similar, just with the addition of mounted combat stuff. Archetypes can let you get even closer--it's not perfect, but it's very similar. For example, instead of having a "command presence," the Cavalier can "provide the benefit of a Teamwork feat" to all allies within 30 feet as long as they can see and hear the Cavalier. There's also at least one PrC called "Battle Herald," though (sadly) it requires Inspire Courage, which is a magical ability--why it needs that I'm not sure, since it doesn't actually advance that ability and isn't explicitly magical. Regardless, the point is that classes which do stuff very similar to the Warlord
are present in Pathfinder.
I, personally, would argue that the Warlord is what happened to a part of the Fighter that was shed at some point: the interaction with followers. The Fighter used to become a Lord at some point, and gain men-at-arms; this hasn't been a thing since 3e, and possibly earlier (my 2e experience is solely with CRPGs, so I don't know if the followers were removed from it for programming reasons or if they were just absent by that point). However, because "hirelings" in general were no longer a major feature of the game, the focus of that "captain leading fellows" switched from NPCs to the Fighter's fellow party members; the Marshal expanded that, and the Warlord expanded it further (and differently).
One of the things that is almost always stressed about the Warlord--a major positive for fans, a major sticking point for detractors--is that the Warlord was
explicitly non-magical. I already mentioned this above, but I just wanted to be clear: nothing the 4e Warlord did was considered "magic." In my opinion, what exactly, "magic" means to any given person--literally all things "supernatural" or which couldn't happen here on Earth, or just those things which are arcane secrets/Divine boons/Nature's esoteric power--has a lot to do with how people feel about the Warlord class.
As for the specific things the 4e Warlord did, it varied slightly depending on how you put it together. 4e was big on having each class contain no less than 2, and often 5 or more "styles" or "builds" by choosing class features (much like PF's Archetypes, but the choice is baked into the class from level 1). For the Warlord specifically, you chose a
style of leadership--your method for either improving or assisting your party-mates at doing
stuff. Eventually there were six different "style" choices, which emphasized different behaviors (defense vs. offense, risky attacks vs. tactical coordination, etc.) There were also some options that could let you specialize in ranged combat instead of melee combat (the default for Warlords). Also, was juuuust possible, if you picked the right options, to play a Warlord that never actually made any attacks at all--instead, that specific kind of Warlord worked by granting special, off-turn attacks to party members; this is known as a "Lazy" or "Princess" Warlord, and was somewhat popular even though it never had any "official" status. Additionally, and this is a sticking point for some people, Warlords had an ability that could restore HP up to a limit*, but generally they weren't especially good at that (they could invest in being better at it, but it wasn't their strongest suit).
So, to sum that all up briefly:
1. Yes, this class has existed since at least 3rd edition, and yes, it has analogous classes in PF (both a "base" class and a PrC, just taking the first one I found that worked).
2. Although it's debated, I'd argue it hearkens back to something the Fighter used to have, but shed at some point.
4. The 4e Warlord had a support-focused kit, and specialized in moving allies around the battlefield (4e combat is less mobile than 5e), improving allies' offensive abilities (attack, damage, sometimes even initiative), and allowing allies to take extra/off-turn actions.
5. Some Warlords never attacked at all, but most were melee attackers who favored Strength plus one mental stat (Int, Wis, or Cha) depending on chosen class features.
6. The 4e Warlord could heal, though only up to a limit*, and other support (aka "Leader" in 4e lingo) classes were better at it.
[/sblock]
To give a little bit more in the way of mechanical specifics--which, since I have to spell this out or I'll get pounced on for it, neither
can nor
should be perfectly preserved--requires a bit more explanation. For example, at 1st level, a 4e Warlord chooses a "Warlord Leadership" option, a "Commanding Presence" option, and (assuming we're talking about late-4e with all the supplements) may also choose to give up shields and tougher armor proficiencies in exchange for getting some archery bonuses instead. Again, spoilerblocking because this gets a bit long--I'm trying to be both thorough and avoiding any deep knowledge of 4e.[sblock=Explanation of Warlord options]
"Warlord Leadership" had three options: "
Combat Leader" (self & all allies within 50 feet that can see & hear you gain +2 to Initiative, but it doesn't stack with certain other kinds of bonuses), "
Battlefront Leader" (gain proficiency with Heavy Shields, and an ability that could only be used at the moment everyone rolls initiative, which allowed one ally to reposition without fear of opportunity attacks), or "
Canny Leader" (self & all allies within 50 feet that can see & hear you gain generic +2 bonus to Insight and Perception checks). Both Battlefront Leader and Canny Leader were relatively late additions to the game.
"Commanding Presence" had several options, expanded over the course of 4e's lifetime. Each "X Presence" (e.g. Bravura, Inspiring, etc.) is a fundamental feature, which later options (called Powers--pre-defined actions you could take) could hook into to provide additional bonuses. Each one gave some kind of benefit for an ally that could see you spending an Action Point, or AP, to take an extra action. These AP were only handed out occasionally, and generally spending one meant going "all out," so these features meant a 4e group with a Warlord opened up a slightly bigger can of whoop-ass when they really went for the kill--or needed to draw on extra strength to pull through. Alphabetically the Presences were: "
Bravura" (if the extra action was used to attack, ally can get a free bonus attack, or a bonus move action, if they hit--if they miss, they're vulnerable to enemy attacks until the player's next turn), "
Insightful" (AP-spending allies get a bonus to all defenses, your pick of half Cha mod or half Wis mod, until the start of their next turn), "
Inspiring" (AP-spending allies regain HP equal to half-level + Cha mod), "
Resourceful" (spending an AP to attack gives an ally half-level+Int mod to damage if they hit, or if they miss, half-level+Cha temporary HP), "
Skirmishing" (spending an AP to attack lets an ally move, as a free action before or after they make the extra attack, 5 feet times your Int or Wis mod without provoking opportunity attacks), "
Tactical" (spending an AP to attack grants that ally half your Int mod as a bonus to the attack roll).
Now, this may sound like the Warlord was wholly dependent on allies spending Action Points and utterly useless otherwise--but that would be analogous to saying that a 5e Warlock is useless if she isn't casting Eldritch Blast. That is, these Presences were primarily useful because powers would hook into them and provide some interesting/meaningful benefit
in addition to whatever that power did on its own. The Action Point benefits are, of course, quite nice--but being a "Tactical Warlord" meant that your abilities favored a particular
style of fighting enemies, usually one that involved being very *accurate* with your attacks. A "Bravura Warlord," by comparison, would favor powers that were high-risk, high-reward: IF the attack hits, it hits like a truck, but if it fails.... Etc.[/sblock]
Now, again, to reiterate directly and plainly so it's made absolutely clear:
These mechanics cannot, and should not, be directly ported to 5e. But I feel that there isn't--yet--enough support for this mechanical structure; that they shouldn't be
directly ported does not, at all, mean that they couldn't be
better translated.* The 5e Fighter, with the Battlemaster subclass, absolutely definitely comes
closest to it. That cannot be denied. However, the Fighter chassis is...well, for lack of a better term, "too good" to hold the Warlord. It gets too many attacks, too many personal actions, too much personal survival, too much tankiness, too much benefit from simply going all-out on its own. Thus, what Warlord-y features it has must, of necessity, be weaker, smaller, and secondary to the main focus and goal of the class. Or, as other posters have said elsewhere: the Battlemaster Fighter is to the (as yet non-existent) "5e Warlord" as the Eldritch Knight Fighter is to the Wizard: It's still, at its heart, mainly and centrally a Fighter, but (if you select the appropriate maneuvers) a meaningful side of Warlord, just as the Eldritch Knight is still, at its heart, mostly a Fighter, that can field a few spells (one-third Wizard, mechanically speaking). In brief, EK is "100% Fighter, 33% Wizard"; BM is "100% Fighter, 33% Warlord (if you choose to be)."
By that logic--if you consider it valid, and not all do of course--some Warlord fans argue that they would like to see the class that the BM gets 33% of. It would need to
abandon many of the features that distinguish the Fighter, both because that keeps Fighters distinct and meaningful, and because it WOULD be too much to expect the Warlord to get many bonus attacks AND great armor AND more maneuvers (or whatever the other, undefined 66% of the class is), particularly when many of the suggested "Warlordy actions" are quite powerful in 5e. Whatever those options were, they would need to follow the core design philosophy of 5e: all classes start small, and don't really have all their tools in place until level 3 or even level 5. Which specific features a 5e translation of the Warlord would need is a matter of intense debate--and even if it were settled (which I don't think it will be), exactly how to parcel them out over 3-to-5 levels, and how to properly scale them to 5e's power curve, is an entirely separate and often just as heated debate.
*To use a linguistic analogy: in English, a metaphorical phrase for something being unbelievably expensive is that "it costs an arm and a leg." A direct translation of this idiom into Spanish would be gibberish--it would sound like it LITERALLY amputates an arm and a leg, which is of course not true. However, conveniently, Spanish has its own idiom which is almost perfectly identical in
meaning, but sounds nothing alike when directly translated to English: "cuesta un ojo de la cara," which
literally translates as "it costs an eye of the face." So instead of using a simple, non-figurative translation ("es caro" -> "it is expensive") you can, if you know the two languages well, choose a translation that hews
very closely to the original intent, despite having different execution. However, and this makes the analogy even more apt, there is a natural extension or intensification of the Spanish idiom that does
not back-translate into idiomatic English: "cuesta un ojo de la cara ya parte del otro," literally "it costs an eye of the face and part of the other." In English, we have no "simple" intensification of this idiom (the closest would probably be "costs an arm and a leg and your firstborn child," but that's bringing in a second idiom rather than simply making the first more impactful).
More simply put: I believe 5e has gone for a "lossy" translation of the 4e Warlord. Important stuff was bled off to make it fit within the Fighter box. I think 5e absolutely has the tools and potential to do better than that, and achieve a much less "lossy" translation. And because 5e is a different game--more "loose" or "flexible," whichever you prefer--I believe that we can actually
improve upon the "original" document, in that we can allow it to be extended (if the player so invests for it) into areas it could not natively go, before.
