So what do we need from the Warlord?

[Neonchameleon]

It's almost impossible to discuss the Warlord and why it's wanted without discussing what it actually brings to the game (and why the Battlemaster and the Cunning Rogue fail miserably).

One of the key things about the Warlord is that it opens the game up massively in terms of what sort of party and in what sort of setting you play. Most D&D classes (including paladins and rangers) are utterly drenched in spellcasting. It's well known that even in AD&D Gandalf was only a fifth level magic user. And even more importantly not only was he only about fifth level, a fifth level magic user could cast about as many spells per day as Gandalf cast in the entire Lord of the Rings. And Gandalf was, in the two parties that make up the Fellowship of the Ring, the DMNPC. (In 5e any wizard or cleric casts spells far more frequently than Gandalf, of course).

So the default party or indeed any party with a single class wizard, cleric, bard, or in 5e ranger or paladin is unsuitable for high fantasy like Lord of the Rings, never mind the Sword and Sorcery you find in Appendix N. (Jack Vance's archmages could memorise maybe half a dozen spells - or about the loadout of a 5th level A&D caster or 3rd level 3.X caster).

There is, of course nothing wrong with a high spellcaster game. But if we want to have a chance of playing Sword and Sorcery or even high fantasy not inspired by D&D we are going to have to put almost all the spellcasting classes in the round file, which in 5e means we only get to keep the warlock. No more powerful spellcaster belongs on the PC side in ... just about any sword and sorcery. (Of course with the limits imposed on martial characters we can't play classic fantasy like Orlando Furioso, Outlaws of the Water Margin, or Romance of the Three Kingdoms at all).

So. What happens when we kick out the wizard, sorcerer, druid, bard, ranger, paladin, and cleric? And instead go for a low magical group (basically leaving fighter, barbarian, rogue, and possibly monk and/or warlock)? The sort of conceptual group that makes up most sword and sorcery fantasy - or even classic fantasy.

By losing most of these classes, we lose a lot of ready made solutions-in-a-can. That's fine. In my experience group creativity goes up when there aren't ready made solutions presented.

But there's one class that's deeply embedded in the party makeup. One class that in 2e in particular people had to cajole each other to play. The cleric.

So what happens when we remove the cleric? Quite simply, the party dies. A lot. And they die for two reasons.

The first is that the mantra that the fighter can keep going all day is shown up for the rubbish it is. Fighters can keep going as long as they have hit points. Without Clerics (or 3.X style Wands of Cure Light Wounds) to keep them going fighters can fight until they run out of hit points. And the party can keep going until the first fighter runs out of hit points (or perhaps a little longer if you can give them a polearm or bow and have them drop back).

The second is spike damage. A random crit or set of high rolls are going to unexpectedly kill. A cleric has the healing spells to drop spike healing on someone, taking the edge off that. If the dice are running hot against one PC in specific the Cleric heals them and it takes the edge off it.

In order to play in most fantasy settings with D&D levels of focus on combat (you can play The Goblin Emperor all you like - D&D will have little to say about that) and without clerics you need either a huge grab bag of optional rules, or some way of taking the damage mitigation of the cleric and giving at least some of it to someone who isn't a spellcaster.

You need to be able to do the following.

1. Pick PCs on negative HP up off the ground and allow them to either join the fight or run away.
2. Prevent PCs being shafted by excessive damage spikes either through healing them after the event or through preventing the damage landing by means of an interrupt after the damage dice have been rolled. (Proactive healing like temporary hit points doesn't work unless used in overwhelming quantities due to not being able to predict when the dice will spike).

And this needs to be done without magic because otherwise D&D only actually works in worlds either that are excessively bloody (a problem given the levelling and power curve of any edition of D&D) or that are with a level of magic rarely seen outside D&D settings, World of Warcraft, or Harry Potter novels.

The warlord ticks all the boxes that are needed to allow high fantasy and sword and sorcery.

 

[Aldarc]

What about "Not on my watch!" as a combat maneuver that the warlord can use as their reaction to force an opponent within range to reroll a hit made against them or an ally (though the second roll must be taken)? That would at least cut down some of the spike damage.

 

[Neonchameleon]

What about "Not on my watch!" as a combat maneuver that the warlord can use as their reaction to force an opponent within range to reroll a hit made against them or an ally (though the second roll must be taken)? That would at least cut down some of the spike damage.

Good suggestion And there's no reason at all that it can't be a big part of what makes up the warlord package. But it needs to come in after the damage step as, with D&D's hit and damage separation, you can't tell what's going to spike until then. And if it's in response to spike damage it needs to force both to be rerolled.

Again, this is just hashing out details and the suggestion itself for a lot of the damage mitigation needed looks good. The method might be a little fiddly.

 

[mellored]

I've a big fan of using your reaction to make something hit/miss. Though i prefer adding +1dx instead of a reroll. That gives the warlord some ability to scale. And it also leaves things upto chance.


I also like set-up/teamwork abilities as your action. So that both you and your ally need to act to get the bonus. Like...
"attacks against the target have advantage"
"allies can disengage as a bonus action"
"the next ally who uses the attack action can make 1 additional attack against the target".

 

[Zardnaar]

It's almost impossible to discuss the Warlord and why it's wanted without discussing what it actually brings to the game (and why the Battlemaster and the Cunning Rogue fail miserably).

One of the key things about the Warlord is that it opens the game up massively in terms of what sort of party and in what sort of setting you play. Most D&D classes (including paladins and rangers) are utterly drenched in spellcasting. It's well known that even in AD&D Gandalf was only a fifth level magic user. And even more importantly not only was he only about fifth level, a fifth level magic user could cast about as many spells per day as Gandalf cast in the entire Lord of the Rings. And Gandalf was, in the two parties that make up the Fellowship of the Ring, the DMNPC. (In 5e any wizard or cleric casts spells far more frequently than Gandalf, of course).

So the default party or indeed any party with a single class wizard, cleric, bard, or in 5e ranger or paladin is unsuitable for high fantasy like Lord of the Rings, never mind the Sword and Sorcery you find in Appendix N. (Jack Vance's archmages could memorise maybe half a dozen spells - or about the loadout of a 5th level A&D caster or 3rd level 3.X caster).

There is, of course nothing wrong with a high spellcaster game. But if we want to have a chance of playing Sword and Sorcery or even high fantasy not inspired by D&D we are going to have to put almost all the spellcasting classes in the round file, which in 5e means we only get to keep the warlock. No more powerful spellcaster belongs on the PC side in ... just about any sword and sorcery. (Of course with the limits imposed on martial characters we can't play classic fantasy like Orlando Furioso, Outlaws of the Water Margin, or Romance of the Three Kingdoms at all).

So. What happens when we kick out the wizard, sorcerer, druid, bard, ranger, paladin, and cleric? And instead go for a low magical group (basically leaving fighter, barbarian, rogue, and possibly monk and/or warlock)? The sort of conceptual group that makes up most sword and sorcery fantasy - or even classic fantasy.

By losing most of these classes, we lose a lot of ready made solutions-in-a-can. That's fine. In my experience group creativity goes up when there aren't ready made solutions presented.

But there's one class that's deeply embedded in the party makeup. One class that in 2e in particular people had to cajole each other to play. The cleric.

So what happens when we remove the cleric? Quite simply, the party dies. A lot. And they die for two reasons.

The first is that the mantra that the fighter can keep going all day is shown up for the rubbish it is. Fighters can keep going as long as they have hit points. Without Clerics (or 3.X style Wands of Cure Light Wounds) to keep them going fighters can fight until they run out of hit points. And the party can keep going until the first fighter runs out of hit points (or perhaps a little longer if you can give them a polearm or bow and have them drop back).

The second is spike damage. A random crit or set of high rolls are going to unexpectedly kill. A cleric has the healing spells to drop spike healing on someone, taking the edge off that. If the dice are running hot against one PC in specific the Cleric heals them and it takes the edge off it.

In order to play in most fantasy settings with D&D levels of focus on combat (you can play The Goblin Emperor all you like - D&D will have little to say about that) and without clerics you need either a huge grab bag of optional rules, or some way of taking the damage mitigation of the cleric and giving at least some of it to someone who isn't a spellcaster.

You need to be able to do the following.

1. Pick PCs on negative HP up off the ground and allow them to either join the fight or run away.
2. Prevent PCs being shafted by excessive damage spikes either through healing them after the event or through preventing the damage landing by means of an interrupt after the damage dice have been rolled. (Proactive healing like temporary hit points doesn't work unless used in overwhelming quantities due to not being able to predict when the dice will spike).

And this needs to be done without magic because otherwise D&D only actually works in worlds either that are excessively bloody (a problem given the levelling and power curve of any edition of D&D) or that are with a level of magic rarely seen outside D&D settings, World of Warcraft, or Harry Potter novels.

The warlord ticks all the boxes that are needed to allow high fantasy and sword and sorcery.

Complete myth we had cleric less parties in 2E. What you do have to change however is the expectation of constant combat. Since you only get 1-3 hit points back per day. That means an adventure such as The Isle of Dread is mostly OK while something like The Caves of Chaos is not a good idea to run.

Even IRL in something like WW1 and WW2 the typical soldier did not spend that much time in combat. If you do get hurt badly you may sit things out for a month of game time instead of 5 minutes or less.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Obviously, in 5e, the Cleric isn't alone, there's the Bard, Druid, & Paladin, or even Ranger, able to handle some of that support burden, as well. But, sure take away all of 'em and you are back to the grim reality of a 'party without a cleric' in AD&D.

I also question whether the Warlock is appropriate for a PC in S&S, though.
Or is it just the least inappropriate?

But, really, is that all that's needed from the Warlord. It is cool to support more playstyles, including more genres. But, the Warlord also enables a party when the 'Cleric' (support caster) concept is undesirable for other reasons. And, it represents a concept other classes simply can't model well, as well as a support contribution other non-magical classes can't cover.

And it needs to be viable even in those high-caster-magic games, as well.

 

[Zardnaar]

Obviously, in 5e, the Cleric isn't alone, there's the Bard, Druid, & Paladin, or even Ranger, able to handle some of that support burden, as well. But, sure take away all of 'em and you are back to the grim reality of a 'party without a cleric' in AD&D.

I also question whether the Warlock is appropriate for a PC in S&S, though.
Or is it just the least inappropriate?

But, really, is that all that's needed from the Warlord. It is cool to support more playstyles, including more genres. But, the Warlord also enables a party when the 'Cleric' (support caster) concept is undesirable for other reasons. And, it represents a concept other classes simply can't model well, as well as a support contribution other non-magical classes can't cover.

And it needs to be viable even in those high-caster-magic games, as well.

AD&D you did not heal over night though or get hit dice based healing. Otherwise see previous comment about the expectations of the amount of combat or otherwise dangerous stuff.

I'm putting together a 5E Darksun game and healing rates are reduced to 1HD regained per day (thats it no overnight healing) and most archetypes will be banned. If a class did not exist in 2E the 5E version is gone with the exception of a few archetypes like Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster (2E had Fighter/thieves and Fighter/Mages for example).

With no magical healing (well less healing) the warlord is not allowed not because I need non magical healing but I want healing to be a lot less abundant period to fit the setting. I don't need martial healing in game to replace magical healing.

The main reason is though in Darksun the environment should be dangerous and it is hard to do that with overnight healing. Clerics will still exist though but only 5 of them with the war cleric being used to represent the Templars.

In regards to magical healing I am finding it hard to work out how much healing the warlord should have. 2 healing word effects per short rest do not seem enough, healer feat is to much at low levels at least for a class ability.

 

[Orlax]

Healing wise this is my idea. I'm going to give the warlord a big hit die, likely a d10, the reason being is that they will be able to hand out their hit die to others for healing. It gives then a nice healing reserve that grows as they level. Definitely an action to hand out a die, possibly allowing for handing out multiple dice at once. Possibly have a subclass that goes about adding charisma mod to every die handed out, or just making that the baseline.

 

[mellored]

Healing wise this is my idea. I'm going to give the warlord a big hit die, likely a d10, the reason being is that they will be able to hand out their hit die to others for healing. It gives then a nice healing reserve that grows as they level. Definitely an action to hand out a die, possibly allowing for handing out multiple dice at once. Possibly have a subclass that goes about adding charisma mod to every die handed out, or just making that the baseline.

Sounds more like a reverse vampire to me.


I think a simple "ally can spend a hit die, they can only benefit from this once per short rest" would be enough for the base warlord. Just enough to get someone off the ground, with no extra healing.

Then make an inspirational subclass that boost healing (+cha for each die spent).

 

[Aldarc]

Healing wise this is my idea. I'm going to give the warlord a big hit die, likely a d10, the reason being is that they will be able to hand out their hit die to others for healing. It gives then a nice healing reserve that grows as they level. Definitely an action to hand out a die, possibly allowing for handing out multiple dice at once. Possibly have a subclass that goes about adding charisma mod to every die handed out, or just making that the baseline.

That seems almost excessively punishing for the warlord to use their abilities, especially if it comes at the cost of their own ability to heal.

It seems that there could be a set of healing options available for the warlord, all different maneuvers or class features:
1) Allow one (or more) ally to use their own HD in-combat.
2) An "inspiration/superiority die" that the warlord grants to an ally for their use for healing at any point. (Allies could even hypothetically use that die in a myriad of ways: forced re-rolls, saving throws, resistance, or other forms of healing/mitigation, etc.)
3) A more conventional heal that requires touch.
4) An out-of-combat heal.
5) And perhaps what we may need is a maneuver that turns unused temp HP into real HP after combat.

Simply options for a robust healing toolkit.