D&D 5E How much healing, how much mitigation for a warlord?

[Tony Vargas]

If anything the poll is proving that there's a big split

It is in essence a 'choose your method of execution' poll. All the choices make the warlord just bad at support compared to existing support classes.

In any case, it makes giving players some choices the clear way to go.

Like on inspiration. Rather than tapping the ally's reserve (4E tradition), what about the 5E convention of "ally must take short or long rest before they can again benefit from this feature." Basically imposes similar limitation as to who can be inspired and how often. But doesn't infringe on other player's assets (as spending their inspiration and HD does, however fair the trade or good the benefit).

I think HD work best for restoring hps, specifically (and, yes, it's 4e-like, but then so are HD), and yes, rests re-setting the Inspiration mechanic make perfect sense. I also like the idea of leveraging the 5e inspiration mechanic.

But, as mellored has pointed out, 5e isn't committed to consistent structures, so, aside from HD, there's no way to tie Inspired extra-effort to existing extra-effort mechanics (like Second Wind) or even clearly identify them (is a Warlock casting his last spell making an extra effort that could instead have gone into being Inspired to re-gain some hit points or toss a particularly deadly eldritch blasts?).

A hard 1/rest limit also gets in the way of basic support function, because one ally can get hammered by the enemy and require support repeatedly in a single encounter, while everyone else is fine. Giving such an ally a shot in the form of an increasing CON save DC or a post-encounter consequence instead of a hard limit (or after a soft limit has been exceeded), would address that.

It'd also be tricky to balance. Intuitively, I think the second time you're inspired, make a CON save to benefit, and the DC goes up each time from there, once you fail, you can't benefit again until you have a short rest. Then DC resets on a short rest, but you still have to save until you've had a long rest.

'Coincidentally' front-liners like fighters who tend to get beat up a lot, also tend to have good CON saves.

INT save on tactics is a neat enough limitation. But I think tactics is also expansive enough to include things like moving allies (which wouldn't need a save at all).

Agreed. Something like Wolf Pack Tactics - one of the signature warlord at-wills, could be a maneuver that requires neither inspiration nor tactics to work, it just works.

 

[Bawylie]

It is in essence a 'choose your method of execution' poll. All the choices make the warlord just bad at support compared to existing support classes.

In any case, it makes giving players some choices the clear way to go.


I think HD work best for restoring hps, specifically (and, yes, it's 4e-like, but then so are HD), and yes, rests re-setting the mechanic make perfect sense. I also like the idea of leveraging the 5e inspiration mechanic.

Agreed. Something like Wolf Pack Tactics - one of the signature warlord at-wills, could be a maneuver that requires neither inspiration nor tactics to work, it just works.

What about something that kicks in when an ally that can see and hear you spends inspiration, they also gain blah blah blah.

Passive but neat.

 

[Tony Vargas]

What about something that kicks in when an ally that can see and hear you spends inspiration, they also gain blah blah blah.

Passive but neat.

Duh! That is perfect for Commanding Presence! Inspiration instead of Action Point. Well done.


Inspiring Presence: When an ally who can see you spends inspiration to gain advantage on an attack or saving throw, that ally re-gains hps equal to your CHA + the lower of your level, or the ally's level.

Tactical Presence: When an ally whom you can see or hear spends inspiration to gain advantage on an attack roll, that ally gains a bonus equal to your INT mod to the lower of the two dice, and half your INT mod to the higher die.

Bravura Presence: When an ally who can see or hear you spends inspiration to gain advantage on an attack roll, and the result of the lower die also hits, he can make an additional attack as a bonus action (if he is already entitled to a bonus action attack, he can make that attack with Advantage, instead). But, if the bonus attack misses, the ally grants Advantage to the next attack against him.

Resourceful Presence: When an ally who can hear you spends inspiration, they gain temp hp equal to your CHA + the lower of your level or their own. If the ally spent the inspiration to make an attack and hit, they can forgo the temp hps and instead inflict extra damage equal to your INT mod + the lower of your level or their own.

 

[mellored]

What about something that kicks in when an ally that can see and hear you spends inspiration, they also gain blah blah blah.

Passive but neat.

the advantage of maneuvers is you can make a passive or active warlord.
while not my taste, i'm sure someone would like to play an aura lord and could effectivly sit out of a battle.

 

[Leatherhead]

I would like to see a 20% healing ( a stabilization ability, a "ritual" to cure long term effects, an ability to negate debilitation effects, and a single ability to grant HP once per combat) and 80% mitigation built into a class, mostly because I hate combat healing and how it messes up combat pacing and tension.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I voted 20% HP, 80% mitigation--but with something of a caveat.

I think that that is the minimum, the "baseline" shared by all Warlords. Just a little bit of healing, and primarily working through damage reduction. Then, one particular subclass specializes in healing, and brings it up to (say) 60/40 or even 50/50. The Warlord never "moves away from" primarily dealing in all the various forms of damage reduction, but within just one subclass they can be pretty good at both. Other subclasses focus on other things--more on offense, for instance, or expanding into new territory, like enhancing stealth or socialization (perhaps both at once!)

 

[Tony Vargas]

mostly because I hate combat healing and how it messes up combat pacing and tension.

Interesting. How do you limit the use of Healing Word, Cure Wounds and other in-combat healing spells in your campaign?

Actually, this comment points up the wrong-headedness of the question in the first place. At worst, every answer, especially the 100% extremes, results in an inferior support class. At best, choosing one of the middle options tailors the class to one specific campaign tone.

 

[Ainulindalion]

I honestly think at this point, people should stop arguing over 'how do we make a warlord?' and look at the various options that have been presented to find things that they like and don't like. Then, have the people who worked out those options try to balance a single class design that does what people decide is awesomecool (but probably includes some badwrongfun things for balance reasons).

Then we can playtest it.

 

[mellored]

I honestly think at this point, people should stop arguing over 'how do we make a warlord?' and look at the various options that have been presented to find things that they like and don't like. Then, have the people who worked out those options try to balance a single class design that does what people decide is awesomecool (but probably includes some badwrongfun things for balance reasons).

Then we can playtest it.

Are you volunteering to make run a "community warlord homebrew" thread?

 

[Ainulindalion]

Are you volunteering to make run a "community warlord homebrew" thread?

I have no objection to turning my thread that lists the various existing homebrews into such a thread, or developing such a thread from that thread (I'd prefer for the list to be pinned so that it was easily findable, but whatever).