D&D 5E 5e Warlord Demand Poll

[Jester David]

Personally, I think it's option 4 - they won't do it because the midden will hit the windmill as a very vocal group of players will have a massive hissy fit if an actual warlord ever graced the pages of the game.

I think the number of actual anti-warlord individuals probably actually numbers in the dozens.

But, again, you can't simply dismiss a poll because you don't like the results. I mean a bit of Googling turns up the following polls:

I'd say there is a pretty darn consistent trend there.

Yeah, a hundred people on ENWorld really want the warlord.

And that number seems to have gone down.

The purpose of this thread was to provide evidence that the reason we don't have a warlord is that only a small minority of gamers actually want one. Well, I'd say that the opposite, if anything, was shown. When somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1/4 to 1/3 of gamers would like to see a warlord, I'd say there is pretty darn strong desire for one.

The thing is, 160-odd people voted on this thread, and currently 46 want the warlord. 30%. Cool.
But... it's 30% of people who are interested.

There's generally 1,500 users logged into ENWorld each day. Currently <1000 and I've seen it close to 2,000. So of those 1,500 users, 1340-odd went "meh" and couldn't even work up enough interest in the warlord to even vote.
Okay, even if we arbitrarily say that 3/4 of people logged into ENWorld don't hit the forums (or the D&D forums). That's still 375 people. And 215 of them went "zero craps given" and hit a different topic.

So the actual number might not be 30%, and might be closer to 15%.

Oh, and ENWorld skews old. Especially compared to the D&D communities on Facebook and Reddit. Reddit in general skews younger. We saw that when Morrus posted his demographics information. The bellcurve here is slightly to the old one step. And there are more former 4e fans here, who came after the WotC site went down.

Even RPG.net the tone is different.
See this thread: https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?788342-Warlords-in-5e

Or here on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/2h5vqj/what_happened_to_warlords/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/3pfegi/warlord_in_5e/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/5lmftx/i_miss_being_a_true_warlord/

Very different tone to the discussion.

What this means is, that ENWorld is the place where you're going to find the most ardent warlord fans and people most willing to vote warlord. And the class still only gets a potential 30% (and probable 15%).


But polls aren't the only metric.

There's the DMsGuild. Lots of warlords on there. Lots of homebrew classes in general. And that's an opportunity for people to vote with their wallets.
What do we have so far:
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/178203/Weapon-Master-Complex-Fighter--Full-Class
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/179902/The-Warlord
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/171718/Fighter-Archetype--Warlord
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/180...-Archetypes-for-Harnessing-Martial-Prowess-5e
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/181162/Warlord--3-Archetypes
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/170957/Warlord--Martial-Archetype
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/189381/The-Warlord
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/193163/The-Warlord
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/182127/Fighter--Tactician-Martial-Archetype

Plus my own subclass here:
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/174898/5MWD-Presents-Maneuvers--Commander

Of those ten, we have 3 Copper sellers (50 sales), 1 Silver (100 sales), and 6 lacking a medal. Electrum is 250 sales, so if we assume each is halfway to the next medal that's (25x6 + 75x3 + 175). Or 550 combined sales. Which is Gold.
Compare that with the number of actual Gold sellers on the DMsGuild: http://www.dmsguild.com/metal.php

The combined sales of every warlord option on the DMs Guild compares to the sales of the spellbinder class or the eidolist or the pugilist or the dragon knight. And is half that of the shaman class.
And that assumes there's no overlap in sales between warlord purchases. And we're assuming most have actually had quite a few sales, when they could have had 0. The actual number of purchases could be <400.

So if there are a lot of warlord fans out there, they seem unwilling to actually pay for a class they really, really want.
Or there are just that many more people who want a shaman or pugilist.

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

I voted I play 5th and don't care if there is a warlord class. It's not because of any dislike, but because I think it would play too much like a cross between valor bard and battlemaster. Between those two classes and support feats I think you could already emulate a warlord very well. The rest is flavor imo.

 

[Yunru]

Considering that one of the biggest RPGs out there (Final Fantasy) has a pugilist, I'm leaning towards the latter.

That said, let's look at WotC's polls. 15% won top place (the Wizard), 15%. By your logic next to no-one's interested in playing a wizard either. But it got first place? Ah, that must just mean that nobody wants to play DnD in general, right?

 

[Blue]

I always thought a Berserker subclass that uses their Action Surge to enter a bloodthirsty Rage would be cool. Also the option to give up extra attack options in favor of one big attack.

I always personally felt that a Barbarian's rage should be this huge tide turning event rather than something the character does nearly every-single-time they fight. It should be like the Cleric's Channel Divinity.

So ... you agree with me? Move action surge and extra attack to the subclasses, and replace them with rage and "big attack". Or were you suggesting that we just use the same feature name in the base class but doing completely different things.

BTW, channel divinity is per short rest. Over the course of an adventuring day it can happen at least as often as barbarian rage and often quite a bit more often given the DMG recommended 6-8 encounters and 2 short rests each about 1/3 of the way through. Especially at 6th when clerics can use it twice between short rest. (3 per rest @ 18th.) Having a deep understanding of the rules and the balance between classes is a good starting point for crafting new ones.

 

[Aldarc]

So if there are a lot of warlord fans out there, they seem unwilling to actually pay for a class they really, really want.
Or there are just that many more people who want a shaman or pugilist.

I naturally can't speak for other warlord fans, only myself, but I'm somewhat skeptical of fan-generated classes on DMsGuild, regardless of whether it is a warlord or not. I tend to stay away from DMsGuild new classes, and I'm not interested in warlords that make it a subclass of some other class. There's too much of a wild deviance in quality on DMsGuild for me to wade through and filter the above average quality content. It's unfortunate. I like the idea of DMsGuild, but its execution has produced a tremendous amount of crud. This shortcoming of DMsGuild, in particular, is one reason why I would like to see Wizards at least attempt a full Warlord class in UA.

 

[Yunru]

I naturally can't speak for other warlord fans, only myself, but I'm somewhat skeptical of fan-generated classes on DMsGuild, regardless of whether it is a warlord or not. I tend to stay away from DMsGuild new classes, and I'm not interested in warlords that make it a subclass of some other class. There's too much of a wild deviance in quality on DMsGuild for me to wade through and filter the above average quality content. It's unfortunate. I like the idea of DMsGuild, but its execution has produced a tremendous amount of crud. This shortcoming of DMsGuild, in particular, is one reason why I would like to see Wizards at least attempt a full Warlord class in UA.

I fully support these statements.

I'm even wary of Ensider content, and that's definitely a higher bar of standard.

 

[Zardnaar]

Didn't the Warlord get approximately the same amount of "low support" as classes that either made to the core rulebook or have been given test materials in UA?

Yes but Mearls was clear the valor vard and BM fighter cover the concept. We did not get a generic wizard either.

 

[Yunru]

Yes but Mearls was clear the valor vard and BM fighter cover the concept. We did not get a generic wizard either.

It was clear he felt that way.

Mechanically they just don't.

 

[Remathilis]

I naturally can't speak for other warlord fans, only myself, but I'm somewhat skeptical of fan-generated classes on DMsGuild, regardless of whether it is a warlord or not. I tend to stay away from DMsGuild new classes, and I'm not interested in warlords that make it a subclass of some other class. There's too much of a wild deviance in quality on DMsGuild for me to wade through and filter the above average quality content. It's unfortunate. I like the idea of DMsGuild, but its execution has produced a tremendous amount of crud. This shortcoming of DMsGuild, in particular, is one reason why I would like to see Wizards at least attempt a full Warlord class in UA.

I fully support these statements.


I'm even wary of Ensider content, and that's definitely a higher bar of standard.

Which is hilarious considering it was WotC who gave us the Sorcerer, Four Elements Monk, Purple Dragon Knight, and bungled the Ranger so badly they've spent TWO UA's trying to fix it.

Believe me, some of that "fan made" stuff has better implementation that stuff in the PHB.

 

[Satyrn]

My Warlord's breath smells liks warlord food.