Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour: The Warlord

[mellored]

Actually I kinda like the idea of a Rune Scribe as a non-magical magical buffer.

Rune Scribe sounds like a good Artificer sub-class to me.

 

[Imaro]

And the whole point of a wizard is to cast spells, yet there is a bladesinger.
Or the whole point of a fighter is to fight, yet there is an eldrich knight.

No I mean one of the fundamental tenets I've seen Warlord fans state is that a Warlord has to be non-magical...

 

[Yunru]

Bah, Artificer arshmifiter.
I'd rather have the Rune Scribe as an Arcane subclass to the Warlord and no Artificer than have the Rune Scribe as a subclass to the Artificer and no Warlord.

 

[chunkosauruswrex]

Int would be the main stat. With a flexible secondary stat.

Fear lord would be using intimidation to control enemies. Breaking their moral, causing fear (disadvantage, movement penalty), possibly some psychic damage. Maybe call it Doomsayer.
Charisma would be the inpsiring leader. Call it a marshal, after the 3.5 marshal.
Pacifist would not deal any damage themselves and would try to resolve things peacefully. Diplomat would be a good name.

There's plenty of room for a non-magical class that focuses on non-damaging effects. No need to limit yourself to just the 4e version of the armored tactician. That's just one example.

All this seems to go against one of the things Mearls was trying to avoid. Fear Lord sounds like it would be a College of whispers Bard, Marshal already exists as the Valor Bard, Pacifist is essentially the redemption Paladin(there was also the tranquility monk).

 

[Yunru]

All this seems to go against one of the things Mearls was trying to avoid. Fear Lord sounds like it would be a College of whispers Bard, Marshal already exists as the Valor Bard, Pacifist is essentially the redemption Paladin(there was also the tranquility monk).

And the Sorcerer is already the Wizard, the Paladin is already the Cleric.

Yeah, I don't buy it.

 

[chunkosauruswrex]

And the Sorcerer is already the Wizard, the Paladin is already the Cleric.

Yeah, I don't buy it.

Honestly my real problem is that he essentially wants this one class to do everything. There is not near enough flavor space for 10 _______-Lords. He is just trying to justify a second class when conceptually there is just not enough there

 

[mellored]

Bah, Artificer arshmifiter.
I'd rather have the Rune Scribe as an Arcane subclass to the Warlord and no Artificer than have the Rune Scribe as a subclass to the Artificer and no Warlord.

Fair.
Also, here are some better names for sub-classes.

Detective (Perception/Insight)
Diplomat (Persuasion)
Doomsayer (Intimidate)
Impostor (Deception)
Marshal (Inspiring)
Martyr (Endurance)
Medic (Medicine)
Rune Scribe (Arcana)
Spy (Stealth)
Warlord (Warfare)

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think an important thing that is getting overlooked is the fact that the ability of the Warlord to grant Basic Attacks had a certain weight in 4E because 4E was a game where "basic attacks" kind of sucked. ... that one basic attack the Warlord granted was a minimal benefit over him attacking on his own.

Yep. With Essentials, they gave the Thief SA /per turn/ and 'updated' the Rogue to work the same way, from then on, if you were a Princess Build*, and there was a rogue in the party, you used Command the Strike or whatever on him every round, heck, at least every round, if you could maybe slip him an attack with your immediate action you'd do that, too, because, y'know, damn(age). At release, the 4e Rogue's SA was /per round/ and the dynamic with the Warlord was kinda cool, and not even arguably broken. When the Rogue missed or couldn't get CA on his turn, his SA was 'wasted' - unless he got an OA, or the Warlord granted him an attack with Commander's Strike or Hammer & Anvil (preferably while flanking) or Surprise Attack (free CA as a bonus).

That was nice, and, yeah, the structure of 'powers,' including Basic attacks and the three-action turn did make it simple. The way each power and feature worked was clear, the structure of the round was defined, and the dynamic came together naturally. Nearly to the point of elegance, even.

Which leads us to a big point: it was mostly about the flavour. It's not "power", it's visualizing a style of character that was different from anything else. The senior swordsman taking the enemy's full attention in order to let his allies hit past their guard. The sergeant locking blades with the orc chieftain while the rogue stabs him in the back. The war veteran simply telling a guy how to kill that pesky goblin.

Really, though, the flavor was up to the players. That was one of the things about the way 4e presented 'powers.' They were bundles of mechanics, they came with an evocative name and a bit of sample flavor text, but you were free to change it. Some Warlords' "Commanders Strike" could be a literal command. Others could be a tricky maneuver. Others could just be a cry for help.

Putting a little wiggle room between the mechanics and the narrative opens up a lot of freedom & creativity for the player in expressing his character and contributing to the fiction - but, it needs very clear mechanics, so that freedom doesn't bring the game up short, mechanically. /That/ is antithetical to 5e's style of DM Empowerment.

But, it's not a problem, it's an opportunity...

What happens with 5E? 5E doesn't have a nuanced action system.

Actually, it does, it's little more than nuance, really. You get an action, which can be almost anything you care to declare, a move, which can't it's just moving, well and standing up & moving and maybe something else if your DM says so, and may or may not get a bonus action, a ruled-not-an-action-action, an object-interaction-action, and, between times, (one and only one) reaction action. Really, it's action-packed. But it's not neatly structured or carefully balanced, it's just a guideline, a starting place like everything else in D&D.
Ultimately, players declare actions and DMs decide how to resolve them.

If you're a melee combatant your god-action is the attack action.

I don't see it that way:

If you're a fighter, it's your /Extra/ Attack & action surge.
If you're a rogue it's your SA.
If you're a Paladin, it's your smite.
If you're a Barbarian, it's your Rage.
etc...

A simple attack isn't a "god-action" (a 'bring-it!' A-game, peak power, whatever you want to call it). 5e just lacks a simple term for simple attack.
Because 5e doesn't really do simple. It does familiar, it does natural language, but it does it all with a familiar, natural helping of classic-D&D-evocative complexity.

Just an attack in 5e is just an attack. It's not simply defined in one word - "Basic" like in 4e - it's described in natural language, so it's a more complex concept to state, but it's an intuitive one. In 4e, you'd say something like "Effect: An ally of your choice w/in 5 squares can make a Basic Attack as a free action." That's blindingly simple, but it's loads of information & restrictions. In 5e, between reliance natural language and the more nuanced, less structured system, it just has to be spelled out in more detail, even at the risk of being a tad complicated. "You can use your action to command an ally who you can see, and who can hear you, to make an attack with a weapon he has at hand against an enemy you designate, or if he has not used a spell slot to cast a spell on his last turn, to use a cantrip that takes an attack roll, (and insert more if new classes insert their own unique alternatives to regular & enhanced attacks). The ally you choose must have his reaction available, but does not expend it to make the attack. The ally can make only a single attack inflicting damage based on his weapon and his STR or DEX as appropriate, only. Even if normally entitled to Extra Attacks or using two weapons, and cannot expend resources like spell slots or CS dice to it, nor make the attack into an SA (insert more his as needed to get the simple idea of a 'basic attack' across in natural language).

OK, maybe I hammed that up a little. Point is, 5e doesn't make it impossible to do anything, just potentially more complicated. And, with a late-addition, non-core, optional class, that's not a major downside. You won't be using a class like the Warlord (or any caster, or anything but a Champion Fighter, really) if you're all that allergic to complexity.

In 5E things are different, and I can see balance issues arising.

One of the major differences with 5e is that balance isn't so much of an issue.

I just don't see it happening: the warlord is built around the structure of 4E and that's something 5E isn't equipped to replicate.

Not too sound too defensive, here, but, again, 5e is not gimped, it is not incapable of handling an awesome class concept just because that concept's primary appearance was in a more structured edition. It'll just handle it differently.
Every class in 4e was build around the structure of 4e, and a bunch of them, including 3 that, like the Warlord, were 'Leaders' in 4e, have been successfully done in 5e. The impediment is illusory.

The Bard is a particularly good example, I think. In prior eds, the Bard was a lackluster, much-mocked 5th-wheel 2nd-rate caster with a goofy schtick giving out a minor bonus. But, built into the Role/Source structure of 4e it gained a clear functional vision, an Arcane Leader, and kept it's schtick (with less goofy, or at least optional fluff) while becoming an equal to other 'leaders.' It worked pretty nicely, as did the Skald (now Valor Bard), and when the 5e Bard was developed, it wasn't just cloned from prior-ed's fuzzy, mildly ridiculous, 2nd-rate magic-dabblers and made a Rogue sub-class, instead it was made a full class, a full caster and a functional support alternative, while keeping the positives of it's fluff and heritage. In the process, it's /more/ than the 4e bard was - for instance, it can go a lot further in the 'control' direction than would have been 'balanced' or Role-appropriate in 4e.
The Warlord would have to be, too

The Warlord, to me, was about improvising and executing complex battle plans that exploited every square of movement and every bit of positioning and pushing and pulling to obtain the best possible effect.

And modeling that will take more design space than is available on the Fighter chassis. Mearls seems to acknowledge that, really, when looking at the fighter and realizing that there's nothing in it that supports the Warlord concept prior to wedging in the sub-class. And, again, when deciding on the EK as his template based on it doing 'healing' (hp restoration).

I don't really feel the need for a class that will enable me to roll to hit once more per turn. Different classes for different games.

While a Fighter sub-class might only have room for just enabling an ally to roll to hit once more per turn, the result wouldn't be a Warlord.

In spite of all the pointless angst over attack-granting, it's not the only thing Warlords did, nor even a defining thing. It was defining for a fan hack that arose on top of the official builds...

No I mean one of the fundamental tenets I've seen Warlord fans state is that a Warlord has to be non-magical...

A warlord does, to call back the original, definitely. All 5e Warlord sub-classes, OTOH, not s'much. One thing 5e does, quite profligately, is to cover quite specific concepts that, in 3e would require MCing (or Hybriding in 4e) or 20-level feat-tree builds, with a one-and-done sub-class choice. Nothing stopped you from taking an MC feat, or even hybriding your Warlord with a class from some other source ('caster' in real-D&D parlance), in 4e. Something very well could in 5e: called the DM not using feats or MCing! Instead (or, rather, as well), sub-classes.
It's the 5e way, and another way 5e is, in fact, potentially able to handle characters from all prior eds.

Y'know, the point about warlords not having enough legs to be a full class in 5e is an interesting one. If the idea is that a base class should have eight or ten sub classes (and we seem to be headed that way), then, yeah, I can see Mearls' point. Sure, I can think of three, maybe five sub classes for warlords, but eight or ten? No, I can't actually think of that many variations on "martial support character".

Mearls, apparently, couldn't think of a third variation on beatstick before resorting to the EK. ;P

Seriously, though, 4e gave us 6 official 'builds,' plus an alternate feature, each of which would map to a 5e sub-class:

Tactical
Inspiring
Resourceful
Bravura
Skirmishing
Insightful
and Archery

Add to that the fan-favorite 'Lazy' build and that's 8 Warlord sub-classes, minimum.

Then there's all those Warlord-focused Paragon Paths, any of which might also inspire a sub-class. (Or a PrC. Have I mentioned, lately, that 5e could really benefit from 3.5-style PrCs? I think I have.)

That could get the class over 10 before Mearls even has to come up with anything actually new, himself.

But 5e classes aren't as focused as 4e classes were. The Warlord could stray into 'controller' and striker functions, as well, could literally lead bands of NPCs (perhaps under the sub-class name 'Marshal' as in "marshalling the volunteers"), and, of course, could go ahead and like the Fighter & Rogue, have a spell-casting sub-class or two.

Kind of cool that they seem to think that 10 years from now, we'll still be playing 5e as well.

I'll believe it at year 11, but it is nice to hear.

On a side note, that does make some classes REALLY hard to build in 5e. An alchemist class doesn't have 10 variations. Even the Psionicist is stretching pretty hard to get that many. Possible, I suppose, if they start emulating other classes with psionic classes. But, if that's the design philosophy going forward - that any new base class needs enough design space for 10 or more sub classes, I think many people are going to be pretty disappointed.

Bundling is a possibility. Bundle the Artificer & Alchemist together, for instance. Psionics shouldn't be a problem. I mean, from prior eds we have: Psionicist, Psion, Wild Talent, Soul Knife, Psychic Warrior, Ardent, Battlemind, and Monk. Plus all the PrCs, PPs, Themes, and whatnot. /Plus/ the 5e penchant for MCing/hybridizing with sub-classes. Really might need at least two Psionic classes (and I say that as someone who's never much cared for psionics).











* Garthanos coined that one, I like it better than 'Lazy'

 

[mellored]

Honestly my real problem is that he essentially wants this one class to do everything. There is not near enough flavor space for 10 _______-Lords. He is just trying to justify a second class when conceptually there is just not enough there

So... which is it? Does the class do too much, or does it not do enough?

 

[Yunru]

Honestly my real problem is that he essentially wants this one class to do everything. There is not near enough flavor space for 10 _______-Lords. He is just trying to justify a second class when conceptually there is just not enough there

Not at all, it's several ways to do the same thing: support other players.
Sure each of the has a splash of something else, but that's the point of subclasses.