Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour: The Warlord

[mellored]

I'm still not convinced of that.

Here's another idea I had, use the Battlemaster chassis, however, instead of adding riders to your attacks, add them to someone else.

Simple, and doesn't require bloat.

And then you quickly run out of dice and go back to multi-attacking things again. You're a warlord for 4 turns, and a fighter for 12.


Unless you have some way of trading away the multi-attack for support, it won't be balanced.
And i haven't seen a good method yet. Maybe you can do better.

 

[Yaarel]

The warlord (Id rather call it the tactician) can be nonmagical healer. It helps to formalize what hit points represent.

Fresh: maximum hit points.
− nonphysical hit points = increasing fatigue, receiving negligible nicks and glancing blows.
Bloodied: half maximum hit points.
− bloody hit points = defenses are sloppy, receiving bleeding cuts and enduring bruises.
Downed: zero hit points.
− life or limb = ‘stab thru the gut’, character might bleed out, lose consciousness, die, break an arm, lose an eye, or so on.



The tactician can ‘reinvigorate’ nonphysical hit points, by inspiration and tactical guidance.

The tactician can remedy bloody hit points using herbal kit and bandages, and similar.

The tactician is less effective at healing if a character hits zero hit points.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

heh. OK, I think I see where you're coming from, now.

That was meant to be a cheeky nod. The reason why we're doing this debate is because we both have our ideas that we won't let go and one of us is trying to convince the other of the One True Way to yell at people to make them do things.

Because it's not possible. Sub-classes in 5e don't all follow a fixed formula or pattern, but there's some things that are unprecedented to do with a sub-class. One of them is to yoink major, class-defining, abilities like full casting or Extra Attack. That prettymuch disqualifies ever last class. If you start with a full-caster bard or a high-DPR fighter or Rogue, you just don't have enough design space left to do all that fun stubbornly-not-magical support stuff.

Take the idea of Commander's Strike and add it to a whole bunch of new Martial Maneuvers.

There you go, a Warlord.

Even if we set the precedent, it'd be tantamount to creating a new class, anyway. And, besides, it gets you one sub-class. As I've laid out above, the Warlord, even in it's brief 4e tenure, had the equivalent of at least 8 sub-classes- I suppose, like the Fighter & Rogue, they'd be "martial archetypes." Over 40 if you really stretch the point.

The Barbarian could have been a background. We really only needed one of the Warlock, Sorcerer, Wizard arcane triumvirate. The Bard was a Rogue sub-class in 2e. The Druid could have been a Cleric sub-class. The Paladin and Ranger could have been done with MCing.

With what they've done with Barbarian, I feel like making it just a background or a subclass would've been dumb. Warlock, Sorcerer and Wizard each have completely different stories as to how they got their magic, and I feel they have been differentiated enough in mechanics to make the distinction matter. Adding Wild Shape to the Cleric would've been silly. Paladin and Ranger are similar to the Warlock, Wizard, and Sorcerer. They have different enough stories from the Fighter/Cleric and Fighter with Outlander background to matter and they've done a good enough job using mechanics to separate them.

Trying to limit class bloat was not a priority in 5e. Clinging to that so selectively is, well, hypocrisy. I'll take the assertion seriously when you start threads to get rid of the Sorcerer, Warlock, Bard, Druid, and, especially, Barbarian, and they rack up 200 pages each.

Considering the design philosophy of 5E, (that being, from what I can tell is "Keep it simple, Stupid) I honestly fail to see how it's hypocrisy.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

And then you quickly run out of dice and go back to multi-attacking things again. You're a warlord for 4 turns, and a fighter for 12.


Unless you have some way of trading away the multi-attack for support, it won't be balanced.
And i haven't seen a good method yet. Maybe you can do better.

Maybe have it so you don't actually have to use dice for it? Maybe you just get maneuvers you can trade attacks for?

It was an idea for people to jump off of, although I could've worded that part better.

 

[Yaarel]

I feel the tactician aka warlord works best as its own class.

The fact the tactician is nonmagical is an asset, opening up more salient options without relying on the flavor of magic.

There are enough concepts to make very different subclass archetypes:
• medic
• leading from the front
• leading from behind

 

[Yunru]

Adding Wild Shape to the Cleric would've been silly.

You're right, you just give the Druid subclass a Channel Divinity that lets them turn into animals.

Or the Barbarian subclass the likes of Reckless attack, brutal critical, etc. All the things that make them Barbarian-y sans-rage.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

I feel the tactician aka warlord works best as its own class.

The fact the tactician is nonmagical is an asset, opening up more salient options without relying on the flavor of magic.

And I still say why does being non-magical matter so much?

End result would be the same.

 

[Yunru]

And I still say why does being non-magical matter so much?

End result would be the same.

Because otherwise it doesn't fill the "non magical support" niche?

It's like asking why the Wizard being magical matters so much.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

You're right, you just give the Druid subclass a Channel Divinity that lets them turn into animals.

Or the Barbarian subclass the likes of Reckless attack, brutal critical, etc. All the things that make them Barbarian-y sans-rage.

So just get rid of the key part of a Barbarian and neuter a key part of the Druid and it's all fine?

I feel like you're trying to make a point here.

 

[Yaarel]

And I still say why does being non-magical matter so much?

End result would be the same.

It is necessary to have decent nonmagical class options because not all settings have magic. Not all players want to play a magical character.

Personally, I love magic, and only play magical characters.

However, the nonmagical tactician aka warlord is such an important salient option, that I want to see 5e offer it as a core part of the game, for players who do want it.

Also as DM, even tho I prefer high magic settings, there will be regions and cultures that lack magic, and I want to see the tactician as part of my tool kit for world building.