Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour: The Warlord

[smbakeresq]

Commanders strike is great with Rogues but its also useful for.

1. Sword and board battlemaster fighters granting attacks to a two handed weapon iuser.
2. Raging barbarians
3. Ranged PCs (giving up a melee attack to turn it into a ranged one)
4. All of the above with the -5/+10 feats.
5. Any class using hunters quarry/hex.
6. The hunter ranger using hunters quarry/colossus slayer.

The BM fighter is also the best one. A Rogue is not required its just really really nice when you have the BM+Rogue combo.

1. No. You are giving up your bonus action chance to prone with shield master and attack with advantage yourself (and the great weapon user too if he moves over) or some other use of a bonus action (and the GW weapon user gives up his reaction) to get the same attack as you (you would have dueling which makes any d8 weapon essentially a d12) and die from you. Better to keep it and use it for precision attack if needed or trip attack to give a bunch of people advantage.

2. Same as above but with a rage bonus. Not worth it either.

3. Maybe, if their attacks are a lot better than yours. You are giving up the bonus action and they are giving up their reaction.

4. Only if they are using -5/+10 would any of the above be worth it, in fact it should almost be a precondition that they use it in the right situation (with advantage or bless or both) for the action cost. Otherwise the answer for all 3 is almost always no, your better off with your bonus and their reaction and your attack.

5. Maybe, once again it isn't worth it for a few more points of damage, its needs to be like 10+ more to give up your bonus and their reaction. If you are SURE you cant do something better with your bonus action (and you should have that already) and they have no use of a reaction and you don't need to turn a hit into a miss or make the fear you or trip them then maybe.

6. See 5 above. Giving up your bonus action and their reaction for an extra d6 or d8 isn't worth it. Maybe worth a d6 and d8 added together, if you roll well.

Remember you can use the maneuvers on yourself to add the same amount of damage as you would give to someone else with Commanders Strike (or turn a miss into a hit or add a rider like fear or prone) without costing anyone any actions at all. If you CANT attack, say you are not in range or restrained or something, then the cost is 0, so yeah. Otherwise the answer is almost always no.

 

[Zardnaar]

1. No. You are giving up your bonus action chance to prone with shield master and attack with advantage yourself (and the great weapon user too if he moves over) or some other use of a bonus action (and the GW weapon user gives up his reaction) to get the same attack as you (you would have dueling which makes any d8 weapon essentially a d12) and die from you. Better to keep it and use it for precision attack if needed or trip attack to give a bunch of people advantage.

2. Same as above but with a rage bonus. Not worth it either.

3. Maybe, if their attacks are a lot better than yours. You are giving up the bonus action and they are giving up their reaction.

4. Only if they are using -5/+10 would any of the above be worth it, in fact it should almost be a precondition that they use it in the right situation (with advantage or bless or both) for the action cost. Otherwise the answer for all 3 is almost always no, your better off with your bonus and their reaction and your attack.

5. Maybe, once again it isn't worth it for a few more points of damage, its needs to be like 10+ more to give up your bonus and their reaction. If you are SURE you cant do something better with your bonus action (and you should have that already) and they have no use of a reaction and you don't need to turn a hit into a miss or make the fear you or trip them then maybe.

6. See 5 above. Giving up your bonus action and their reaction for an extra d6 or d8 isn't worth it. Maybe worth a d6 and d8 added together, if you roll well.

Remember you can use the maneuvers on yourself to add the same amount of damage as you would give to someone else with Commanders Strike (or turn a miss into a hit or add a rider like fear or prone) without costing anyone any actions at all. If you CANT attack, say you are not in range or restrained or something, then the cost is 0, so yeah. Otherwise the answer is almost always no.

The bonus action cost for a fighter is mostly second wind or a dual wielder. I would not play a dual wielder BM fighter. I would also probably pick sentinel feat over shield master.

Reactions are DM dependent most class can not reliably use them. Giving up a 1d8+5 or 1g8+7 attack for a 2d6+5+1d6 (hex+ great weapon), for a ranged attack (if you are not an archer) or for a hunter ranger with a bow to deal 1d8+5+1d6+1d8 is worth it or to enable a barbarian raging with advantage is also worth it. The Rogue is just an ideal at best scenario.

If you are a great weapon fighter or use polearm master the opportunity cost is a bit higher even then I have seen attack granting being used on an archer as those builds suck at range. Its also useful for a dex based fighter switching to a bow for a ranged combat who would usually miss their attacks.

The opportunity cost for a warlord to grant an attack (no weapon style, no class features that ramp up damage) is even lower than a battlemaster fighter assuming you have strength or dex as a prime attribute. Its a bit higher for a warlord using a great weapon.

Once again assuming the warlord deals damage closer to a cleric than a warrior class, and has other abilities such as healing and tactical things to do.

I updated my one here.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?625334-Zards-Warlord-2-0

Basic idea is the tactical one can grant attacks like a BM fighter and can get extra dice via exploits and grant extra attacks+rider using those exploits. Its better at it than a BM fighter, lower opportunity cost than a BM fighter, can't do it at will though you can probably get it up to aorund 8 times per short rest (24 times a long rest assuming the 2/short rests day thing).

I also buffed the healing rate probably higher than a few 4E fans have put on their WL attempts.

 

[chunkosauruswrex]

1. No. You are giving up your bonus action chance to prone with shield master and attack with advantage yourself (and the great weapon user too if he moves over) or some other use of a bonus action (and the GW weapon user gives up his reaction) to get the same attack as you (you would have dueling which makes any d8 weapon essentially a d12) and die from you. Better to keep it and use it for precision attack if needed or trip attack to give a bunch of people advantage.

2. Same as above but with a rage bonus. Not worth it either.

3. Maybe, if their attacks are a lot better than yours. You are giving up the bonus action and they are giving up their reaction.

4. Only if they are using -5/+10 would any of the above be worth it, in fact it should almost be a precondition that they use it in the right situation (with advantage or bless or both) for the action cost. Otherwise the answer for all 3 is almost always no, your better off with your bonus and their reaction and your attack.

5. Maybe, once again it isn't worth it for a few more points of damage, its needs to be like 10+ more to give up your bonus and their reaction. If you are SURE you cant do something better with your bonus action (and you should have that already) and they have no use of a reaction and you don't need to turn a hit into a miss or make the fear you or trip them then maybe.

6. See 5 above. Giving up your bonus action and their reaction for an extra d6 or d8 isn't worth it. Maybe worth a d6 and d8 added together, if you roll well.

Remember you can use the maneuvers on yourself to add the same amount of damage as you would give to someone else with Commanders Strike (or turn a miss into a hit or add a rider like fear or prone) without costing anyone any actions at all. If you CANT attack, say you are not in range or restrained or something, then the cost is 0, so yeah. Otherwise the answer is almost always no.

3. If you are melee and they are ranged sometime regardless of damage you just need the enemy caster to stop concentrating on something like right now.

6. There are many classes that lack a good reaction, and unless you are two weapon fighting what is your bonus action going to be used for as a fighter?

 

[Kinematics]

Currently re-watching the video (it's up on YouTube now, here), and seeing that Mike answers several of the questions brought up.

A couple things:

1) He's explicitly on-board with giving the Warlord healing right from the start (3rd level, in this case). There's no reason not to, and since it's drawing off of the dice pools he created from the Eldritch Knight's spells, as soon as that pool is available, you should be able to use it in that way.

I put together a table comparing the potential Warlord healing vs a Cleric's Cure Wounds + Heal, assuming they both used every possible bit of their resources on healing. It varies a bit, generally ranging from 30% to 60% of a cleric's potential. When you consider that the Cleric needs to use spells for lots of other things, and that the Warlord has somewhat higher efficiency because of overhealing and temp HP, I would consider the Warlord to be on par with most of the raw HP healing that a Cleric would provide.

2) A point that I missed when I did the transcription: The size of the Tactical Focus area should grow as you level. He didn't specify the amount, but I could see it being reasonable to increase in size by 1 square per level. (Max size: 21 squares) A more conservative growth rate would be 1 square every other level. (Max size: 12 squares)

I'd probably evaluate what you could do at 10th level.

A growth of 1 square every other level would have a size of 7 squares by 10th level, which is longer than a single person's move speed (barring movement improvements). You can get a bit of a stretch for an escape run, or maybe 3 squares in front of and behind a door, plus the space in the doorway. You can surround all but one square of a medium creature. There's stuff you can do with it, but it has to be tightly focused.

A growth of 1 square every level would have a size of 11 squares by 10th level. That's enough to completely surround a medium creature (and just one more square would surround a large creature). It gives very long runs to allow evading opportunity attacks, and very large position swaps. Honestly, at this size the cantrip options start becoming quite powerful, and rearranging it on the map starts becoming troublesome.

Since the healing/damage ability is restricted to the Tactical Focus area, you want it to be large enough to connect to your various party members. I think, if it was designed for a party of 4, 7 squares would be sufficient. If your party size is 6 to 8 players, the effect starts becoming more difficult to coordinate. But then again, with a party of that size, there's so much potential power at the table that you don't need to be able to handle everything.

I'm going to guess that it will increase at 1 square every other level, as that keeps things narrowly focused enough to require "interesting choices".

 

[Tony Vargas]

1) He's explicitly on-board with giving the Warlord healing right from the start (3rd level, in this case).

Heh. Not actually the start, since 1st level is when parties are at their most fragile. (The "3rd is the new 1st" thing has not caught on in my area, at all. I was totally behind it, I was expecting APs to start at 3rd, MCing to suggest 1/1/1 fighter/magic-user/thieves for old time's sake... but, no. 1st remains 1st. Event organizers around here seem unanimous in wanting intro games to be 1st level, and the same rules that make the gave very forgiving at mid level, make it oddly, randomly deadly at 1st.)

One of several reasons fighter sub-class fails before it begins.

2) A point that I missed when I did the transcription: The size of the Tactical Focus area should grow as you level.

I mean, growing it makes sense, aesthetically (the D&D aesthetic of you-get-better-as-you-level) but, ultimately, I'm not sure what the point of it is, in the first place.

 

[Krachek]

To help nearby allies to attack, I’m found of the barbarian wolf totem at level 3.
To help allies in various situations, bardic inspiration is the best.
Paladin aura of protection is one of the best continuous protection feature.

So my warlord is a barbarian 3 / bard 5 / paladin 6.

Just need to merge all these in a single class now!

 

[Krachek]

Level 1 bardic inspiration
Level 2 spell casting. Half caster. All you can do with your slots is smite as paladin or cast healing word spell. Choose two : jack of all trades, song of rest or a fighting style.
Level 3 expertise + wolf totem of barbarian as a tactician feature.
Level 4 asi
Level 5 font of inspiration + extra attack. Font of tactic.
Level 6 aura of protection as paladin. Can be rename Global defense tactics.
Level 7 choose one of the ranger defensive tactic as a tactican feature.

Rename bardic inspiration to Tactician advice.

proficiencies : martial weapons and all armor and shield.
saving throw: strength and charisma.
skill any three.
hit dice d10.

 

[Remathilis]

Like we talked about before, the Warlord should be built around the Paladin chassis for balance reasons, just with different mechanics.

Ultimately, I think this is the best compromise.

A nonmagical support class is too narrow to remotely match the power and versatility of a cleric, druid, or bard. Trying to make the warlord fit that role in 5e without resorting to magic or handwaving is going to fail. On the same token, a fighter archetype is probably too narrow. Ideally, the Warlord should still be a martial class (matching a barbarian, ranger and paladin) but instead of spells, rage, or smites, they get warlordy powers. That way, they are able to do their warlord abilties (heal, buff, tactics), and are decent fighters themselves (when better options aren't available). His role should resemble the paladin's (healer, buffer, warrior, diplomat) but without the divine trappings and powers.

However, there seems to be a lot of "in 4e, a warlord was a nonmagical cleric, so he must be the nonamagical cleric in 5e as well" which to me is both short sighted and ultimately self-defeating. The Ranger was a striker (like the rogue) in 4e but a warrior in 5e, so I see no reason why the warlord can't make a similar shift. His abilities would be narrower than a cleric, and to make up for it he'd be a better warrior (but not as good as fighter).

Its the most elegant solution, but since it "isn't exactly the 4e warlord in 5e" it will continue to be ignored in favor of some mythical nonmagical bard-replacement class. Believe me, the conceptual space gets a lot easier when you stop thinking "cleric-equivalent" and start thinking "paladin equivalent".

 

[Tony Vargas]

Trying to make the warlord fit that role in 5e without resorting to magic or handwaving is going to fail.

"Handwaving" it is then.

On the same token, a fighter archetype is probably too narrow. Ideally, the Warlord should still be a martial class (matching a barbarian, ranger and paladin) but instead of spells, rage, or smites, they get warlordy powers.

There's no martial source in 5e. Instead, such concepts are defined by what they lack: supernatural powers such as spells, spells, spells, granted divine powers, spells, ki, spells, psionics, spells, and, I suppose, spells. (5e has a lotta spellcasters is what I'm subtly alluding to in passing, there, in case anyone missed it.) Probably not coincidentally, the 5 sub-classes in the PH that fall into that all contribute DPR in combat. Two also contribute some enhanced skill use; the other three are decidedly tanky in their DPR contributions. That's not a lot to hang character concepts on. If you do care to use magic, you have quite a range of choices.
That disparity needs to be addressed, and the Warlord, by virtue of having appeared as a full class in a PH1 should be at the front of the queue. It was also the Martial/Leader in 4e, so was in a unique-to-D&D position of enabling relatively normal D&D play without the traditional Band-Aid Cleric, nor any of it's second-string magical replacements (like the Druid, Paladin, Bard, or WoCLW). Suddenly, D&D was almost-seamlessly playable in low-/no-magic campaign modes that had always been problematic, before. Of course, there was more to that (healing surges, marginally consistent encounter design guidelines, formalized Source, etc), but the Warlord was a key part of it.

That way, they are able to do their warlord abilties (heal, buff, tactics), and are decent fighters themselves (when better options aren't available). His role should resemble the paladin's (healer, buffer, warrior, diplomat) but without the divine trappings and powers.

It'd be a nearer miss than the Fighter as a model.

However, there seems to be a lot of "in 4e, a warlord was a nonmagical cleric, so he must be the nonamagical cleric in 5e as well" which to me is both short sighted and ultimately self-defeating.

Martial Leader. The Leader box in 4e was very constraining. They chopped a lot off the cleric to stuff it in there, they were able to split the Druid between the Leader and Controller boxes and still had bits left over - while the Bard dropped right in and still needed some padding. But, formal and narrow though Leader was, it did make a convenient way to reference D&D's long dependency on the Cleric 'type' - the Band-Aid, the healer, the WoCLW with legs - and to easily address that issue. 5e abandoned the term, but not the convenience of having several viable support alternatives. The Cleric, Druid and Bard can all keep a party going when things go south, in slightly different ways, while having a fair amount of versatility, as well. That 'support' type of class is still needed to keep the game running smoothly, but, unlike the narrower leader role in 4e, it's still also tied to magical power.

The Ranger was a striker (like the rogue) in 4e but a warrior in 5e

The ranger still outputs some serious DPR, it hasn't exactly changed roles. Same goes for the Rogue, Barbarian, Warlock and Slayer(Fighter). DPR. I casually juxtaposes with the durability of a 4e defender, in some cases, but without anyting resembling marking. So, not really a shift, more an expansion.

I see no reason why the warlord can't make a similar shift.

Can, and it needs to. A simple translation from the limited source/role framework of 4e would be underpowered.

it "isn't exactly the 4e warlord in 5e" it will continue to be ignored in favor of some mythical nonmagical bard-replacement class. Believe me, the conceptual space gets a lot easier when you stop thinking "cleric-equivalent" and start thinking "paladin equivalent".

The Paladin was a secondary leader in 4e, but primarily a defender, a front-liner. In 5e, defenders aren't really a thing, 'tanks' (I'll call 'em, there's no formal terms) are, they're tough like a 4e defender, and hit like a 4e striker (adjusted for 5e numbers, of course). The fighter, barbarian, pally, they're tanks - even the Ranger presumably could be. Moon Druids, War Cleric, Valor Bards, they're mainly support (and also control, and utility, they're casters - 5e casters are super-versatile), but can off-tank a bit if they had to (OK, the Moon Druid's a bear of a tank at specific levels).

Since the few non-magical sub-classes already available have tanking and skill enhancement sewn up and are all-in with DPR, there's not a lot of point to skewing the Warlord any more in that direction than it already went. OTOH, there's something to be gained in the potential viability of such parties/campaigns in expanding it into the 'controller' space that it also had a clear inclination towards (manipulating enemies, either with clever tactics (INT) or provocation/intimidation/deceit (CHA) which the warlord did in 4e, just only to the degree that wouldn't step on controllers' sensitive toes), as well as making it a viable source of the support a party needs for the dynamics of D&D combat to work.

Of course, I'm looking at it as much from a DM as a player perspective. The low-/no-magic campaign has always been elusive and problematic, requiring all sorts of adjustments, variants, soft-balling, and 'GM force' to get in place & keep rolling. In 4e's brief tenure, it was almost seamless - only a martial controller could have made it better (and I agitated for one of those, too, at the time) - and didn't even have to be a campaign, an all-martial party was perfectly viable in an otherwise normal campaign.

The Warlord - as viable, non-magical support class, any necessary hand-waving included - is not really a lot to ask, but what it could deliver is potentially huge.

 

[Mistwell]

This is a case where it can't be helped. Parties need meaningful support from level one.

They really don't. It's level one. It's gone in the blink of an eye. I've been through level 1 plenty of times with no meaningful support. In fact in both games I am in right now, nobody played the support role from level 1 (though it did come later). So empirically you do not "need" it from level one and it can in fact be helped.