Lets design a Warlord for 5th edition

[FrogReaver]

I'm not pushing, just adapting to the underlying 5e design convention.

I'd rather see the daily healing limit maintained by HD, but that'd presumably be too 4e, and not add enough daily healing, consistently enough to support the required day length.

Too bad, I think combining HD-fueled healing with inspiration & CS dice fueled maneuvers, and per-encounter/enemy limited gambits could've delivered closer to concept, and been more dynamic situational, and interesting.

Healing that is only limited by Hit Dice is likely too strong since no other healing power competes for those resources.

But getting back to my question, you didn't actually offer any ideas on implementing a warlord that starts getting daily powers from level 1. How would you go about balancing that with classes like the cleric to ensure your not granting to much healing while also being able to get somewhere near cleric level damage output when not healing. How would you actually scale whatever you would call the Daily Mechanic for this warlord in the level 1-5 range?

Everytime I try it turns into a convoluted mess where the primary mechanic just doesn't ever end up quite where it needs to. So i'm always having to add extra abilities in that cover the power gaps or risk letting the warlord overshadow the cleric at healing etc.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Healing that is only limited by Hit Dice is likely too strong since no other healing power competes for those resources.

HD are already a healing resource, so only any add over it would actually be meaningful. The further downsides would be needing to hoard HD for in-combat use, and being unable to help an ally that is out of HD.

Everytime I try it turns into a convoluted mess where the primary mechanic just doesn't ever end up quite where it needs to.

Mike just referenced the spell damage table and took it from there.

But it doesn't seem like even the Life clerics healing follows that table...

 

[FrogReaver]

HD are already a healing resource, so only any add over it would actually be meaningful. The further downsides would be needing to hoard HD for in-combat use, and being unable to help an ally that is out of HD.


Mike just referenced the spell damage table and took it from there.

But it doesn't seem like even the Life clerics healing follows that table...

So you just plan on ignoring the actual question? Should I take that as you are thinking on it and will get back or that you are dodging it all together?

 

[mellored]

Might could work. I like the flexibility. I'm worried about how you would scale the "invocations"?

Not all effects need to scale. Any boost to a d20 roll (advantage) or status effect (prone) is just as good at level 1 as it is at level 20.

Others will probably scale by themselves. Giving allies THP equal to twice your warlord level, once per short rest. Possibly something with your proficiency bonus, or based on your Int or Cha.

But mostly I imagine simply getting more of them, like the warlock. So you can stack push and slow on your eldrich blast advantage and avoid OA's against the target if your attack.
Maybe even let you take the same one multiple times, so you can give THP twice per short rest.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So you just plan on ignoring the actual question? Should I take that as you are thinking on it and will get back or that you are dodging it all together?

It feels premature to jump into a design. We started out with 'what resource schedule?' I'm still at that stage of thinking about it...

 

[FrogReaver]

Not all effects need to scale. Any boost to a d20 roll (advantage) or status effect (prone) is just as good at level 1 as it is at level 20.

Others will probably scale by themselves. Giving allies THP equal to twice your warlord level, once per short rest. Possibly something with your proficiency bonus, or based on your Int or Cha.

But mostly I imagine simply getting more of them, like the warlock. So you can stack push and slow on your eldrich blast advantage and avoid OA's against the target if your attack.
Maybe even let you take the same one multiple times, so you can give THP twice per short rest.

Scaling on it still seems like a mess

I'll ask basically the same thing of you that I did of Tony. Let's take a level 5 warlord.

Give me an example of a balanced short rest, an example of a balanced long rest and an example of a balanced at will ability for level 1. I'm assuming you will grant a character 2-3 invocations at level 1?

Level 3 is generally a considerable power bump for PC's. Will you grant more of the level 1 invocations? Will the level 1 invocations scale well enough to still be strong enough at level 3? Will there be special level 3 requirement invocations that are stronger than level 1 invocations that you now can choose from? Do you not scale invocations at level 3 at all? Maybe some other mechanic grants the warlord his boost at level 3?

Most importantly, say I pick 2-3 at will invocations at level 1. They won't be able to add very much at level 1 or they will be too strong. It's going to be difficult to scale them at level 3 since there's probably not even a dice worth of anything we can look to double. It would take quite a few at will "balanced level 1 invocations" to be added in at level 3 to make level 3 be balanced with anything.

I'm worried you are trying to use a mechanic as the primary warlord mechanic that isn't going to be scalable like we need it. Warlocks get invocations and get spells that upgrade just like a caster. Could you imagine trying to make their invocation system work if they didn't get regular spell slots at all and everything was just an invocation? We would be asking the same questions. How many invocations do I get. When do we get upgraded invocations either through auto upgrading by level or through access to stronger ones by level.

Possibly tiered invocations at level 1,3,5,7,9 etc. At level 1 you choose 2-3 invocations. At level 3 you may choose 2 level 3 or lower invocation. At lever 5 choose 2 level 5 or lower invocations. Etc.

That's going to be a lot of invocations by max level but it might could work? I still don't like it as a lot of 1 use abilities that you can't trade for a different 1 use ability feels pretty bad and is likely the reason they went away from vanician casting. I don't think we need a vanician warlord... lol

Any other implementation ideas?

 

[FrogReaver]

It feels premature to jump into a design. We started out with 'what resource schedule?' I'm still at that stage of thinking about it...

That's the point I'm getting at. Some resource schedules may inherently cause the design process to fail. If you look ahead a couple of moves you can see the potential issues and pitfalls and try to choose the best resource schedule to avoid those issues.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That's the point I'm getting at. Some resource schedules may inherently cause the design process to fail. If you look ahead a couple of moves you can see the potential issues and pitfalls and try to choose the best resource schedule to avoid those issues.

So, you're saying a daily/at-will split with powerful/flexible dailies and modest at-wills might inherently fail?
Because it seems to have been used repeatedly, in the PH.

Frankly, strong at-will & minor short-term-recharge boosts seem like they have a much more limited and less encouraging track record.

As for 'all the above, as mellored is working on, he has the Warlock as a template, but it's power seems concentrated in the short rest side, which is apparently less acceptable for healing.

One issue is that the 4e design offers no help - resource mix wasn't defining in 4e, everyone was on the same schedule. In 5e, there's several schedules, but 3/4 support classes are on basically the same daily/at-will one. And the 4th isn't as clearly support-focused.

 

[FrogReaver]

@Tony Vargas

I have a solution for scaling at will warlord powers while still providing short rest or daily healing.

I don't have a solution for scaling long rest ones at all. Level 1 looks a little convoluted as I'll have to add the long rest powers in but also add something else just about as strong as them but not capable of producing healing.

Level 3 looks even worse as I would potentially need to go from 2 uses to 6 uses (or maybe more).

Level 5 even with extra attack you likely need to greatly upgrade your uses or their effects at this level. (probably effects would be best which would be doable)

I guess I may have just answered the question for you. It looks adequate and not too bad when compared to the cleric or anything else.

 

[Zardnaar]

Scaling on it still seems like a mess

I'll ask basically the same thing of you that I did of Tony. Let's take a level 5 warlord.

Give me an example of a balanced short rest, an example of a balanced long rest and an example of a balanced at will ability for level 1. I'm assuming you will grant a character 2-3 invocations at level 1?

Level 3 is generally a considerable power bump for PC's. Will you grant more of the level 1 invocations? Will the level 1 invocations scale well enough to still be strong enough at level 3? Will there be special level 3 requirement invocations that are stronger than level 1 invocations that you now can choose from? Do you not scale invocations at level 3 at all? Maybe some other mechanic grants the warlord his boost at level 3?

Most importantly, say I pick 2-3 at will invocations at level 1. They won't be able to add very much at level 1 or they will be too strong. It's going to be difficult to scale them at level 3 since there's probably not even a dice worth of anything we can look to double. It would take quite a few at will "balanced level 1 invocations" to be added in at level 3 to make level 3 be balanced with anything.

I'm worried you are trying to use a mechanic as the primary warlord mechanic that isn't going to be scalable like we need it. Warlocks get invocations and get spells that upgrade just like a caster. Could you imagine trying to make their invocation system work if they didn't get regular spell slots at all and everything was just an invocation? We would be asking the same questions. How many invocations do I get. When do we get upgraded invocations either through auto upgrading by level or through access to stronger ones by level.

Possibly tiered invocations at level 1,3,5,7,9 etc. At level 1 you choose 2-3 invocations. At level 3 you may choose 2 level 3 or lower invocation. At lever 5 choose 2 level 5 or lower invocations. Etc.

That's going to be a lot of invocations by max level but it might could work? I still don't like it as a lot of 1 use abilities that you can't trade for a different 1 use ability feels pretty bad and is likely the reason they went away from vanician casting. I don't think we need a vanician warlord... lol

Any other implementation ideas?

I have overhauled my warloed healing a lot its changed about 6 times. I am getting close to a point where I am happy with it.

My level 5 warlord atm would get osmehting like this.

2/short rest bonus action heals for 1d8+5
1/short rest 2d8+5 30'standard action

Inspiring Warlord gets to add cha to both of the.

Its basically 6 cure spells and 3 prayers of healing assuming you get 2 short rests. They get another 1d8+level/short rest when cantrips scale to 3 and dice (level 9/10?) and a second mass heal at level 6.

the 1d8 and 2d8 part get to add level to it though kind of like fighter 2nd wind and the healer feat.

Competitive with the cleric although I think the cleric is better overall at healing once it gets the higher level spells (mass cure etc). WL still probably loses to a life cleric but they beat every other cleric anyway except for MC life clerics.