D&D 5E (2014) The Warlord shouldn't be a class... change my mind!

[Garthanos]

Wizard players you can play an Eldritch Knight or some Rogue Magic using subclass you do not need a specialist change my mind.... nope sorry you are just as wrong as Mearls AND I do not need to change your mind.

 

[Garthanos]

Subclasses lack the mechanical heft to be more than a part-time warlord. You know, a little bit shoutey. Not really, really shoutey.

Unable to coordinate and help the whole party ever... but you guys can suffer and maybe do that warlordy move by the battlemaster once in a while to one party member once in a while.

Battlemaster is actually a fine Warlord Name... but focused on singular instead of group it can never do it.

In 4e terms its a Fighter who multi-class dabbled in Warlord.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Rage is also a terrible distinguishing feature. Actually, much worse than inspirational/tactical leading, in my opinion. And we still have a barbarian class...

 

[TwoSix]

5e - Warlord (KibblesTasty) by KibblesTasty

5e - Warlord (KibblesTasty) by KibblesTasty - Created with GM Binder.

www.gmbinder.com

 

[Bawylie]

The problem with the warlord is that it was a popular class that fit into the gameplay of 4E, but doesn't really have a niche in 5E. Bard, Fighter, and Paladin all have sub-classes to help recreate the purpose and feel of the warlord, so the only thing really missing is the name. The full concept of the warlord is tactical combat, which isn't a base aspect of 5E, so making a class based around it doesn't make sense.

The 4E fighter had a bunch of stuff that fit the gameplay of 4E. The 5th edition fighter still came over just fine. So did the rogue, cleric, bard, paladin, wizard, sorcerer, warlock, monk, ....

I’m not convinced warlord is so unique that it’s impossible to translate to a 5E version.

 

[Garthanos]

Of course, I wouldn't call it "warlord."

I seen a third party "Noble" who had the lazylord as one of its subtypes. Called way of the Heart or some such thing.

 

[Don Durito]

The 4E fighter had a bunch of stuff that fit the gameplay of 4E. The 5th edition fighter still came over just fine.

Hmmm...definitely not a statement that will find universal agreement.

 

[Garthanos]

these feel more like titles, not classes.

Paladins were a title for the highest nobles under a king. Wizard was the title gained by magic user in 1e and there was never a profession of Wizard. Thief was a description that included anyone who stole implying no particular skill set. Class naming conventions are hmmm pretty arbitrary.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Add rules for mass combat, and bingo you got something that I think is pretty cool, and a lot more appropriate than a new class.

Yeah, that would have been fine, but as others have said, too many classes are too broadly designed.

This is an interesting problem, actually, it goes all the way back to 2E and Kits. What Kits had to work with, basically, were class features (including proficiencies and so on). They could add and remove from those, but rarely dared to go beyond that. This meant that some classes had a hell of lot more that a Kit could tweak than other classes. This is striking when you compare the Complete Bard to say, the Complete Fighter, or Complete Paladin. The Bard has a huge array of "knobs you can tweak" in the form of a ton of class features, so you end up with a very diverse, high-quality, and well-balanced bunch of Kits. The Complete Fighter has barely any, but the basic class is so solid, limited damage can be done, and the Kits are mechanically bereft, but conceptually okay. The Paladin, on the other hand, is absolute disaster, because it has surprisingly low number of knobs you can tweak and still keep it "basically a Paladin", and most of the knobs, by default, were set to pretty powerful settings so it's seems like it was difficult for them to do anything but weaken it.

With subclasses you face somewhat similar issues.

Some classes have a ton of their power wrapped up in their subclass, or subclass and some other choice-based-feature, but several other classes have the vast majority of their power in the basic class, with the subclass doing very little. And thus you can't get equal results by attempting to "Warlord-ify" classes. And really I can't think of any class in 5E that allows the subclass to have so much power that you can really go "full Warlord" with it either.

 

[Don Durito]

My biggest irritant with the name "Warlord" is that it feels like it should have a mass combat system (or larger skirmish system) to interact with.