... Ahahahahaha
Okay, so like 3 1/2 years ago I asked for advice/ideas on building a 5E Warlord on another board, and
@EzekielRaiden basically ended up emailing me his general pitch that he gave only a few pages ago on how he would do it. It was a great idea (the Warlock is a pretty great chassis for the concept), though for me I was trying for something way,
way more ambitious in trying to create a Fighter/Warlord class around a new framework that was basically built around class maneuvers, with three different subclasses:
- the Champion, who was the classic fighter and picked exclusively from combat maneuvers,
- the Warlord, who could pick from combat maneuvers and tactics maneuvers, but had to have a majority of their maneuvers be from tactics, and
- the Eldritch Knight, who could pick from combat maneuvers and combat magic, where they could mix their attacks with magical effects (with a similar split for combat maneuvers and combat magic)
There were basic maneuvers (basically martial cantrips) along with advanced maneuvers that spent their own resource, based around the Grit concept Matt Mercer created for his Gunslinger class. You could even regain grit in different ways, like a Warlord being able to regain grit from his friends killing creatures if they did it as a result of one of his tactics maneuvers. You could also spend more grit on certain maneuvers to buff their effects, like their range, damage, etc... it was complicated and weird and I loved trying to make it work. I would go back to it every few months and chart out another part of the class, and I think got to around half-finished with it.
Then, for reasons I can't fully remember, I ended up looking at the Pathfinder 2E Core Rulebook, and I basically said "Well, I wasted a whole lot of time on this."
Pathfinder 2E is basically what I've wanted to mod 5E for years. Weapons with traits, specific uses and advantages? Check. Skill system that makes having a skill valuable, has skill gradations and is relatively easy on the bookkeeping? Double check. Effective, scary martials with lots of combat options?
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The character building is so clean and wonderful comparatively speaking: the system of getting "boosts" (+2 bonuses to an ability score) through ancestry, background, and class are just intuitive and allow for characters who are broadly stat'd out and feel generally competent. Ability scores are better balanced, with Dexterity no longer being a complete god-stat and characters gaining benefits from underused stats: there are reasons to have better Intelligence even if it isn't your primary, and there are a bunch of Charisma-based combat options that are available so that martials don't just look at it as a dump-stat. Also classes largely gate off their combat stuff, not their non-combat options: all skills are open to everyone, and most out-of-combat advantages are picked up via general feats accessible to everyone, which opens up character options quite a bit.
Like
@The-Magic-Sword and
@kenada have already said, combat is very tactical, focusing on gaining advantages through positioning or inflicting the right buffs/debuffs. There are a lot of options open to martial classes, and they helped by how proficiency is done: Since there are gradations and it's not just tied to level, Fighters end up being the class that is most likely to hit a target and (given how criticals work) the most likely to cause crits, while Champions (the Paladin equivalent) actually have an AC bonus bigger than other classes which makes them tankier in combat.
Spells are also much better balanced: generally speaking spells are less powerful, with the "Critical Succeed/Failure on a hit/miss by 10" helping creating a bigger spectrum for spell effects rather than "Save and be alright, fail and suck".
Paralyze is a good example: it's the counterpart to the classic Hold Person, but only gets a multiple-round hold on a critical failure: on a regular failure you are paralyzed for a single round, while on a success you lose one of your next three actions. Spells are now generally less spectacular, but you're more likely to get
something out of a spell.
Also to say something that you might be interested in that hasn't been mentioned: Pathfinder 2E's framework makes it way easier to homebrew things, particularly when it comes to archetypes (subclasses) and classes. The
a la carte method for just about everything and how feats are generally meant to not be gamechangers but options that progress and customize you makes it much easier to build something without completely unbalancing it.
I will say there's nothing quite on the level of a lazylord here: the Marshal archetype (basically 4E's multiclass feats but also for prestige classes) has some similar options, but at higher levels. But nothing quite to the same level of granting attacks to other party members.
