D&D 5E Martials v Casters...I still don't *get* it.

[Mort]

Whatever marketing may say, I expect WotC wants D&D to sell well, for some definition of "well".

I don't know that anyone at WotC is under the illusion that the game can be for "everyone", any more than an automobile manufacturer thinks they can make just one car for everyone. Wildly popular? Sure. Everyone? I don't think that's an actual goal.



Design for everyone, and nobody will want to use it. Some choices need to be made.

IIRC - the original intent (way back in the beginning of the playtest) was to have 5e be extremely modular. With a minimalist core and lots of add-ons that could be fitted to supposedly suit a large number of playstyles. This approach seems to have been abandoned pretty early on, with the design team clearly leaning in a direction and sticking with it.

Considering how well 5e has done (is doing) I'm sure they don't regret making that choice!

 

[ph0rk]

Martial Adept (trip attack, riposte),

Why on earth would that be a resource the champion has when a warlock is out of spell slots?

This is why exhibition matches are stupid. You can keep asking, but I won't participate.

 

[TheSword]

Assuming you mean foresight, it's much more than that. Advantage on nearly everything including out of combat ability checks, saving throws, and attacks, and thus a concentration slot free to use on something else if the caster was using it for advantage in combat (Shadow of Moil, Greater Invis). That is really, really big. Capstone level big, and Hexblades and Wizards get it at 17.



The champion is still unlikely to be as good in both melee and ranged combat at the same time as the hexblade. They don't need any slots at all for this.


What's more, under the premise argued by many above (In particular Asisreo, both here and elsewhere), tailoring the adventuring day to adequately deplete long rest resources isn't necessary. I think that's wrong, and a major problem with 5e balance, but for that to be true they would have to accept that casters that never run out of spell slots are quite overpowered.


If a wizard or hexblade that never runs out out of slots isn't a problem, then the resource as their primary balance against champions and non-AT rogues doesn't make sense.

When a wizard uses its level 7 spell it’s ran out of level 7 spells. They might have other big guns but at those kinds of levels martials are doing dirty amounts of damage

 

[Flamestrike]

When a wizard uses its level 7 spell it’s ran out of level 7 spells. They might have other big guns but at those kinds of levels martials are doing dirty amounts of damage

Yup. And doing it reliably.

Dont get me wrong; a well timed and placed banishment or wall of force or whatever can totally turn an encounter, but you generally dont get too many of those spells, even at high level, and they have their limitations as well.

 

[Sithlord]

There isnt enough space in a subclass for the warlord to the level we want. Borrowing the warlock chassis would be a good start, with exploits replacing invocations and modifying attacks and skills, and stratagems being the short rest resource similar to spells that offer a greater impact.

I so sincerely disagree. What is it you want in a warlord that can’t go in a fighter. I hear this and just don’t grasp it.

 

[tetrasodium]

Why on earth would that be a resource the champion has when a warlock is out of spell slots?

This is why exhibition matches are stupid. You can keep asking, but I won't participate.

That's cute that you think those are needed to make "RotPK+1, Armor of your choice +1 and a weapon of your choice +1" look like child's play against "Gear: Bow, Greatsword, Full Plate. All +1" with GWM & Sharpshooter.
at any level the longbow with sharpshooter or GWM+greasword will out damage agonizing eldritch blast with rotpk+1. Leveled spells don't save your claim either.

 

[Oofta]

I so sincerely disagree. What is it you want in a warlord that can’t go in a fighter. I hear this and just don’t grasp it.

ehren37 has been banned from the thread, so they won't respond.

Some people thought the warlord was the bestest class ever, I never personally saw it as being anything particularly iconic that required it's own class.

 

[Mort]

That's cute that you think those are needed to make "RotPK+1, Armor of your choice +1 and a weapon of your choice +1" look like child's play against "Gear: Bow, Greatsword, Full Plate. All +1" with GWM & Sharpshooter.
at any level the longbow with sharpshooter or GWM+greasword will out damage agonizing eldritch blast with rotpk+1. Leveled spells don't save your claim either.

I will say this: Damage is a constant.

As in a character that can deal an ungodly amount of damage per round consistently is going to be a big boon in any D&D game (barring the few where combat is extremely rare; I haven't seen one of those yet).

Spellcasting and magic is less of a constant. In one person's D&D game a warlock with prodigy, actor (+ relevant skills) and mask of many faces is utterly game breaking. In another person's game it could be entirely useless.

 

[DnD Warlord]

This sounds, to me, very much like the Monk. I mean, they basically can Superdash, attack, do a combo of attack/dodge/run up walls, reroll saving throws (which they're completely proficient), and even turn invisible.

Sure, it costs resources, but that simply means balance from my POV.

In a hypothetical 6e I would want more 4e concepts built into a 5e frame... that would start with the current monk and warlock (and artificer) chaises being the default classes for fighter wizard and cleric.

 

[Undrave]

I so sincerely disagree. What is it you want in a warlord that can’t go in a fighter. I hear this and just don’t grasp it.

Here's the ind of party pooping I was mentionning earlier... the moment we talk about a Warlord class it's the classic "Why can't you do it with a Fighter?!" popping up again...

Because the Fighter has too many selfish class features and not enough design space left to be able to properly build a Warlord subclass. Those extra ASI and extra Attacks eat up too much real estate to properly scale up a Warlord. The Battlemaster is basically to a theoric Warlord class what the Eldtritch Knight is to a Wizard. It's sorta close but it's not a full on Warlord. It lacks a consistent At-Will support option.

Some people thought the warlord was the bestest class ever, I never personally saw it as being anything particularly iconic that required it's own class.

If you consider that the original Fighting Man eventually ended up with a Keep and Followers, and followers were a thing for multiple edition... I think it's clear the class was always meant to be something of a 'Martial Leader of Men'. But dealing with followers can be fiddly and a pain in the butt, so those parts were slowly eroded away, leaving the Fighting Men with nothing more than a magic sword and armor as its identity... The Warlord class returns that aspect of Martial Leader of Men to the game, but recontextualize it to mean leading/improving your existing PC allies instead of saddling you with NPC Pet Warriors and a Keep Tycoon minigame.

It's reaching back in time to the days of Chainmail where your Fighting Man could be a special unit in a war game that was part of a battalion and transposing it into your special force Squad (AKA the Party).

Its an archetype I don't think the Fighter can truly embrace on its own unless you build some kind of Battlemaster/Mastermind monstrosity with multiple feats that only really comes together at like... level 12 or something. It's easier to build a Cleric out of a Paladin and a Druid or something.