D&D 5E Spellcasters and Balance in 5e: A Poll

[Undrave]

I tend to think the character who leads primarily fits better with what, in a lot of 3e iterations, was usually called the 'noble'.

Oh yeah, 'Noble' is a solid title, but it's got too much roleplay baggage to work... Admitedly 'Warlord' isn't ideal either, but it's just really hard to find a better fitting title. Trust me, I tried... nothing works.

 

[Minigiant]

Oh yeah, 'Noble' is a solid title, but it's got too much roleplay baggage to work... Admitedly 'Warlord' isn't ideal either, but it's just really hard to find a better fitting title. Trust me, I tried... nothing works.

Scholar with Warlord subclass?

 

[ECMO3]

Let's call what unsatisifed Warlord fans want "Warlord Prime" or whatever? Something different. Now you know that people also want Warlord Prime -- whose concept is such a valuble leader that their ok but non -elite warrior status doesn't disadvantage the party vs. elite warrior that leads person! The concept that people are talking about IS the "lessor warrior that leads better"!

In terms of mechanics you can already make that choice - it is called a Rogue. Non-elite warrior that can be made a valuable leader. It is already there.

 

[FrogReaver]

Of course it doesn't make them a fake caster!? The things that replace the full casting can be anything! I think it just illustrates the level of emphasis that unsatisfied Warlord people want.

In which case why are you starting with a full caster base?

"Leader that warriors" not "Warrior that leads".

I don't buy that. A leader that warriors and a warrior that leaders are conceptually the same thing.

The leader stuff should be the primary essence of the Warlord. It doesn't have to be spell-like of course or work on a daily resource, but it should have the same kind of heft and importance ot the class that spells have for the valor bard.

That's a mechanical emphasis you are asking for, not a conceptual one.

It's just illustrating the "space" available for Warlord leadership abilities if the "Fighter chassis" is replaced. With a fighting chasis of Valor bard (AND significant leadership through inspiration AND significant skill bumps for out of combat), you get FULL CASTING as the "space" to develop your additional leadership abilities.

Even the 4e Warlord was created as a warrior that leaders. While you could pick powers to make him 'lazy', most powers involved him attacking and getting some rider.

Now we can talk about degrees. Maybe the Warlord gets like 80% of FULL CASTING leadership stuff in exhange for a little better fighting than Valor Bard. 100% or 80% of full casting is a lot of design space.

You can't do what you want without making the Warlord flat out OP compared to Fighters. It's a terrible starting point for a balanced homebrew class.

 

[FrogReaver]

I've probably mentionned this before, but I think one of my favorite example of a Warlord to point to is from this little show called Class of the Titans. Class of the Titans is about seven descendant of Greek mythological heroes who are recruited by the Greek Pantheon to stop Cronus who escaped from Tartarus (something about a prophesy). Each of them has a supernatural gift from their ancestor.

Herry gets the super strength of Heracles
Atlanta gets the super speed of Atalanta
Thessa gets the instinct of Theseus, which manifest as precognitive psychic powers
Odie gets the intellect of Odysseus and is a total Artificer
Archie is a descendant of Achilles who has all the natural aptitude of a warrior that his ancestor had (and he never gets sick)
I'll skip over Neil for a moment and go straight to Jay, who is the descendant of Jason.

Jay's gift is 'leadership'. He's a competant warrior of his own, but he doesn't any of the near superhuman gift of the others when it comes to facing monsters sent by Cronus. He's a normal human... But his skill at leadership become incredibly obvious whenever he's being kept from the others. Without him, they stop getting along as easily (they didn't know each other before this whole thing), they can't execute their plans well, they get fooled by the bad guys... It's a total mess. You take any of the heavy bruiser, the precog or the super genius away and they barely lose a fraction of their abilities, but take Jay away and it's like they lost 50% of their power.

The basis for your Warlord concept is a character that the party loses HALF of their power without. To me that kind of position is a non-starter for a D&D game.

As for Neil... Neil is totally the bard of the group (or a Warlord with my 'Chosen One' subclass, because he still learned to fight). He's a super model and the descendant of Narcissus. His gifts are 'good looks' and 'luck'. Surprisingly, him not being there is just as much trouble as Jay being missing. I swear, the two of them are like 90% of the team's power.

Anyway, fun show, legally available on Youtube too. David Kaye plays Cronus.

But it shows that 'someone who contributes mostly by being a leader' can totally be a narrative concept and not necessarily a mechanical one.

Conceptually the game cannot support both the concept of 'elite warrior that is a great leader' and 'average warrior that is a great leader' and still be mechanically balanced. Do you understand why?

Ah! That's true... and also, that 5e has all sorts of small mechanical issue that make support character hard to design, but are not usually apparent in play. For exemple, you basically need two different effect to support both Casters and Weapon users instead of just one.

That also causes problems with bounded accuracy when you try to add classes with different abilities that mimic certain effects. Which is also one reason they don't have different spells that do similar buff effects very often.

 

[Undrave]

That's a mechanical emphasis you are asking for, not a conceptual one.

I'm not sure how you can really say that? To me, the in-universe image of those two warrior would be different.

Even the 4e Warlord was created as a warrior that leaders. While you could pick powers to make him 'lazy', most powers involved him attacking and getting some rider.

Yeah but attacking was the delivery method of the rider, not the delivery method of more damage. At least not without allies in the mix. The rider was the exciting part.

You can't do what you want without making the Warlord flat out OP compared to Fighters. It's a terrible starting point for a balanced homebrew class.

Valor Bard isn't that great at fighting compared to a Fighter, but gets full casting. Take that Full Casting away and give them leader abilities instead and maybe give them better armor in the process of removing Full Castng and I think you'd have a character who can fight but is valued for his leadership.

 

[Undrave]

The basis for your Warlord concept is a character that the party loses HALF of their power without. To me that kind of position is a non-starter for a D&D game.

It's a story for kids, it can totally get to be this ridiculous. Obviously you'd tone it down for D&D. The point of that example was that the 'Leader who can warrior' is just as much a conceptual space as a mechanical one. It can be expressed in fiction, so it's not purely about game mechanics.

 

[FrogReaver]

This is one of the big disconnects then. I can see how the 5e Battlemaster fits your concept of Warlord ok then now. And since you acknowledge that this isn't a part of your Warlord concept, there is another Concept out there!

Let's call what unsatisifed Warlord fans want "Warlord Prime" or whatever? Something different. Now you know that people also want Warlord Prime -- whose concept is such a valuble leader that their ok but non -elite warrior status doesn't disadvantage the party vs. elite warrior that leads person! The concept that people are talking about IS the "lessor warrior that leads better"!

Why not have the option to pick between the 2?

Two different concepts! Two different names! Two different implementations!

Warlord = Battlemaster with manuvers and feats picked toward leadership
Warlord prime = ? Lots of debate. But at least we know the concept now!

You asked why both can't exist. Let me try to explain.

Under the current classes, if my concept is elite warrior that is a great leader I pick Fighter/Battlemaster and pick the appropriate manuevers and I'm both a top tier warrior and a top tier leader. Now suppose we created a warlord class with much better leader mechanics and minimal warrior mechanics. I no longer can play a class that is an elite warrior and a great leader. I must choose elite warrior and average leader or great leader and average warrior.

 

[FrogReaver]

It's a story for kids, it can totally get to be this ridiculous. Obviously you'd tone it down for D&D. The point of that example was that the 'Leader who can warrior' is just as much a conceptual space as a mechanical one. It can be expressed in fiction, so it's not purely about game mechanics.

When you tone it down, that leader who can warrior starts to look more and more like the warrior that can leader.

 

[FrogReaver]

Scholar with Warlord subclass?

Scholar still makes no sense as a D&D class.