D&D (2024) How should the Warlord be implemented in 1DnD?

[Garthanos]

The Battlemaster isn't a Warlord, but it does has all the right pieces to be one. I can turn the 5e Battlemaster into a warlord by adding one sentence to the PHB.

At the end of the section for combat superiority add the following.
When you take the attack action you make one or more fewer attacks, and in exchange for each attack lost, you may gain a superiority die, lasting until the start of your next turn.

I called that spending an attack and gaining a superiority die "scanning for openings". I agree it is a good benefit for the battlemaster at root. There is more to the problem than infrequency. The best you do is still sidekick calibur single target benefits. Benefiting the whole team is warlord meat and drink. It is why people discuss higher level maneuvers.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Maybe make the warlord abilities more a product of higher level play for characters with followers and such

 

[Pauln6]

I called that spending an attack and gaining a superiority die "scanning for openings". I agree it is a good benefit for the battlemaster at root. There is more to the problem than infrequency. The best you do is still sidekick calibur single target benefits. Benefiting the whole team is warlord meat and drink. It is why people discuss higher level maneuvers.

I suppose you could add a variant high level class feature that allows warlord-type manoeuvres to two targets or maybe by sacrificing two attacks to apply to a number of targets up the the fighter's intelligence bonus?

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

As long as any healing they have is magical or very minor I'm good. If they try and give them the ability to heal a lot of hit points quickly without magic, that's when the concept falls apart.

Like the healer feat? Or resting 8 hours? If you're describing HP as serious injuries, that's on you. Damage is nothing a good night's sleep won't fix.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Battlemaster is as much a Warlord as an Eldritch Knight is a Wizard.

There is no ability that deserves to live only with a "Warlord" style class.

That's quite an interesting idea. I wonder if that could be ported onto the Banneret chassis. I think that Bannerets should get superiority dice usable on Charisma checks instead of proficiency in Persuasion. Your class feature could expand that to cover the Warlord style manoeuvres as well I supp

I think a "Banneret" subclass could fulfill the "Warlord" martial leader role, if it was given access to multiple new leadership-style Maneuver-like ability options per subclass level. They can easily get 6-12 abilities this way, and for more powerful options, have have a limited number of uses that refresh when initiative is rolled (as opposed to short rest recharge).

 

[Garthanos]

There is no ability that deserves to live only with a "Warlord" style class.

What are you talking about?..... If you said you wanted to play a wizard and someone said here is a Eldritch knight we removed the Wizard class ... you can just use a staff and make it a dex build.... that ought to be satisfying right?

 

[Garthanos]

I suppose you could add a variant high level class feature that allows warlord-type manoeuvres to two targets or maybe by sacrificing two attacks to apply to a number of targets up the the fighter's intelligence bonus?

One could expand on the maneuvers in that fashion I suggest a good portion of the battlemaster maneuvers could use a similar expansion.

 

[Garthanos]

I am not speaking of battlemaster.
I am not speaking of the current fighter.

I think both classes should be joined. A fighter should be the leader of the group.

Just battle leader, but yes this does have some potential though it does indeed involve making the fighter class "more". It is also in keeping with the 2e Fighter descriptions which I rather like.

 

[Pauln6]

There is no ability that deserves to live only with a "Warlord" style class.

I think a "Banneret" subclass could fulfill the "Warlord" martial leader role, if it was given access to multiple new leadership-style Maneuver-like ability options per subclass level. They can easily get 6-12 abilities this way, and for more powerful options, have have a limited number of uses that refresh when initiative is rolled (as opposed to short rest recharge).

One could expand on the maneuvers in that fashion I suggest a good portion of the battlemaster maneuvers could use a similar expansion.

The 5 minute workday 3pp book had quite a few Warlord style suggested manoeuvres, versions of some having now been brought into core, but they also did their own version of the Warlord on top of that with a formal sub list of Warlord manoeuvres.

There are so many slight variations of the Warlord out there that it is clearly possible to produce a functional class to fill a niche that has yet to be filled. It's curious that they made a conscious choice to avoid it for so long, just tinkering around the edges of the fighter.

The Banneret was a clear attempt to make a sort of Warlord, which is why I think the simplest way to effect the class is to bring in alternate/additional class features for the existing class.

You could have two d6 superiority dice at L3 with a limited list of Warlord manoeuvres to choose from then two more d6 dice at L7 with the addition of the skill manoeuvres to your list.

The ability to trade attacks for Manoeuvre dice only comes into its own at L5 since most key off your own attack action, so would it be safe at L3 or is it abuseable?

 

[Garthanos]

The ability to trade attacks for Manoeuvre dice only comes into its own at L5 since most key off your own attack action, so would it be safe at L3 or is it abuseable?

Level 3 is safe that is a huge delay for a caster (ie most classes) .... Add bonus action access to it at some point too. Multiclassing and level dips is not great currently WOTC is fixing some of it - see Action Surge is now pretty martial specific (or maybe gish).