D&D 5E Why is There No Warlord Equivalent in 5E?

[James Gasik]

What is a team field bonus?

Something that grants your party (or most of it) a buff. Bless being a prime example.

 

[Staffan]

Adding a Warlord would be a helpful way to bring back some of the playstyle offered by 4e. Wasn't that one of the specific things 5e's designers told us it was about? Bringing together fans of every edition. 4e was included in that list. Mearls himself has even openly spoken about how he struggles to understand why 4e fans would feel excluded from it.

At first I was thinking "How can he wonder that when 5e discarded all the good 4e ideas?" but then I started thinking. Does he think that having an optional grid makes for a "tactics module"? Or that Hit Dice are a valid substitute for Healing Surges? If so, he gravely misunderstands what the good things about 4e was.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

At first I was thinking "How can he wonder that when 5e discarded all the good 4e ideas?" but then I started thinking. Does he think that having an optional grid makes for a "tactics module"? Or that Hit Dice are a valid substitute for Healing Surges? If so, he gravely misunderstands what the good things about 4e was.

I am at least 95% certain that Mike Mearls does not understand much, if at all, about what made 4e an interesting and fun system to play. I am, in fact, fairly convinced that he genuinely believes the adventures he worked on were great adventures for 4e, despite them being...not very well received, shall we say, because they go so completely against the things that are actually fun to do in 4e.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It's interesting that you say that since what I just described is almost identical to a 1st level War Domain Cleric.

Yes, well. If we allow it to be as powerful as a full spellcaster, people will riot, don'tchaknow. Gotta keep expectations below par if you ever want to succeed.

 

[FrogReaver]

It's interesting that you say that since what I just described is almost identical to a 1st level War Domain Cleric.

2x healing words, 2-3 bonus action attacks and 2-3 blesses is more than a level 1 war cleric can do.

*And this assumes the warlord healing isn’t intended to be higher than healing word, the attacks he grants aren’t stronger than the war clerics and his blesses don’t target the whole party.

And people wonder why I say warlord fans just seem to want an OP class. To be fair @EzekielRaiden seems to have a fairly good grasp on class power budget and 5e design lines and is trying really hard to stay within them.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I have no interest in needless subsystems.

Good.

I do not believe Battle Master maneuvers are adequate to the task. I believe something actually designed to do the job is required, not merely beneficial or neat or fun (though I think it is also all of those things.)

The battlemaster maneuvers would do the job. It is designed for this. There are maneuvers doing exactly what a warlord should be able to do.
It just needs an expansion.
Like eldritch knight spell progression is only a third of what a wizard can do, the warlord progression should be about 3 times as powerful as battlemaster maneuvers.

All too often these days, I find that the pendulum has swung far too far in the other direction. Unrelenting forced reuse of existing subsystems that don't fit, that poorly implement things that would have been better as actual class features (read: turning damn-near-everything into a spell, for God's sake they tried to turn WARLOCK PACTS into spells!!!)

I disagree. If you have a system that works, use it.

Yes, it is unwise to create needless subsystems. It is also unwise to doggedly avoid subsystems when they would be the better solution, and sometimes they really are the better solution!

This is your assessment. You are probably playing with more dedicated gamers than I am.
I play with casual gamers and students of age 12 to 17. No, don't overload the base system with needles systems.
If you want a warlord in the base game, make it blend into it.

If we would design 6e with a warlord in mind, as I said, battle master would follow the warlord design, not vice versa (as eldritch knight follows the wizard design).
The battlemaster is actually not very popular in the mentioned group, because their maneuvers are a subsystem that looks complicated.

 

[FrogReaver]

Good.

The battlemaster maneuvers would do the job. It is designed for this. There are maneuvers doing exactly what a warlord should be able to do.
It just needs an expansion.
Like eldritch knight spell progression is only a third of what a wizard can do, the warlord progression should be about 3 times as powerful as battlemaster maneuvers.

I disagree. If you have a system that works, use it.

This is your assessment. You are probably playing with more dedicated gamers than I am.
I play with casual gamers and students of age 12 to 17. No, don't overload the base system with needles systems.
If you want a warlord in the base game, make it blend into it.

If we would design 6e with a warlord in mind, as I said, battle master would follow the warlord design, not vice versa (as eldritch knight follows the wizard design).
The battlemaster is actually not very popular in the mentioned group, because their maneuvers are a subsystem that looks complicated.

I’m a Battlemaster fan but they don’t make great 4e warlords even though they have the warlord flavor mostly down.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I’m a Battlemaster fan but they don’t make great 4e warlords even though they have the warlord flavor mostly down.

Yes. This is why the system needs to be expanded. But it would be a mistake to make a new system when this system is already there.
You could easily make all the battle master maneuvers level 1 to 6 warlord maneuvers and then have better ones at 7 to 12 and even better ones at 13 to 20. Or so.
The warlord should be the "full caster" variant to the "3rd caster" battlemaster.

Or make the lazylord/princess the "full caster" and the warlord the "half caster".

 

[CreamCloud0]

Well, the idea is being, y'know, a student of war. Martial weapons IMO much better reflect that status than high HD, heavy armor, or extra attack, because martial weapons are about your training and practice, not about hardiness.

And, as I've said repeatedly, 5e does not support removing class features. Class features are treated as purely additive, never subtractive. Hence, if we're going to go for something, we have to be really, REALLY sure it should be appropriate pretty much all of the time.

Limiting all Warlords (except those who opt up) to only simple weapons plus a tiny handful of others doesn't seem to fit the theme to me--and the vast majority of characters are going to specialize in only one or two weapons anyway, so I don't really see downsides to just going "martial weapons." If this is really such a dealbreaker for you, I guess I could see all simple weapons + your choice of three martial weapons maybe?

Shields I'm kind of give or take on, I'd prefer them being baked in but I could live without it, so long as it can be acquired some other way in-class (e.g., if using the "fractal" subclass model, the Invocation-style selectable training.)

d10 HD seems off-theme as a core feature, but (again, invoking Dragon Sorcery) perfectly cromulent as a subclass upgrade. Likewise, Extra Attack is frequently granted via subclasses (Blade Pact, Valor/Swords, Bladesinger, etc.), so that's a prime candidate for subclass-specific material. IIRC, in extant 5e, only Clerics get bonus armor proficiencies from subclass, but several such subclasses exist, so I'm not at all seeing a problem with tying heavy armor to specific subclasses.

I see the Warlord as slotting in kinda-sorta near the Bard in terms of overall class position. It's a support-heavy class with a major secondary focus (charms, illusions, and enchantments for Bard; combat acumen and battlefield response for the Warlord), flexible enough to potentially push into multiple different roles if investing into it, but only one or perhaps two such things for any given character.

Hence, my baseline package, which many subclasses would modify, would be:
d8 HP
Martial weapons
Medium armor + shields
Str/Con saves

The "Vanguard" subclass, which would be the one available in the SRD, would be the straightforward lower-engagement option. It gets +1 HP per class level and +1 hit point per Warlord HD spent to heal (effectively d10 HD) and heavy armor at 2nd or 3rd or whatever, then Extra Attack at 5th, then some basic passive/very simple active, then some final boost to basic stuff at the highest subclass level. Simple, straightforward battlefield leader who keeps up with the big boys.

Other subclasses could then explore other sorts of things, things that don't necessarily require being a front-line warrior, but still reward training and skill and strategy.

just to explain my thoughts for why i gave them what i did

personally, just from what i had heard of the 4e version and innovating off the battlemaster i was imagining the warlord as more of a tankier class rather than a directly offensive one, hence the higher hit die, shields and heavy armour(medium and heavy armour IMO are basically parralel progression, there's only 1 point of AC between them, just focusing on different stat prerequisites, DEX vs STR respectively)

similarly extra attack exists more as a vehicle for getting off more maneuvres than as a tool for dealing damage, their best weapons being 1-handed d8 weapons(with the possibility of 2-H d10 for longsword), but more attacks mean inflicting more effects on enemies or supporting allies.

 

[James Gasik]

2x healing words, 2-3 bonus action attacks and 2-3 blesses is more than a level 1 war cleric can do.

*And this assumes the warlord healing isn’t intended to be higher than healing word, the attacks he grants aren’t stronger than the war clerics and his blesses don’t target the whole party.

And people wonder why I say warlord fans just seem to want an OP class. To be fair @EzekielRaiden seems to have a fairly good grasp on class power budget and 5e design lines and is trying really hard to stay within them.

This is what I said:

*A method to heal/mitigate damage for an ally twice per day.
*A "team field" bonus that can be used once per day.
*A bonus action ability to grant an ally an attack a few times per day.

I didn't say 2-3 blesses. And given that the bonus action attacks the War Cleric gets per day are equal to their Wis, no that's not more than that at all.