D&D 5E (2024) What should the 15th Class be?

What should the 15th Class be?

  • Warlord

    Votes: 58 55.2%
  • An Arcane Spellcaster / Fighter hybrid like Swordmage or Duskblade

    Votes: 17 16.2%
  • Shaman

    Votes: 5 4.8%
  • Other

    Votes: 25 23.8%

That's why I voted Other. None of the other options are broad enough to support the number of subclasses a true 5e base class needs to.
Oh, that I would disagree with. The Warlord just has so many potential subclasses. I mean, good grief, 4e had what, six different official Warlords? I do believe that "tactical and strategic focused force multiplier" character has a LOT of legs.
 

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You say this. But then you say this...

...and in so doing express a desire for another martial with spell-like abilities. Doesn't quite mesh, somehow. :)

As for the low-magic healing question, 5e makes it easier than ever before to do this right now. You're going to fully recover every night as it is, so all you have to do is better manage your hit-point resource during the day (as in, maybe not fight everything you meet, and maybe be willing to pack it in for the day a bit sooner - embrace the 5-minute workday!) and you're good to go - and to keep going!
Warlords are specifically non-magical. That's the entire point. It's only "magical" if you take the presumption that HP=meat. Otherwise, it works perfectly fine.
 

Oh, that I would disagree with. The Warlord just has so many potential subclasses. I mean, good grief, 4e had what, six different official Warlords? I do believe that "tactical and strategic focused force multiplier" character has a LOT of legs.
Don't forget how flavorful Warlord powers were as well. One of my personal favorites came from the ranged Warlord,"Race the Arrow", where you shoot at someone and simultaneously tell an ally to charge the target.
 

Don't forget how flavorful Warlord powers were as well. One of my personal favorites came from the ranged Warlord,"Race the Arrow", where you shoot at someone and simultaneously tell an ally to charge the target.
And, frankly, this is the answer to why Battlemasters aren't quite there yet. Battlemasters focus too much on dealing damage directly. You make an attack, use X maneuver to deal extra damage and impose some sort of status effect. Sure, Warlords did that but, that wasn't really the main purpose of warlords. Warlords were about granting actions to other players.

One of my players summed it up best:

"When you play a warlord, you get to play the entire group."
 

Warlord. Instant no brainer. It would be an inarguable olive branch to a community that has, more than once, felt pretty damn snubbed by 5e, and would have various other benefits as well.

I agree with @Mistwell that Swordmage is also a reasonable choice, given the game has tried so many times to do it by half-measures with other classes, but knowing 5e it would just be another half- to full-caster, and I'm pretty against that. A Warlord would be a rare instance of adding a class that isn't a spellcaster (absent the perfectly valid possibility of a spell-focused subclass), when 5e is suffused with classes that use spells. Even with a broad definition of "not a spellcaster", 5e only has four classes that don't cast spells (Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Rogue)--it'd be nice to at least try to keep that to "around a third of classes aren't spellcasters".
 

Oh, that I would disagree with. The Warlord just has so many potential subclasses. I mean, good grief, 4e had what, six different official Warlords? I do believe that "tactical and strategic focused force multiplier" character has a LOT of legs.
In fact, I can name at least six subclasses, only four of which arise from 4e directly.

Tactical, Resourceful, and Bravura are the classic three--but then we also bring in the Skirmishing Warlord, which focuses on being a ranged attacker, not melee. Fifth is Knight-Enchanter, a spell-focused subclass that does in fact get some spells, a la EK/AT, but is primarily focused on bolstering others' spells and weakening enemy saving throws. Sixth, Sapper! Combat engineers are a hugely important part of most armies, and have been for centuries. Having a Warlord that has terrain-altering and emplacement-exploiting effects would be pretty awesome.

And to delve a little deeper into those three taken very directly from 4e, Tactical is all about positioning and rapid strikes, cutting the enemy off at the pass metaphorically speaking. Resourceful is about sustain, living off the land, beating back the effects of attrition, something quite useful with the particular combat model 5e has elected to focus on. And Bravura is, of course, high-risk, high-reward, amplifying damage or enabling attacks, but with a bit of risk attached if things go awry.

All of that sounds, to me, like a class with more subclass potential than, say, Artificer, which we already have...and which never got new subclasses (nor, indeed, any content post-Tasha's, as far as I can tell.)
 

Warlords are specifically non-magical. That's the entire point. It's only "magical" if you take the presumption that HP=meat. Otherwise, it works perfectly fine.
While Warlord healing is consistent with what Gygax says about hit points in the AD&D DMG, since most of the ways to regain hit points quickly are magical, it's not entirely unfair for there to be a disconnect in people's minds. Also, there are circumstances where hit point loss almost has to involve actually being hit and physically harmed (Micah Sweet often brings up attacks that poison you, for example).

We've been trained to consider a "hit" that inflicts damage to be physical, even if it makes zero sense for a 10th level Fighter to be able to shrug off 5-6 sword blows that would take out his level 1 compatriot.

While versions of D&D prior to 4e did have non-magical sources of rapid healing, they were rare and didn't stand out as much. I've had people tell me the main problem they have is a "martial" healing others, not themselves (like when I bring up 5e's Second Wind...despite the fact the Banneret exists, lol).

Until the game stops calling the primary healing spell "cure wounds", and solidifies what hit points are and how they function, you're always going to have this disconnect, with some ridiculing the idea of "shouting hands on" and other ludicrous hyperbole.

The best way to handle this, IMO, would be have future Warlords hand out temporary hit points instead of actual healing for the most part (with an exception for reviving a dying character by ordering them to do so- something that has been documented- or simply commanding them to "don't you die on me, soldier!", which happens so often in media that it's also probably more acceptable). If you're going to call yourself a "martial", then rather than seem supernatural, it's best to model the extraordinary feats of your average action hero.

If we can accept an aging Liam Neeson or Denzel Washington as being a one-man army and not be immediately taken out of the experience, then that's the level of "fantasy" that should be modeled after.

I'm saying this as someone who had no problems with the 3.5 Marshal or the 4e Warlord, but after years of hearing the detractors naysay it, I'm willing to make concessions in order to maintain the "flavor" of what it means to be a purely magical character vs. someone who merely exists in a magical world.

This won't completely solve the problem, however, you're still going to have people who reject the idea of a class "ordering" people around (why the Mastermind Rogue slips past this criticism is anyone's guess), and similarly reject any sort of martial "taunting" system in order to allow for a functional defender* (which has been going on since at least AD&D's Kender).

*Granted, this just one way to accomplish the task. The 3.5 Crusader and Warblade could assume a stance that imposed a hefty penalty to attack anyone but them (a 14th level ability in 5e), and while 5e seems incredibly loath to do so, just giving classes the ability to perform multiple opportunity attacks (an 18th level ability, outside of a Fighting Style that never left Unearthed Arcana) at reasonable levels would go a long way.
 

"When you play a warlord, you get to play the entire group."
That's also a big reason why it was so polarizing. A lot of players have a "don't play my character" rule, even in situations that are benevolent. So the warlord would have to trend a fine line between consent and ability. Simply put, a warlord better have a way to attack that doesn't rely on his allies doing it for him.
 

And, frankly, this is the answer to why Battlemasters aren't quite there yet. Battlemasters focus too much on dealing damage directly. You make an attack, use X maneuver to deal extra damage and impose some sort of status effect. Sure, Warlords did that but, that wasn't really the main purpose of warlords. Warlords were about granting actions to other players.

One of my players summed it up best:

"When you play a warlord, you get to play the entire group."
Barbarians wield greataxes. The Warlord wields Barbarians.
 

That's also a big reason why it was so polarizing. A lot of players have a "don't play my character" rule, even in situations that are benevolent. So the warlord would have to trend a fine line between consent and ability. Simply put, a warlord better have a way to attack that doesn't rely on his allies doing it for him.
Honestly, this has always struck me as being a little weird. If I ask a melee character's player if they'd like to make another attack, I can't imagine them saying "no, please don't, because I feel like a puppet and you're pulling my strings".

Especially classes that have 1/turn limitations on damage boosts like the Paladin or the Rogue!
 

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