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

Remathilis · May 11, 2024

Micah Sweet said:
To me the line is, "is it at all possible that a person can do this in real life? Bonus points if it can be done reliably. If not, it is supernatural by my definition (and I'm pretty sure the dictionary's).

I'm fine with that definition. The issue becomes how much should the fighter/warlord/rogue/etc go past that line. Do we hard cap them at the line permanently (what D&D does now), do we let them break that line when a sufficient number of orcs have been slaughtered, or do we let them consider the line a quaint notion for lesser mortals right out the gate?

I'm fine with a purely mundane martial PC and accept that that is what people want even if they experience diminishing returns as the game progresses. I'm equally fine with a purely supernatural martial class out the gate who can match a caster across the board. My two big nos are classes that start "mundane" and arbitrarily become supernatural at high level, and the "this ability resembles magic, but it's mundane so it's not limited in the same ways magic is" answers. If you want mundane, be mundane. If you want supernatural, be supernatural. But don't be supernatural and call it mundane.

Jadeite · May 11, 2024

MuhVerisimilitude said:
D&D is misguidedly trying to balance the Sidekick against the more heroic classes by nerfing the heroics. You can see this happening when you argue that there should be a more competent martial class: Someone is going to argue that it will make class X obsolete, where X is some martial class.

Pathfinder 2 avoided this problem by making the Fighter the most powerful class in the game ...

Vaalingrade · May 11, 2024

Again: why is it so hard to just let a fantasy world be fantastic?

Yaarel · May 11, 2024

Micah Sweet said:
I would accept ki as natural from a real life perspective if everything one could spend ki to activate was possible in the real world. Since we know that's not true, I think we have to conclude that ki is a supernatural power source.

I understand where you are coming from. Yet the term "super natural" is incorrect for ki. Ki isnt "above" nature. It is nature itself.

Even if the applications of ki are sometimes implausible, ki itself is still "natural".

Micah Sweet · May 11, 2024

Yaarel said:
I understand where you are coming from. Yet the term "super natural" is incorrect for ki. Ki isnt "above" nature. It is nature itself.

Even if the applications of ki are sometimes implausible, ki itself is still "natural".

How? It absolutely is above nature, and thus supernatural from a real life perspective, because it allows for effects using it that are not possible in real life.

Yaarel · May 11, 2024

Also, @Micah Sweet

ECMO3 said:
There is nothing at all natural about "mystic energy" surrounding your body and the things ki does for Monks is certainly supernatural as well.

This is like saying Ghosts are natural or psychics and fortune tellers are natural. You may believe these things exist IRL and many people do. But that does not make them natural.

I watched a Chinese scientific film footage, where the scientists celebrated visually documenting a person shifting energy fields across his back while meditating. They understood this phenomenon as "ki" (qi).

The concept of ki is natural.

I'm A Banana · May 11, 2024

Micah Sweet said:
To me the line is, "is it at all possible that a person can do this in real life? Bonus points if it can be done reliably. If not, it is supernatural by my definition (and I'm pretty sure the dictionary's).

In the game as it currently exists, that line is crossed at about level 1 and it only gets wilder from there.

A "regular person in real life" in D&D is a commoner with straight 10's. Maybe you can beat a scrappy kobold or something, but even having a 15 in a stat is beyond what a regular person in real life is generally capable of.

It's not exactly a hard line, so you can probably squint and see a normal person until about level 4 or so, but D&D as it currently stands is pretty explicit that having a character class is something already extraordinary.

Micah Sweet · May 11, 2024

I'm A Banana said:
In the game as it currently exists, that line is crossed at about level 1 and it only gets wilder from there.

A "regular person in real life" in D&D is a commoner with straight 10's. Maybe you can beat a scrappy kobold or something, but even having a 15 in a stat is beyond what a regular person in real life is generally capable of.

It's not exactly a hard line, so you can probably squint and see a normal person until about level 4 or so, but D&D as it currently stands is pretty explicit that having a character class is something already extraordinary.

This is one of many reasons why I don't like WotC 5e's assumptions.

Remathilis · May 11, 2024

I'm A Banana said:
In the game as it currently exists, that line is crossed at about level 1 and it only gets wilder from there.

A "regular person in real life" in D&D is a commoner with straight 10's. Maybe you can beat a scrappy kobold or something, but even having a 15 in a stat is beyond what a regular person in real life is generally capable of.

It's not exactly a hard line, so you can probably squint and see a normal person until about level 4 or so, but D&D as it currently stands is pretty explicit that having a character class is something already extraordinary.

Depends on the metrics being used. The Monster Manual has NPC stat blocks for a variety of generic people in the world who are far better than a level 1 PC, let alone a commoner, but still feel mundane. A gladiator, by the numbers, is a beast but his abilities (mostly different forms of weapon attacks) aren't special. The issue arises when characters are supposed to be doing things that are clearly not mundane with higher numbers but actual impossible things.

Justice and Rule · May 11, 2024

Staffan said:
Healing Word in 5e is very different from how it was in 4e. In 4e, it would always heal a significant amount of hp (25% plus 1d6 per 5 levels, rounded up), and the main limit was the recipient's HD. In 5e, it heals for a piddly amount and is a leveled spell, meaning it's a daily resource that competes against cure wounds for spell slots.

But the main difference there is that the cleric had the old design to fall back on. The 5e cleric doesn't work like a 4e cleric, but it does work like an AD&D/3e cleric. There is no such old design for the Warlord.

Both the tactical grid and granular modifiers are a consequence of 4e being a game of inches and 5e being one of miles. For example, one of the 4e Warlord's at-will powers allowed an ally adjacent to either themselves or to the target to shift 1 square before the attack. This made it pretty likely to turn on flanking giving combat advantage (+2 to hit and activating certain abilities, notably the rogue's Sneak Attack). Another neat thing is that it was a shift, meaning it doesn't provoke opportunity attacks. But 5e doesn't have flanking (except as an optional rule), sneak attack is activated just by having an ally next to the target, and handing out advantage is about twice as powerful as a +2 to hit. Oh, and circling around someone doesn't provoke either anymore. So a "shift 1 square" power works great in 4e, but it has nowhere near the same impact in 5e.

That's just one example of how the bread and butter of warlording in 4e doesn't translate well at all to 5e.

Sure, but these are all specifics mechanics, not generalized mechanics. Yes, Healing Word doesn't work like it did in 4E, but that's my point! It was ported over in a way to 5E that feels appropriate for it, using its mechanics. The generalized mechanical version of Healing Word is "Ranged Healing spell", from which you can take it in different directions.

I think that's doable for all you describe. Yes, porting them over directly doesn't work: the game doesn't give advantages in the same way it did previously. But that just means you have to look at the generalized idea behind the mechanics and adapt it in that way. Movement abilities would still be useful in 5E, perhaps not in the exact same fashion but still important: you could have a power where someone can use their reaction to move through an enemy space without a roll to get out of danger. Allow people to do certain things as reactions using the Warlord's skill as a bonus modifier (Let's say Cha, but could be Int or Wis if you like), like a Shove. There's plenty there that works within the space. You could have pack tactics give everyone attacking the same monster a bonus damage die of the Warlord or something (Maybe proficiency die? I dunno, I'm just thinking off the top of my head).

We need to stop focus on a direct, word-for-word port and move towards a more "How does this fit the vibes of the previous class within the current system".

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

Remathilis

Legend

Jadeite

Hero

Vaalingrade

Legend

Yaarel

🇮🇱He-Mage

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast

Yaarel

🇮🇱He-Mage

I'm A Banana

Potassium-Rich

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast

Remathilis

Legend

Justice and Rule

Hero

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