D&D (2024) Chance for a warlord?


log in or register to remove this ad

I theory crafted a Warlord-like Fighter build a while back that heavily relies on the Knight of Solamnia background and Feats (it even includes some nonmagical healing), but a base class that had these things instead of needing DM permission to use a setting-specific background would be nice.

1st Level
Background: Knight of Solamnia. Required for the feat chain.
Class: Fighter.
Feat: Squire of Solamnia. Needed for the feat chain.

3rd Level.
Archetype: Banneret
Rallying Cry. 3rd Level. When using Second Wind, allies within 60 feet regain hit points equal to your Fighter level.



8th Level
Feat: Martial Adept
Maneuvering Attack. When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend one superiority die to add the superiority die to the attack's damage roll, and you choose a ally. That ally can use its reaction to move up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks from the target of your attack.
Bait and Switch. When you're within 5 feet of a creature on your turn, you can expend one superiority die and switch places with that creature, provided you spend at least 5 feet of movement and the creature is willing and isn't incapacitated. This movement doesn't provoke opportunity attacks. Roll the superiority die. Until the start of your next turn, you or the other creature gains a bonus to AC equal to the number rolled.
You don't need Commander's Strike or Rally because you've already gotten superior versions from Knight of the Crown and Knight of the Rose. Commander's Strike is made obsolete by Crown's Commanding Rally, which lets you use only your Bonus Action instead of requiring both one of your attacks and your Bonus Action. Rose's Bolstering Rally lets you add your proficiency bonus whereas Rally does not, plus you can use Constitution instead of Charisma to avoid MAD. Martial Adept also only gives you a single d6 for your superiority die, whereas Crown and Rose have built-in d8's and let yiu use both a number of times equal to your proficiency modifier.
replace banneret with battle master
replace marital adept with inspiring leader
 

I can see a Warlord as a subclass of Fighter, sure...start with the Battle Master as a framework, and create a list of new 'battle cries' or whatever to go along with it. As others have mentioned, nonmagical healing is going to be a stretch but hey, it's always been a stretch. (blah blah eight hours are all you need yadda yadda...)

But with thirteen -- soon to be fourteen -- different character classes on the roster, I'm not sure there are enough gaps to need a full class, though. But if they can find enough room for it in the design space, I'd like to see it.
The problem, as is always the case with any Fighter sublcass, is that the base chassis is too full of stuff.

You can't actually give the Warlord features the room they need to breathe and flex, because "has 4x attacks per round" and "Action surge" etc. is too strong. The old Banneret shows quite well the limits.

People love to say that the best use of Wizards (etc.) is to use powerful control spells so that the non-casters or low-casters are set up to kick huge butt. The Warlord-as-Fighter-subclass answer falls down on this, because they cannot be the kind of person who is best at setting others up. They'll always be best at getting set-up from their allies, they'll just have a minor and distinctly incidental ability to set allies up too.

That's why I just can't see ANY Fighter subclass, no matter how well-constructed, being a Warlord.

As I've said many times previously, imagine if someone told you we weren't getting a Wizard class because the Eldritch Knight exists. Would you accept the Eldritch Knight we have, right now, as a valid substitute for a full, complete Wizard? Even if you would, do you think the typical Wizard player would? Heck, that the typical player-in-general would?
 

To design a warlord class is a serious challenge for game designers, because the power balance may different if we talk about a 3-8 adventurer squads, 8-20 skimishes squad (like Necromunda or Mordheim wargame) or mass battles like Warhammer: Total War. The warlord class should be designed together the system for mass battles and this needs a lot of work. It is about to choose to hire more low-level mercenaries or an expensive magic item, or how to defeat that dragon mount that can terminate a squad of soldiers with only one breath attack.

My own version of 5e warlord is a martial adept focused into the school of the white raven (from "Tome of Battle: Book of the nine Swords")

My suggestion is to create a playtesting class to be tested in the skirmishes and wargame mode of Sigil.

Where could we see a warlord class? In a strategy videogame set in Birthright/Cerilia.
 

I think if they wanted to add a third extra class to 5e, it'd likely be Warlord given its popularity. It's definitely the class I've seen asked for the most besides Psion/Mystic.

I'm actually positive that they'll add more classes. It hasn't been that long since the books came out and we've had playtests for two classes, this early into the edition cycle. Even if their momentum slows down, I'm still betting on Warlord within the next 3-4 years.
 

If they aren't going with a Warlord subclass of Fighter, than they have to open up a Warlord base class to a lot of things, including subclasses that dabble in magic. Like 2 non-magical subclasses and 2 subclasses that are more magical.
I don't think it needs to be 2-and-2, but I certainly agree that a Warlord subclass focused on the combat applications of magic would be perfectly acceptable.

For my part, I like the old Warlock split-subclass model, and think that would be an excellent choice for the Warlord. (There's a vague tracery of this in the 5.5e Cleric: at 1st level you now choose whether to be more a warrior or more a priest, separate from your domain. So it's not unprecedented even in 5.5e to have this kind of "first level broad interest, third level specific focus" split.)

E.g. at first level you choose your Leadership Style, which determines what your Leadership Modifier is. Resourceful = Wisdom, highest focus on healing, save-granting, and resilience; Bravura = Charisma, highest focus on buffs, attack-granting, and high-risk/high-reward play; Cunning = Intelligence, highest focus on mitigation, movement-granting, and coordination.

Then at third level you choose your Combat Specialty. Ideas I've had include: Vanguard (front-line well-armored warrior), Sapper (military engineer/trickster), Knight-Enchanter (EK/AT equivalent, enhances ally spells), Old Master (monk-like tutor/helper/guide), and Skirmisher (stealthy "commando" type, mobility, hit-and-run, etc.)

There are other benefits that I think can and should be mined from the Warlock chassis, but this is all that's relevant to what you've said here. A separate spellcasting-adjacent Warlord subclass might have something to do with Abjuration specifically, possibly Divination as well, and there's precedent for that in the Abjurant Champion. So I could see a Warlord subclass that does that, magical reconnaissance and warding.
 

Ok, as you probaly know, I am not the biggest warlord fan, but hear me out.

If the psion gets through playtest, I see a real chance to get a full warlord for 5e.

Why? Psion is a full caster, that builds upon the psionic dice mechanic that the psi warrior already uses.

The warlord could expand superiority dice to be their main feature. And since we are missing a real support character that is strong when getting some short rests, that type of warlord might fill that niche pretty well.

I'd at least would like to see a UA of that.
I'm inclined to agree with this. The staff at WotC have changed, and they seem to have gone back to the splatbook mentality. And new classes sell splatbooks.

The attitude to 4e has changed from hate to forgotten, so that's not a problem.

The mechanics? Nothing radical, the point is look at this shiny new class. It will no doubt used remixed mechanics from existing classes, with a fresh coat of paint.
 

I think there's some interesting space in martial support options. Though I don't know that any of it is currently unexplored. The only issue is that it's spread a bit too thin over all the martial classes/subclasses.

We have fear, disarming, forced movement, advantage, disadvantage, allied movement, temp hp, attack me or face disadvantage (essentially 4e style marking), even attack granting.
i've definitely thought and said this before, it's not that the individual tools to create a good warlord don't exist in 5e, it's just that they're too piecemeal and scattered that's it's just not realistically possible to combine them into a greater whole on a single character.
 

There is zero reason why a Warlord-like class could not exist within the game. Hell, you can take a Bard right now... make a handful of specific spell selections... remove ALL the fluff from the class, its features, and its spells... and create the foundation of a Warlord. The Bardic Inspiration mechanic stripped of its bardic flavor; Cure Wounds and Healing Word spells stripped of their "magical healing spell" flavor; spells like Bane, Command, Heroism, Aid, Mirror Image and other in-combat spells stripped of all of their 'magic' and 'spell' flavoring and just use the game mechanics by themselves layered with a martial fluff and bent; and if necessary remove the "spell slot" mechanic for determining how often an ability can be used per day and at what power level and replace it with 'martial points' or 'martial dice' to spend instead (or even depower the features such that you can use one every turn at-will if that's preferable.)

Every single mechanical thing in the game can be reduced to basically adding or subtracting a number from another number or changing how often a character is allowed to do something or how they can do it. And how often you can do that, how many characters it affects, and how large those number can get is determined by the level at which the feature comes into play. So just take all the existing mechanics in the game, select the ones that would apply to a 'Warlord' type of class, determine how often and at what character level they can be used (and thus how weak to powerful they can be), and then just fluff all of it with names that denote a military guy giving orders or making tactical recommendations to their fellow characters. You now have a Warlord class for 5E.
 

I think the biggest drawback to the Warlord making it to 5e is that no setting requires it. Eberron and the artificer and Dark Sun and the psion are linked in such a way you really can't do the setting without that class. I don't think Warlord is linked enough to any setting (maybe Nentir Vale?) enough for them to say "we need a new class for this setting or fans are gonna riot" Though who knows.
 

Remove ads

Top