Yeah, I see the feigned humility, too. Funny how someone can claim not to lack confidence in how to do something, then turn right around and tell us all how that thing needs to be done. Not buying it.
I see nothing unreasonable in approaching a difficult problem with both confidence in the ability to understand the problem, and acknowledgement of one's own limitations when it comes to actually solving it. There's no contradiction there.
I don't even understand what that means.
"cares about the integrity of the model" roughly means "treat the rules as the laws of phsysics for the imagined world, and assume the inhabitants of that world understand those laws & make decisions accordingly."
FWIW though, I agree that Nature cleric and Druid are a bit too similar, though that might have more to do with my dislike for divine flavor. Druid feels like a good solid concept, but Nature Cleric, like all the other clerics IMO, feels very flat. I would have preferred if there were far more abilities tied to Domains, rather than only 3-4. As a matter of fact, I like that idea. I am adding that as a design goal at some point, so the Cleric will only have 3-4 abilities in the base class, and the rest will be domain inspired.
I did like the 2e 'Sphere' model, it made each priesthood more distinctive. Domains are not quite so versatile or interesting - but they are simpler and more focused.
"antithetical to roleplaying"!
He's always seemed very serious about believing himself the final arbiter of what is and is not really roleplaying.
There is no way to have a class match a cleric in a nonmagical way without bending the rules into contortions.
Obviously, there was a way, since 4e did it, and it had very consistent rules, not in the least contorted. I think the important thing though, isn't whether they could do that again - they're professional game designers, some were even on the team that did it last time, give them a tiny bit of credit - but how they could do it /better/.
You might bring able to justify something like bless or aid, but how do you match lesser restoration, revivify
Inspiration, same as non-magical healing.
defensive tactics, the warlord's maneuvers allow allies to sheild an ally and distract enemies so the subject escapes unscathed
To disrupt casters? Perfectly timed missile fire. To prevent detection? Extraordinary preparation and execution of a diversion.
Actually knowing the lore of the legend in question.
extraordinary intuition/deduction
It's hardly a support spell, anyway, is it? And blasting away with elements is no more Warlord-appropriate than grinding away with high DPR.
The only way you get a Warlord is to basically have him be more akin to ranger or paladin that cleric, a fighter who trades out DPS for tricks. You might have better luck trying to make a nonmagical paladin than a spell-less cleric.
Again, this is a baseless assertion trivially disprove by the past success of the Warlord.
5e is not strictly inferior to 4e, just because 4e did it, doesn't mean 5e can't.
I agree. Of the three reasons I posted (note, those are just the ones off the top of my head. there are more, as I am sure some people would be willing to tell you), the one I think holds the most water is the last. Just in the past few pages of this thread, three different warlord fans have given three different ideas of what a warlord /should/ be. That means that anything that fits one of those will only placate, or possibly even anger, one of the other two. The question becomes A) Who do we please, or B)How do we please everyone? As I mentioned in my post slightly earlier, One will just disappoint people, and the other is hard.
I think you're overestimating how inflexible warlord fans are. We want the option to play the class we liked in 4e. That class exists as an easy reference. What's more, it exists in only one iteration, so it is much easier to identify than any of the classes already designed for 4e.
Compare the state of the Warlord & it's fandom to that of psionics. Psionics has existed in 4 radically different forms: as a non-class random non-magical but superntural special ability steeped in Freudian and sci-fi terminology, as a single, wildly overpowered class using similar powers, to a number of classes using psionic powers that might, at the DM's option be magic or 'not magic,' to 4 classes, two similar, one somewhat different, one classic but never-before-psionic all explicitly using 'psionics' distinct from arcane, divine, or primal magic.
Yet, WotC hasn't shied away from putting psionics into the pipeline.
The Warlord has existed in one past edition, in one form. At least some of it's fans want it to grow beyond that.
No, that's really not much of a stumbling block.
And, I mean, seriously, what about the Ranger? The Ranger has that 'problem' worse than any class, it's the poster boy for no one really knows, let alone agrees, what it's really supposed to be.
Yet they tried to pull it together for the PH1, and are still trying out sub-classes, trying to come up with a few that stick.
As to how to please people with a variety of different visions of the same class? Sub-classes. Alternate class features.
Options.
they need a solid idea of a warlord, which is hard to do when none of the fans agree on it. I would personally consider that a very valid concern, which has nothing to do with balance concerns.
OK, this is nonsense. The Warlord is right there, in the 4e PH4. Fans differ on what they consider most important, and on what they might live without when pressed to 'make compromises' (why? with whom? in return for what?). Everything the Warlord was in 4e could be done in 5e.
5e is not some hobbled, strictly inferior version of D&D, it can do any class that 4e did, and probably do it better.
