D&D 5E A WOTC 5e Warlord That Would Be Acceptable To Skeptics

[The Myopic Sniper]

First off, I am not a 4e fan at all. It is the only edition I never connected with. It looked well designed for what it was but it catered to a very different playstyle than I enjoy and didn't seem like a natural evolution from the classic D&D I played for the 25 years previously. I never played a Warlord in that edition, but I actually really like the idea of the Warlord as a class representing a charismatic or intelligent warrior who buffs, debuffs, applies some battlefield manipulation, rallies the troops and manipulates the course of battle through their leadership.


I am sure anyone who cringes every time they hear the word Warlord (as well as Warlord fans who don't like refluffing) might not like this but how about presenting a 5e Warlord as a magical class but with absolutely minimal fluff other than something like "using a lost mythic war magic from a previous epoch," "blessed by the gods of war" or "a chosen one manifesting the spirit of war itself."

Make it a martially oriented class focused around the leadership role of the Warlord in the 4e sense up to and including "shouting away" hp damage. If 5e fans can accept a Bard "singing away" wounds through magic, I am not sure why anyone would have issues with a Warlord "shouting" them away if there is some indication if you have some reassurance that it is magical.

To do this it would have a unique set of mechanics and features designed more resembling those of the fighter or even 4e style ADEU powers but not using the spell mechanics at all (except possibly as a 1/3 style magic subclass maybe for extra healing.) Instead, the first paragraph would simply say something "imbued with the divine power" at the front but make it clear it doesn't work like spell-casting type magic or allow it to be dispelled or countered magically. But he class description could keep the fluff pretty minimal in terms of the source except to indicate it was magic that was doing the heavy lifting.

Then at the end of the class write-up or simply throw in a sidebar something like this "For tables who want to emulate the feel of 4th edition or want to have a mythic larger than life hero who leads through force of will and battle smarts ignore the first paragraph of the class description and see this character class as purely martial."


Would that be vaguely acceptable to 5e fans, Warlord doubters and 4e Warlord fans? I am not even proposing to have it appear in an actual product or to be an available class in Adventurer's League games, just an Unearthed Arcana article so fans who like it or want to try it out have a central point of reference as to what a 5e Warlord might look rather than having fifty different homebrewed versions floating around from fansites, blogs or whatever people were able to concoct on their own. Give it a bit of playtesting and feedback through UA, but unless it was universally popular just keep it as a web feature but one that people could go to if they wanted to go between home games that were both Warlord friendly.

It just seems like an interesting enough niche in the party that really isn't served without actually having to massively change the mechanics of the other classes or generate a whole new set of spells and spell lists if you were trying to refluff the existing classes towards that goal.

Any thoughts? Any objections?

 

[tuxgeo]

but how about presenting a 5e Warlord as a magical class but with absolutely minimal fluff

Proponents want a non-magical, non-supernatural class.

The most fanatical of opponents want to be able to say, "You already have all you are ever going to get from 4E, and be thankful you have that much." They certainly wouldn't compromise that position by agreeing to anything you might ever suggest for use as a potential 5E Warlord class.

 

[tsadkiel]

I think designing a warlord class to be grudgingly accepted by people who hate warlords would be a mistake. If you're going to have a warlord at all, then don't make a class that some people are reluctantly willing to put up with, make a class that other people are actually excited to play.

(That goes for any class, really, not just the warlord.)

 

[Bawylie]

I would prefer a class that catered to the fans of the warlord. Those who are not fans are under no obligation to allow the class at their table. Or to play at tables that permit it.

 

[CapnZapp]

What they said.

Why design something for the sceptics?

 

[Tony Vargas]

I am sure anyone who cringes every time they hear the word Warlord (as well as Warlord fans who don't like refluffing) might not like this but how about presenting a 5e Warlord as a magical class but with absolutely minimal fluff other than something like "using a lost mythic war magic from a previous epoch," "blessed by the gods of war" or "a chosen one manifesting the spirit of war itself."

It seems a little silly, and if it had 'teeth' it would undercut the very concept of the class. But, yes, this idea was floated even during the edition war. In 4e, fluff was mutable, so you could play a warlord, but re-fluff it as 'blessed by the gods of war' or something, and any conceptual problem with a martial character actually being able to do something theoretically disappeared, 'because magic.'

Obviously, it didn't bring peace to the edition war.

 

[mellored]

I would take a magical warlord then no warlord if that's the only choice i had. I liberally refluff.
(though bard are kinda already that).

But i still prefer a non-magical warlord. Mainly because i'm hoping for more unique mechanics.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

Proponents want a non-magical, non-supernatural class.

I do get that, but I kind of put that in the same bin as I do as having a sentence or two about the Far Realms in the psionic Mystic write up... as long as it isn't hard baked into the class features and flavor, I can ignore a bit of early fluff in the description. Stuff like a Level 1 feature... Contact Far Realms... Level 20... Summon Cthulu would be a deal breaker. It is kind of why I have issues with repurposing a War domain Cleric to make a Warlord... not only do you have to possibly write some spells and get a new spell list to represent it well, you also have features like Channel Divinity (Turn Undead) and Divine Intervention that make starting from scratch seem a better option. The War Bard looks similar to me with its borrowing from other classes spell lists, musical instruments, and features with Song in the title that don't really don't seem to be intended for use in the actual course of battle. If you are rewriting 50% of the class anyway and it still isn't getting you there, it seems like a new class is the way to go.

What if the description was something like "there is no common agreement on the source of a Warlord's power... some Warlords publicly claim it is their study of the art of war, their natural leadership and charisma while critics suspect that it comes from the study of a forgotten sort of magic, divine blood streaming in their veins, an unrecognized form of psionics or even some sort of pact with warlike demon." In other words, don't give a source at all and let the player's at individual tables decide how they want to handle it. It would also make multiclassing more flavorful.... a fighter who takes a bit of Warlord can think of it as martial whereas a Warlock could see it is another expression of his pact and a War Priest could see it as his god pushing him toward being more of a leader.

Would a description along those lines be too agnostic if there isn't a default flavor of magic that in the early write-up that could be ignored?

As it is, I am not sure how Fighter features like Second Wind (especially at low levels), Action Surge and the saving throw rerolls don't seem "magical" in terms of breaking the system at least compared to early editions? The Battlemaster subclass seems even more like it is stepping into that realm and looks like a model for a Warlord subsystem if it wasn't so focused on damage with a few other perks. I missed the 4e edition wars for the most part on this forum at the time since I decided early on it wasn't for me, but it seems an odd whipping boy for that ire now given that I do remember some late 3.5 classes that seemed to be fulfilling a similar role.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

I would take a magical warlord then no warlord if that's the only choice i had. I liberally refluff.
(though bard are kinda already that).

But i still prefer a non-magical warlord. Mainly because i'm hoping for more unique mechanics.

How about this... no fluff at all, just straight up Warlord mechanics lifted from 4e and balanced in terms of power level, the action economy and movement of 5e and then possibly a sidebar describing to the DM "if you want your Warlords in your campaign to have a magical origin... here are some possible ideas... if you want them to be martial here are some role playing tips for players to consider."

Yeah, I guess I want to see a few more classes out there and I find that the spell casting/spell slot paradigm kind of samey mechanically. It was actually one of the things that turned me off to 4e with ADEU powers and all the classes built the same way. I am much more comfortable with pseudovancian 5e type spells, but I would like to see a few more expansive classes who aren't totally tethered to that model even if they have a magical flavor. Some kind of revived ADEU or even just that represented as a series of interlocking class features that convey something that doesn't have a focused class would be nice.

 

[Gnashtooth]

Y'all know you're just feeding the troll, right?