Are we overthinking the warlord?

Aldarc · Mar 12, 2018

Zardnaar said:
More or less agree but if you have good healer plus good damage dealer you have a problem.

A paladin?

chunkosauruswrex · Mar 12, 2018

Al2O3 said:
Remove the limit on Call to Action.

Well that is just completely busted. Every round for free the barbarian gets his full round of attacks, or the wizard just gets to cast another fireball.

FrogReaver · Mar 12, 2018

Aldarc said:
A paladin?

Paladins aren't good at both at th same time.

Dualazi · Mar 12, 2018

TheCosmicKid said:
So it struck me that the core fighter abilities cover the basics of what most people want the warlord to do pretty well -- wait! keep reading! -- except for the one issue that they affect the fighter instead of other people. So what if we just, y'know, changed that?

Inspire Second Wind
Once per turn, you can use a bonus action to restore hit points to a friendly creature within 30 feet of you who can hear you. The amount regained equals 1d10 + your warlord level. Once you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest before you use it again.

Call to Action
Starting at 2nd level, on your turn, you can use your action to allow a friendly creature within 30 feet who can hear you to immediately take an action. Once you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again.

Coordinate Attack
Beginning at 5th level, once per round, when a friendly creature within 30 feet of you who can hear you takes the Attack action, you can use your reaction to allow that creature to attack one additional time as part of that action.
When you reach 11th level, you gain a second reaction each round and can use this feature twice per round, but only once on the same creature's turn. The number of reactions and uses of this feature increase to three when you reach 20th level.

Indomitable Leader
Beginning at 9th level, when a friendly creature within 30 feet of you who can hear you fails a saving throw, you can allow them to reroll the saving throw. They must use the new roll, and you can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

That looks like a pretty good starting point for a 5e warlord to me. Something for both the "a warlord is just a type of fighter" and the "no it isn't!" camps.

Except that all of what you just posted is still a fighter through and through, because it's all tied to the short rest crap as usual. I can't speak for anyone else, but the number of sessions/tables that I've been at where a short rest occurs after every fight have been basically nil. What this means is you have some pseudo-warlord abilities (and very weak ones, mind) once per fight at best, and then you go right back to the standard fighter schlock. If a proposed warlord doesn't have the ability to replace a bard/druid/cleric as the party enabler/buffer/healer, then it's not a good enough iteration of the warlord. I have no faith in their ever being a good 5e warlord that's still married to fighter chassis for this reason.

Zardnaar · Mar 12, 2018

Aldarc said:
A paladin?

Paladins not that good at healing.

Rossbert · Mar 12, 2018

Dualazi said:
Except that all of what you just posted is still a fighter through and through, because it's all tied to the short rest crap as usual. I can't speak for anyone else, but the number of sessions/tables that I've been at where a short rest occurs after every fight have been basically nil. What this means is you have some pseudo-warlord abilities (and very weak ones, mind) once per fight at best, and then you go right back to the standard fighter schlock. If a proposed warlord doesn't have the ability to replace a bard/druid/cleric as the party enabler/buffer/healer, then it's not a good enough iteration of the warlord. I have no faith in their ever being a good 5e warlord that's still married to fighter chassis for this reason.

I suspect that you will be disappointed. It feels like (just speculating) that R&D views the warlord more as a magicless paladin than a cleric. A beat stick with a solid list of support options attached to it as opposed to a heavy support. So maybe like a war cleric or valor bard with the two roles inverted.

Eltab · Mar 12, 2018

Since many people still conceive the Warlord as standing right behind the Fighter, the healing could be tied to a Medicine Kit and/or build-in the Healer feat as a class feature:
As your action you can use a first aid kit and get the max out of it. Yes you can use up the first aid kit, and you have to buy (or downtime-make) another.

I would like to see Healer and Inspiring Leader as the basis for 'non-magical healing' capabilities.

Prakriti · Mar 12, 2018

You're still overthinking things, but the good news is... the Warlord is officially coming to 5E!

Mike Mearls says it will be a Fighter subclass called the Purple Dragon Knight, but the generic name is Banneret. It will be published in a new book called The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, to be released in 2015.

Get excited, people! Your dreams have been answered!

Tales and Chronicles · Mar 12, 2018

Prakriti said:
You're still overthinking things, but the good news is... the Warlord is officially coming to 5E!

Mike Mearls says it will be a Fighter subclass called the Purple Dragon Knight, but the generic name is Banneret. It will be published in a new book called The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, to be released in 2015.

Get excited, people! Your dreams have been answered!

To be honest, the PDK was an interesting concept, but the powers are so weak that they made the archetype not very compelling. If the healing had been a little higher, the attack surge a little sooner and given them a help-related action, I'm sure more people would have love the build. I played one and it is not that bad, but really requires the Inspiring Leader feat as soon as possible to be able to play the concept to its fullest at low level.