Are we overthinking the warlord?

[FrogReaver]

I have no issue with a magical subclass of the warlord being able to do all that, but in my expectation of the non-magical warlord it will not have tools to deal with lost limbs, lycanthropy, curses or petrification. I could see them having tools for helping with poison and (to a lesser extent) disease, but those would not be the immediate curing kind of tools that magical characters like clerics would have. I can also see a warlord having tools to help with certain status effects and with drained stats.

And that's all perfectly fine, for one very good reason: the warlord is a combat-focused support character. They should be able to heal and help with some of the things you'd generally want a cleric for, but that kind of support should have a built-in cut-off for kinds of things it can't do. That's part of what makes it okay for the warlord to perform other support actions, like enabling off-turn actions, without doing too much.

There's like a whole 10d6 swing between the best single off turn attack and the worst single off turn attack. Nothing that swingy will ever be balanced for at will.

Either it will be way to strong or way to weak.

That said you can grant a few off turn attacks and that swinginess won't be a great deal. You just can't do a ton of them. Also, most of that extreme swinginess won't hit till way later level. So a level 1-10 game will only have a 5d6 swinginess at most. That's getting a lot closer to manageable.

It's really high level characters and high level rogues in particular that mess up off turn attack granting for everyone. We could probably live with a 2d6-3d6 difference in most parties most of the time for the attack granting.

 

[MechaPilot]

There's like a whole 10d6 swing between the best single off turn attack and the worst single off turn attack. Nothing that swingy will ever be balanced.

You need to compare what's given up for what's gained. What does the warlord character give up doing to allow someone else to act on her behalf? That's the comparison that matters in actual play.

Comparing the difference between a single attack and a single attack with sneak attack dice is both a white-room comparison of the wrong things, and it's a broken record to boot.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Why not just remove the paladin, because you can MC Fighter Cleric?

Good question!

 

[FrogReaver]

You need to compare what's given up for what's gained. What does the warlord character give up doing to allow someone else to act on her behalf? That's the comparison that matters in actual play.

Comparing the difference between a single attack and a single attack with sneak attack dice is both a white-room comparison of the wrong things, and it's a broken record to boot.

Unless what he gives up depends on how many dice the ally is rolling for damage then it's the only thing we need to concern ourselves with. No matter what you make it cost that 10d6 swinginess is still there. If you make it cost his whole turn then its still imbalanced. It's just now way to weak for any rogueless party and about right when a rogue is present.

All you are doing with the cost is shifting whether it's too strong with a rogue or too weak without one.

 

[MechaPilot]

That said you can grant a few off turn attacks and that swinginess won't be a great deal. You just can't do a ton of them. Also, most of that extreme swinginess won't hit till way later level. So a level 1-10 game will only have a 5d6 swinginess at most. That's getting a lot closer to manageable.

The comparison needs to be between what the warlord gives up and what the ally acting on her behalf can do. So, assuming a warlord gets the extra attack feature, you're not comparing a single attack to a single attack. The right comparison is what the warlord could do with her attack action, plus any bonus action benefit she could get for having taken an attack action (such as if she were a dual wielder), against the action she grants her ally.

And, let's not forget that all it takes to shut this whole show down is a cantrip. A bloody cantrip. Shocking Grasp means no reactions, which means no acting off-turn.

It's really high level characters and high level rogues in particular that mess up off turn attack granting for everyone. We could probably live with a 2d6-3d6 difference in most parties most of the time for the attack granting.

High level play is poorly balanced in an edition that said "let's care less about balance this time around," color me unsurprised.

 

[MechaPilot]

Unless what he gives up depends on how many dice the ally is rolling for damage then it's the only thing we need to concern ourselves with. No matter what you make it cost that 10d6 swinginess is still there. If you make it cost his whole turn then its still imbalanced. It's just now way to weak for any rogueless party and about right when a rogue is present.

All you are doing with the cost is shifting whether it's too strong with a rogue or too weak without one.

Oh, come on! There will always be optimal and sub-optimal uses for abilities. That those exist doesn't mean the warlord feature (or any other feature with optimal and sub-optimal uses) is bad. And not every party has a rogue in it. The party I'm running an adventure for doesn't have one, and no one feels they need one.

Let's say the high-level warlord gets 4 attacks (maybe it's gets them because it's a fighter subclass, maybe it's just the only other class lucky enough to get a 4th attack). If the warlord wields a 2d6 damage weapon and has to give up her action to let someone else act off turn, the warlord is sacrificing 8d6 + 20 (i.e. 4x Str mod) damage, for an average of 48 damage. The 11d6 +5 attack from the rogue deals an average of 43.5 damage and the rogue has to burn a reaction to do less damage than the warlord could have.

Now, if you say the high-level warlord gets 3 attacks, then we've got 6d6+15, an average of 36 damage compared to an average of 43.5 damage. That's a 7.5 point difference, and that's at the highest levels of play.

 

[FrogReaver]

The comparison needs to be between what the warlord gives up and what the ally acting on her behalf can do. So, assuming a warlord gets the extra attack feature, you're not comparing a single attack to a single attack. The right comparison is what the warlord could do with her attack action, plus any bonus action benefit she could get for having taken an attack action (such as if she were a dual wielder), against the action she grants her ally.

The more damage the warlord can cause on his or her own the less "good" attack granting is. If the warlord could do 12d6+5 damage on his turn (at will) then he has no reason to ever spend his turn to grant the rogue an action. The side effect is that the more damage the warlord can cause without relying on his allies the fewer allies it's going to be useful to grant an attack.

But you are right, we can make the warlords own damage be a minimum threshold (except people also want a lazy lord concept to be achievable with this too)

For a single attack being granted it's all basically dependent on the rogue. It either sucks for almost everyone but the rogue or it's way to good for the rogue. Attack action for attack action trading could be a little more promising in the higher levels. Still though, you have to worry about the swinginess then of the -5/+10 feat builds and the non -5/+10 feat builds.

And, let's not forget that all it takes to shut this whole show down is a cantrip. A bloody cantrip. Shocking Grasp means no reactions, which means no acting off-turn.

Not very concerned. Low chance enemy even has shocking grasp cantrip. Low chance he uses it on a warlord that is standing back anyways. Better chance warlord gets knocked unconscious by a lightning bolt or fireball by the same enemy that had shocking grasp.

High level play is poorly balanced in an edition that said "let's care less about balance this time around," color me unsurprised.

Sure but that doesn't mean we should flat out ignore it either.

 

[MechaPilot]

The more damage the warlord can cause on his or her own the less "good" attack granting is. If the warlord could do 12d6+5 damage on his turn (at will) then he has no reason to ever spend his turn to grant the rogue an action. The side effect is that the more damage the warlord can cause without relying on his allies the fewer allies it's going to be useful to grant an attack.

Situationally. If the warlord does slightly more damage (i.e. 4 attacks) or slightly less damage (i.e. 3 attacks), then action granting is best used at a distance and for acceleration. A good example of this would be if an enemy is farther away than the warlord can move, but an ally of the warlord is adjacent to that enemy, especially if that enemy has proved to have devastating attacks and the group wants to whittle that enemy down quickly.

Other good examples include if an ally has a magic weapon, or a different type of weapon than the warlord, which bypasses a resistance or plays to a vulnerability of an enemy.

But you are right, we can make the warlords own damage be a minimum threshold (except people also want a lazy lord concept to be achievable with this too)

For a single attack being granted it's all basically dependent on the rogue. It either sucks for almost everyone but the rogue or it's way to good for the rogue. Attack action for attack action trading could be a little more promising in the higher levels. Still though, you have to worry about the swinginess then of the -5/+10 feat builds and the non -5/+10 feat builds.

I'm not worried about the -5/+10 feat builds. One, feats are optional (I use them, but they are optional). Two, I have yet to see these feats be a problem in actual play. I see people (predominantly Zardnaar) complaining about them online, but the player at my table with that feat never broke anything by using that feat, even when his character was blessed.

Re: Lazylords, I'm not entirely certain what that jargon refers to. I've had warlords at my table in 4e, but no one ever called their character a lazylord. Is that a Char Op term? Because I don't really visit Char Op boards.

Not very concerned. Low chance enemy even has shocking grasp cantrip. Low chance he uses it on a warlord that is standing back anyways. Better chance warlord gets knocked unconscious by a lightning bolt or fireball by the same enemy that had shocking grasp.

You don't use shocking grasp on the warlord to negate action-granting; you use it on the ally of the warlord who you don't want to be able to take off-turn attacks, because then they wouldn't have a reaction available to spend on making the off-turn attack. In your example, this would mean using shocking grasp on the rogue.

Sure but that doesn't mean we should flat out ignore it either.

Ignore? No. But, a 7.5 point swing at the highest levels of play is purely de minimums.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I was thinking that would be a feature not a bug

Nah, the whole "Come back to me!" scene is enough of a trope that we need to enable it. Maybe just something specific like "Unconscious creatures are considered able to hear you for the purpose of this ability" so you still can't do anything weird while in a radius of magical or whatever. But then again, I might be in peril of overthinking it.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

There's like a whole 10d6 swing between the best single off turn attack and the worst single off turn attack. Nothing that swingy will ever be balanced for at will.

And my version isn't! I have freed you both from the burden of overthinking this!