D&D 5E Evaluating the warlord-y Fighter

[AmerginLiath]

Mind you, I played very little 4e (due to not gaming much in recent years – I still haven't actually played 5e yet either); as much as I love the idea of the Warlord, I never got the chance to play one.

I think much of the issue in the translation of the Warlord concept to the Battlemaster – I agree that off-turn action is the key – is the differences in action economy. It seems that 5e, in general, dictates that one loses a turn if one is giving a turn (see how it costs an action to give their reaction to another via Maneuver, or the kerfuffle about the Beastmaster action economy). It's why multiple attacks are reduced, et cetera (as a player who often had to sit in 3.5 and wait for others to spend forever resolving huge arrays of attacks for my chance at one roll, I can see why – and the 4e issue of multi-hour battles was a separate but likewise troublesome issue to many because of the complicated economy). The Battlemaster is designed to have riders to actions and to have opportunities to bolster or trade turns to allies, but the differences in economy off-turn are going to limit what is going to be possible (the same complaint that summoners are having).

There is an opening, I believe, for more maneuvers (and I believe that there will be more released, much as more spells will be forthcoming). I do wonder how much of the healing question also comes into the expected length of encounters. If the system expects shorter combats (and, by default, an experience less focused on combat, via the three-tiers system), is there an assumption that less in-combat "martial" healing & buffing is needed, and so the Battlemaster doesn't need the same specialization as the Warlord (merely the capacity to recreate the genre of that character, along with other types of characters)?

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

How would it interact with the multiclass rules?

Similar to the warlock (IE, not very much lol). Warlock is pretty much on its own for spell advancement, unlike a paladin/cleric where one adds to the other. I can't recall, did 5E do away with adding levels to determine additional attacks, so a paladin 4/ranger 4 got their 2nd attack without taking a 5th level in either? If so, I guess it would stack that way.

About the only potential interaction is if it ended up using Superiority dice as well, but given how few the fighter gets (and that the warlord would ideally have higher level maneuvers that require multiple dice to fuel), just straight up stacking shouldn't be an issue. At that point, you've sunk at least 3 levels into fighter. I could see having fighter levels counting half for selecting Warlord maneuvers/tactics, and paladin/ranger levels counting for 1/3rd, similar to how spell stacking works. So a fighter 4/warlord 1 would count as a 3rd level warlord for purposes of selecting riders/buffs/powers.

Similarly, their invocation equivalents are mostly attack or action riders. Since they end up with 2 attacks, the only concern is potential imbalance with 11 levels of fighter (granting the 3rd attack). Limiting riders to effects only on a hit, making riders once per turn or on the next attack, non stacking, in place of damage, etc can keep it in check.

I don't want to see a return of the super gonzo aspects of 4E's novas, but given there aren't action points anymore, first turn blowouts should be inherently less common.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If they were actually bigger, you might have a point. I'm not terribly impressed with the guy who blows HIS ENTIRE TACITCAL WAD to let 4 guys move and is back to "herp a derp, I hit it with my sword".

....and deals +4d8 damage. All without allowing the enemy to act in the meantime.

In 5e, that something that ends encounters.

It's also not exactly "herp derp I hit it with my sword" when you're pumping out up to 200% the damage of anyone else without even spending one anything to do anything.

If 4E was "If everyone is special, no one is special", then 5E is "If no one is special, then no one is special."

I don't think this premise is true for either 4e or 5e. Combat roles in 4e kept contributions to combat encounters varied between characters, and 5e's varied class mechanics ensure that contributions are fairly unique.

Man, the 5E fighter sucks.

My experience shows otherwise.

5E isn't quite casters and caddies like 3E/Pathfinder, but its a big step back from 4E in terms of giving the non-casters interesting and flashy effects.

I don't need much more than "I End The Encounter, and then just deal double damage on my 3 turns in the next encounter."

A 4e ability that dealt 5[W]+StrMod damage distributed as you see fit over any targets within your movement radius that you hit that also let your allies move their speed with an aftereffect of "you deal +1[W] damage until your next milestone" would be INSANELY powerful as a level 5 daily. Heck, for a more on-par comparison, it should probably be dealing something like 8-10[W] initial damage (5e critters take 3 hits to kill, 4e critters are more like 6-8 hits from a warlord).

4e warlords can use their fancy abilities on every hit to do something less impressive than that out the gate (and probably almost as impressive in aggregate, or with more variety). I'd MUCH rather make one big decision than 10 little ones that add up to something possibly significant.

MORE BROADLY:
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I honestly think this is one of the big "preference divides" coming down in 5e. Some people want more granularity. 5e was pushed by the playtest in the direction of simplicity. This, according to mearls & crawford, went against some of the received wisdom that they had when they began the design (for instance, this interview).

I don't think the received wisdom was so much wrong as it was narrow and possibly very self-selected. There's a vocal group of players out there who really like the granular details of character construction and want things like 5-ft. shoves to matter. Making things simpler, more streamlined, and less fiddly is not going to make those fans happier - indeed, the simpler effect is just going to seem weak or inadequate or just boring (especially when someone just reads it in a book and does theorycraft on it without seeing all the bits work as a whole -- it's easy to forget monster HP totals when you're looking at battlemaster superiority dice unless you've been in a few fights and then you might just write off more damage as not worth mentioning). It certainly won't offer as many options or decision points.

People aren't wrong to want that, but while lots of options and decision points look really good on paper, they are not quite as compelling in practice for a generalist audience.

Barry Schwartz does my favorite breakdown of why that is.
[video=youtube;VO6XEQIsCoM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM[/video]

Dan Gilbert does a good one, too.

5e makes a conscious effort to let players make meaningful, large decisions, typically about actions, in play. That removes the fiddly bits. It goes HARD against what both 4e and 3e practiced. Instead of choosing 5 powers with effects that constantly demonstrate your narrow specialization, and getting disappointed when you can't, you make one or two choices and don't sweat it if you can't do it every round -- the secret to happiness is low expectations, after all.
[/sblock]

...but I don't know that "they're fine" is something that someone who wants to beat the "CASTERS ARE OVERPOWERED" drum wants to accept.

 

[Rune]

Similar to the warlock (IE, not very much lol). Warlock is pretty much on its own for spell advancement, unlike a paladin/cleric where one adds to the other.

Specifically, multiclassed spell casters can use warlock slots to cast their spells. Would they be able to do the same with your version of the Warlord? If so, it ain't a martial class.

That applies to filing off the fluff of the cleric, too, of course. Spellcasting isn't just fluff; it's a mechanic.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I think much of the issue in the translation of the Warlord concept to the Battlemaster – I agree that off-turn action is the key – is the differences in action economy. It seems that 5e, in general, dictates that one loses a turn if one is giving a turn (see how it costs an action to give their reaction to another via Maneuver, or the kerfuffle about the Beastmaster action economy).

Part of the drag was that essentially everyone had reactions in 4E. There were chances to interrupt a monster's turn and another player's turn. The generally crappy scaling of encounters vs optimized at-will spam encouraged everyone to load up on as many bonus/reactions as possible. Why deal an extra d8 over an at will with an encounter when you can squeeze in a whole extra attack, complete with stacking damage mods!

That was a problem with 4E's design, not necessarily the concept of reacts. Characters are limited to one per round, and generally you're getting only them on the battlemaster/warlord's turn, as opposed to a potential cascade of them from every character on every turn, which in turn can trigger another round of reacts within the same action.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Specifically, multiclassed spell casters can use warlock slots to cast their spells. Would they be able to do the same with your version of the Warlord? If so, it ain't a martial class.

That applies to filing off the fluff of the cleric, too, of course. Spellcasting isn't just fluff; it's a mechanic.

Oh sorry, I misunderstood. No, they wouldn't get spell slots or use spell lists at all. What I would create is an expanded list of battlemaster maneuvers, with higher powered ones potentially requiring more dice. The warlord would learn them as they level. The comparison to the warlock was mainly in how both classes would have encounter recharge powers (spells/superiority dice) and at will abilities. For the warlock, their invocations are either at will spells, or riders added to eldritch blast. For the warlord, their at invocation equivalents are passive buffs/ability enhancement or riders on attacks.

The class would be to the battlemaster fighter what the wizard is to the eldritch knight or the cleric to the paladin.

 

[Staffan]

The problem with a Warlord-esque character in 5e is that the 4e Warlord was, to a large degree, about moving other PCs around on the battlefield and giving them (mostly) small bonuses to attacks. I mean, sure, they had some big guns here and there, but a typical encounter power would be "deal 2W damage and move an ally that's already adjacent to the target to another square adjacent to the target" or "deal 2W damage and your allies gain +1+Charisma modifier to damage against the target for a round."

These are two aspects that 5e is moving away from: multiple small modifiers, and fiddling with exact movements on the game board (sure, there are rules for the latter in the DMG, but it would be hard to build a class around optional rules).

 

[Pickles JG]

I dunno I think the battlemaster effects are those smallish 4e style ones - possibly why they feel underwhelming in a game that tries for a few gross effects. The bonus damage & monster debuffs are great & all but the support stuff is a bit lacklustre. Giving a handful of temps out is so poor cf healing that amount or doing that much damage with a nice rider.

There should be scope for a character who boosts allies in big ways without overburdening the turn structure so it remains pretty fast moving (at the cost of not doing much personally)

 

[I'm A Banana]

The bonus damage & monster debuffs are great & all but the support stuff is a bit lacklustre.

That's a broad generalization -- what, specifically, in gameplay, is lacking?

Giving a handful of temps out is so poor cf healing that amount or doing that much damage with a nice rider.

In 5e, being able to take one extra hit (~5 hp at that level) can make the difference between surviving combat and not. Even if that's all a Rally does (and 4d8 is not just one hit), that's not an insignificant effect. It's like getting +5 AC or imposing disadvantage on an enemy attack or casting cure wounds. It's like 1/4-1/8 of the entire HP total (not unlike half a healing surge!).

It's not exactly a handful. A level 4 Encounter utility in 4e that read something like "target gains temporary hp equal to half their healing surge value" would not be an awful choice for a warlord.

There should be scope for a character who boosts allies in big ways without overburdening the turn structure so it remains pretty fast moving (at the cost of not doing much personally)

I don't disagree, but I'd like more specificity on the "big ways." IMXP, a 5e battle master does this pretty solidly. Which isn't to say it couldn't be better, just that sometimes the problem is one more of perception than of practice.

 

[koga305]

Wow. A lot has happened in this thread since I left! Get ready for a mega-reply post.

I believe a warlord character class is probably in the works. While we don't get one, I'd advice anyone in my game to just play a College of Valor bard and avoid spells that are obviously magical in nature. It's possible and should be fun to play.

I haven't yet played a warlord-ish character in 5E, but speaking personally... if I wanted to I'd either use the Battlemaster and its maneuvers like you mentioned, or I'd play a War Cleric and strip the fluff off of it.

Now I want to play a paladin, but with paladin "spells" being fueled by inspiration and leadership rather than divine benefits

Interesting that many people's reply was simply "play a magical support class and refluff it."
Personally, that's too far over the line for me - having to justify all the powers of a Bard or Cleric as coming from a martial source seems difficult, and avoiding the most "magical" spells (it's hard to refluff Hold Person or Spirit Guardians as nonmagical) seems like you'd be gimping yourself. I'd rather play an explicitly magical character then try to refluff it as a martial one. That said, if it works for you and your table, go for it!

OP left out one aspect of 4e warlords that is missing: any use for the Intelligence stat. Rally and Inspiring Leader make use of Charisma, but apparently you don't need to be clever to be a master tactician.

This is true! It feels strange to build a Warlord-type character and end up with Intelligence as your dump stat. Really, there's no plausible Warlord-y use for it except the History skill.

In conclusion; to really work, the Warlord concept absolutely must be its own class, where warlord-y features doesn't compete with or have to be balanced against the features of other classes.

Also, for many, a successful Warlord means breaking the core assumption of 5e brought along from 3e, namely that non-magical abilities can't get access to the really good stuff.

Specifically, I want healing on par with perhaps bard or druid healing (if not life Cleric levels of uber healing!), but this needs to work perfectly fine in an antimagic field. Same with Warlord buffing. I'm just saying this, so nobody expects otherwise. My guess is that a Warlord class won't ever become part of 5e core (at least not one that would satisfy the above). But perhaps it could be akin to a "DMG class" (like oathbreakers and death clerics) and be added to the forthcoming 4e compatibility articles?

I agree in large part with you here. Certainly the Warlord-y Fighter can't match a Life Cleric in terms of healing or a Valor Bard in terms of buffing. And certainly, one of the design elements of 5E is that you can't straight-up beat the abilities a mage is good at - that is, nobody can compete with a Wizard's Fireball for taking out mobs or a Life Cleric's Heal spell for bringing someone back from low health.
On the other hand, I'd say that with resources invested the abilities of a martial character can outpace those of a mage over time. This also fits the design ethos of 5E - sure, a mage can have really strong mobility from spells like Misty Step and Fly, but the Rogue can take an extra move or disengage every turn without expending resources. The Barbarian's damage resistance from Rage is miles better than Stoneskin because it lasts longer (counting Concentration) and doesn't compete for resources (you're doing it every combat, anyway) - and it comes at an earlier level, too.
I'd argue the same is true for the Healer or Inspiring Leader feats. They may not match a Cleric's healing at its best, but Healer lets you heal 1d6+4+level HP per every Short Rest for every party member, which quickly outpaces a bunch of Cure Wounds spells. Similarly, with about twelve expertise dice per day the Battlemaster can afford to grant the Rogue extra attacks more than the Wizard can afford to cast Haste on a damage-dealer.

I really like the 4e warlord as a concept and agree that it currently can't be replicated exactly in 5e.

However, I feel that the Battlemaster comes really quite close thematically, especially if you take feats like Inspiring Leader and Martial Adept. If you want to allow home-brew, I'd think it is easy to tweak the Fighter class to have a more warlord-y flavor, simply by ruling that its Action Surge & Second Wind abilities don't give the character itself the extra turn or hit points, but allow him or her to give it to an ally. I am not really an expert on the rules, but I don't think it would break the balance too much of the game, although I'm sure there would be some way to take advantage of this.

EDIT: Also, don't forget about the Protection Fighting style. This is another 'warlord power'-like thing you can do as a reaction during combat instead of using your dice.

Interesting idea here, but it doesn't really match the class design of 5E classes. If a Warlord-y Fighter can manage those abilities, then why shouldn't all Fighters get them? Maybe the solution for Warlord purists is to include a Martial Archetype that enhances the Fighter's normal abilities to have them buff the party, much like the Bard subclasses enhance the Bardic Inspiration feature into a debuffing or combat-buffing ability.

Yes, they grant them, they're just crappy compared to magic. When they can toss out effects on par with Bless, a first level spell, I might be interested.

Interesting point, but keep in mind Bless is widely considered one of the most powerful spells in the game. Certainly the ability to help your entire party at once (acting as a force multiplier) is a powerful one, and something the game lacks for martial characters at the moment.

A proper supporting fighter would be able to spend his reactions to buff allies. I have a very different and complex system for 3e, but the general idea here in 5e terms would be: "Spend your reaction to give a +2 bonus to hit to an ally." You just build from there as the character invest build resources in the concept: "+4 bonus to an ally", "+2 bonus to all allies", "+2 bonus to AC to an ally", "+2 bonus to a reflex defense of an ally", "flank a target you and at least one ally are adjacent to, even if you aren't in a flanking position", "If you have advantage on an attack, you may sacrifice it to give any of the above to an ally", and so on and so forth.

I agree that being more supportive is key to making an effective Warlord, but I don't think fiddly bonuses like this are the way to go - they're antethetical to the way the system is currently designed. Either give out dice like Bless and Bardic Inspiration, or simply grant advantage/disadvantage. I suspect if Wizards expands the Warlord-y options available, we'll see effects that mirror the Protection ability - simply grant Advantage on an attack, or Disadvantage on attempts to hit the character.

I have a friend who has played warlords almost exclusively, ever since 4e came out. He's playing a Battlemaster now and loving it. He feels like it captures the feel of the class very well.

He hasn't quite gotten used to rationing his dice yet, but he agrees that it's probably a good thing that he actually has to swing his own sword every once in a while.

This is really valuable! Although it's not perfect in my eyes, I actually really like the design of the Battlemaster as written and I suspect it's better than people think it is. Has your friend chosen exclusively Warlord-y maneuvers, or is he focusing on being an effective combatant himself as well?

Pretty good take-down!

Thank you!

Like you point out, I think this is intentional - "cool moves" are meant to stand out in 5e, which means your "normal moves" (cantrips and weapon attacks) need to be used. In 4e, you did something special with every attack. In 5e, you might just hit it with your sword one round, and that's OK -- intentional, even, since it keeps the game flowing fast and highlights the special moves a little more dramatically.

Agreed. One thing to note, though - for many archetypes, there are actually "at-will" abilities that are more than a basic attack. For example, a Defender-y character can use Protection every round, and a battlefield controller with Shield Master can attempt to shove every time after they attack. I've played a grappler Barbarian myself and really enjoyed punching, then getting my free Grapple attempt every round. The mages can get in on the act as well with pseudo-AoE (Acid Splash) or debuffing (Ray of Frost, Shocking Grasp) cantrips. Sadly, the Warlord-y Fighter gets nothing like this. Maybe another Fighting Style might be in order?

I think what you characterize as "room to breathe," I might argue is "fiddly bits that had no functional effect." There's a lot of chaff in 100 powers, especially when a given player will only see 10% or so of them. Some of the granular detail is lost in 5e, because the powers aren't as fine-grained, but I think that's still intentional and has an awesome secondary effect (a faster and more dramatic game).

The level thing is likewise in fitting with 5e's pacing -- a lot of classes don't get their defining characteristic until a later level. You can't channel divinity as a 1st-level cleric or metamagic as a 1st-level sorcerer. Classes have a few "training levels," including the 5e version of the warlord.

True! I think this is perfectly okay considering the other classes, but I'd love if there was a support Fighting Style at first level. After all, the Defender gets to do their thing with Protection, and other styles get bennies as well.

The nova potential comes in the form of extra attacks -- and thus extra chances to use Superiority Dice. A 5th-level fighter can have 4 attacks in a round, and so could easily move their entire party by using Maneuvering Attack on each hit, or give up each of those attacks to party members in a Commander's Strike, or combine the Distracting Strike with a few Commander's Strike or whatever. 5e's "it's OK to make basic attacks" philosophy crops up after that, but since monsters only survive about 3 rounds anyway...those are encounter-dominating effects.

Agreed! I think people really underestimate the Battlemaster. Those maneuvers can be really powerful if applied in the right situations in actual play. And the baseline Fighter is pretty strong!

Man, the 5E fighter sucks. I blame the Champion. Because the whining grognards want a fighter without nice things (so they can just play their caster anyways), now no fighter can have nice things.

Play a paladin, which gets to drop in massive extra bonus dice on a crit with smites (after the die is rolled), party utility and solid nova capability and tell me how a battlemaster holds up. I'm not talking some game starting when you get 2 action surges and 4 attacks either.

5E isn't quite casters and caddies like 3E/Pathfinder, but its a big step back from 4E in terms of giving the non-casters interesting and flashy effects.

I really disagree with you here. Setting aside the edition warring, the Fighter gains more ASIs than the Paladin (meaning you can hit 20 Str/Dex while picking up the fighting style feat(s) of your choice a lot faster). Second Wind is comparable to or better than Lay On Hands with the short rest recharge and bonus action activation.
And the thing is, a Battle Master's nova is just as strong as a Paladin's. Even at level 5, you can Action Surge once and drop a Superiority Die on each attack. If you begin with Trip Attack, you'll gain Advantage on your next three (meaning very likely hits and a better chance of crits - which also double spent Superiority Dice), and follow up with nasty stuff like Disarming Attack or Pushing Attack (off a cliff!). If you finish off your first foe, just move to the next, rinse, and repeat.

These are two aspects that 5e is moving away from: multiple small modifiers, and fiddling with exact movements on the game board (sure, there are rules for the latter in the DMG, but it would be hard to build a class around optional rules).

True. I believe the low number of support maneuvers available is this - there are really only a few ways to grant advantage, and moving allies around only has so much use in Theater of the Mind (which is not universal but is designed for). Other posters have mentioned that action economy in 5E is curtailed, so I think that accounts for many more - granting the entire party another attack would be totally ridiculous.