D&D 5E How many fans want a 5E Warlord?

[FormerlyHemlock]

(Double post)

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Does TrippyHippy have a good point otherwise? Perhaps. But I have a hard time believing it when I've already determined I don't believe his opening statement (because I personally *don't* think he'll walk away from the game just because WotC releases a Warlord class some time in the future.) And as a result, what might've been a reasonable point is stuck ten paces back.

So because you personally think someone is overreacting, you assume it's hyperbole and that everything they say is suspect, and that it's okay to dismiss out of hand everything else they write and publicly denigrate them as an hyperbolic alarmist? Isn't that kind of bigoted?

I've played with six or seven gamers who have come back to D&D at 5E after two decades mostly away (I think they tried 3E once or twice). I don't know their reasons for not playing 3E or 4E but I know the DM's reason for picking up 5E was that it had the requisite "old school" feel he wanted for his campaign. I know that I drifted away from AD&D around the time Skills and Powers started coming out, because the new rules were unappealing, and those new rules turned into 3E and that turned into 4E, and if 5E hadn't at least partially reversed that trend I wouldn't be playing it. (5E is better than AD&D in some ways, worse in others, but many of the bad parts are omissions which can be patched over by porting over old rules like spell research or old content like Dragon "Ecology" articles.)

So when you scoff at the idea that people can be turned off a game by rules in splatbooks, you look close-minded. It's a thing, even if it's not a thing you personally care about.

 

[Tony Vargas]

No. The Cleric says "I represent a 'Holy Warrior' or 'Militant Priest' Archetype, and as such I do not feel constrained into having to play in a contrived, pre-designated way that functions like a role in a sports team and often seems to confuse people as to what 'narrative archetype' really means...."

Clerics in my game are always saying that.....

What an odd way of saying "band-aid." ;P

Seriously, though, the Cleric was an archetype that evolved early in D&D's history, and is virtually unique to D&D. It may have started as some sort of Van Helsing, but it quickly became all about da heals - and stayed so until the WoCLW took up the slack. Even then, when not mutated into CoDzilla, it's remained a support class, right up to and including 5e. What it's never been is an archetype found in genre - thanks to the D&D oddities of blunt-weapon restrictions, frequent in-combat healing, & vancian casting.

You can (and some have) made a similar case against the Warlord. If you focus on the foibles of D&D mechanics like hps and action economy, and look for those artifacts in genre, you won't find Warlords. Plenty of warriors leading men into battle - far more than 'holy warriors' with divine powers of any sort - but nothing conclusively a D&D class. D&D can just be that bad at genre emulation if you stare too hard at the mechanics, ignore their abstract nature, and read too much into them.

All that case does, though, is illustrate that the Warlord is every bit as worthy a class as the Cleric. Arguably much moreso.

 

[Yaarel]

Yes, out of 219 respondents, 145 want the warlord. About 2:1 in favor.

It's an ENWorld 'multiple choice' poll. You can click either or both answers.

It appears, players want a Warlord with lemon curry flavor.

 

[Lanefan]

And, while we use 'leader' as short-hand, because of the familiarity of the 4e formal Leader Role, that role no longer exists, and the Warlord isn't going to be defined by either the formal role of Leader, nor was it ever strictly leading in the literal sense of the warlord player bossing everyone around.

In theory. In practice you and I both know there's players out there who like to boss other players around; and this gives them a mechanical excuse for it. That's why I'd be all for changing the class name. (I thought the 4e role names were poor too, for the same sort of reason, though the concept held some water)

It's a support class.

Hmmm...all these people want to play the Marshal support class yet so many complain bitterly about playing the other big support class: Cleric. Sometimes I don't understand gamers...

I consider it a feature in a fantasy game, and a necessity even in one that has some reason to shoot for realism. Attempts at realism can really hurt balance & playability, often for very little actual realism achieved.

D&D is so very far from being remotely realistic, though, that I doubt it could even much accommodate the impulse even in very extensive modules. That doesn't mean it shouldn't try. I could see at least a full, PH-sized supplement devoted to such an end being added to the Advanced Game.

Sure it's unrealistic, but when there's a choice given between taking it closer to or farther from realism I tend to go with the "closer-to" option if all other things are equal.

Nod. If one of them has a "doesn't play well with others" or "problems with authority" concept, yeah, it could be an RP problem - or 'opportunity.'

That'd be most of the characters I ever play. I get told what to do enough in real life; damned if I'm going to put up with it in the game as well!

Doesn't that undercut what you're trying to accomplish in declaring first?

No, in that while I-as-DM need to know you're moving this round I'm not going to hold you to your declared course of movement if circumstances arise to change it. But if we're halfway through the round and your initiative comes up and only then do you tell me you're moving from A to B and attacking Orc F, I have to back everything up and see what you might have encountered during your move - did you get clipped by the fireball that went off partway along your logical route, or did Orc G break off from its original opponent (who it had already swung at) and try to block you instead? Inevitably one of two things happens: lots of retconning, or characters get away with moves they realistically shouldn't have.

Too many times I've seen move actions treated like little mini-teleports in modern-era D&D, mainly due to the idea that everything you do happens right then on your turn. No fluidity. Bleah.

The higher initiative one would Ready in 3.0 and later.

With Ready you can have two (or more) actions happening on the same turn, even if not technically several turns simultaneously. Many DM's'd just run something like that as if it were literally simultaneous. Certainly nothing wrong in doing so in 5e.

Fortunately, in 5e, you can just rule something Simultaneous if you want, when it matters - without adopting a more onerous action-declaration system and using it every round. DM Empowerment, rulings-not-rules, &c...

Exactly, and in this way 5e beats both 3e and 4e.

That's surprisingly close to how the Warlord often works out in actual play. The leadership aspect is conceptual. Just as the player of the fighter doesn't get up and swing a replica sword around, or the warlock player actually put his soul up for sale, the player of the Warlord wasn't actually bossing the other players around.

There's players I've seen - and who I still play with - who, if given a Marshal as a PC, *would* take it as license to boss the other players around. Then the arguments would start...

Well, the game does need some support functions in a party, particular hp-recovery in combat,

And here we reach a deep disagreement. You seem to see (and correct me if I'm wrong) in-combat h.p. recovery as a natural part of combat; where I see it as something that should happen rarely if ever at all and then with risks attached.

If an ally goes down in mid-fight that should present any healer or support type a harsh choice: keep fighting and hope the downed one can hold out till the battle's done, or get in there and try to drag him out and-or cure him and hope your own head doesn't get stove in while you're at it.

Lan-"if I could boss the other players around we'd often end up in way worse situations than we already do"-efan

 

[DEFCON 1]

So because you personally think someone is overreacting, you assume it's hyperbole and that everything they say is suspect, and that it's okay to dismiss out of hand everything else they write and publicly denigrate them as an hyperbolic alarmist? Isn't that kind of bigoted?

If you want to call it "bigotry" that I do not feel the desire to engage debate with someone who uses hyperbolic language rather than just state honest fact or opinion, then that's fine. Quite frankly though, I fine the term "bigotry" to be a much stronger term that I would use in this situation (because I would usually reserve the use of that word for much more substantial prejudice) but I understand the implication you are driving at. I will accept that I am "bigoted" here on the boards against people who do not or can not discuss or argue from a place of honesty. And truth be told... if someone wants their voice heard... their voice should try and speak to truth. Otherwise people are prone to ignore it.

 

[Lanefan]

All clerics I play are support to the protagonists, since always.

Clerics I play are support to the protagonists...which includes themselves.

Right now I have a decent-level Cleric in a 1e-variant game who is happy to support the party. In combat he's in 4e terms a 'defender' type, all AC and defenses, stands in and takes punishment until the real fighters can bail him out. Out of combat he's a cheerful (unusually so, for me) happy chap who gladly does what curing he's asked to. However events in the game are making him more and more a key protagonator rather than a background support type, so he'll probably end up doing both; which is just fine.

But he doesn't run around telling people what to do.

Lanefan

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

If you want to call it "bigotry" that I do not feel the desire to engage debate with someone who uses hyperbolic language rather than just state honest fact or opinion, then that's fine. Quite frankly though, I fine the term "bigotry" to be a much stronger term that I would use in this situation (because I would usually reserve the use of that word for much more substantial prejudice) but I understand the implication you are driving at. I will accept that I am "bigoted" here on the boards against people who do not or can not discuss or argue from a place of honesty. And truth be told... if someone wants their voice heard... their voice should try and speak to truth. Otherwise people are prone to ignore it.

Bigotry (noun): "intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself."

And if I recall correctly, the "hyperbole" which you denigrate was stated as opinion. TrippyHippy said that if WotC forced the Warlord into 5E, he would leave the game. That's pretty clearly a statement of opinion and preference. It is your expressed opinion that he cannot possibly hold the opinion he claims to have, and that he must therefore "not [be]... speak[ing] truth" or "argu[ing] from a place of honesty." Humbug! I don't know about TrippyHippy but I know that it is possible to hold such an opinion honestly.

 

[Hussar]

I'm a little confused though. Like the idea of martial healing being a problem, 5e already has a class that can tell people what to do- the Battlemaster. It's right there in core.

And it doesn't seem to be a problem.

So why would a class that specializes in something that another class can do be a problem? Assassins get a better sneak attack than rogues. Is that a problem? Wizards get better spell selection than sorcerers. Is that a problem? Clerics heal better than Paladins. Is that a problem?

So why is having a more "leadership" focused Battlemaster a problem?

 

[Aldarc]

Get a dictionary. I've only reacted to those who are doing so with kind. I sure as heck didn't launch any kind of first salvo or whatever. Heck, my first post was a polite statement of how I agreed with another poster's sentiments. Then, my second to defend a poster I felt was being unfairly marginalized for an off-hand remark that had nothing to do with their larger point.

But, look. Another rude local piling on with nothing to add but vitriol. This place sure is full of tolerance and polite discourse. Yeah, now I see what you guys were saying over in the "welcome" thread...

[Edited for typos. The adult beverages take their toll...]

"Get a dictionary" is probably not a good preamble to your pretense for polite discourse. Fact of the matter is that people have been getting on this thread for even wanting a warlord archetype represented by a class in 5E. The warlord gets because it has become the whipping post for 4E haters. There is a lot of thinly-veiled edition warring when it comes to the warlord. A number of arguments against the warlord could be applied with equal measure against pre-existing classes, but those classes get grandfathered into acceptance because they are not associated with 4E. I, for one, would love a warlord class for fifth edition. I would like to play a tactically-focused class that could assist other characters in ways that amount to more than just "blessings," "prayers," and "heals." I believe that the warlord is a legitimate fantasy archetype. It's as distinct from the fighter as the barbarian or paladin. Why isn't the paladin a fighter sub-class? Tradition. That's it. You could make a freaking divine sub-class of the fighter and call that a paladin, but people don't. Why? To reiterate, at this point it's because of tradition. There is a place for the warlord as its own class. But there is such a fanatical voice of opposition to even the notion that something called the 'warlord' could be given its own class. Why? 4E.

No. The Cleric says "I represent a 'Holy Warrior' or 'Militant Priest' archetype. As such, I don't feel constrained to play my character is a predetermined way in order to satisfy abstract roles akin to playing in a sports team, or those who these erroneously conflate these roles as being the same thing as a 'narrative archetype'".

Clerics in my games are always saying that......

No. The Cleric says, "I represent the team assist leader" as per the basketball analogy that was originally in play. There is no "Holy Warrior" or "Militant Priest" archetype in basketball. Analogy fail on your part. You're right though. The "team assist leader" is not a fantasy archetype. But the warlord, the general, the commander, the king, the war marshal, the leader, the "heart" are fantasy archetypes. There are characters who are neither bards nor clerics who are "party optimizers" who operate as the tacticians, strategists, and 'hearts' of teams. Warlords are as much fighters with feats as barbarians are fighters with feats or even rogues being lightly armored fighters who stealth. What's the difference between a 'barbarian' and a 'fighter' who takes the 'outlander' background and 'appropriate feats'? Is it... dun dun dun... tradition? Because that's what it sounds like.