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

[Zardnaar]

It was many pages ago but people were talking about polls on favourite classes. WotC published the results during the D&DN playtest and the warlord was near the bottom of the heap with something like 3 or 4% of the vote. The Wizard won with 15% as the most popular class.

In the Warlords defence it was not the least popular class and IIRC it beat the Druid and Monk.

 

[Hussar]

I can think of lots of arguments against warlords that don't apply to psions, except nobody seems to want to hear/believe my arguments. Psions don't encroach mechanically on intra-party social dynamics, or impinge on the player's right to describe his own character's mental states. There is no language saying, "Your allies' awe for your astounding intellect causes them to..." etc.

Psions have several mind affecting powers which can certainly be used against another PC. Suggestion can directly influence another PC, just as a basic example.

Nor does "Psion" describe an earned title. It's a one-word description of their trademark abilities, not a role to which they aspire.

Note, there is no Psion class for 5e. It's a Mystic with sub-classes. A problematic name that has been hashed out multiple times.

And no form of psionics currently exists in any base class, sub-class, or feat. Warlordism appears in several places.

This is flat out mistaken. There are several spells that have direct parallels with psionics. To the point where you can make a pretty darn good psion with a sorcerer. Never minding Warlock powers as well.

Psionics has also been around much, much longer than Warlords. (I'm not saying that should be relevant, but you are arguing that "every argument that applies to one applies to the other".)

agreed

So, yes, there are some parallels between the history of the classes, the strong emotions they provoke on either side, etc. But the reasons for objecting to them (and supporting them) are not identical.

But, most importantly, the Psionics threads achieve nowhere near the epic status of the Warlord threads, nor are Psionics fans as intransigent in their views about what the class must include.

You must not have read the Psionic threads here then. But, then again of course they don't because they got EXACTLY what they wanted. They got a full separate class complete with unique mechanics. What more could they ask for?

Oh, FFS, I don't know. I haven't looked at an AD&D PHB in 25 years.

Hey, you brought up illusionists. It's your example. You think that illusionist fans are not being serviced, so, I'm curious as to what you think an illusionist fan is missing. If you don't actually know, then why are you bringing it up as an example?

 

[Hussar]

It was many pages ago but people were talking about polls on favourite classes. WotC published the results during the D&DN playtest and the warlord was near the bottom of the heap with something like 3 or 4% of the vote. The Wizard won with 15% as the most popular class.

In the Warlords defence it was not the least popular class and IIRC it beat the Druid and Monk.

I tried to Google that poll, and I could only find a report of the poll on the WOTC forums. It went:

wizard / magic user, rogue / thief, fighter, ranger, paladin, cleric, bard, monk, psionicist, sorcerer, warlord, druid, warlock, assassin, barbarian, unsure, illusionist.

So, Warlords aren't doing too bad.

TBH, I think that the new FR sourcebook (name I can't remember) that's coming out in a month or two will use the Purple Dragon Knight to introduce warlords to the world.

/edit - AHA Wayback machine to the rescue. Interesting data here. From 2012

https://web.archive.org/web/2013041...ds.com/dndnext/blog/2012/02/29/favorite_class

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I doubt they are going to make a tactical miniatures module for 5e so I don't see the class coming back, but I could be wrong and they could redo it to make it more a fit for 5e philosophy. The vitriol on either side of the debate is pretty nuts at times I must say.

I'm a bit late to the party on this one--holy crap, this thread can move fast--but I really wanted to respond to this bit in particular, because it really meant something.

The designers have specifically said that they want (or, at least, wanted) to design a "tactical combat module" for 5e. They repeatedly mentioned it during the first handful of months of the playtest, and then largely stopped talking about it for a while, with maybe a mention or two in the final year-ish of the public playtest. When the playtest went into the final, internal phase, a decent number of players (many 4e fans, frex) were frustrated that the long-discussed "tactical combat module" wasn't going to get seen before the final release. I even tweeted to the devs about it, and was told by Mike Mearls that the TCM would be "previewed," that "we're doing it, and want to do it right," and that "tactical rules need precision so that [group which wants them] can use them without interpretation."

This all suggests that the designers definitely wanted to make one. However, to the best of my knowledge, no "preview" of the tactical combat module was ever produced; no set of rules which did even half the things mentioned in the Ro3 article ever materialized (many things on there, like zone effects, being exactly what I separately asked for in another thread here on ENWorld); and the devs themselves, to the best of my knowledge, never actually stated that they felt they had published this module.

So not only were they still talking about it, as of August 22, 2013 (nearly at the end of the public playtest), but--again, to the best of my knowledge--they did not actually say they had produced it, and most people who were looking for it don't feel that it was produced. It's still very much a dangling thread.

 

[Zardnaar]

They promised a lot of thngs and then quietly never mentioned them again.

 

[Zardnaar]

I tried to Google that poll, and I could only find a report of the poll on the WOTC forums. It went:

wizard / magic user, rogue / thief, fighter, ranger, paladin, cleric, bard, monk, psionicist, sorcerer, warlord, druid, warlock, assassin, barbarian, unsure, illusionist.

So, Warlords aren't doing too bad.

TBH, I think that the new FR sourcebook (name I can't remember) that's coming out in a month or two will use the Purple Dragon Knight to introduce warlords to the world.

/edit - AHA Wayback machine to the rescue. Interesting data here. From 2012

https://web.archive.org/web/2013041...ds.com/dndnext/blog/2012/02/29/favorite_class

I think that was it. It managed to beat the assassin, illusionist , warlock and barbarian and got a draw with several other classes.

 

[Imaro]

I think that at least three posters in this thread - @ChrisCarlson, @Elfcrusher, and @Imaro - are objecting to the warlord existing in UA or some other 5e supplement.

Nope I haven't objected to that at all... I would have preferred the Warlord be a subclass of the fighter (because it fits my concept of the archetype better) and for the most part that's what I've posted about in this thread... why should it or shouldn't it be a fighter subclass... but ultimately I don't care enough to be against it appearing in UA or a supplement.


EDIT: I do think the poll linked to earlier in the thread shows that the Warlord isn't really all that popular as a class... and I can see why it was made a subclass of the fighter... like the assassin and illusionist, since it doesn't have the history that the barbarian or the druid have in the game. The Warlock is a bit of a head scratcher (though admittedly I like the class more than the warlord) but then even it has a longer history in the game than the warlord.

The other thing to take into consideration is that this may only be a piece of the data used to determine classes for 5e... I'dbet the CB numbers of actual play show the warlord at an even lower spot, but that's just conjecture on my part...

 

[Guest 6801328]

To be fair, Elfcrusher, just because you have arguments does not mean that we will find them convincing.

No, but I would at least like to be afforded the respect that maybe I actually feel that way, and not have it be assumed that I have ulterior motives.

Your intra-party social dynamic hang-ups is one of those that a lot of us pro-warlorders don't particularly find all that convincing. You're even one of the few warlord detractors who even voices this concern on a regular basis. From the time of the 4E warlord's publication up until this thread, you are the first detractor of the warlord I have heard who has raised this as an issue.

I agree with that, however it took me a long time to be able to clearly articulate that exception. When I came back to D&D during the Next playtest, literally with no experience of 4e other than having flipped through the books a few times in stores, I asked "What is this Warlord thing that has everybody hot under the collar?" And my first reaction was that I hated it: "What? An 'officer' in the party who my character looks up to and follows? No thank you."

It's literally only in the last few days that I've finally been able to pick apart exactly (I think) why I am so averse to that idea. So I wonder if others have the same reaction, but can't really put their finger on why they feel so strongly about the Warlord.

And I have to admit that I often wonder if some of the Warlord fans want the class so badly for the opposite reason: they want to be the boss.

Bard. Druid. Paladin. Ranger. These were all earned titles.

Ok, but only in the sense that "Doctor" currently is. Not in the sense that "Surgeon General" is. One is a matter of being inducted into an order. The other is about rising to be one of only a handful of elites, after years of success. Come on, you've got to see the difference. Can you give me that, at least, to demonstrate good faith?

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think that was it. It managed to beat the assassin, illusionist , warlock and barbarian and got a draw with several other classes.

In fact, it is within spitting distance of the Psion (a mere 8 votes apart, both classes in the low 300s), which we all already know is going to get its own distinct class via UA.