Well, how about a suite of tactics that are selectable so you could build to taste?
Could totally exclude healing if that was your Hangup. Or totally exclude mitigation because you want plain old healing. Or build up a bit of both.
That sort of thing, yes.
That denies the basic premise of this poll, though: a fixed ratio.
Point is, we're well-tread on first principles at this point, and it seems to me the conversation must move on toward design. The compromises, whatever they are, must now be hammered out, or else we're chasing our tails.
W threads got quarantined. That's fine, but the conversations are worth having and it's incumbent on those of us behind the quarantine to show good faith progress on this topic.
So let's move it forward. If we have selectable tactics, it seems like we're looking at something like a BM style or inspiration die a la bard.
I think "tactics" might even be a cool name instead of powers.
There's a traditional (they were separate builds), mechanical (INT vs CHA), and conceptual (obviously) difference between Tactical and Inspirational. All warlords were at least a little Inspirational, and few were entirely without anything modeling some sort of tactics or maneuvers.
One of the big dangers, for me personally, in these kinds of discussions is that eventually an ideal implementation idea does come to me, and at that point, I'm prettymuch guaranteed to be disappointed with the final product, because, that idea will either be impossible to actually do or nothing remotely like it will even come close to consideration. So, knowing I am ruining the Warlord for myself permanently, here's the idea that I couldn't stop from having:
The Warlords abilities are limited not by some abstract n-uses/x-period, like encounter powers or CS dice or daily spell slots or anything like that. Instead, they're limited by the ability of their allies' ability to respond to inspiration by out-doing themselves (all those buffs from extra effort, hp-restoration, and temp-hp and similar effects), which is tapping some deep reserves like the fighter's Second Wind 'well of stamina' that most characters don't directly access, under 'normal' (even for adventurers) circumstances.
Inspiration abilities would either tap HD or Inspiration if the character had it at the time or require a save CON from the ally to gain the benefit or a post-combat consequence like exhaustion. At some point, it'd become impossible to gain any benefit from being Inspired - the ally just has nothing left to give.
Separate from that would be tactics. Tactics are the kinds of things that work great the first time you spring them on an unsuspecting enemy, but eventually become part of the repertoire of combat tricks everyone with any combat experience knows about and uses just as part of being able to make extra attacks or have a proficiency bonus and some more hps than the baseline everyman. The warier and more cunning the enemy, the less likely even a brilliant, novel tactic is likely to be, and pulling the same trick a second time on the same foe will almost never work - even if they've just seen it before or heard about it, it'll be harder. The obvious mechanic, there, IMHO, is an INT save by the enemy, but it could go all the way down to "this ability is usable once - ever" (a tactic so novel and brilliant and completely impractical without complete surprise that word of it precedes you everywhere and it never works again). Yes, an INT save means that certain monsters will fall for the same tactic over and over - for some, like a pre-programmed golem or mindless ooze that might even make sense.
Finally, you'd bring those two limited resources together with personal combat prowess, and have maneuvers which tap either or both (or for repeatable ones, neither) resources. A warlord might 'know' a lot of tactics and maneuvers, and be able to use inspiration in specific ways as a result. To make it more interesting including an ally in a maneuver might require training (it it uses tactics) or 'bonding' (if it uses inspiration) as part of backstory or even as an optional bookkeeping-exercise (for those who enjoy that sort of thing, or DMs who want a further check on the class's effectiveness) involving downtime days. And, the effectiveness of a maneuver could depend on the level of both the Warlord /and/ the ally (so a high level warlord still couldn't do that much with a town full of low-level peasants, and a low level one couldn't much help to a high-level party).
Finally, the more potent maneuvers could be gated by Warlord level.
So the warlord would end up with a few basic maneuvers he could do as much as he wanted, which could include the traditional at-wills (which'd either scale with level, or have higher-level alternatives or both). And then a selection of other 'known' maneuvers limited by Inspiration or Tactical considerations or both, that he would need to manage carefully.
