D&D 5E I don't actually get the opposition for the warlord... or rather the opposition to the concept.

[Bawylie]

I don't actually get the opposition for the warlord... or rather the oppositi...

But where does the beer come from? The Cleric uses magic to create water. The Warlord creates beer out of nothing. That's the problem I have.



And I'm not trying to tell people what characters they can play. But at the same time I don't what their choices to dictate to me how my character is played. I believe that the fluff of Warlord crosses that line. With different fluff I would find the Warlord completely acceptable.



I'm attributing that motive because it is something people have said:



Not Authority. Great. He still wants to Lead. Therefore everyone else must follow. I don't want to follow.

So I am suggesting ways that Warlord can be re-fluffed without the Leader and Follower baggage. And I am suggesting that the Warlord have a defined source for his extraordinary abilities. If that is done I will have no problem with the Warlord.

What I don't know if that would satisfy those that want the Warlord. Would they be happy with a Character that manipulates an Inspiration force? Or maybe they can pull on the strings of Fate to create circumstances that would not otherwise exist? (I like this idea for the Bard also.) Anything but Command and Follow. And any defined source of abilities other than, "It just works, don't worry about it".

We get "it just works, don't worry about it" because of the total uproar over the martial power source.

And leadership doesn't require any following. By saying he doesn't want authority, he's saying he's not interested in bossing you around, which you take to mean that he wants to boss you around. What about leadership by example? What about leadership by inspiration? What about literally taking the lead, charging into combat, etc.

Nobody is interested in telling you how to play (unless they're jerks).

"Where does the beer come from?"
It comes from the same place combat superiority dice, second wind, rages, bardic inspiration dice, sneak attack dice, and spell slots come from.

 

[Lord Twig]

I imagine it's the second wind resource, that's pretty well-understood.

This is the "it just works, don't worry about it" problem that I stated above. I don't want a game mechanics source. I want to know how it works in game.

However, I'm at work and don't have the book here. IIRC it's some kind of rallying shout that affects multiple allies when the fighter uses his own second wind. They regain a number of HP equal to the fighter's level, each.

It uses the same source as second wind.

So again. He commands and everyone else must follow. And why healing? It just does, don't worry about it. [sigh]

That said, there are a good number of game mechanics that are just neat game mechanics and not as fundamental laws of the universe. Fighter's indomitable, bardic inspiration dice, song of rest (non-magical), barbarian rage, I just mean there's a lot of stuff.

But I never hear "Well what if my character hates music? Why should the bard's song of rest work on me?" We just get these arguments on the warlord.

Well I guess everyone else is inconsistent. I'm the only one that has a problem with all of those things. Why should the bard's song work on someone that hates music? If it was magical it would at least make sense!

And I AM arguing about the Bard and the Fighter abilities and all the rest. The Warlord just takes all of those abilities and cranks them up to 11.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to argue the other side. The OP of this thread stated they didn't understand the opposition. So I am trying to explain. The goal is understanding.

 

[cmad1977]

It happens in the same way that a coach sees things their players don't - even though their players are far better at what they do than the coach is, or probably ever was.

It happens in the same way that snipers, when possible, prefer to use spotters.

Two sets of eyes are better than one. Two brains are better than one.

Nobody performs optimally all the time. If someone could, there'd be no need for a dice roll. We'd just determine the bonus a character gets - a quantification of their optimal performance - and compare it to a target number.

In sports, we'd never need to actually play a game. Just determine what everyone's optimal abilities are and run a simulation.

The D20 roll models the variability of people's focus, effort, and success - as well as external factors. The Warlord's assistance mitigates the effect of those factors by providing a bonus or some other mechanical representation.

Just like real-life...




I want my role playing to be more realistic...

Probably should go with a different system.

 

[El Mahdi]

Not Authority. Great. He still wants to Lead. Therefore everyone else must follow. I don't want to follow.

Not really. That's a common misconception about Leadership.

Instead of re-fluffing, I'd recommend attempting to better understand what Leadership is.

 

[El Mahdi]

Probably should go with a different system.

No.

Sorry if that is inconvenient or annoying for you, but...actually No, I'm not sorry.

You play your way, I'll play my way. And I certainly don't think it's unwarranted to ask WotC to make the game edition that had Inclusiveness as one of its goals, actually be Inclusive.


Cheers and Game On.

 

[Hussar]

No.

Sorry if that is inconvenient or annoying for you, but...actually No, I'm not sorry.

You play your way, I'll play my way. And I certainly don't think it's unwarranted to ask WotC to make the game edition that had Inclusiveness as one of its goals, actually be Inclusive.


Cheers and Game On.

At the end of the day, this is the only point that really matters.

Folks generally got what they wanted out of 5e. If you disliked 4e but liked 3e, then 5e has lots for you. Heck, there's more than enough 4e in the game for 4e fans to be pretty happy. Earlier edition fans got lots of bones too. Fantastic.

So, it's not all that unreasonable to ask for a bloody OPTIONAL class to be published that fills a niche that is obviously fairly popular. Put it in a Unearthed Arcana article so it doesn't step onto that AL league players and everyone is happy.

Is it really too much to ask for a single UA article? Is that honestly a bridge too far for people?

 

[Lord Twig]

Not really. That's a common misconception about Leadership.

Instead of re-fluffing, I'd recommend attempting to better understand what Leadership is.

Well, lets see...

Full Definition of LEADERSHIP

1: the office or position of a leader
2: capacity to lead
3: the act or an instance of leading
4: leaders <the party leadership>

Different source...

lead·er·ship
ˈlēdərˌSHip/Submit
noun
the action of leading a group of people or an organization.
"different styles of leadership"

the state or position of being a leader.
"the leadership of the party"

"the leadership of the Coalition"
the leaders of an organization, country, etc.

So if that's the way you and your group like to play, great! I'm just trying to explain why some people don't like it.

 

[Lord Twig]

At the end of the day, this is the only point that really matters.

Folks generally got what they wanted out of 5e. If you disliked 4e but liked 3e, then 5e has lots for you. Heck, there's more than enough 4e in the game for 4e fans to be pretty happy. Earlier edition fans got lots of bones too. Fantastic.

So, it's not all that unreasonable to ask for a bloody OPTIONAL class to be published that fills a niche that is obviously fairly popular. Put it in a Unearthed Arcana article so it doesn't step onto that AL league players and everyone is happy.

Is it really too much to ask for a single UA article? Is that honestly a bridge too far for people?

I could go along with this. I don't like the Warlord. I don't like a lot of things about 4e. But I accept many of the 4e things in 5e in the name of inclusiveness. I understand that there are people that really like 4e and I don't want to spoil their fun. Likewise I don't want my fun spoiled either. It is definitely a balancing act.

Just my opinion, but I think an unofficial UA article is about as far as a Warlord should go.

 

[Tony Vargas]

At the end of the day, this is the only point that really matters.

Folks generally got what they wanted out of 5e. If you disliked 4e but liked 3e, then 5e has lots for you. Heck, there's more than enough 4e in the game for 4e fans to be pretty happy. Earlier edition fans got lots of bones too. Fantastic.

I don't think 5e is really there yet, nor, at it's current pace of releases, likely to get there in the next couple of years. It falls far short for 3.x fans, for instance, when compared to Pathfinder. It has a few key good bits from 3.5, but it doesn't empower players the way 3.5 did with volumes of complex build options. There's plenty of fragments of 4e (mostly things it shares with d20 in general), but little to allow, let alone 'support' in the sense it was being used when 5e was conceived, playstyles finally enabled by 4e. Again, player empowerment and option-richness is missing, but class & encounter balance, and the development of martial classes all fall short. Even fans of classic D&D, who do seem, from the positive reviews I've seen of 5e (which almost always, at some point, praise it for some similarity to AD&D, be it 1e or, more often, 2e) to be pretty happy with 5e probably don't find it requiring the same level of 'skilled play' as they might expect or want.

It's only to be expected from a compromise, with limited space & development resources, that nobody gets quite everything they want, initially. 5e is so DM-empowering and nominally 'modular,' though, that it could, in time, deliver everything past editions did, in the positive sense.

So, it's not all that unreasonable to ask for a bloody OPTIONAL class to be published that fills a niche that is obviously fairly popular. Put it in a Unearthed Arcana article so it doesn't step onto that AL league players and everyone is happy.

Is it really too much to ask for a single UA article? Is that honestly a bridge too far for people?

I think a UA article, alone, is too little to ask for. It wasn't too much to ask to see the Warlord and a psioinics system in the PH1, and seeing the Mystic in UA is just a start. Neglected PH1 content needs to see actual print at some point.

For those who define their most desirable version of the game by what it lacked, there's the simple expediency of core-only or basic-only and/or more selectively banning (or simply not opting into) whatever doesn't fit that vision.

 

[Hussar]

Well, lets see...

Full Definition of LEADERSHIP

1: the office or position of a leader
2: capacity to lead
3: the act or an instance of leading
4: leaders <the party leadership>

Different source...

lead·er·ship
ˈlēdərˌSHip/Submit
noun
the action of leading a group of people or an organization.
"different styles of leadership"

the state or position of being a leader.
"the leadership of the party"

"the leadership of the Coalition"
the leaders of an organization, country, etc.

So if that's the way you and your group like to play, great! I'm just trying to explain why some people don't like it.

I'm sorry, but, this is just a ludicrous argument on its face.

Do you bitch about the cleric healing you, forcing you to play a follower of the cleric's diety? Or, conversely, do you complain that clerics can heal those who aren't of the faith? How does a cleric Bless those who don't share his or her faith and why does it work? Do you complain about bards granting bonuses to you, even though you hate poetry? Do you complain about Battlemasters DOING EXACTLY THE THINGS A WARLORD CAN DO? Do you complain about Paladins granting saving throw bonuses to allies despite not even sharing alignment?

Virtually every single class in the game tells you what to do and what to believe. The only difference is, we ignore it 99% of the time and don't worry about it. It's only when something comes from 4e that we see people having a problem with it. It's edition warring with a funny set of glasses and a fake moustache.

Unless you start claiming that paladins, clerics, battle masters, bards, and druids should also be removed from the game for being "leaders", at least have the intellectual honesty to admit what you're doing.