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

[Bawylie]

So we should have AEDU powers? Healing Surges? Martial Power Source? Damage on a miss? Forced movement power? Marking abilities? After all, adding things can only bring more people in.

We DO have AED powers keyed to short and long rests.

DMG has healing surges, while every PC has consumable hit dice on a short rest.

We do have non-magical effects like Song of Rest, Inspiration Dice, regeneration, non-magical HP restoration? Etc.

Marking is also in the DMG as an option.

And yes, even forced movement is a thing. Thunder wave, Battlemaster maneuvers, etc.

And, AGAIN, all those things already exist in 5E, AND get a pass. But no warlords, though, bc reasons. You can ignore all the parts of the game you don't like, but you wouldn't be able to ignore warlords, because reasons.

We can have all that stuff in the core 3 books and nobody bats an eye. But you want to stop me having & playing a class I enjoy - and there simply isn't a justification for it, as we're not anywhere near the same table.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So we should have AEDU powers?

We already do. Keep in mind that the 'Encounter' powers were still technically short rest recharges (it was just much easier to squeeze in a short rest), so at-wills like cantrips, short-rest recharges, and long-rest recharges all map to AED. Plenty of Utility spells also exist. As do rituals, though you didn't bring that up, it is another surviving 4eism.

Healing Surges?

HD

Martial Power Source?

Has always existed and still does, it's just not a jargon keyword in 5e. Same with Arcane, Divine, Primal, Shadow (one Monk sub-class, but it's kinda there), and - with the introduction of the Mystic - Psionic sources.

Damage on a miss?

A successful save is mathematically identical to a miss, so DoaM has always existed in D&D and still exists.

Forced movement power?

Thunderwave.

Marking abilities?

Existing module. Not a very good one, but it exists.

After all, adding things can only bring more people in.

They have, without driving too many people away or re-starting the edition war, and doing more will continue to make the game more inclusive.

Adding bad options or options that are unpopular with your players is not going to increase your player base.

At worst, they'll fail to sell the book they appear in. Besides, one player's 'bad' option is another's wonderful option. That's why you make them /options/, so those who don't like them can pass over them and those who do can use them. As long as they're balanced/meaningful choices, it's not a problem.

I have tried, but I feel many of you still don't understand the objection people like myself have to Warlords. It introduces a style of play to D&D that I don't want in my D&D games.

And that style won't be in /your/ games.

Some people don't want psionics, I don't want non-magic magic And that's what it is. It's magic, without calling it magic.

I'm one of those people who doesn't want psionics. I find they're far too sci-fi to really fit in an FRPG, even one like D&D that frequently pulls in sci-fi and Lovecraftian elements. But, I don't begrudge anyone else the inclusion of psionics in the game, indeed, quite the opposite, I'm a proponent of including them in 5e, specifically, because doing supports 5e's goals.

I just won't play a psion, myself, and won't include them in any home campaign I might run (whatever's AL-legal, is fine when I run AL of course). Half the time I run Basic, anyway - then it /really/ doesn't matter.

That the 'not magic' take on psionics is a little weird, I won't deny. Psionics came to science-fiction from wanting to adapt fantasy bits to the new genre, so they really /are/ magic with the serial numbers filed off.

Someone in another thread mentioned having the Warlord replace the role of a Cleric. So tell me, if given the choice between having a Warlord tell you to just ignore your wound and having a Cleric make your wounds disappear, which would you choose? Be honest. Because even if the Warlord can remove the "Hit Point" part of injuries, he still can't remove the injury. You need healing magic, or just time for you to heal naturally, for that.

Depends on how you feel about them, I suppose. If my character is an old-school 'distrustful of magic' barbarian, and the Cleric is of some decadent civilized deity, while the Warlord is from my tribe, no question - if the Warlord's some military cadet and the Cleric is my brother in Cromm, go the other way.

But, sure, magic is pretty effing awesome, even when you can accomplish the same practical things, well enough, by mundane means. Having the Warlord in the game wouldn't change that.

So after a Warlord removes all of your Hit Point damage with his inspiring talk, is there anything left to heal? Do you need any kind of medical attention? Does it still hurt?

That's a narrative choice. You can dwell on that, and describe heroically struggling against wounds - and more practically, treating & binding them - or you can hand-wave it.

Cause after a Cleric hits you with a Heal spell, your healed. No pain, nothing.

Also a narrative choice. Being 'healed' by a Cleric of Torog might be a very different experience from being healed by a Cleric of Pelor, for instance.

I get the impression that after a Warlord "healed" you, you would still be battered and bruised at the very least. And if you are, a Cleric could heal it.

Sure. You could receive both Warlord and Clerical healing. The narrative visualization is different, but both could work at the same time. If you wanted more granularity, you could divide hps into 'meat' and 'morale' pools and have magical healing restore the former and inspirational the latter, with /both/ needed to fully heal. :shrug:

It is these types of nonsensical problems that I don't want in my game.

Then don't introduce them to your game. There's a number of ways to do so, from the trivially-easy but still inclusive (just not over-examining hps & what they mean), to the robust but complex (adding granularity to the hp/healing sub-systems to account for all sorts of different forms of hp loss & restoration), to the straightforwardly selective (pick one, ban others), to the selfish and exclusionary (try to force everyone to play your way). Obviously, some of those are higher roads than others...

 

[Lord Twig]

We DO have AED powers keyed to short and long rests.

Not quite the same thing, and they are not as ubiquitous. So they are there, but toned down. Sounds like a compromise to me.

DMG has healing surges, while every PC has consumable hit dice on a short rest.

Healing surges are an option. One that I will not play with. As a DM or player. The consumable hit dice is again a compromise. I don't really like them, but they are not as bad as Healing Surges. I also don't like full healing over night.

So I am already overlooking or ignoring a lot of things I don't like because it makes other people happy.

We do have non-magical effects like Song of Rest, Inspiration Dice, regeneration, non-magical HP restoration? Etc.

And it's still not enough? You want even more? Is this a "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" situation?

Those all annoy the crap out of me, but I ignore them. All of those are minor parts of the characters they are a part of.

Marking is also in the DMG as an option.

Again as an option. One that I will not play with. But at least it is an option for those that want it.

And yes, even forced movement is a thing. Thunder wave, Battlemaster maneuvers, etc.

Thunder wave is magic and I believe allows a Saving Throw. Battlemaster is my least favorite Fighter subclass. For that reason and because he can only disarm people a few times, then forgets or something until he rests and remembers how again. With no reason as to why he can't disarm people all day long. Just, because no reason.

And, AGAIN, all those things already exist in 5E, AND get a pass. But no warlords, though, bc reasons. You can ignore all the parts of the game you don't like, but you wouldn't be able to ignore warlords, because reasons.

They do not get a pass. They get tolerated. And I will say this again, even though I have said it at least three times before. The Warlord takes all of these things that are "tolerated" as minor abilities of other classes and makes them his main thing. He wallows in nonsensical magical non-magic. He exalts in doing things with no explanation of how it is possible.

He takes all of the other silly things that are tolerated in other characters and cranks it up to 11.

We can have all that stuff in the core 3 books and nobody bats an eye. But you want to stop me having & playing a class I enjoy - and there simply isn't a justification for it, as we're not anywhere near the same table.

How many times do I have to say it before it isn't ignored anymore? MAKE THE WARLORD AN OPTIONAL CLASS!

Just like Healing Surges. Just like Marking. Have at it! Have fun! Play them to your hearts content! Just keep them as optional just like all of the other things from 4e that many people (myself included) found objectionable.

 

[Bawylie]

Literally everything in the game is 'optional.' Wtf is this mess?

 

[Lord Twig]

I won't answer everything directly here. Some I address in my answer to Bawlie.

I will point out that I like the idea of rituals from 4e. That was a good idea. Also the "at will" cantrips was incorporated into Pathfinder as well, and it's a good idea from either game.

The longer short rest (an hour instead of 15 minutes) makes the "encounter" powers more acceptable. It feels like your characters are actually resting instead of just waiting for the cooldown to finish on their action bar.

To get down to the bottom line. You want the Warlord allowed as the default, and I want it to be an optional class that would have to be explicitly allowed by the DM.

Given the strong feelings this class evokes, I believe WotC should go the optional class route.

 

[Aldarc]

Literally everything in the game is 'optional.' Wtf is this mess?

It's looking for excuses to unfairly exclude the warlord.

 

[Lord Twig]

Literally everything in the game is 'optional.' Wtf is this mess?

It's the difference between "opt-in" and "opt-out".

 

[Lord Twig]

It's looking for excuses to unfairly exclude the warlord.

As opposed to looking for an excuse to shove a play style on those that don't like it?

If it's not a big deal for me to exclude the Warlord, then it is not a big deal for you to allow it if it is an optional class, right?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Not quite the same thing, and they are not as ubiquitous. So they are there, but toned down. Sounds like a compromise to me.

It is, but maybe not in quite the way you think. It's not as simple as battle lines being drawn in the edition war and 5e gingerly walking through the no-man's-land in-between.

It's a matter of inclusiveness. 5e uses a very loose design philosophy, and leaves some key design choices up to the DM. That does facilitate including many things, even 'controversial' things, from past editions, for precisely the reason that the system is open enough to use them if you want, and customizeable/optional enough to eschew them if you don't.

AEDU was a great design structure for keeping classes and encounters balanced, but, by definition, that's a problem for play styles to which balance is anathema (and there are, perhaps not surprisingly, a number of styles that developed through the game's history that are just that way, probably in part because it was such a very badly balanced game for so long). If 5e was going to include such styles /and/ still provide balance, it couldn't do it with AEDU. Instead, it went with DM empowerment. The 5e DM can maintain balance among classes and in encounters - by fiat, in it comes to it, but mostly by spotlighting character contributions and adjusting encounters on the fly.

Strictly speaking, that makes 5e a 'bad game' that needs to be 'fixed constantly.' But, it's recognizeably D&D, and it supports more styles that way. So it's /good/ for 5e's goals.

By the same token, you may think that a Mystic or Warlord or anything else you personally dislike is a 'bad option,' but having options is /good/ for 5e's goals.

How many times do I have to say it before it isn't ignored anymore? MAKE THE WARLORD AN OPTIONAL CLASS!

All classes are optional - they're player options that may or may not be available depending on whether you're playing with just the Basic Rules, just the PH, or additional resources like UA - and depending upon what the DM decides to allow. The DM needn't allow any one specific class, and a player will naturally limit his choices to classes he likes. That's prettymuch the non-issue. The OP's original question of why "don't like it, don't use it" isn't good enough.

If you go to a game where the DM is running basic, getting him to let you play a Sorcerer would be an 'opt in' choice for him. If he's running a standard game, convincing him that letting someone else play a Monk will ruin the game for you is asking him to make an 'opt out' choice. If he's running AL, those choices have been made for him.

At this late date the Warlord would appear in a supplement, not the 'Standard Game' as defined by the PH, so it'll almost certainly be opt-in.

 

[Lord Twig]

All classes are optional - they're player options that may or may not be available depending on whether you're playing with just the Basic Rules, just the PH, or additional resources like UA - and depending upon what the DM decides to allow. The DM needn't allow any one specific class, and a player will naturally limit his choices to classes he likes. That's prettymuch the non-issue. The OP's original question of why "don't like it, don't use it" isn't good enough.

So you are fine with the Warlord being presented as a UA article then. All classes are optional. Basic, PHB or UA. It's all the same. So UA is fine. Right?