Lets design a Warlord for 5th edition

[FrogReaver]

No. Because a class where a single character can learn every single power available to the class with enough time and money doesn't map very well to any other class in the game, making it a poor analogy for class design.


Yeah. By half of walords at the start and then a shrinking number.
If a third or quarter of warlords regularly use the power, then that maps very nicely to a subclass, where a third to a quarter of people might take that subclass and get its abilities.


In a vacuum, creating a class is about expressing the concept of the class as mechanics, yes. But you don't design classes in a vacuum. It needs to work as part of a group and not overshadow other classes.

If making a new class, lets say the ninja, then you need to make a class that does what people would expect a ninja to do. If someone who hasn't played a ninja in 3e or 2e won't be surprised by the mechanics of the class or implementation of its powers. There shouldn't be a disconnect between what you expect the class to do based on its story and what it actually does.
But it also shouldn't diminish the other classes. The rogue is the "sneaky class", making the ninja problematic. Either it's sneakier than the rogue, thereby making the rogue less special and desirably, or it's less sneaky and the class might not fulfil the expectations of players. That's a dilemma.
Furthermore, it leads to a situation where a player goes "I want to play a sneaky character. Which class is the best?" and there's no obvious answer.

As such, it'd be better to shift the ninja in other directions beyond focusing on sneakiness, but that still map to the overall concept. Magical ki powers work. Invisibility and vanishing in a puff of smoke to teleport somewhere. Focus on the myths of ninjas as if the superstitions were real. Being able to teleport and being trained and a high stealth can still allow it to be functionally sneaky if they player wants, but isn't as reliably sneaky as the rogue. So the rogue remains the "sneaker" while the ninja can focus its design work elsewhere and be a different class.

This is the same with the warlord, which shouldn't overlap with the bard. Because the bard gets so few unique elements. Giving the warlord the ability to inspire would feel like, well, giving the bard the ability to grant allies attacks at-will.


1) The fighter is designed as "the simple" class. By design it's not supposed to get much at higher levels. But that's an exception compared to other classes.

2) How large is your sample size to say what "people stick in the fighter" for? How many people have you talked to and played with that have played fighters?


1) You get three at level 1, another at level 5, and a final one at level 11. So from level 12 onward you don't get anything new. You're just doing the same thing again and again and again.

2) This design also means that at level 5 and 11 you're not picking a "new" ability, you're picking from abilities you passed over the first time. Abilities you decided weren't interesting enough to make the cut.

3) What are the other 18 then? Making that many abilities without getting into magical effects is not easy.


You're missing the point.

It's just like how people didn't like 4e because everyone got "spells". Not everyone wants to have the character with the dozen power cards they can pick between. Some people want the character that doesn't have "spells".

You're designing a class that works like a spellcaster. Specifically, one that works a little like the warlock with a focus on At-Will spells. But you're using that as the basis of a non-spellcasting class. People will go into the class not expecting powers—because it's not a spellcaster—and then find it has powers that are more complicated that spells, with multiple powers to pick from each round and daily resource management.


What do the warlord points trigger? All I'm setting is the "level 1 effect" and the "level 5 effect"?

If you have the Empowering Strike ability, what does it do before you have Warlord Points to spend?
If you get the level 1 effect automatically, then what can you spend the Warlord Points on prior to level 5?

When you can spend a whole post giving criticisms and complaints about my warlord attempt and then finally getting around to asking how it actually works in the last post... I don't think such really deserves a response

 

[Zardnaar]

[MENTION=6716779]Zardnaar[/MENTION]

Why do you never talk about the specific implantation of at-will attack granting that we talk about here? Why do you repeatedly bring rogues up when the implementation for it here doesn't allow an extra sneak attack? Why do you base your decision for it being OP on a rogue being present in the party when it won't matter with our implementation at all?

You continually ignore just how many attacks a sorcerer is capable of granting in a day and try to justify that such is okay because it's on a daily resource.

It's like you aren't even trying to objectively look at such an ability anymore. You are irrational in regards to it. Heck, you've stopped giving sensible rebuttals and offering sensible discussion in relation to it long ago.

May have got buried or a lot of ideas came up. It's not just Rogue being a problem.

 

[FrogReaver]

May have got buried or a lot of ideas came up. It's not just Rogue being a problem.

So let's look at a basic 2d6+5 fighter attack with a greatsword as our baseline. Is there any other single class setup you are particularly concerned about?

 

[Zardnaar]

[MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] - I really believe your definition of iconic is not the same as mine. To me, iconic means that this is what you think of when you envisage some concept. So, fireball and magic missile are iconic to wizards in D&D, despite the fact that you certainly don't need to have them on your casting list. The notion that you could remove those spells from the game is pretty much a non-starter. While wizards may be doing all sorts of other things, the thing that people associate most strongly with wizards is magic missile and fire ball.

Same with healing and clerics. After all, you cannot actually play a cleric that absolutely cannot heal. Cure light is on every cleric's spell list, even if this or that individual cleric hasn't prepared it that day. You claimed that only paladins have healing baked in. That's actually not true. Both clerics and druids have healing baked right into the class. They can opt out of healing by not prepping that spell, but, it's ALWAYS available.

Iconic to fighters is heavy armor, weapons and multiple attacks. I'd argue that being the best weapon user should be iconic, but, apparently, 5e isn't interested in giving us strong fighters. Meh, it's a livable trade off.

When you think of a warlord, healing is not iconic. Yup, they could heal, but, that wasn't why people played them. They played them for the tactical aspects. Healing was just a nice bit of bonus. They healed because they were a leader class, not because the concept absolutely demanded healing. But a warlord that could not grant any actions whatsoever? That would be a bizarre looking warlord. You'd have to be pretty careful about what dailies and encounter powers you took. Like you say, about a third of the powers were action granting of some sort. Never minding that several of the dailies granted actions to the entire party at the same time.

Look at it this way. NONE of the PHB at wills grant healing to a warlord. Yup, you had Inspiring word, but, that was 2/encounter. In fact, not a single 1st level PHB power granted healing. There is a single 2nd level encounter and your next chance of a healing power is a 6th level encounter power. By 10th level you could have, at most 3 encounter and 1 daily healing power. Out of THIRTY SEVEN POWERS to choose from. 10% of warlord powers in the first tier had anything to do with healing.

Can you please stop with this? You are wrong. Healing was not iconic to warlords. It simply wasn't.

I mean, good grief, of the 4 at wills in the PHB, 2 grant attacks, 1 grants a buff and 1 grants movement.

We're not removing attack granting. We are limiting it. Magic missile got limited from 1E to 2E (twice) , indirect nerf in 3E changed completely in 4E.

4E changed things to fit the 4E paradigm as well.

 

[Zardnaar]

So let's look at a basic 2d6+5 fighter attack with a greatsword as our baseline. Is there any other single class setup you are particularly concerned about?

Baseline should probably be 1d8+5. Note most clerics are 1d6+2 or 3.

Previous page I did not ignore haste but its daily effect and it takes a long time to come online.

A level 5 battlemaster can probably grant more attacks than a lvl 5 Sorcerer. Haste is limited supply daily effect drawback and can be countered and interrupted.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You're missing the point.

It's just like how people didn't like 4e because everyone got "spells".

It is exactly like that: ridiculous.

The fighter chassis has limited-use powers, the BM has rest-recharge CS Dice. The EK literally casts spells. Heck every single class in the 5e PH uses spells somehow. And nobody pretends people don't like it for that.

"XOMG! Fighters cast spells!" is a dead stalking horse.

a class where a single character can learn every single power available to the class with enough time and money doesn't map very well to any other class in the game, making it a poor analogy for class design.

Actually, the only flaw in that analogy is the money.
'Exploits' were not (& 'Gambits' should not be )like the magical powers of sorcerers or the lifetime-of-training BM manuevers, they're the kinds of unexpected battle plans and extemporaneous St Crispin Day speeches that turn the tide in an historic battle. Modeling that absolutely demands flexibility - significantly more than 4e's structure provided.

May have got buried or a lot of ideas came up. It's not just Rogue being a problem.

Bottom line: if the game can't handle an action grant because some PCs might be that OP or none might be even viable, then the game is already broken.

Let's not work off that assumption. Cut 5e some slack.

Healing was not iconic to warlords. It simply wasn't.

Conceptually, it was inspiration, not healing - 'healing' keyword, surge, and hp-restoration mechanics notwithstanding.
And, yes, with Inpriring Presence at the core of one of the two PH builds restoring hps, and every warlord having Inspiring Word, Inspiration modeled by hp restoration is iconic to the class.

I mean, good grief, of the 4 at wills in the PHB, 2 grant attacks, 1 grants a buff and 1 grants movement.

One granted an attack, the other caused the targets shift to provoke, generally preventing it from shifting.
None of the Clerics PH at wills healed, either, two granted attack bonuses, something more iconic of the tactical warlord (Tactical Presence doing just that)

 

[FrogReaver]

Baseline should probably be 1d8+5. Note most clerics are 1d6+2 or 3.

Wow. You think the baseline damage a warlord is going to grant in a typical party is going to be 1d8+5? It's not like he isn't picking the best damage dealer in whatever party he is in?

 

[Zardnaar]

Wow. You think the baseline damage a warlord is going to grant in a typical party is going to be 1d8+5? It's not like he isn't picking the best damage dealer in whatever party he is in?

It's because you don't always ha a great weapon fighter in the party.

You usually have a sword and board or someone using a d8 weapon.

 

[mellored]

Haven't done much with the subclasses and not 100% happy with all the features, but it's a framework of a tactical class.
It's got choices each round and plays with reactions and initiative a little. And it gives you the opportunity to work out a "plan" with an ally that leaves less to chance.

How's your warlord going?

I like that stratagem idea. It's open and flexible.

 

[Jester David]

What's your thoughts about battlemaster superiority dice?

They’re okay.
But the fighter subclasses are an example of terrible design, lacking any story or character hooks.

I would have preferred fighter subclasses with story but an optional rules that could be slotted into all fighters to give them complexity. Such as a wapping out Action Surge for Maneuvers so all fighters could remain simple or complex depending on the player’s preference.