Lets design a Warlord for 5th edition

[mellored]

Orrr, maybe "better," because I reeally like the idea of making the Warlord the "smart fighter" and using Int. for them...

Ok, here's my attempt at a more flexible fighter.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...r-the-warlord-ranger-barbarian-rogue-and-more

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I imagine the D&D warlord like a martial adept from "Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords" with maneuvers from the white raven school.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I imagine the D&D warlord like a martial adept from "Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords" with maneuvers from the white raven school.

The Warlord even had a number of "White Raven" exploits.


(Edit: Ok, it's only 4, but 4 is 'a number,' so I wasn't technically lying. Plus there were three more such powers from an actual 'White Raven' Paragon Path (4e's weakly-expressed version of a PrC) that had warlord as a prerequisite.)

 

[Kinematics]

To be fair, I just collected them from the other theread. Cribbed 8 of them from 4e, a few more from 4e Paragon Paths, several from @mellored and the Protector from your Defender, consolidated with some of his more oddball ideas. But the troop-marshaling 'Marshal' (credit for the name goes to the d20-era Miniatures Handbook) is about the only original sub-class I offered, myself, IIRC.

OK, sorry, "wrote up" instead of "came up with". Mostly, gave good fluff to the more coherent ideas.

Really, D&D's individuals-not-units tactical scale usually means not a great distinction between just off the front lines and 'long range.' Two warlord sub-concepts - the effete-general take on the Lazy Lord and the Artillerist could be long-range in a more literal sense, though...

I started going one direction with building the class, and ended up going an entirely different direction, but have remnants of the early thought process left in the post.

INT or CHA or WIS could work depending on emphasis and sub-class.

Another idea I'm starting to like is that the Warlord probably needs to be MAD, at least, some of the sub-classes should lend themselves to that, or maybe the chassis should lend itself to MAD, and some of the sub-classes more to a specific stat. For instance, an Inspiring Warlord was straight-up CHA, Tactical INT, and Resourceful split the difference.

Yeah, the Warlord class is one that could likely actually work well with the max +mod human point-buy (13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 10 ⇒ 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 11), or maybe (15, 13, 13, 13, 10, 9 ⇒ 16, 14, 14, 14, 11, 10).

 

[FrogReaver]

Balancing something around being mad get's rather broken rather fast when rolling for stats is still such a large part of many games.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Balancing something around being mad get's rather broken rather fast when rolling for stats is still such a large part of many games.

I guess it depends on how you do it. If different stats stack without limit? Yeah, potential problem. If it's just different features key off different stats? Nope, just the usual MAD problem of being underpowered relative to everything keying off a primary.

Honestly, D&D has /never/ found a balance were the all-round-pretty-decent set of stats is, well, all-round-pretty-decent, it usually ends up starkly sub-optimal. I suppose I shouldn't let myself be tempted to try 'fixing' that little oversight with the Warlord, as well...

 

[Azzy]

It does beg the question (in conjunction with "let's make Ranger as a Fighter subclass" thread and kind of intersecting with the "ideal class organization" thread) can the game be complete and satisfying with the game offering:

Fighter (full/base class)
--Paladin subclass
--Ranger subclass
--Warlord subclass
(presumably people would want to keep --Eldritch Knight subclass for the psuedo-ftr/mu multiclass)

I think the answer is clearly, yes. It could be a complete and satisfying game, allowing for whatever character broadness within each and/or layered by other elements (backgrounds, etc...).

But it would undoubtedly get certain persons/playstyles who have grown up with "full classes for every character concept," and/or "every corner case permutation I can come up with must needs be supported" up in arms.

Edit: I forgot the Barbarian! So...

Fighter (full/base class)
--Barbarian (Con.ftr, + Rage, extra attacks, more damage, no magic, survival/endurance skills)
--Warlord (Cha.ftr, + Inspire, extra attacks, more hits via others, saves for others, no magic, interactive skills)
--Eldritch Knight [don't love the name] (Int. ftr, +limited Arcane spells & powers, more offense and defense through magic)
--Paladin (Wis. ftr, +limited Divine spells & powers, more offense & defense through magic)
--Ranger (Dex. ftr, +limited Nature spells & powers, more offense & utility through magic, nature & stealth skills)

/Edit

You'd also need a Champion (or whatever), so you can have a more straight fighter that isn't one of those other subclasses. You could potentially throw the Rogue in there, too, but then we'd need more subclasses for the different Rogue subtypes.

 

[Paul Smart]

OP here. I just want to say I love all the great ideas that have come up in this thread. Great work everyone.

 

[FrogReaver]

Warlord ability concepts.

Battle Plans
Mearl's Tactical Focus
Rallies
Aid
Gambits
BattleCrys
techniques
manuevers

All of these things are fine concepts for Warlord abilities to be designed around.

I think we all have some major differences of opinion on whether the heart and soul of the warlord should be
-at will abilities
-short rest abilities
-long rest abilities
-per encounter abilities
-hybrid

A lot of flavor is derived here. Are warlord abilities something that just happen occasionly during a fight. Are they smaller things you keep doing the whole fight? Do you have some of each even if it greatly constrains your design space on either.

Ideally a Warlord class would support these things and maybe a few others I haven't thought of
1. Granting attacks to allies
2. Granting allies buffs
3. Healing
4. Can either not attack yourself at all or attack a lot yourself (flexibility in how much you are attacking)

Personally I like at will Warlord abilities. If you remove most damage enhancing features from the base class, these at will style abilities start to become very flexible. Some can have extra attacks built in. Some can leave off extra attacks for a bigger status effect etc. Healing is a bit tricky with a primarily at will solution but there are options to make it work.

I think the key to making any warlord work is to tie extra attacks and almost all base class combat enhancing features into whatever warlord ability mechanic is being used. This technique probably can work pretty well with short rest and long rest style abilities as well. Healing is still probably the trickiest ability to get right here as well. Caster classes generally get closer to 3-5 spells worth of feature at level 1 not all of which can be used for healing. Bards get bardic inspiration. Clerics get features that add a bit of extra damage that are also on a daily resource limit. Most are pretty similar to level 1 spell effects (like the tempest ability to deal damage when hit is almost the same as hellish rebuke).

So yea, in order to come close to a level 1 cleric a warlord cannot rely solely on flexible short/long rest powers that can be used for healing, if he does he will either heal too much or not do enough else.

 

[steeldragons]

You'd also need a Champion (or whatever), so you can have a more straight fighter that isn't one of those other subclasses. You could potentially throw the Rogue in there, too, but then we'd need more subclasses for the different Rogue subtypes.

Oh, no. That "Joe normal Fighter" guy is still the Fighter. I didn't mean that you HAD to take a subclass. If you want to be a Fighter, be a Fighter...and THEN there are thee other flavors of Fighter you could choose for whatever reason you'd want.