FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
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
