Lets design a Warlord for 5th edition

[mellored]

Would it be helpful for warlord class adoption if his primary ability was structured in such a way that your allies opted in to be helped by you?

Yes. If you can mange it without getting to complex.

Something like: Choose 1 each of the following offensive, defensive and tactical abilities. Once per turn you may choose to help your allies that can see or hear you either offensively, defensively or tactically. On your turn choose offensive, defensive or tactical aid. Any ally that can see or hear you may choose to gain whatever benefit your ability provides on their turn. Once this is done then no other ally can benefit from this ability until your next turn.

So whoever's next in inititive can just grab it? Seems a bit odd. And giving too much agency away.

Also, bards already have "Once within the next 10 minutes, the creature can roll the die and add the number rolled to one ability check, attack roll, or saving throw (damage, and AC for valor) it makes."

Maybe as an option.


In my quick playtests, instant bonuses (reactions when I tried it) work really well. Your allies all choose their action as normal, and you decide who to help. Occasionally they'd ask "can you help me avoid this OA so I can smash the wizard in the back" or something like that, so that works nicely. Plus there's nothing to keep track of beyond your own resources.

 

[Zardnaar]

To enable the lazy lord better I suggest replacing multi-attack with...

Tactical Multi-Attack: When you or a friendly creature takes the attack action, they can make one additional attack as part of that same action. You can use this feature once per round.

Also, I feel overwhelming assault should be "when a friendly creature deals damage to the target..." so you can include sacred flame and fireball.

Also Also, I still like the select-a-power better than hard-coded powers. It allows for future more tactical flexibility and customization.
Though, I'll steal a few of your powers.

I'm doing both hard coded and sub class ones.

Have we figured out the healing rate if nothing else and how many of them you get?

SOme sort of healing word ability + some extra Ithink since 5E doesn't use healing surges and you want to be in the same ballpark as a cleric (50-75% ish maybe more low levels?).

 

[mellored]

Have we figured out the healing rate if nothing else and how many of them you get?

SOme sort of healing word ability + some extra Ithink since 5E doesn't use healing surges and you want to be in the same ballpark as a cleric (50-75% ish maybe more low levels?).

A cleric can do anywhere between 0 and several hundred UP worth of healing. Depending on how they use their resources.

So... no. There cannot be a hard coded amount that is 50-75% of the clerics. Not unless we also hard code the cleric's healing.

 

[mellored]

[MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION]
Is this is good enough to count as "healing" to you?

Fight On!: (1 point) When an ally takes damage, you can spend a tactical point to let them spend a hit die and add your Charisma modifier, reducing the damage by the result. If the damage is reduced to 0, they gain the remainder as temporary hit points.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes. If you can mange it without getting to complex.

So whoever's next in inititive can just grab it? Seems a bit odd. And giving too much agency away.

Probably so. It was mostly just a brainstorming thought.

Also, bards already have "Once within the next 10 minutes, the creature can roll the die and add the number rolled to one ability check, attack roll, or saving throw (damage, and AC for valor) it makes."

Maybe as an option.

I'm probably not as worried about stepping on the bards toes as I should be.

In my quick playtests, instant bonuses (reactions when I tried it) work really well. Your allies all choose their action as normal, and you decide who to help. Occasionally they'd ask "can you help me avoid this OA so I can smash the wizard in the back" or something like that, so that works nicely. Plus there's nothing to keep track of beyond your own resources.

This is probably some of the best feedback in the entire thread. Thanks for it.

I think you are right. Such abilities should probably be the focus of our community build. They are unique and flavorful and give the feel of a non-magical character helping in the moment instead of using some kind of prolonged effect to help the allies.

I guess that puts us back at debating about whether such an ability should primarily be at-will or per rest?

My concern with per rest powers:
We want some warlords to be able to extra attack and some we don't want to be able to. If your abilities are all per rest then the question about extra attack either gets hard coded into the class or relegated to subclass selections, neither of which feel like very appealing choices IMO. If your abilities are at-will you can choose one that essentially grants extra attack which places that decision into the players hand instead of the designers.

The concern with at will powers:
If most of your "power" is coming from at-will powers then there is limited room to make the character into a good healer. There is also less room to add other really strong per rest abilities (battle plans etc may be out of scope with a mostly at-will warlord)

I can't think of a way to give a player an actual choice regarding whether he wants his warlord to be more at will or per rest so it's looking to me like this is one of the first major design decisions we will have to choose for the warlord that primarily uses reaction-like abilities.

 

[FrogReaver]

@FrogReaver
Is this is good enough to count as "healing" to you?

Fight On!: (1 point) When an ally takes damage, you can spend a tactical point to let them spend a hit die and add your Charisma modifier, reducing the damage by the result. If the damage is reduced to 0, they gain the remainder as temporary hit points.

I'm not sure what the 1 point cost means really but in general something that keys only when they are hit in battle and allows you to heal them should help alleviate my biggest concern with using hit die healing which was efficient out of combat healing with no actual cost on warlord in combat resources. That said if a player decides to punch another player and succeeds he will take 1 damage and the warlord could presumably use this ability.

I don't think out of combat usage is totally solved with this version but it's a step in the right direction IMO.

 

[FrogReaver]

A cleric can do anywhere between 0 and several hundred UP worth of healing. Depending on how they use their resources.

So... no. There cannot be a hard coded amount that is 50-75% of the clerics. Not unless we also hard code the cleric's healing.

Yes, but in terms of mechanics we could just look at if the cleric blew all his slots on either cure wounds or healing word (whichever is most like our warlord healing ability in terms of taking your action). It'd be a good start I would think.

 

[mellored]

I'm not sure what the 1 point cost means

It's my attempt to hybridise short rest and at-will. It's in my post above.

But the TLDR is...
You start a battle with a few points, once per short rest you gain points, and gain more by doing in-battle things based on your subclass (bravada gets more when they are attacked, lazy lord gets more by standing still, guerilla can scout the enemy and plot his ambush).
Then you can save up for a big "short rest" effect or uses them as they come for small "at-will" effects.

don't think out of combat usage is totally solved with this version but it's a step in the right direction IMO.

what is your concern?

Because it's non-stacking THP, limited to 1 die at a time. A max of 1d12+11 on a level 20 barbarian, but more likely, 1d8+6 at any any moment. And daily healing amount of for 1.5 HP per ally per level (with 16 Cha). A little bit stronger than a paladin's lay on hands.

If you want to go around slapping people to exite them before battle, well, I don't see an issue with it.

 

[Jester David]

To enable the lazy lord better I suggest replacing multi-attack with...

Tactical Multi-Attack: When you or a friendly creature takes the attack action, they can make one additional attack as part of that same action. You can use this feature once per round.

That's a little more awkward because you're granting the ally an attack on their turn. So you're not really using this feature. They are. And you're not the active part. They are. It feels less like giving an extra attack and having them take one.
It's a small tonal shift, but weird.

Plus, the extra off turn attack is nice. And it does give you a chance to use those once/turn abilities like Colossus Slayer. And, unlike Zard, I'm less concerned about that extra rogue attack as it requires that little bit of extra coordination to pull off (an ally needs to be adjacent, which isn't likely the lazylord) and getting fun (and slightly broken) combos like that is part of the fun of the game.

Also, I feel overwhelming assault should be "when a friendly creature deals damage to the target..." so you can include sacred flame and fireball.

That gets into tricky language, because in the case of a fireball, the creature isn't dealing damage, the spell is.
But it could be phrased to include "targets the creature with a damaging spell" or "includes that creature as the target of a spell that deals damage" something.

Also Also, I still like the select-a-power better than hard-coded powers. It allows for future more tactical flexibility and customization.

I'm just wary to have a martial class with too many level 1 maneuvers/ powers. I prefer having the subclass be the main decision point. Customisation is managed by subclasses, feats, and the like.
Although, a subclass could have more selectable powers and psuedo-maneuvers.

 

[Tony Vargas]

But the TLDR is...
You start a battle with a few points and gain more by doing in-battle things based on your subclass (bravada gets more when they are attacked, lazy lord gets more by standing still, guerilla can scout the enemy and plot his ambush).
Then you can save up for a big "short rest" effect or uses them as they come for small "at-will" effects.

Sounds a bit like the 13A Commander design.