Looks like it's time for a Warlord Sub-Forum Again...somehow.

[Hussar]

Thing is, AaronofB, the psionics folks got what they wanted. Granted, they might want it a bit sooner, , but, they got it.

If you're a warlord fan, you can't even get it off the ground.

Now, as far as the one week ban goes, let's not forget, these arguments have been going on FOR YEARS. Several years. And it's the same thing over and over and over again. Why should I try to engage with posters whose sole purpose is to derail every single conversation and force their personal tastes on me? Compromise is a two way street. Look, we don't have warlords in core. You folks won. You have managed to prevent something from "polluting" your game. Congratulations.

Now, what compromise going the other direction are we seeing? Three years in, not a single mention of even a glimpse of a warlord. The class has been mugged and its mechanics spread across several classes just so it can come in under the radar. And, again, every single conversation about warlords turns into quasi-edition warring disingenuous crap. Ohh, no, we cannot have ANY class telling another character how he feels. Bard? Ah, that gets the pass because... reasons.

It's such complete and utter crap.

 

[Dualazi]

That doesn't seem right to me. This forum has moderators, and I've seen them moderate, they don't seem the type to let flagrant rules violations like edition warring slide. Nor the type to think that disruptive posters would be slowed down in their disruptions by putting the topic they want to disrupt into a sub-forum. Which is a lot of words to arrive at saying I think there is a different reason for the "banished to the forum ghetto" (again, quotes because that's not my choice of phrase) situation.

The problem I think is that to any casual (or even interested) observer, they don't seem as such because they're usually structured as suggestions. Such as "you can already make a functional warlord by multiclassing X Y and Z", which may or may not fit the description the OP is looking for, nor arrive in a reasonable enough timeframe for the average campaign. The problem being described is that these crop up every single thread trying to brainstorm a warlord, and as other have said derail the thread into discussing why those suggestions are or aren't good enough.

A counter-example I think are classes like artificer, which was originally released as a UA subclass that got mild to poor reception, and was later realized into a full class because the concept simply wasn't able to be adequately fleshed out as a subclass/multiclass, and people who pointed this out were no subject to the frequency of scrutiny that warlord threads usually are (IIRC).

 

[Azzy]

I'll first start by saying that I avoided 4e like the plague and have very negative opinions about it.

That said, I wholeheartedly support an official WotC warlord class for 5e.

Just to spite the anti-warlord posters.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

This is a great mechanical description, but I have yet to hear a story-first description of a warlord character. What characters from fiction (books, movies, comics, radio drama, mythology, etc.) could plausibly be called a "warlord" but not a "fighter" or "barbarian" or "paladin" or some other existing class?

Croaker from the Black Company books is the example that always comes to my mind first. There are plenty of others. Unfortunately the 4E warlord fits the characters I think of as warlords quite poorly. I've always considered the 4E warlord a good idea poorly implemented.

 

[Yunru]

Nod. That's prettymuch what the title of this thread suggests - that a view be suppressed. Not one person's, but a whole topic, and not for one week but for months on end.

When the Warlord discussion ghetto was finally re-integrated, and someone bumped one of the threads - updating about a DMsG addition, I think it was, they were called out for violating that 'ban' and it had to be pointed out that, hey, the Warlord forum was gone. While it existed, though, it was a banned topic, here, and folks were quick to assert that ban.

Y'know I'm actually all for suppressing a view if it has no relevance, because that's not a view, it's spam.

Saying "I don't want a Warlord" in a thread entitled "How could a Warlord be implemented?" (for example), is about as relevant as "Get Bett3r in the BedrOom, cl1ck here!"

 

[Onslaught]

The problem with the discussion isn't that there is disagreement over what a warlord should be able to do. That's what sub-classes are FOR after all.

This is an important part of the discussion that gets no attention at all, because...

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] I believe game rules exist to translate the ideas in our heads -- our imaginations -- the "story" -- into consistent agreed-upon game play. So if you have an idea for a character who is a "warlord" there are three ways to model this character:


1. Using existing rules. (E.g., battlemaster fighter + inspiring leader; it's not too far off.)
2. Using a new fighter subclass. (E.g. PDK, except I think PDK is sucky and just plain weak. But certainly you could envision a fighter subclass that was balanced with the battlemaster but more warlordish. Heck, a few more warlordish battlemaster maneuvers might actually do the trick.)
3. Using a whole new class.


When people argue against number 3 (a whole new class) they are really arguing for numbers 1 or 2. Engage them! Figure out what character concept they are trying to model, and why options 1 or 2 work for them.

When prompted with Options 1 and 2, what we get is mostly whining because it's not Option 3.

Maybe they are modelling a character very different than what you have in mind for the warlord? (...) A "martial cleric" like in 4E sounds boring as .)

But... that's exactly what people are after!!

Since 5E have this huge emphasis on characterization... why not use a War Cleric with a specific spell selection (Guidance, Bless, Healing Word, Prayer of Healing...), and allow him to give is bonus attack (WarPriest) to any friend in 30ft range? Or mix that with PDK. Just describe as if there was no magic being cast.

Class bloat is a real thing -- it's a real problem, at least for some people. Even if you don't mind class bloat (some people LOVE having more more more), it's disrespectful to just dismiss people who feel otherwise. Don't dismiss them, engage them!

Class bloat is a real thing not only for part of the community, but also to the designers. The fact that they built the Artificer as a Wizard archetype first is proof of that.. but, as with the Warlord, that class was first built with *edition mechanics* in mind (magic item creation from 3.5), so it'll probably never be perfectly ported to 5e (since no magic item creation rules)

IOW, it's edition warring pure and simple. The ONLY reason for the vitriol over the warlord is because the warlord is a 4e class. Every single actual mechanical issue - martial healing, adding actions, inspiring feelings, etc - already exist in the game. In the same way that warlord fans lost the argument over having a core warlord class with the publication of the 5e PHB, every warlord hater lost with the very same publication.


So, after realizing that they can't simply point to mechanics not fitting, since, well, the mechanics obviously fit, they simply change tactics and now argue that the "concept" doesn't fit. And because it's such a nebulous and fuzzy issue, they can keep derailing thread after thread with pointless semantic debates and ensure that no forward progress is done.


And it's all done out of some sort of bizarre edition warring sense that we have to "protect" D&D from 4e cooties.
.

It borders edition warring because Warlord is a child of 4E mechanics. The whole concept of a "Martial Leader" is pure 4E. It's a class to demonstrate the new system's capabilities and themes, as... Wii Sports was a game to demonstrate what the Wii is about - it is still a game, and its still fun, see?

 

[Zardnaar]

The Warlord threads seem to be generated by the same dozen odd people now and then ad seem to be mostly edition warring and spamming.

Roill them into 1, stick em in a ghetto because they are more or less designed to troll. The developers don't care about this forum site so it would be more productive to go and complain on twitter.

 

[Mecheon]

Since 5E have this huge emphasis on characterization... why not use a War Cleric with a specific spell selection (Guidance, Bless, Healing Word, Prayer of Healing...), and allow him to give is bonus attack (WarPriest) to any friend in 30ft range? Or mix that with PDK. Just describe as if there was no magic being cast.

Because, per mechanics, there is magic being cast so it won't function 100%.

Now, if you take that exact concept, complete divorce it from being a cleric and using magic and it just using the same equivalent mechanics (Albeit without magic), bamn, you've got me happy at least

 

[Corpsetaker]

About every six months or so.


Here's the thing though. I don't think anyone has denied that there are some people who want the warlord. But if you look at all these threads, no one agrees as to what that should be, even among warlord fans. As a game designer myself, that sends a HUGE message to me if I were on the WotC design team: If we were to release an official warlord in an UA, it would be met with an overwhelming response of "This sucks! It's horrible! What were they thinking!" I am doubly sure of this response based on how a lot of people react to literally every UA already.

So, as a designer, at this point I'd leave it up to individual fans to create what they want and go with it, and just avoid the drama from the get go and spend my time designing things that have a greater overall appeal and less drama surrounding them. Like a new ranger....

We get this anyway with UA so why not just go for it? A good game designer will also dip his/her toes into the water to see where they are. Creating a Warlord and then sending it out in the public will give you a bit of direction by the reactions that are given. Doing nothing accomplishes nothing and relying on fan made will never really amount to anything because a lot of people do not allow fan made classes into their games not to mention AL.

UA was designed for this very purpose.

 

[raleel]

Well, I'm going to propose mechanics for the core class, not the subclasses (not yet, my beloved Bravura). Rest of the discussion is going round and round.

1) the warlord can use the Help Action as a bonus action. Gets the additional rider of being able to use the help action out to 30'. This maps roughly to Cunning action and action surge. I could see expanding this to include disadvantage on single rolls by single targets instead.
2) warlord gets medium armor, shields, and martial weapons, d8 HD
3) he can perform the Help action as a reaction. Also can be done out to 30'. I'm also inclined to put a low grade heal or temp hp in here. Mellored suggested this in another thread, and I think "Cunning action, but on reactions" is a solid core.
4) he can use his action to grant someone else another attack, with the warlord's primary stat as a bonus to damage or to hit (undecided). I'm inclined to limit this in some fashion, as extra attacks are hard to come by, but have not nailed it down. Being able to spend their reaction against a target would be good.

I think that's the core of it. Buff allies, rebuff foes, and granting attacks. I'd think that reaction enabling is a pretty good place to be, and help action use seems right as well. I've not put in any restrictions, but that's not to say that I don't think there shouldn't be some.