Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour: The Warlord

[Valetudo]

Please elaborate

Look, the warlord is too big to stuff in one chassis. Especially on a selfish class like the fighter. There are multiple ways to play a warlord. The lazylord is one. The drill sgt. is another. Splash in some magic and an eladrin and you had a sweet support/controller back in the day. Yes the warlord was a pretty good healer, second to the cleric ofcourse. He was also a great buffer. Now does all of that fit into one subclass tacked on to a class designed to be focused only on itself at its core.

 

[SkidAce]

If we're throwing ideas around, I'd imagine the Warlord with some kinda aura that requires Concentration to maintain - barking out commands, monitoring the ebb and flow of battle, barking orders. While active it grants a bunch of boons and benefits, with the greatest of them ending the aura. A finite number of aura-uses per day, based on Charisma.

Too Bardy? Perhaps. Then what about leading by example - when the Warlord crits, folks get a better chance of critting or hitting. When the Warlord is crit, folks get a bonus to damage. When the Warlord expends the Fighter-class's Second Wind, folks get a health boost. Leading from the front.

Not bad...

 

[Yunru]

So how would you describe the feel of a 4e warlord?

Personally one of the old guides summed it up for me:
How to wield a barbarian one-handed.

Obviously exaggerated and whatnot, but the core's there.

 

[AmerginLiath]

It's not just the battlemaster, WotC have granted warlord style abilities to various subclasses. Mastermind, valour bard, purple dragon knight, even the totem barbarian have some abilities that provide some support style abilities in the same vein as the warlord, the mystic also has some disciplines that mimic warlord abilities and one of the other subclasses Mearls has worked on was the cleric Order domain that also had similar effects. It seems that the D&D team prefer that there be warlord style options throughout the 5e classes rather than create a single dedicated class.

I also wouldn't be surprised if we see the warlord currently being worked on by Mearls to come out in a future UA, not much reason to create these subclasses and not have people playtest them. Of course, if this community is anything to go by there will be a relative handful of players who like what Mearls does, and two larger groups with one saying "Not my Warlord!" and another saying "Don't tell my character what to do!"

That’s a key point. The Role and Power Source features of 4e divided abilities up discretely among classes instead of intermixing them (look how Rangers lost their magic, for example). Because Warlord is the main class original to 4e, the class is easy to think of in that single form (compare it to Warden and Avenger, which have both similarly been broken up into various classes in 5e).

 

[Remathilis]

Please elaborate

Its not a 20 level, multi-subclassed class that can do everything a bard and/or cleric can do, but nonmagically.

I give Mearls credit for tackling the topic, because I'm pretty sure at this point nothing he could do would make people happy.

 

[outsider]

So how would you describe the feel of a 4e warlord?

A support character that's just as good at supporting as the other support classes, without needing to use magic.

That's the gist of it. It would be good if the warlord could heal as well as a cleric, buff as well as a bard, and give party members extra actions. Despite what naysayers claim, Warlord fans aren't actually demanding for one character to be able to all those things. They want the class to be able to do all of those things. Healing, buffing, and extra actions can all come under different builds, as long as you can compete with casters at it without magic. It's a flavor thing.

And notice that the warlord fans are objecting to making it a fighter subclass. It's because fighting as well as a fighter is actually -not- part of what they want, and they realize that the subclass will never be as good at support as what they want, due to being stapled to such a powerful combatant as the base class.

 

[Zardnaar]

At-will attack granting can't be broken because of Rogues and Paladins (and Rangers?) because having a second Rogue or Paladin in the party, or even an all-Rogue or all-Paladin party, isn't broken. Now, if the action granting ability is sitting on a chassis that also gives a wide range of off-turn or out-of combat abilities, like a full caster, that could easily be broken.

Those classes do not also heal though, at least as well as a cleric. Something has to give either the attack granting or the healing rate and I do nto think attack granting at will is a good idea in 5E (you could use more superiority dice than the BM fighter) because of how it interacts with things like Rogues (any), Hunter Rangers (basic atack + 1d6+1d8 is great vs clerics anaemic damage).

A battlemaster fighter with the right 2-3 feats is probably better than anything Mearls can come up with anyway. A proper 5E Warlord needs to lose at will attack granting and be an independent class for the same reasons a 5E wizard/CoDzilla can't do everything they could do in a previous edition.

The 4E fans basically expect 5E tp make all the sacrifices to enable an OP class when other classes made sacrifices to fit into the 5E design paradigm. Even in 4E a warlord was not as good at healing as a Cleric so you can start looking at perhaps Druid or Bard levels of healing.

For example look at he 5E Paladin a warlord should heal better than that yes? So strip out lay on hands and the spells that gives you some design room, strip out the smites the extra attack and Paladin Aura and thro in perhaps X2 or X3 healing via a lay on hands replacement, more superiority dice than a BM fighter (+50-+100% more perhaps) and you still have room for support abilities.

A Warlock chassis is another class I think you could write in WL abilities instead of invocations and replace spells. A Bravura Warlord could still get a 2nd attack at level 5 or 6 jut not the extra stuff classes like Fighter/Ranger/Paladin get to make their attack better.

If you want at will attack granting at best you get Paladin levels lay on hands healing, and Battlemaster Fighter levels of anything else tactical.

Put it another ray the warlord gets 4 pillars and you can rate how strong you want the warlord to be in the 4 pillars on a scale of 1-10.

Attack Granting
Support
Healing
Combat

At will attack granting costs you 10 points, 10 points of combat gets you fighter/paladin/ranger levels of combat, 10 points of healing gets you life cleric level, 10 points of support gets you perhaps a buff focused lore bard level of ability.

You get 20 points. Knock yourselves out.

 

[Yunru]

The 4E fans basically expect 5E tp make all the sacrifices to enable an OP class when other classes made sacrifices to fit into the 5E design paradigm.

[Citation needed]

 

[Leatherhead]

Those classes do not also heal though, at least as well as a cleric. Something has to give either the attack granting or the healing rate and I do nto think attack granting at will is a good idea in 5E (you could use more superiority dice than the BM fighter) because of how it interacts with things like Rogues (any), Hunter Rangers (basic atack + 1d6+1d8 is great vs clerics anaemic damage).

Trying to heal as well as a Cleric is not a feasible goal, to be honest.
If you are going by raw HP, it's doable but totally unnecessary, thanks to how HP works in 5e. A Warlord would be sitting comfortably in that chair by just cloning Healing Word (Into a totally non-magical "martial power" of course) and Song of Rest. They wouldn't even need a clone of Spare the Dying because Healers Kits and the Medicine skill will cover that.

However, the true healing potential of a Cleric lies in their ability to remove Conditions, Diseases, Other forms of non-hp damage (such as getting your arm cut off), and ultimately Death itself.

It's a stretch for a Warlord to have non-magical clones of Lesser Restoration and Revivify. But seriously, how do you non-magically replicate the effects of Greater Restoration or Regenerate?

 

[Zardnaar]

Trying to heal as well as a Cleric is not a feasible goal, to be honest.
If you are going by raw HP, it's doable but totally unnecessary, thanks to how HP works in 5e. A Warlord would be sitting comfortably in that chair by just cloning Healing Word (Into a totally non-magical "martial power" of course) and Song of Rest. They wouldn't even need a clone of Spare the Dying because Healers Kits and the Medicine skill will cover that.

However, the true healing potential of a Cleric lies in their ability to remove Conditions, Diseases, Other forms of non-hp damage (such as getting your arm cut off), and ultimately Death itself.

It's a stretch for a Warlord to have non-magical clones of Lesser Restoration and Revivify. But seriously, how do you non-magically replicate the effects of Greater Restoration or Regenerate?

I meant in hp regain not raise dead etc. That stuff should require magic IMHO (science maybe with cloning perhaps). Non magical prevention/mitigation can also work (morale bonus to saves, reroll to negate conditions etc).