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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7362859" data-attributes="member: 996">So I got around to watching the video, and it was interesting.  Not the discussion of the Warlord, which is an exercise in futility from "fighter sub-class" on, but in the insights into Mike Mearls's design process.  The frustration we had with him in the 4e era, when he'd pop off stuff like Magic of the Feywild, is a lot more understandable having seen the creative process in action.  It confirmed a number of fairly obvious, but occasionally controversial ideas, like that balance just is not a priority in 5e designs.  A consideration, but not a priority.  Or that magic is at the center of the game not just in thematics as a fantasy rpg, but as a core design touchstone.  I probably shouldn't bother, but listening to the dismissal of the Warlord as a full class, because it's just too narrow a concept, and then focusing exclusively on the Tactical Warlord as if that were the whole thing... I'm sorry, Mike, it's a tad disingenuous, really.  I'm not sure if it points to anything - maybe this is just an exercise in sharing the creative process, so why mention all the cribbing from past editions - but it is odd that, when I open a 5e book, I can't help but recognize very familiar stuff from past editions, sometimes virtually verbatim, but when tackling the warlord, he's just kinda brainstorming, rather than reviewing the many builds, alternate class features, and hundreds of powers already developed for the class in it's brief history.  The cynical reason might be that h4ters wouldn't stand for it, of course, but with all the other things taken from 4e, whether bowdlerized, or, again, virtually verbatim, and, besides, 4 years in on some podcast - why?  Is he still that worried about a hypothetical h4ter backlash?  Y'know, most h4ters I've talked to only know of a handful of warlord powers or builds, anyway.  They fulminated over Commander's Strike and Inspiring Word and Come & Get It, and hardly cracked the book, otherwise.  And, it's not like the few minutes of brainstorming came up with anything new.  Move allies around?  Lots of powers.  Like 'castling' in chess, well, there was a power called King's Castle in direct reference to that (though it wasn't even a Warlord power, all martial classes got cool toys in 4e)  Mess with initiative?  Guileful Switch.  Grant actions?  The well-known Commander's Strike, of course, and the also-chess-referent 'Knigtht's Move,' among many others (Hammer & Anvil was a nice one at low level).   Concentration?  Sustained powers were common in 4e, like concentration, plus cost an actual action.The decision to go with dailies was also weird.  Oh, healing could be a daily resource if it's that all-fired important - heck, take a serious page from 4e and have Warlord 'healing' simply trigger hit dice in combat, done.  But martial dailies were a major, major controversy.  Why even contemplate going there?'Gambits' isn't a bad label, though.</blockquote>

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