D&D 5E New UE Classes

[CapnZapp]

The warlord letting he Rogue take extra sneak attacks isn't really a big issue if the Warlord is giving up their action to let the Rogue do this. If the rogue's sneak attack were the best thing for a warlord to use their action, then you simply have to balance the warlord against the rogue. An action is an action. Rogue sneak attacks seem about as good as fighter full attacks to me, aren't they?

Level 1 Rogue: 1d6+Dex (main) +1d6 off hand +1d6 sneak attack. (13.5)
Level 1 Fighter: 2d6*+Str. (11.33)

Lvl 5 Rogue: 5d6+Dex potential (21.5)
Level 5 Fighter: 4d6*+(str*2) (24.66)

Level 11 Rogue: 8d6+Dex potential (33)
Level 11 Fighter: 6d6*+(Str*3) (40)

The rogue is definitely more smooth, but they're pretty close; close enough for Government work. If the Warlord could only grant a single attack, then definitely you wouldn't want it to have sneak attack, or anything really.

First off, nobody has talked about the warlord being able to grant a fighter his full extra attack routine. That is stopped by the Extra Attack ability itself and thus isn't a "design challenge": the fighter will only be able to make one whack outside of his own turn by definition.

It is the rogue that represents the challenge, since Sneak Attack is somewhat the reverse of Extra Attack: it's defined as "only once per turn".

So, assuming a Warlord can generate actions for his allies left and right, we can assume he will be able to generate at least one on his own turn, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to think he could as a reaction create yet another action on the monsters' turn too.

I count to three Warlord-awarded actions. Add the rogue's own, and you're looking at a potential of four sneak attacks in a single combat round.

If that's not cause for concern, I don't know what is.

This isn't primarily a "too high DPR" issue, however. The main danger of allowing sneak attack damage is that choosing the rogue will be too good. Plain and simple, awarding the rogue an action overshadows any other choice, since that action comes loaded with up to 10d6 bonus damage.

This makes it less fun for the Warlord player. Hence, "design challenge".

 

[Xeviat]

First off, nobody has talked about the warlord being able to grant a fighter his full extra attack routine. That is stopped by the Extra Attack ability itself and thus isn't a "design challenge": the fighter will only be able to make one whack outside of his own turn by definition.

It is the rogue that represents the challenge, since Sneak Attack is somewhat the reverse of Extra Attack: it's defined as "only once per turn".

So, assuming a Warlord can generate actions for his allies left and right, we can assume he will be able to generate at least one on his own turn, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to think he could as a reaction create yet another action on the monsters' turn too.

I count to three Warlord-awarded actions. Add the rogue's own, and you're looking at a potential of four sneak attacks in a single combat round.

If that's not cause for concern, I don't know what is.

This isn't primarily a "too high DPR" issue, however. The main danger of allowing sneak attack damage is that choosing the rogue will be too good. Plain and simple, awarding the rogue an action overshadows any other choice, since that action comes loaded with up to 10d6 bonus damage.

This makes it less fun for the Warlord player. Hence, "design challenge".

I don't see a design challenge. The "plain language" of 5E would allow an ability to do what I'm saying super easy. It would just be another exception.

If the Warlord grants actions as an action, they'd have to be comparable. If they got it in addition to a single attack, then it would only have to be comparable to a single attack. It's as simple as that.


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[Tony Vargas]

Heh. Well, no...

actually give away actions, and not just at the expense of the target's reaction (since that is not really a net gain).

It might be depending on the situation - for instance, if the Reaction was likely to go unused, anyway, which doesn't seem that unlikely.

The design challenge is to phrase this ability in a succtinct way and still avoid all the baggage of a regular attack.

While some Warlord powers in 4e were limited to granting basic attacks, not all of them were, some granted full actions. If a granted attack is restricted to the point that the target wouldn't ever use it with his own action and/or the Warlord would be better off using his action himself, and/or the party would be better off with just a clone of the target in the first place, then that's not really a net gain.

So, are there design challenges? Of course! That's why we have designers. But said problems don't seem like they'd be any harder to tackle than those of the Artificer, who mucks about with magic items in a system that explicitly leaves items overpowered and factors them out of design, or the Mystic. And, hopefully they'll be tackled better than those of designing the Ranger and Sorcerer were.

It is the rogue that represents the challenge, since Sneak Attack is somewhat the reverse of Extra Attack: it's defined as "only once per turn".

Interestingly, it's a design issue that was already tackled by 4e. In the 4e PH, the rogue's SA was 1/round, not 1/turn. A Warlord with Commander's Strike might prioritize granting an attack to the Rogue on turns when the Rogue missed or was unable to set up combat advantage on his turn. A nice dynamic.

If the warlord had been designed at the same time as the other Core classes, dynamics like that could have been set up. Ironically, the Rogue was superceded by the HotFL 'Thief,' sub-class, which got a large damage bonus to basic attacks, could trivially set up CA on its turn, and could SA every turn (the Class Compendium retconned Rogue, the Scoundrel, was also given per turn SA). It didn't have quite the chilling effect you're suggesting, here, since CA was not trivial for the Thief, off-turn, and the ease of it on-turn actually made it less likely he'd have CA off-turn.

And, of course, all the post-E strikers were pretty crazy.

So, assuming a Warlord can generate actions for his allies left and right

Is assuming quite a bit. It's not like a full class Warlord will have Action Surge like a Fighter Archetype. An action for an action is pretty fair most of the time.

 

[Lanliss]

If you are talking about the warlord, that argument will only infuriate its defenders.

Efforts like the purple knight does nothing for the Warlord fan, and so it is a poor argument for not providing a real Warlord.

There is no existing or UA subclass that comes even close to what the Warlord fans want: which is completely magic-free healing combined with a sturdy chassis for "remote controlling" your allies.

Somewhat like the battlemaster maneuver subsystem but with all the choices geared towards using your allies as playing pieces.

Relatively new to D&D, so sorry for not knowing much.

1) Why is "Non-magic" healing important? What is the relevant difference between it and magical healing? Is it just a way to get more healing allowed in a low-magic game? Is it some sort of hatred of magic, but still knowledge that you need healing, so as long as it says "non-magical" it is fine with you? I don't understand the importance of this...

2) Remote-controlling allies sounds like possibly the suckiest version of D&D I have ever heard of. No insult intended to yourself or others who like it, but that sounds like just about the only thing that might make me leave a table based on what someone chose to play. I can live with Halflings, paladins, dragonborn, even an Evil Mastermind rogue, or College of Trickery (UA) Bards. but someone telling me what to do? Gross.

I really do want to understand the hype of Warlord, but the more descriptions I see of it, the less I want to be anywhere near one...

 

[Xeviat]

Relatively new to D&D, so sorry for not knowing much.

1) Why is "Non-magic" healing important? What is the relevant difference between it and magical healing? Is it just a way to get more healing allowed in a low-magic game? Is it some sort of hatred of magic, but still knowledge that you need healing, so as long as it says "non-magical" it is fine with you? I don't understand the importance of this...

2) Remote-controlling allies sounds like possibly the suckiest version of D&D I have ever heard of. No insult intended to yourself or others who like it, but that sounds like just about the only thing that might make me leave a table based on what someone chose to play. I can live with Halflings, paladins, dragonborn, even an Evil Mastermind rogue, or College of Trickery (UA) Bards. but someone telling me what to do? Gross.

I really do want to understand the hype of Warlord, but the more descriptions I see of it, the less I want to be anywhere near one...

I can only speak for myself: "healer" is a role many find "necessary" in their games. Enough think this way that many MMOs have codified this into their design. MOBAs and others borrow from this as well.

But D&D is a game of concepts. Some people want to play a battlefield commander, a noble leader, or an inspiring face. The bard does a lot of that well, but with magic. Not everyone wants to play with magic.

As for #2, almost every D&D game I've played in (except for an explicitly evil game) had characters who were working together. A warlord granting a character an extra action, or giving them extra movement, or some other thing off turn, isn't them telling them what to do. Every warlord I saw in 4E chose what abilities to use based on what the other players were doing with their characters. These abilities were known. They were played to and set up for by the group.

Is it "telling you what to do" when Ana gives you a nanoboost in Overwatch?


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[Lanliss]

I can only speak for myself: "healer" is a role many find "necessary" in their games. Enough think this way that many MMOs have codified this into their design. MOBAs and others borrow from this as well.

But D&D is a game of concepts. Some people want to play a battlefield commander, a noble leader, or an inspiring face. The bard does a lot of that well, but with magic. Not everyone wants to play with magic.

As for #2, almost every D&D game I've played in (except for an explicitly evil game) had characters who were working together. A warlord granting a character an extra action, or giving them extra movement, or some other thing off turn, isn't them telling them what to do. Every warlord I saw in 4E chose what abilities to use based on what the other players were doing with their characters. These abilities were known. They were played to and set up for by the group.

Is it "telling you what to do" when Ana gives you a nanoboost in Overwatch?


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Well, that is completely different from "remote-controlling" then. Giving movement and attack buffs is alright, to an extent (I wouldn't really want my character to be "inspired" by another character all the time, unless my character actually felt that way, but a couple times every now and then would be fine.), but I usually see it described as more like the player of a tactician style game, where the other players are your units, and completely under your control.

The whole magic thing escapes me still though. I do not see any true difference between healing and non-magical healing. I can understand that some might not like magic, and can accept reflavoring magic healing as non-magic healing, but do not see the point in exclusively saying "Warlord is NON-MAGIC Healing" in any sort of rulebook. If I were to look at non-magic healing, I would want it to be more of a healer, with bonuses to healing over time, rather than instantaneous healing. Maybe a mechanic similar to the Song of Rest, or a regen capability like the Champion ability.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Relatively new to D&D, so sorry for not knowing much.

OK, quick version. D&D was the first RPG, and it was quite primitive, as one might expect. For 25 years it barely changed while many more-evolved new RPGs proliferated around it without any one of them ever gaining much popularity. D&D's publisher went belly-up and it was acquired by WotC, which made it's fortune on CCGs. D&D finally underwent some changes, on balance(npi), maybe for the better, WotC was bought out by Hasbro and turned even more corporate, there were some controversies, some miscommunications, some jerk moves on their part, and fans got uppity. In 2008, they rolled rev on D&D again and that new ed, among lots of other things that (arguably, in a technical sense) were a vast improvement over the old game, introduced one new class in the PH1, the Warlord. The fanbase fulminated with rage at being jerked around by a new edition again so soon, and 'the edition war' broke out between naive/new fans who were taken in by the shiny, new, much-improved system, and True D&D Loyalists who didn't want to see their beloved game desecrated by alien concepts like clarity, playability, balance or accessibility to new players. The latter won, prettymuch hands down, and 5e is the resurrection of True D&D. Minus, of course, the Warlord class, which had the misfortune of being introduced in 4e.

Honest, that's the short version.

Why is "Non-magic" healing important?

Because, during said edition war, huge battles were raged and grim atrocities committed to purge from D&D forever the unspeakable horror that was restoring hit points without magic (or weeks of rest, but mostly magic, because who waits weeks when you have magic that heals instantly and re-charges every day). Not to mention the arguably equally unspeackable horror of FIGHTERS CASTING SPELLS! XOMG. OK, really, the issue wasn't either of those things, it's that martial classes like the fighter and warlord were actually pretty nearly balanced with caster classes like clerics and wizards (I know that may sound weird, but don't worry, those days were over almost before they began).

So, 5e comes along and casters have far more than three spells again, and fighters and the like have only a couple of short-rest recharge powers that in no way compare. Everything's fine. But, there's non-magical healing in the game in the form of HD and Second Wind and a few other things here and there. Oh, and the Fighter does, indeed, cast spells. ;P So that's really kinda a non-issue, now, so long as any class that has magical healing is suitably and strictly inferior to casters in terms of daily resources (there's a loophole for short-rest-recharge resources) and general versatility and flexibility.

The Warlord, as a 4e martial class had a lot more versatility and flexibility and resources than 5e fighter, but less than a 5e caster, so it might seem like it could challenge the natural order. For some, 'non-magical healing' (or inspiration as hp recovery) is still symbolic of that issue. Given that there's already several types of non-magical healing in the PH (and SCAG), though, it's only meaningful in that symbolic sense.

What is the relevant difference between it and magical healing?

It's not magical. It could, in theory allow a party to operate effectively without a caster in the party, at all.

2) Remote-controlling allies sounds like

Yeah it does. What it doesn't sound like is what the Warlord actually did: granted allies actions. So the Warlord would use his action on an 'exploit' (a martial resource, like a BM's CS dice/maneuver - and maneuver is a much nicer name, isn't it, exploit just sound shifty) giving an ally a corresponding action, that it could use in a limited set of ways. The idea is that the warlord embodies the kind of leadership skills you see in a coach or really good boss (if you've ever been lucky enough to have one) or, ironically, even a plucky sidekick. So the Warlord shouts a warning or order or word of encouragement and the ally, warned/heartend/spurred-to-action gets to do something he wouldn't have otherwise, out of turn (on the Warlord's turn).

If you'd been playing D&D for a long time, and seeing how the game would talk about fighters being 'leaders' in some sense (in the classic game, a fighter who hit 9th level was called a 'Lord' (and a bit below that, a Warlord, coincidentally) and could claim a medieval feif, just like that - but he got zip in terms of skills that might help you actually run a fiefdom or organize/inspire soldiers to defend it. That trend continued all the way through until the Warlord was finally build around those skills (well, not so much the castelan skills, it's not like PCs become fuedal lords much anymore - in 1e, it was just expected).

So, yeah, no remote-controlling, that's left to Wizards who can cast Dominate Monster (or Magic Jar, is Magic Jar still around? I forget, there's been so many spells over the years.)

I really do want to understand the hype of Warlord

There's really no hype. There was the edition war, and a lot of vitriol and misinformation that still gets repeated.

(I wouldn't really want my character to be "inspired" by another character all the time, unless my character actually felt that way, but a couple times every now and then would be fine.),

The intraparty dynamics and RP are something the players involved can work out, if they feel the need.

but I usually see it described as more like the player of a tactician style game, where the other players are your units, and completely under your control.

Not how the mechanics ever worked...

...OK, except for one power in the PH1 that was errata'd as a result.

The whole magic thing escapes me still though. I do not see any true difference between healing and non-magical healing.

One's magic, one's not. D&D, for the first 34 years, had a slowly growing set of classes (it started with Cleric, and is now Cleric, Druid, Bard, Paladin, & Ranger) able to heal their allies with magic. Magic-use like that is actually pretty rare in genre, and, particularly when it was mainly the cleric that could adequately fill the role of party band-aid, a lot of folks didn't care for the idea of having a devout character be mandatory (in the 80s, and you may have even noticed, today, religion can be a fraught issue). So, after over 3 decades of being unable to have a party without someone mumbling and laying on hands, we finally got a class that enabled a party without a magic-using healer. That's great if no one (willing to take up that role, that is) at the table wants to play a religious type or an occultist entertainer, or if the campaign is trying to go for a low-/no- magic S&S vibe.

If I were to look at non-magic healing, I would want it to be more of a healer, with bonuses to healing over time, rather than instantaneous healing. Maybe a mechanic similar to the Song of Rest, or a regen capability like the Champion ability.

Part of the problem is even calling it healing. It gives you this idea that hps of damage are deadly bleeding wounds and getting back a few hps is making wounds magically disappear. Actually, in 5e, you can get all your hps back in an hour of rest by spending HD. The idea of Warlord 'healing' - Inspiring Word - was that it did what was no the tin - inspired an ally so that he could rally and keep fighting (characters could also do that on their own, with an action called, not coincidentally 'Second Wind' 1/encounter). So, not weird or crazy - or taking a long time like non-magical medieval medicine treating a severe wound might.

 

[Jester David]

First, you need to realize that you're inserting 'leader' into this conversation.

"Leader" in the common English usage, not "leader" in the "combat role that is exclusive to 4e D&D usage". This isn't a 4e forum. I'm not discussing that edition here. That has its own forum.

See the word 'leader' in there? No. You're intentionally bringing up an edition-war screed that was semantic and completely invalid even then, to deflect the conversation from the reality that D&D /needs/ more martial options to work towards it's goal of covering more playstyles than past editions, and needs to bring back the only Core class excluded from the PH to work towards it's goal of inclusiveness of fans of past editions.

Umm… you use the word "leader" or "leadership" here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?523598-New-UE-Classes&p=7029893&viewfull=1#post7029893
And here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...lasses/page2&p=7029071&viewfull=1#post7029071
And also here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...lasses/page2&p=7029696&viewfull=1#post7029696

Let's put aside the prejudices - and, for the sake of peace and decency, the disingenuous illogic & misrepresentations motivated by those prejudices - of the edition war, and adopt a live-and-let-live attitude as we all play the same game, each group in our favorite way.

I stopped caring about the edition war years ago. That's not a discussion I care to have and I no longer can bring up the energy to have any strong feelings towards 4e. I'm apathetic to the edition. It's like 1e or 2e to me know, in that it's largely irrelevant to current discussion apart from serving as a source of inspiration.
I can discuss the half-orc and demons without getting into a 1e/2e edition war and I can discuss the warlord/ marshal as a concept without getting into a 3e/4e edition war.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I stopped caring about the edition war years ago. .

Prove it.

 

[Lanliss]

One's magic, one's not. D&D, for the first 34 years, had a slowly growing set of classes (it started with Cleric, and is now Cleric, Druid, Bard, Paladin, & Ranger) able to heal their allies with magic. Magic-use like that is actually pretty rare in genre, and, particularly when it was mainly the cleric that could adequately fill the role of party band-aid, a lot of folks didn't care for the idea of having a devout character be mandatory (in the 80s, and you may have even noticed, today, religion can be a fraught issue). So, after over 3 decades of being unable to have a party without someone mumbling and laying on hands, we finally got a class that enabled a party without a magic-using healer. That's great if no one (willing to take up that role, that is) at the table wants to play a religious type or an occultist entertainer, or if the campaign is trying to go for a low-/no- magic S&S vibe.

Part of the problem is even calling it healing. It gives you this idea that hps of damage are deadly bleeding wounds and getting back a few hps is making wounds magically disappear. Actually, in 5e, you can get all your hps back in an hour of rest. The idea of Warlord 'healing' - Inspiring Word - was that it did what was no the tin - inspired an ally so that he could rally and keep fighting (characters could also do that on their own, with an action called, not coincidentally 'Second Wind' 1/encounter). So, not weird or crazy - or taking a long time like non-magical medieval medicine treating a severe wound might.

Ah, so the primary difference is mental/fluffable, if I am understanding correctly. I can entirely understand the want for that. On the healing/"healing" subject, That is certainly something I can understand causing some issues, with the whole "you, be inspired by me" thing. That is certainly a thing to be handled among tables, and I am not sure of a good mechanical way to handle that...