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D&D 5E Open Interpretation Inspirational Healing Compromise.

What do you think of an open interpretation compromise.

  • Yes, let each table/player decide if it's magical or not.

    Votes: 41 51.3%
  • No, inspirational healing must explicit be non-magical.

    Votes: 12 15.0%
  • No, all healing must explicit be magical.

    Votes: 12 15.0%
  • Something else. Possibly taco or a citric curry.

    Votes: 15 18.8%

Possibly both of the above

Don't want to touch the "terrible" thing with a ten-foot pole (that way lies madness and/or infractions, guys), but the "hundreds of classes" thing is...pretty much completely bogus. If you lump subclasses together with their "base" class, 4e had 25 distinct classes by the end of its run. It had a further 20 forked-off subclasses that were different from, but still fundamentally related to, one or another of those base classes. (Most classes had no subclasses at all, and of those that did, each only got 1 or 2 new variations, with the exception of the Wizard, who got four for no adequately explained reason.)

You could technically assert that "hybrid" as a whole counts as another class type, but that feels a bit rhetorically dodgy to me (we don't consider "multiclass" to be a starkly distinct class in other editions, and "hybrid" characters are very nearly equivalent to the old 2e multiclass rules, so...)

25 classes with a total of 45 subclasses (many classes having only one option, "itself," as a subclass) doesn't seem that bad. Particularly when 5e launched with half as many classes and 2/3 as many subclasses as it is, and will be gaining more with time (at the very least the "psion"/Mystic/whatever, several subclasses from SCAG and/or UA, and potentially PrCs as well). Since people have frequently argued that we shouldn't judge 5e harshly for not being as complete as 4e was at the end of its official run, it seems to me that things should swing both ways and we shouldn't blame 4e for being more bloated than 5e since the latter hasn't had the time to bloat up. Accounting for the slower release cycle of 5e, at a comparable time in 4e's history there were something like 16-18 classes (none of which even had a concept of a "subclass" yet), depending on what the timing was for the Eberron and FR books (which gave us the artificer and swordmage, respectively, IIRC).
 

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Accounting for the slower release cycle of 5e, at a comparable time in 4e's history there were something like 16-18 classes (none of which even had a concept of a "subclass" yet), depending on what the timing was for the Eberron and FR books (which gave us the artificer and swordmage, respectively, IIRC).
A comparable point in 4e's history would be October 2008 - before any splatbooks. It may be October 2008 for some time... ;) So 9 classes (FR player book containing the Swordmage was August), no sub-classes (but 20 'builds,'). 5e is way ahead by that scale. OTOH, a little over a year in, 17 classes, 60+ builds... Pace of release means a lot.

For 5e, it means death-by-bloat is years away, it also means it may take a while to live up to all it's stated goals and evident potential.
 

A comparable point in 4e's history would be October 2008 - before any splatbooks. It may be October 2008 for some time... ;) So 9 classes (FR player book containing the Swordmage was August), no sub-classes (but 20 'builds,'). 5e is way ahead by that scale. OTOH, a little over a year in, 17 classes, 60+ builds... Pace of release means a lot.

For 5e, it means death-by-bloat is years away, it also means it may take a while to live up to all it's stated goals and evident potential.

I was allowing for the fact that, even with the slower development cycle, 5e is still on the cusp of having a real "player material" book out very soon, and was thus being ever-so-slightly generous and allowing for 4e's first major player content book (PHB2).
 

I was allowing for the fact that, even with the slower development cycle, 5e is still on the cusp of having a real "player material" book out very soon, and was thus being ever-so-slightly generous and allowing for 4e's first major player content book (PHB2).
See, I'd've considered the first splatbook to've been Martial Power.
 


I'm not sure that isn't just rhetorical, but you do bring up a point. There are really more than the two extreme camps. There are those who want the Warlord in 5e, those who want it purged from the game forever, those who might want something like the Warlord but find it some how not quite meeting their need, there are those who want to exclude the warlord for whatever reason but would settle for making it so bad no one would ever play it, there are those who despise the concept of the warlord, there are those who despised it's mechanics in 4e, there are those who despise it for being new-to-4e, there are those who are fine with the concept as long as it's strictly inferior to magical alternatives.

Or there is the "Like the warlord concept, and wouldn't mind a class that fills a similar niche but adheres to the rules and fluff already established." In short, a class that can be dropped into a campaign and won't change the dynamics of the game any more than any other class would. Unfortunately, that calls for some compromise somewhere.

Warlords are children of 4e; despite having a 3.5 ancestor, they were a class built around the concepts of 4e like healing surges, grid combat, a strict action economy, and martial powers. 5e lacks many of those direct elements. They define things differently than 4e did. In 4e, being inspired meant being able to use a healing surge; in 5e its temporary hp. Granting a bonus to hit in 4e could be shown a dozen different ways and amounts; 5e lumps it all into advantage. A 5e warlord cannot rely on the 4e definitions of abilities to define it. It must find an identity somewhere inside 5e's paradigm. It can't demand Inspiring Word to work as it did in 4e anymore than a Fighter can demand Combat Superiority, or a Ranger Hunter's Quarry.

The question becomes how do we make the warlord concept fit 5e, not how do we make 5e fit the warlord. Demanding ideological purity isn't going to answer that. The answer will involve some bending on both sides; the warlord might get healing on par with a cleric, but its backed up with pseudo-magical fluff. The warlord might have purely nonmagical recovery, but it takes the form of temp hp and healing kits. Both of these things won't appease the ardent "4e warlord or bust" crowd, nor the "no never in a million years" crowd, but for the majority of people who want to see a warlord and want it to fit 5e, its a start.

But holding out for a pure 4e-ish warlord in a 5e world is like being the last Japanese soldier in WW2, you'll find you've been engaging a fruitless campaign while the rest of the world has moved on.
 

I'm not sure that isn't just rhetorical, but you do bring up a point. There are really more than the two extreme camps. There are those who want the Warlord in 5e, those who want it purged from the game forever, those who might want something like the Warlord but find it some how not quite meeting their need...
Or there is the "Like the warlord concept, and wouldn't mind a class that fills a similar niche but adheres to the rules and fluff already established."
That'd seem to fit pretty well to the last one. Though, to be fair, the Warlord "fills a similar niche" in some practical senses (support, secondary melee, face), to classes that have existed for a long time, so there are pre-existing examples, by definition - unless you meant something else by 'niche.' The Warlord could very easily adhere to the rules already established - though most if not all classes do have abilities that are unique and/or exceptions to existing rules and there's no reason to think any new class would be any different. As to 'established fluff,' I'm not sure there is such a thing - campaigns and settings can vary quite a bit, as can how DMs interpret things, and re-skinning (short of changing mechanics) isn't entirely discouraged in 5e.

In short, a class that can be dropped into a campaign and won't change the dynamics of the game any more than any other class would.
The Warlord would almost certainly fall between the non-caster and caster sub-classes in impact on a campaign, being more flexible and filling a different niche than the former, while less versatile than the latter. Seems unlikely to disrupt anything. On the contrary, a campaign with a Warlord instead of a Bard, Druid, or Cleric will probably be a little easier for the DM to keep a lid on.

Warlords are children of 4e
Yeah, like I said, there are those who don't want the Warlord because 4e. The reasonable compromise lies in making it convenient for them to avoid the class, since they could never accept it in any viable form.

they were a class built around the concepts of 4e like healing surges
like HD in 5e.
grid combat
an available module in 5e, though 5e uses movement/range/area precise to the foot, anyway.
a strict action economy
5e's has even fewer actions
martial powers
5e has Second Wind, Action Surge, 17 battlemaster maneuvers, Cunning Action, and a few other odds and end.
5e lacks many of those direct elements.
Actually, it has versions of all of them. Mostly dialed down to 2, with the names changed and the serial numbers filed off, but they're there. One of the subtler ways 5e tried to build on past editions.

They define things differently than 4e did. In 4e, being inspired meant being able to use a healing surge
Or gaining temps, or an action, or a buff, etc. Inspiring Warlord builds didn't just trigger surges.
in 5e its temporary hp
or a bonus to a roll, or advantage.
Granting a bonus to hit in 4e could be shown a dozen different ways and amounts
Power, Feat, Enhancement, Untyped, not quite a dozen, no
5e lumps it all into advantage.
Except when it doesn't, with support-class abilities like Bardic Inspiration, Guidance, or Bless, for instance.

A 5e warlord cannot rely on the 4e definitions of abilities to define it. It must find an identity somewhere inside 5e's paradigm.
Not see'n the problem.

It can't demand Inspiring Word to work as it did in 4e anymore than a Fighter can demand Combat Superiority, or a Ranger Hunter's Quarry.
Sentinel and Hunter's Mark /do/ work though, just not exactly the same.

And, for instance, the 4e Ranger Had Hunter's Quarry as an ability he could use every round. Every ranger had it, every ranger used it or he was a fool, he'd have to wait to Paragon to even cheese up an alternate use for one die of it. Now, in 5e, a player who thinks "Y'know, Hunter's Mark just doesn't fit my vision, I'd rather go with Hail of Thorns and Ensnaring Strike," can never touch Hunter's Quarry. Going dark blue rather than light blue might make him sub-optimal, but he's still viable.

Now, those are also spells, but the Ranger has been using magic since it's first appearance in 0D&D - as nice as a spell-less ranger would be to have (and we did have an example), you can't begrudge him casting spells.

Point is, different, but not only still good, more flexible.


The question becomes how do we make the warlord concept fit 5e, not how do we make 5e fit the warlord.
OK, I have to just stop and review the above. You're making the case that 5e is so limited, unwieldy, unbalanced, inflexible, and generally wholly inferior a game, that it just can't model a class that 4e had /no trouble with at all/. That is an extraordinary claim, IMHO. I think I've answered most of your accusations against 5e fairly reasonably, above. It can, in fact, at least start to address all the aspects of the Warlord you claim it couldn't possibly deal with, just based on existing precedents.

BUT, 5e doesn't limit itself to precedent. Each class and ability is not built on some template. Every class has something unique going for it, some novel mechanic(s) whether as minor as a small bonus to untrained athletics checks, or as significant as recovering slots on a short instead of long rest. There's not some empty file cabinet in Redmond where every possible good 5e mechanic had been stored. There's not a finite amount of designer talent that has all been used up. 5e is, in fact, a wide open system with parsecs of design space available, especially for martial classes, of which there are only 5 sub-classes at the moment, and most of them quite similar, functionally (all filling the high-DPR niche in different ways).

AND, on top of that it, 5e has the Ultimate RPG Weapon: DM Empowerment. If the designers do let slip something that doesn't quite work, or doesn't quite work for a particular campaign or at a particular table, the DM can rule, right then and there, to bring it into line.

The question becomes how do we make the warlord concept fit 5e, not how do we make 5e fit the warlord.
Neither of those sound like the question based on all the above. Maybe, how do we create a great Warlord in 5e? Though, really, that's more a question for designers to answer.

The question at least, in this little exchange, seems more like: Will you, Remathilis, encourage the designers to explore more of the potential of 5e by bringing us a 5e Warlord that is even better, covers more concepts, and generally rocks the casaba in a way that makes the 4e Warlord at least nod approvingly, if not go into early retirement in shame? Or, will you continue to stonewall any attempt at moving the 5e Warlord forward, even at the cost of denigrating 5e as an inferior system, unable to handle a capable, balanced, viable, martial class that can adequately contribute to a party in a version of the traditional support role, /and/ undercut it's laudable (if a little smarmy and kumbaya) goal of being a version of D&D for everyone who's ever loved D&D, that will bring our fractured little community back together?
 
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The question at least, in this little exchange, seems more like: Will you, Remathilis, encourage the designers to explore more of the potential of 5e by bringing us a 5e Warlord that is even better, covers more concepts, and generally rocks the casaba in a way that makes the 4e Warlord at least nod approvingly, if not go into early retirement in shame? Or, will you continue to stonewall any attempt at moving the 5e Warlord forward, even at the cost of denigrating 5e as an inferior system, unable to handle a capable, balanced, viable, martial class that can adequately contribute to a party in a version of the traditional support role, /and/ undercut it's laudable (if a little smarmy and kumbaya) goal of being a version of D&D for everyone who's ever loved D&D, that will bring our fractured little community back together?

First off, I'm not stonewalling. I have no say in what WotC does. If I did, Ravenloft would be the next AP and Rakasta's would be in the next UA article. My personal opposition to anything has little to do with anything.

As to the meat in of the your clearly biased question, I have no comment. You know my position. I've said it too many times. If it makes me a h4ter or somehow obstinate in your PoV, so be it. We've exhausted as far as this "compromise" can go. You won't except less than Total Victory, so I'll take your advice and avoid this class furthermore.
 

...encourage the designers to explore more of the potential of 5e by bringing us a 5e Warlord that is even better, covers more concepts, and generally rocks the casaba in a way that makes the 4e Warlord at least nod approvingly, if not go into early retirement in shame?
In another thread today someone was chastised for claiming that some pro-warlord advocates are seeking something broken and overly powerful WRT general 5e balance. Perhaps I should be sending them a link to this post for their benefit...
 
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I'm curious as to where the boundary between 'magical' and 'non-magical' is. Let's take the monk for example. Monks don't have spell slots or the spellcasting class feature, outside of the weird edge case of the Way of Four Elements subclass. They're at first glance a martial class. And yet, Ki is usually interpreted as being mystical in origin, and the class description says they are able to "magically harness the energy that flows in their bodies."

Is that too magical? Would a monk be banned from a non-magic campaign?
 

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