D&D 5E powers and manuivers

[Neonchameleon]

Two things I'd definitely want to see for the Warlord because the open up entire playstyles are Brash Assault and Commander's Strike/Direct the Strike. The brash assaulting warlord is very fun and evocative, while the Lazylord opens up entire swathes of character archetypes.

 

[mellored]

Disadvantage on a save vs Sacred Flame certainly isn't more powerful Advantage setting up an Assassin.

Disadvantage on a cantrip would be ok to do at-will. And roughly equivalent to advantage on an attack.

But disadvantage on dominate monster, would not be good to have at-will.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Disadvantage on a cantrip would be ok to do at-will. And roughly equivalent to advantage on an attack. Maybe a single attack from a character who gets most of his damage potential by multi-attacking. But a single big-damage attack or an attack with a rider?

But disadvantage on dominate monster, would not be good to have at-will.

Currently, if a creature has disadvantage on his saves for whatever reason, it applies to any save, doesn't it? It is, afterall, an affect on the disadvantaged creature.

It seems to me like casting Dominate rather than Hold rather than Sacred Flame (or whatever) is a resource-management decisions, the difference in power is all based on that decision. Choosing a victim less able to resist is just part of making a good decision. It doesn't matter if disadvantage is caused by a daily, at-will, or improvised action, once you've expended the resource to take advantage of that disadvantage, the resource is gone.

 

[mellored]

Currently, if a creature has disadvantage on his saves for whatever reason, it applies to any save, doesn't it?

The only 2 disadvantage ability i know if is heightened...
Which cost 3 sorcerer points, and affects 1 save.

And contagion, which requires 1 attack and 3 failed saves before it goes into effect. And is a higher level ability.

I'm not saying you can't have an ability that gives disadvantage on a save. Just that it can't be at-will (unless it only applies to cantrips).

It seems to me like casting Dominate rather than Hold rather than Sacred Flame (or whatever) is a resource-management decisions, the difference in power is all based on that decision. Choosing a victim less able to resist is just part of making a good decision. It doesn't matter if disadvantage is caused by a daily, at-will, or improvised action, once you've expended the resource to take advantage of that disadvantage, the resource is gone.

It does matter.

Boosting 10 damage by 20% is +2 damage.
Boosting 100 damage by 20% is +20 damage.

Those are not equal.

Also many spells, like hold person, are save ends. So you can boost it again and again.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The only 2 disadvantage ability i know if is heightened...
Which cost 3 sorcerer points, and affects 1 save.

And contagion, which requires 1 attack and 3 failed saves before it goes into effect.

Huh. I'm surprised. Granting advantage is almost trivial - usually an action, but not much limited.

It does matter.

Boosting 10 damage by 20% is +2 damage.
Boosting 100 damage by 20% is +20 damage.

Those are not equal.

No, but the inequality comes entirely from the choice of using a 10-damage, presumably at-will resource, and a presumably much more limited 100 damage resource.

 

[mellored]

Huh. I'm surprised. Granting advantage is almost trivial - usually an action, but not much limited.

And there's a good reason for it.

No, but the inequality comes entirely from the choice of using a 10-damage, presumably at-will resource, and a presumably much more limited 100 damage resource.

The warlord should be dealing the same amount of damage in a party of fighters as it does in a party of casters.

It basically comes out as...

"As an action, you can deal 10 damage if you are adjacent to a fighter, or 100 damage if you are adjacent to a wizard."

Which is not good.

 

[Tony Vargas]

And there's a good reason for it.

The warlord should be dealing the same amount of damage in a party of fighters as it does in a party of casters.

Which means it should be able to proportionally enhance the damage potential of either. So, if the party is fighter's grinding out damage round after round, say, a 20% increase via damage-roll buffs and advantage and whatnot. Conversely, if damage is being done in limited-resource 'spikes' of larger single amounts, still by about 20%, or exactly what your 10-hp cantrip vs 100-hp big spell example, above, did.

You've convinced me: any warlord ability, even at-will, that can grant advantage to or buff damaging attacks vs AC should also impose disadvantage on saves (I'm guessing DEX saves) vs damaging spells. So the benefit of the Warlord is about the same to both casters and non-casters. (Though, I think it might be nice to have some sub-classes work better with attackers than casters, and one that specializes in helping casters.)

OK, no, wait, actually I still have a reservation: the warlord should be able to be an adequate support-contributor for a party, even if it's the sole support character, and that does require quite a bit of flexibility, because the support role is, by nature, reactive (it's most needed when pat strategies have fallen through, so you can't rely on a just one-trick pony, even an optimized one). With that flexibility, couldn't a warlord depend on choosing or using different abilities as part of a party of mostly casters than one that's all-martial, instead of having abilities that individually worked equally well in either case? Since it's not going to be a simplistic class, either way, that is.

 

[mellored]

You've convinced me: any warlord ability, even at-will, that can grant advantage to or buff damaging attacks vs AC should also impose disadvantage on saves (I'm guessing DEX saves) vs damaging spells. So the benefit of the Warlord is about the same to both casters and non-casters. (Though, I think it might be nice to have some sub-classes work better with attackers than casters, and one that specializes in helping casters.)

I agree a warlord should be able to support both parties equally.

And you could simply give a to-hit bonus to everyone in 4e because everyone had uniform power structure. However, since classes are different in 5e, they you can't do it the same way.

If you had a 10 turn day...
And a wizard deals 100 damage on 1 turn, and 11 damage each other turn, he ends up with 200 damage.
If a fighter does 20 damage a turn, for 10 turns he deals 200 damage.

The wizard does 5 turns worth of damage in 1 turn.
So boosting that 1 spell, is equivalent to boosting a fighter 5 times. Much more powerful.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I agree a warlord should be able to support both parties equally.

And you could simply give a to-hit bonus to everyone in 4e because everyone had uniform power structure. However, since classes are different in 5e, they you can't do it the same way.

5e may be less structured in that sense, but it's also that much more open to new designs and novel mechanics, so there's got to be a way, probably quite a few ways...

If you had a 10 turn day...
And a wizard deals 100 damage on 1 turn, and 11 damage each other turn, he ends up with 200 damage.
If a fighter does 20 damage a turn, for 10 turns he deals 200 damage.

The wizard does 5 turns worth of damage in 1 turn.
So boosting that 1 spell, is equivalent to boosting a fighter 5 times. Much more powerful.

But, if you boost both of them every turn, by the same percentage, the net benefit is the same.

 

[mellored]

5e may be less structured in that sense, but it's also that much more open to new designs and novel mechanics, so there's got to be a way, probably quite a few ways...

Agreed.
The upside overtakes the down side.

But, if you boost both of them every turn, by the same percentage, the net benefit is the same.

Yes.
But why would you do that?

You would boost the wizard on his big spells, and the fighter the rest of the time.
Or worse, warlord + 4 wizards who take turns, and you spend all day boosting big spells, never the little stuff.

Or if your talking about a generic "all allies within 30' get +2 to hit or increase their DC by 2 all day", then you could have 1 warlord empowering 300 people.

Which is fun and fitting, but not balanced.