So what do we need from the Warlord?

[Miladoon]

... (and why the Battlemaster and the Cunning Rogue fail miserably).

Did I miss this part of the OP?

EDIT: Second question. So what player, in a low magic game, gets cajoled into the warlord?

Third question. Wouldn't the feat delivery system work? Or a list of more maneuvers for the Battlemaster? Posters say this is not enough but I am not convinced.

 

[mellored]

EDIT: Second question. So what player, in a low magic game, gets cajoled into the warlord?

Probably somewhat. At least as much as someone is cajoled to play a healer now.

Third question. Wouldn't the feat delivery system work? Or a list of more maneuvers for the Battlemaster? Posters say this is not enough but I am not convinced.

If you made the warlord entirely feats, then you would need a class that is basically feats.
Doable, yes, but why?

And adding more maneuvers for the battlemaster is like adding more spells for the eldrich knight.
It still won't be a wizard because too much is invested in multi-attack.

 

[Miladoon]

I kinda face-palm the theory that a warlord can not be a fighter because fighters are too good at fighting. But, I will move to the feats question.

Because feats are something that any class can take. The feat system could offer items 1 and 2, from the OPs post, to any class, low or high magic.

 

[Tony Vargas]

AD&D you did not heal over night though or get hit dice based healing.

Making clerical healing that much more critical, yes.

Otherwise see previous comment about the expectations of the amount of combat or otherwise dangerous stuff.

Saw it, but I see no reason to throw away all my experiences playing AD&D for 15 years, and the similar experiences of everyone I've ever talked to in person about that aspect of the game, based on the unverifiable anecdotes of one anonymous forumite. Nor do I see 'simply' adjusting combats/day as a solution, as doing so impacts both class and encounter balance. You're looking at major re-tooling of the game, if you want to greatly reduce available healing.

In regards to magical healing I am finding it hard to work out how much healing the warlord should have.

You could start by figuring out the magical healing that each of the primary magical-support classes (Cleric, Bard, Druid - maybe Paladin) can provide. There's more than just Cure Wounds to take into account, so it might not be quite as easy as it sounds. Then take an average or guesstimate at what level of non-magical hp restoration it would take to keep a party going to a comparable degree...

Sounds more like a reverse vampire to me.

Heh, or an empathic healer...

I think a simple "ally can spend a hit die, they can only benefit from this once per short rest" would be enough for the base warlord. Just enough to get someone off the ground, with no extra healing.

Some extra healing somewhere is needed, too, to see a party without other support through a standard 'day.'

EDIT: Second question. So what player, in a low magic game, gets cajoled into the warlord?

Whichever one (or two) doesn't feel like playing a beatstick or backstabber. Really, at this point, the selection of non-magical classes is so restricted and DPR-focused, the problem would be keeping the Warlords in the party to a reasonable 1 or 2.

Third question. Wouldn't the feat delivery system work? Or a list of more maneuvers for the Battlemaster?

More battlemaster maneuvers wouldn't matter until higher level (he can still have only 3), and the sub-class (the structure of a fighter sub-class, in general) simply lacks the resource base and versatility to fill primary-support needs of a party. Feats likewise kick in too late (4th) and do too little to cover primary-support. I suppose you could have a whole party of variant-human Battlemasters each with a different hypothetical support feat, and all with a heal-from-zero 'maneuver,' and maybe get by - if nothing else, they'd kill most things very quickly - but that'd hardly be enabling the play style, just a bizarre hypothetical corner case.

 

[Orlax]

That seems almost excessively punishing for the warlord to use their abilities, especially if it comes at the cost of their own ability to heal.

It seems that there could be a set of healing options available for the warlord, all different maneuvers or class features:
1) Allow one (or more) ally to use their own HD in-combat.
2) An "inspiration/superiority die" that the warlord grants to an ally for their use for healing at any point. (Allies could even hypothetically use that die in a myriad of ways: forced re-rolls, saving throws, resistance, or other forms of healing/mitigation, etc.)
3) A more conventional heal that requires touch.
4) An out-of-combat heal.
5) And perhaps what we may need is a maneuver that turns unused temp HP into real HP after combat.

Simply options for a robust healing toolkit.

Sounds more like a reverse vampire to me.


I think a simple "ally can spend a hit die, they can only benefit from this once per short rest" would be enough for the base warlord. Just enough to get someone off the ground, with no extra healing.

Then make an inspirational subclass that boost healing (+cha for each die spent).

Okay quoting both at the same time so I can make expansions.

First and foremost I'll address why it isn't using the ally's hit die. The point of healing from a cleric (or bard, or ranger, or paladin) is to give a character more health than they would have in a day over and beyond their own hit points and hit dice. So I definitely want whatever healing a warlord offers to be over and above a character's hit dice most definitely. I felt having the warlord donate their hit dice to others was an interesting use of limitation on the healing. I can heal someone a number of times per day equal to my character level essentially. It also allows for interesting multi classing interaction where the character of the warlord changes it's healing capabilities. I'm one that heals by personality. If I'm a big hearty barbarian when I tell my allies to walk it off they are more likely able to walk it off just to live up to the example I'm setting. The reason I don't feel the healing ability is punishing to the warlord himself is because I've given him a hit die that is larger than he should have. Almost everyone agrees the warlord should be a d8 hit die. I've gone to d10 because he's going to spend a decent number of his own daily health towards his allies.

 

[MoonSong]

Did I miss this part of the OP?

EDIT: Second question. So what player, in a low magic game, gets cajoled into the warlord?

Third question. Wouldn't the feat delivery system work? Or a list of more maneuvers for the Battlemaster? Posters say this is not enough but I am not convinced.

SOme players don't need to be forced to do the support, I was born to play support and love every second of it. Now, the Battlemaster is not balanced to do support, a Battlemaster's actions are at a premium, too much personal power. If we give the BM the power to heal, and support, we create a one-pc-army, a soloist rather than a team player. The problem with feats is the same, feats can never get as good as a class feature -they are at rock bottom of the priority- so by going with feats you can never get even close to what a cleric can do, they also suffer from long long times to come online, having to wait 12+ levels to have something looking kinda like a warlord is too much.

 

[Zardnaar]

Sounds like you guys want to much. Cleric levels of healing a d10 hit duce plus lots of manuveurs.

Clerucs give up multiple attacks and deal middling damage with non spell attacks and have a d8 for hit dice.

Alot of warlord threads basically look like outright blatant powergaming.

I think thats why people have problems with the warlord. You either break the game or have a lesser power version if the 4E one.

 

[Aldarc]

Sounds like you guys want to much. Cleric levels of healing a d10 hit duce plus lots of manuveurs.

Clerucs give up multiple attacks and deal middling damage with non spell attacks and have a d8 for hit dice.

Alot of warlord threads basically look like outright blatant powergaming.

I think thats why people have problems with the warlord. You either break the game or have a lesser power verdion if the 4E one.

Really? To me it sounds like you are conglomerating multiple people's separate ideas into one imagined monstrosity of your creation. For example, Zardnaar, how many people in this thread want a d10 HD for the warlord? Or how many people in this thread want "cleric levels of healing"? So perhaps people would have less problems with the warlord were they to read with a little more care and far less hyperbole.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

Really? To me it sounds like you are conglomerating multiple people's separate ideas into one imagined monstrosity of your creation.

Isn't that sorta the problem? All the disparate needs have to be addressed. All of your desires need to be mashed together. Otherwise we're right back to having a contingent of warlord fans unhappy with the final product.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Sounds like you guys want to much.

Stop and think about how /you/ sound.

Cleric levels of healing a d10 hit duce plus lots of manuveurs.

Clerucs give up multiple attacks and deal middling damage with non spell attacks and have a d8 for hit dice.

I'd picture a Warlord having d8 HD, and no at-will Extra Attacks. That's what corresponds most closely to the original concept of the class, since it wasn't a 'striker' at all. Extra Attacks would have been very much a striker features, and a problematic one, at that. One reason the Fighter doesn't work as a chassis for the Warlord is that too much of it's features are tied up in consistent DPR and toughness far in excess of what the Warlord needs to do 24/7.

Alot of warlord threads basically look like outright blatant powergaming.

When people throw out ideas, you can conceivably imagine /all/ those ideas being used, while ignoring ideas about how they might be limited, and come to that conclusion. You'd be way off base in doing that, since the class is not being designed by committee on the boards, we're just trying to spur WotC to develop it, and they'll hopefully put as much effort into and enjoy as much success balancing the Warlord as they have with the other classes.

Besides, DMs are Empowered to deal with any balance issues that slip through.

It's not a meaningful concern.

I think thats why people have problems with the warlord. You either break the game or have a lesser power version if the 4E one.

I think you're looking at it from a certain point of view that prevents you from seeing it clearly. The reality is that a direct port of a 4e Warlord (any 4e AEDU class, really), would be wildly under-powered in 5e. 5e has vastly increased the flexibility and availability of daily resources - which all the extant 5e support classes use heavily, and any implementation of the Warlord concept would have to be balanced against that, building from the concept to be viable in 5e, whether being constricted by the obsolete confines of AEDU and Role.