D&D 5E The Warlord shouldn't be a class... change my mind!

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Sacrosanct]

As lowkey13 mentioned, I don't think it's in alignment with 5e design to have a subclass alter which attribute is important. However, I think you can have the maneuvers/abilities be impacted by various attributes. So maybe there are a half dozen maneuvers that are impacted by INT, and others impacted by WIS. That way you can build your warlord around a key attribute without having it mandated

 

[Undrave]

Re: temp HP, I support that much more than straight up healing. I know for some, there is little or no distinction between the two, but in my mind when I visualize what a warlord does, it's all about inspiration, and temp hp models that much better than actual healing of hp. IMO anyway. Obviously YMMV

Of course, Temp HP would be the healing the core class does, but I do think there should be a subclass with some actual healing (i.e. Combat Medic), and I also think there should be out-of-combat healing abilities. Basically a way for the Warlord to improve the number of HP regained by their allies when they use their HD... I'd give a 'Panacea' ability to the Combat Medic or something where they spend Healers Kit charges to do it.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I could totally get behind that.

 

[Undrave]

Well, if you want more substantive feedback from my perspective (and I really did mean that this is an impressive first draft off the top of your head):

1. It's not that you're required to have the subclass/archetypes; however, a common thing that I see is that a lot of Warlord fans like to make subclasses that have different key-ed abilities. (This is an int-build, this is a wisdom build, etc.). This seems to go against the core class building ideas in 5e; a class should have a primary ability (or two primary abilities) and two saving proficiencies. The subclass does not alter this in the core (PHB) rules.

This doesn't mean that other abilities may not be important to a subclass (intelligence and the Eldritch Knight being an easy example), but I would be hesitant to say that a subclass is "based" on a different ability than the main class, since that gets away from the general design of the core classes. Know what I mean?

Oh I didn't think it would be an obligatory thing, but I think they would just gain benefits to their features based on a stat and that stat would be different per subclass. Like how the Eldritch Knight gains from having good INT but you technically could make one with 0 INT, and the Battlemaster has Rally that relies on CHA. I'd just make the benefit speak for themselves and let the players decide if they want to invest or not, with some features just not using attributes at all. I'd probably grant an extra saving throw based on subclass in the later levels tho.

2. I think it is unlikely that you'll get a "War" or "Martial" splat book. So you'd need either a setting (Dragonlance?) or an AP (like Saltmarsh and seafaring).

Yeah but I'm not familiar enough with the old DnD settings to know where it would fit best, I was just thinking how these ideas would be grouped together.

3. People say that a lot of Warlord features are spread throughout 5e; you'd need to be more specific about what you'd want for that. Something like healing (Paladin lay on hands, Monk's healing) isn't a big ask. Other issues like initiative and modifying what other characters are doing will require more thought. It would also require a great deal of work within the action economy of 5e, which is limited (Action, Reaction, Bonus Action), especially if you're already mucking with initiative.

Well the Battlemaster has Commander's Strike, Rally, Distracting Strike and Maneuvering Strike.

The Purple Dragon Knight has abilities to spread the Fighter class features around.

There's the Inspiring Leader and Healer feats

The Mastermind can use 'Help' at a distance of 15 feet and use it as a Bonus Action.

Bards have Inspiration and Guidance is also a thing

As for initiative, I was thinking of a flat bonus to initiative in a certain radius (+Warlord INT x2) and then maybe grant the Warlord the ability to delay as a unique 'schtick' without having to ready an action, something nobody else can do.

4. I remain concerned about the TOTM/Grid implications. There may be a lot features that 5e has that you can use, but it's also true that some features in 5e are much more grid-friendly than others. (For example, mobile is a great feat if you use grid combat, and a mediocre feat at best without a grid). While 5e does a good job, overall, of balancing them, putting too many "grid" features in the purview of one class would make it useless for a lot of players. Others have mentioned that 13th Age has a successful Warlord-style TOTM class, that might be something to borrow from.

I'd like to look into 13th Age for sure.

5. Finally, if you wanted to do a deep dive, I would probably take either a monk chassis and swap out abilities and see how it goes, or take a spellcaster chassis and use "equivalent" spells. The monk might be better, and you can switch out "ki" for, I don't know, "yelling arms on points."

HA! C'mon, I had to put a joke in somewhere. Did I get that right?

Hah! Interesting idea. The Monk is a bit of a wild card with not a very orderly structure to its abilities so it could work?[/quote][/QUOTE]

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Well, if you want more substantive feedback from my perspective (and I really did mean that this is an impressive first draft off the top of your head):

1. It's not that you're required to have the subclass/archetypes; however, a common thing that I see is that a lot of Warlord fans like to make subclasses that have different key-ed abilities. (This is an int-build, this is a wisdom build, etc.). This seems to go against the core class building ideas in 5e; a class should have a primary ability (or two primary abilities) and two saving proficiencies. The subclass does not alter this in the core (PHB) rules.

Whilst I agree with you that this isn't normally done (compare Pathfinder, which does it all the time), I think it would probably be necessary in this case, to avoid needing to add two base classes (!), since you need to cover at least two key archetypes - the charismatic leader and the cunning tactician.

2. I think it is unlikely that you'll get a "War" or "Martial" splat book.

I don't think it's any more or less likely than anything else. It might even suit parent company Hasbro to do a boxed tie-in wargame.

4. I remain concerned about the TOTM/Grid implications. There may be a lot features that 5e has that you can use, but it's also true that some features in 5e are much more grid-friendly than others. (For example, mobile is a great feat if you use grid combat, and a mediocre feat at best without a grid). While 5e does a good job, overall, of balancing them, putting too many "grid" features in the purview of one class would make it useless for a lot of players. Others have mentioned that 13th Age has a successful Warlord-style TOTM class, that might be something to borrow from.

I agree, WotC are never going to go for any class, subclass or non-optional rule that requires a grid. Everything needs to be ToTM compatible.

5. Finally, if you wanted to do a deep dive, I would probably take either a monk chassis and swap out abilities and see how it goes, or take a spellcaster chassis and use "equivalent" spells. The monk might be better, and you can switch out "ki" for, I don't know, "yelling arms on points."

Tactical Points. Or Tactical Dice, with a battlemaster/bard model. There are other options though.

 

[Tony Vargas]

As lowkey13 mentioned, I don't think it's in alignment with 5e design to have a subclass alter which attribute is important. However, I think you can have the maneuvers/abilities be impacted by various attributes. So maybe there are a half dozen maneuvers that are impacted by INT, and others impacted by WIS. That way you can build your warlord around a key attribute without having it mandated

Which attribute is 'important' is pretty flexible in 5e, anyway, especially for weapon-using classes, as they can fairly seamlessly go DEX or STR. And, I believe sub-classes can & do have abilities that key off an attribute, which, along with what you describe above - essentially how it worked in 4e, anyway - could give different sub-classes different 'de-facto' secondary attributes (primary for a 5e weapon-user generally being STR or DEX, of course - not that I should be repeating myself in such a short post).

I agree with you that probably 75% of what a warlord does is already in the game on some level, and what I seem to be gathering from these discussions is a disconnect between "The warlord is already there between class/subclass/feats" and "Us warlord fans are ignored and forsaken."

There's no disconnect. Really, virtually all the sorts of things the warlord did are already present in 5e, in various forms, often no more than one very weak example of each, scattered about in ways that can't be combined into one character to do even a fraction of what a straightforward Warlord build could do.

So there's two simple, valid, easy to understand points being made there. One is that objections to the sorts of things, in concept, the warlord needs to do being 'wrong' for the game are clearly disproven by those things already being present in the game. The other is that there are not enough nor viable enough such things that can be pulled together to create even a pallid shadow of a warlord character.

To help you understand that, imagine 5e had no actual caster classes, but did have the Arcane Trickster, who had access to 16 first level spells, and a fighter 'crusader' sub-class that got Cure Wounds, Command, and Shield as spell-like abilities. There's also a Sage background, an Adept feat that gives you a choice of a couple of cantrips, and few other odds and ends scattered about. Wanting to play a Wizard or Cleric under those circumstances would be like wanting to play a Warlord in 5e, as it stands now.

temp HP, I support that much more than straight up healing. I know for some, there is little or no distinction between the two, but in my mind when I visualize what a warlord does, it's all about inspiration, and temp hp models that much better than actual healing of hp.

Temp hps and hp restoration are very different mechanics in spite of both being hp-denominated, most clearly, the former is proactive & the latter reactive, and both are vital to a decent support character. It happens, IIRC, that the 5e cleric does a lot more healing than temp-granting, for instance, and it might be interesting if the Warlord had the reverse emphasis.

Another interesting point about support classes is that they need a fair amount of flexibility, because their contributions are most critical when things are not going well. Cleric & Druid, and, though a half-caster, Paladin, are neo-Vanican, the most versatile of all power set-ups, the Bard is particularly versatile for a known-spell caster. The Warlord is going to need to be a lot more versatile than the traditional Fighter.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Well the Battlemaster has Commander's Strike, Rally, Distracting Strike and Maneuvering Strike.

The Purple Dragon Knight has abilities to spread the Fighter class features around.

There's the Inspiring Leader and Healer feats

The Mastermind can use 'Help' at a distance of 15 feet and use it as a Bonus Action.

Bards have Inspiration and Guidance is also a thing

There are some spells and paladin auras you could repurpose as well.

The problem is, all of these things have already been rejected by warlord fans as insufficient (With the UA alternative class abilities and feats you can cobble those battlemaster manoeuvres onto a PDK). Colour me dubious you could make something from this that would satisfy even a small fraction of warlord fans. I would be fine with it though.

As for initiative, I was thinking of a flat bonus to initiative in a certain radius (+Warlord INT x2) and then maybe grant the Warlord the ability to delay as a unique 'schtick' without having to ready an action, something nobody else can do.

I would go for: At the start of each battle you may add your proficiency bonus to the initiative rolls of a number of allies you can see within 60' (including yourself) equal to your intelligence mod (minimum 1). You may do this before or after you see the rolls. I don't think that would break anything.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Paul Farquhar]

2. But then there's going to be the opposite issue; while 5e has almost no niche protection, you might get pushback from people who are fans of the various classes and subclasses you are taking abilities from if you stripmine all of their best abilities to put into a single class.

The PDK fans?

Both of them?