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

[Prakriti]

why not just move on?

I'm not sure why you singled me out with this post. I'd say I've made useful and helpful contributions to this thread. But to answer your question: I'm here because I'm learning things and having fun.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The Storm Herald wasn't just a UA option. It made it into Xanathar's Guide, an official product.

So, if that was going to be a problem, where was the explosion of criticism when UA asked for feedback?

And, honestly, people did defect from 4e to PF1, and stick around and grouse about 4e in spite of having moved on, quite a lot... heck, they're still doin' it. So the hypothesis that maybe a bunch of folks just quietly (for the first time ever) exited 5e because of a barbarian sub-class seems implausible.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm not sure why you singled me out with this post. I'd say I've made useful and helpful contributions to this thread. But to answer your question: I'm here because I'm learning things and having fun.

If it makes you feel better, I’m not just singling you out. In the 20s pages, I was having a similar conversation with others. I just don’t know what you’re going after by continuing. I guess I assumed it’s not fun to be attacked, or to make others angry, or to go in circles over and over. Guess I was wrong in that assumption. But it doesn’t sound like anyone else is having as much fun as you.

 

[Prakriti]

So the hypothesis that maybe a bunch of folks just quietly (for the first time ever) exited 5e because of a barbarian sub-class seems implausible.

Just to be clear, the original post wasn't just about the barbarian sub-class. It was about a lot of other things that have been officially added to the game without apparent push-back. The poster was arguing that that lack of push-back could be taken for silent approval. I was merely pointing out the problems with that logic.

 

[Don Durito]

The thing about silent disapproval is that it's silent.

If a nerd wails in a forest does he really wail at all?

 

[Azzy]

Exactly! Finally, someone says it! Including the warlord as a class would be a category error. It's like making a "Fighter alignment" or a "an evil stepmother class." Warlords are no better represented by the class system than elves would be. That doesn't mean you can't play one. It just means that you need to find a better way of incorporating them (or representing them) in the current architecture of the game.

Thank you for illustrating my point.

 

[Azzy]

It's a fair question, but for me, it has a fairly obvious answer: because I want D&D to stay D&D, and not become some other game. The more stuff that's added to the game that's not-D&D, the harder it is for me to find and play the sort of D&D games that I want to play.

And yes, these things do matter. They directly affect me and my table. I don't like having to exclude official material or tell my players no. But WotC adding silly things to the game like Dragonborn (dear lord, why...) and warlords means that I have to do just that. I don't like having to do it. Stopping it from happening more is 100% in my best interests as a DM and a player. And that's why I oppose the introduction of the warlord into 5E.

Keep on proving my point.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

What I'm saying is that you are just a guilty of being an exclusionary gatekeeper as the people you dismiss. TBH, I don't think that there is much understanding that needs to go on; some people want something, other people don't, and people have reasons. But it's certainly not cool to demonize your fellow D&D players simply because they disagree about design. It's just a game.

YMMV.

Well, no. Wanting things to be included that I want to use, as options, isn't the same as wanting them excluded because I don't personally like them. I'd never try to argue that the game should never have stuff like conquest paladins or dominate person and spells like it. There is nothing more utterly despicable to me a desire to dominate others, but it's a game. I can pretend Professor X isn't blatantly and salvageable evil when i read X-Men comics, and I can pretend that an Enchanter Wizard isn't the same when another player plays one, because it's a game.

Someone telling me that warlords shouldn't be part of the game because they don't like having to tell their players they can't play the class they don't like is not comparable to me saying I'd like warlords to be in the game, and that they can just not use them if they don't like them.

Lastly, saying that someone is being jerk for being a jerk isn't demonizing them.

 

[Hussar]

"I don't want Warlords added, because I don't want the addition of any new classes. In fact, I think we could probably do with fewer classes. I'm more of the Bauhaus/Moldvay style."

See? It's really not hard. This goes for just about anything; "I don't want prestige classes, because I don't like the concept of prestige classes."
"Well, what about THIS prestige class?"
"No thank you. I don't want prestige classes."

Either you get it, or you don't. But the point is, you shouldn't have to get it to respect a difference of opinion.
/snip

And, if this was the argument being put forward, then fair enough. But, why isn't there the sturm and drang over Alchemists? Never minding that in the past five years, WotC has added, what, about 50 new sub-classes? Officially, and not just UA. So, why is it only in the Warlord threads that we see "I don't want the addition of any new classes"?

WotC IS going to add new classes. We know that. Asking for a popular class to be brought up to date is hardly an outrageous request.

If folks were consistently against the addition of any classes, then, fair enough. I can totally understand that POV, even if I don't share it. But, it's not consistent. And, again, you're trying to paint this as if this EXACT same conversation hasn't been going on for ten years. Ever since the early days of 4e, I've had this IDENTICAL, word for word conversation with the same sorts of people who have never picked up a 4e book, have zero idea what the class actually represents, have zero experience with the class, but, for some reason, seem to think that their completely unfounded and unsupported opinion should carry weight and then repeatedly crash into every single warlord thread, over and over and over and over again, expecting to be treated with respect and proclaiming with wide eyed innocence how they are just trying to protect the fun.

It's trolling. Pure and simple. If you've (and again, I mean this to anyone reading this, not you personally @lowkey13) never played 4e, never seen a warlord in play, then you have ZERO right to an opinion. You're talking out of your ass and I'm tired of having to educate people yet again who can't be bothered to actually pick up a book and RTFM and learn some actual facts before spouting off and derailing another thread yet again for the umpteenth time.

It's incredibly frustrating. And, for some reason, it only really seems to happen in warlord threads. Psions? They can be talked about until the cows come home. No problems. Alchemists? Not a worry. But put Warlords on the table? Oh HELL no, that must be fought tooth and nail and buried under reams of garbage drive by thread crapping until it goes away.

 

[Undrave]

Exactly! Finally, someone says it! Including the warlord as a class would be a category error.

I still don’t get why it would be a category error? What EXACTLY do you think a Warlord does?!

Oh, the Ranger totally doesn't belong in D&D. Completely superfluous.

But Tony... if the Ranger isn’t in DnD it just wouldn’t exist at all!