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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GreenTengu" data-source="post: 6339122" data-attributes="member: 6777454">Hmm... it seems I might have tried to end the dialogue too soon.Okay, maybe I simply didn't explain things properly.You need to be aware of loopholes when you are creating something. Because a nasty, vicious loophole sinks just... everything.Now, when you base your main class features on a particular skill, you run into an issue. Skills can be boosted by things that you wouldn't want the class's main power focus to be boosted by.You should realize from the Basic D&D you have right now that "Advantage on skill X" and "Advantage on Save Y" are some of the default racial features in the new D&D 5E.Furthermore, there is a Rogue feature that allows you to get double your skill bonus on checks.Now, imagine if you were going to play a mage and yet by multiclassing in another class for a level or two or selecting a specific race, suddenly all opponents are rolling at a disadvantage on their saves against all their spells.That is a "well damn, this is broken" moment for you there. Even if the class was perfectly balanced in all other ways, that little combo there is going to shatter it-- and in the case you have, in many ways what you have created is dreadfully underwhelming except that when you pair it with that particular combo suddenly some of the "uhhh... okay... kind of weird" skills become "automatically defeat every encounter" or close to it.And you are right that 5E isn't 4E. Which means you can't base things on MMORPGs or video game logic.What outside of video game logic (or maybe card game logic?) would allow you to make sense of "okay, so this character is going to challenge the enemy 'leader' (a painfully ill defined term) to a one-on-one battle and if ANY other party member decides to do anything but sit there silently, then all the enemies get a free attack against the party"...I mean... what is that? Come on. Surely you know better than that. You've got to know better than that.How do you imagine that playing out in a cinematic scenario? The Warlord says "Hey!! I challenge you!!" and the "leader" says "OOooohh yesssss..." and the entire rest of the party and suddenly a big arena drops down around the two and all the rest of the party and everyone on the villain's side all of their own accord go and fill the stadium's stands and begin cheering their side.Oh, and if anyone else in the party throws something from the stand then the party says "aww... okay, we're caught." and stands there and let's the enemies all punch them?Maybe that's a strawman, but the way you have that ability written-- that's how it sounds it should work. Some sort of weird world-breaking, reality altering meta-ability that is utterly inconsistent with the entire way the game works. And the hireling thing is unnecessary. You've got to be aware that the PHB is out in a month and that traditionally ALL classes have access to hirelings. Why build into the class a high end ability that basically gives them a worse version of what all classes are going to get for free soon enough anyway? And what does it even do, really? A high level ability that lets you get a level 1 idiot a month who isn't going to survive a single attack from your level 10 allies? That's your idea of a class's supreme ability? You want to compare that to what other classes get at that level?But, I also get the idea that.. well, maybe you don't actually get what the Warlord was supposed to be about in the first place.Maybe 4E codified the "roles" in a strict sense and built their classes around it, but it was merely acknowledging what had always already existed. Perhaps not in the form they were in 4E.But, in any edition from 1st-3rd, you had a basic party set up. The Fighter ruled at low levels and had the best armor and equipment which allowed them the best survival-rate. If the party was hit with a big blast, the Fighter was the most likely to survive it and was ideally the one who the enemies directed their attacks at as the other party members (buffs aside) would drop quickly if they became the main focus of enemy attacks. Of course, at the highest levels spell caster abilities were just so  over-the-top and enemies did such insane damage or were so liberal with save-or-die that Fighters were no longer needed. On the other hand, the Fighter's damage has usually been so painfully low that well.. they kind of suck the higher your level goes.Rogues began as Thiefs. Skill monkeys who (even though at low levels they sucked at everything) had exclusive access to basically every single ability needed to be able to properly navigate a dungeon or whatever. They alone could sneak, climb walls, spot and disable traps, pick locks, etc. Without a Thief your party was pretty screwed-- although eventually the Wizards could pretty much do every one of their abilities better with a spell, they supposedly had an important role in the party (saving the wizard's spell-slots I guess).And then you have the Wizard who has the game-breaking abilities that allow them to do well... everything better than the Fighter and Rogue/Thief. But primarily they are focused on doing crazy amounts of damage. On the other hand, you target them and short of contingency spells that make them invincible, they die so quick that all that game-breaking cosmic power hardly seems worth it.Then finally the Cleric. The Cleric has the role in the party, refined each edition from 1st to 3rd, of extending the party's ability to fight and saving them from defeat primarily by restoring hit points. They can be focused on damage and compete with the wizard or focused on buffing and make themselves the Fighter's rival-- but, the main exclusive job they have is to keep everyone alive and keep those hit points from hitting 0-- and reviving people, even from death, if they do.Now, there are crazy amounts of Fighter alternatives - Monk, Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger. It is really easy to do a class with good AC and good hit points that can take a crazy beating and keep going, or can otherwise keep the enemy from reaching the party.The Wizard has alternatives - Sorcerer, Warlock, Witch, Necromancer, Artificer, Psion. Again, lots of classes with crap armor and terrible hit points that can do crazy damage and bring death to anyone they meet.The Rogue has some alternatives - Bard, Illusionist, Assassin. Again, classes that can just handle all the basic maintenance tasks of exploring the dungeon.But the Cleric? Well... Druid. Maybe Shaman? Basically if your party is basically REQUIRED to have someone devoted to a god and going off on religious rants or they are going to run out of hit points so quickly that they will be lucky to handle two encounters a day.The entire point of the Warlord was to be able to have a non-magical, non-deity-focused Cleric. The other point was to have a class that could use Intelligence and Charisma without being magical. Because plenty of people in fiction are successful being primarily charismatic and intelligent without needing magic, but it has never been possible in D&D. Unless one was a spell-caster, those were dump-stats. That's the sole purpose of the class being born. As you can see, there are WAY too many Fighter stand-ins as it is. It and the Wizard need no more "alternatives" because we have way more of those than we ever needed.Again, surely you know these things already. You can't have been utterly unaware of them. Just think it more through carefully. Instead of building into the class the crazy abilities you would want the class to have while utterly ignoring how it interacts with every other player and every other class in the game, you need to consider it within the focus of the game and look for any loopholes you might be accidentally building in.I spent 4 hours creating a version here for you that is far more closely based on abilities that already exist in the game. Of course, I am hardly satisfied with my version either as it has a few too many abilities and gains way too many at any given level. And I am not even sure I should have given it the multiattack, but... with some work I could refine it into something that would be well-balanced with other classes.But... maybe I am being too harsh. Maybe this is your first stab as a project. So, you know-- keep at it.  Besides, the PHB IS going to have what you call a "Warlord" as a subclass of Fighter. There is also going to be a subclass of Bard that will be much closer to what I want except that their abilities will still revolve around playing a piano and singing lounge music in the middle of a fight.</blockquote>

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