Spinning off from another thread, what sort of tweaks to the fighter class would support the Warlord play style? The purpose of this thread is to propose and critique minor variations on the fighter that would help.
The problem is that the Fighter is really painted into a DPR ('Striker') corner, design-wise, and that's not what a Warlord is.
The Fighter's DPR isn't just high (everyone can generate reasonable DPR), it based on multiple attacks, which, experience with every prior edition has shown, are a pretty tense/breakable way to deliver DPR. All it takes is a few static bonuses, or extra damage that can be added more than once/turn, and the top comes right off.
Taking away multiple attacks, the lion's share of the fighter's class features, is far more than any sub-class has done.
So you'd be talking unprecedented change, rather than 'tweaks.'
The main criteria a Warlord needs to fit, imo, is that it works as a Cleric (or Bard) replacement. Just like you don't give Clerics or Bards action surge/second wind/multiple attacks, you shouldn't give them to a Warlord.
You mean a 'leader?' 5e design really doesn't tend that way. The warlord gets to cleave close to it's concept. Yes, it should be a suitable replacement for either of those classes in the sense of in-combat healing/buffing, but in a lot of other ways it wouldn't be, anymore than they are complete replacements for eachother - no spellcaster /just/ does one role or one thing, Clerics and Bards both have lots of magical offense, for instance, but they're very different from eachother in the nature of those attack spells.
Yeah, a Battlemaster has those warlordish maneuvers. But that's basically the Eldritch Knight approach. You're still mostly a Fighter.
Well put. A warlord might use maneuvers like the Battlemaster, maybe not /quite/ like, but have many more to choose from, with several recharge types (including a couple at-will), and more powerful options.
The big question is not whether the Warlord as a full class can be made (I think we can all agree that a non-magical "full caster" class is easy enough to build)... but whether it has to be made and released in an official WotC product to "count"?
It's easier if people don't perpetuate the edition-war lie that 4e martial classes were casters.
Can someone else or some other company make a Warlord and would that satisfy people? Or does it HAVE to be WotC just so that no one ever has to argue with any potential DM about whether they can play it?
I would never want a DM - especially a 5e DM - to feel they 'must' accept a given class into their game. At this point, any new material is going to be deep in the 'option ghetto,' anyway. But, yes, if WotC wanted to farm the Warlord out, who cares - as long as the result is good.