Water, water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink

[Jester David]

Both had rules for inherent bonuses that reduced or eliminated magic item dependency, though that's of secondary interest.

Where was this rule for 3e? I don't even recall one in Unearthed Arcana.

But, more relevantly, was it in the core rulebooks? Because when comparing 5e to other game systems one has to remember 5th Edition only has the core rulebooks and one campaign setting/splatbook hybrid. So it's unfair to compare the rule options for an entire edition published over a half-dozen years with a dozen sourcebooks with 5e after 18 months and a single extra product.

3e lacked formal roles

Very true. However, the game was "balanced" around the assumption of party with a fighter, rogue, cleric, and wizard. That was the baseline. So while there were not formal named roles, magic was assumed.

and controller was the most dispensable role.

Whether or not an experienced party could kludge together a functional party despite the absence of a controller is irrelevant. It was still an assumption of the game.

Oh, and having run for a group lacking a controller, it definitely bit them in the ass a few times. Groups of minions could rip them apart without a ranged AoE option.
I imagine a DM could design adventures specifically to avoid situations where a controller would be handy. But that, in essence, is homebrewing and customizing the system. You can do the exact same thing to work around the absence or a healer or a tank in a party.

4e worked seamlessly whether you included items or used inherent bonuses,

Again, what page of the PHB or DMG are inherent bonuses on?
And while the math still works, characters are underpowered as they lose the secondary bonuses of magic item, and milestones have significantly less potency. It worked but it certainly wasn't perfect.

5e offers very few non-caster options (5 out of 38 sub-classes in the PH), and there's not a lot of variety among those options. They're all primarily focused on contributing DPR, whether it's via multi-attacking, rage or SA. But, 5e does have HD & overnight healing, and with a little tweaking, they could be adequate for handling healing over the course of the day even without magic items - all it needs is another primarily-non-casting class or two to open up a wider range of capabilities & contributions and it's there.

3e doesn't have subclasses, so only the rogue, barbarian, and fighter are nonmagical and there's not a lot of diversity there. All three are also pretty focused on DPR. Heck, the only unique thing the 3e (and 2e) fighter gets is Weapon Specialization, which is pure damage.
This also comes down to how you define the barbarian's rage and its powers. While (Ex) by default it's pretty darn magical, especially in 4e/5e.

(Comparing the 5e fighter to past fighters has actually convinced me that the class is significantly more flexible than it's ever been before. While it's never going to be the best support character or controller, it will do in a pinch and is certainly better than nothing.)

So you're complaining about 5e not excelling at a play style every past edition pretty much also ignored. A play style that D&D has never been great at replicating

More than any other edition, 5e is in a good place for no-magic or low magic campaigns, as that's workable with just the core rules, as magic items are not assumed and there's variety in the non-magical classes. You can have an entire party of non-magical classes, each with their own unique abilities. Much better than you could with just the PHB and a Forgotten Realms Player's Guide in either 3.5e or 4e. Heck, with the options in SCAG you can have eight or nine very different PCs without even getting into differentiation by races, backgrounds, weapons, or feats. Throw in the Unearthed Arcana spell-less ranger and you can get that up to 11. Two entire five-man parties!
For maximum no-magic you still requires some additional content and options to make a no-magic game, but then so did every other prior edition. latter).

 

[Aldarc]

What I love about these sports analogies is that it always implies one of the players on the field (or the coach, whomever) is a "warlord" for inspiring and motivating his players to play harder/better.

Yet I, as an avid sports fan, often see a player step up and take on that role in a particular moment, only to have a different player do so a few games later when the situation or circumstances present themselves.

Hrmmm, I guess every player on the field/court is potentially a warlord...

Thankfully Lord Twig established about that sort of thing that anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

This was basically what I was saying, I guess I wasn't clear enough. The Battle Master is mostly fighting. Up to four attacks around and all that, with maneuvers just being the frosting on top. And I said that was what Warlord fans disliked.

So I think we are on the same page here.

I don't think that we are though. A cleric or valor bard can be fighting as well, but their fighting output is not going to be akin to a fighter's. Most warlord fans want their to fighting output to be less like a fighter, whether BM or Champ, and more like the fighting/support capacity of the cleric or valor bard.

You could do it that way. I doubt most Warlord fans would be happy. Note that this would preclude healing, as they can't attack in such a way as to make your wounds close.

Mostly perhaps, but not entirely.

I said that since the new Warlord-esque subclasses are in a supplement they are easier to ban because you can just say only PHB subclasses, for example. Any official Warlord would, obviously, be published in a supplement of some sort, so it would be in the same situation.

If that is the case why are you fighting against something optional that you would likely ban? It's about like fighting tooth-and-nail against psionics. Most games probably won't include them, and they are a commonly banned subset of magic. Yet the idea that people would be opposed to having psionics in D&D is almost unthinkable.

And I have already said up-thread that a Warlord probably should be an option for those that really want one, but it should be the most optional of optional classes. In my opinion it has the same problem as a Lawful Good Paladin that forces his morality on his teammates or a Chaotic Evil Assassin the requires the other party members to support his murderous rampages. Likewise a Warlord requires the rest of the party to accept his inspiration and leadership (even if it is unofficial, I'm just leading by example, leadership).

"Most optional of the optional" sounds about as ridiculous as "double secret probation" did in Animal House, stemming more from your own personal loathing than any actual rational or fair consideration for the warlord's secondary status.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Where was this rule for 3e?

Couldn't tell you which book. I vaguely remember it being there and people have brought it up a lot whenever the usefulness of inherent bonuses in 4e was mentioned.

But, more relevantly, was it in the core rulebooks? Because when comparing 5e to other game systems one has to remember 5th Edition only has the core rulebooks and one campaign setting/splatbook hybrid.

That's kinda the point. This is a discussion of a non-core addition to the game.

Very true. However, the game was "balanced" around the assumption of party with a fighter, rogue, cleric, and wizard. That was the baseline.

Sure, informal roles have been with the game throughout it's history, and still exist in 5e. But a great deal has been made of 5e not formally having roles so I didn't feel like swimming against that current. Yes, in 3.5 a low/no magic game in the sense of few/no PC casters would have a tough time for want of many party-contributions that edition made caster-exclusive. 5e currently suffers from the same problem, writ a bit larger, since it has an even higher proportion of caster PC options.

Whether or not an experienced party could kludge together a functional party despite the absence of a controller is irrelevant.

No kludging or experience required. A Martial Controller would certainly have improved things - I agitated for one on the WotC boards - but all-martial parties worked fine, even in standard-issue settings & adventures. It wasn't just martial, either, the DM could very easily change up a setting by removing certain Sources. Low/no magic could be martial only. You could have a godless setting be removing divine. Etc. 5e doesn't draw Source lines in the first place, so whether a Druid is 'primal' or 'divine' is debatable, for instance, and that complicates such customizations. Still, some of 'em are workable. More could be, and all-martial or no/low magic is a prime candidate.

And while the math still works, characters are underpowered as they lose the secondary bonuses of magic item, and milestones have significantly less potency.

Magic items were pretty low-impact so not a major issue.

3e doesn't have subclasses, so only the rogue, barbarian, and fighter are nonmagical and there's not a lot of diversity there.

And the first three levels of ranger. Later, the Knight & Scout. And, while it didn't have sub-classes, it had a lot of diversity in builds, especially those using fighter as a component.

All three are also pretty focused on DPR.

The Barbarian and Rogue were locked in, though the Rogue's DPR was not at all dependable. The fighter had alternatives thanks to it's customizable design. You could - especially with later supplements and optimized builds - have a fighter with dependable DPR competitive with Barbarians and CoDzilla. You could also create battlefield control builds that could have passed for Controllers had there been a way to port them. But, meaningful support contributions were out of reach without magic.

This also comes down to how you define the barbarian's rage and its powers. While (Ex) by default it's pretty darn magical

(EX) was explicitly not magical. Worked fine an anti-magic fields, for instance.

(Comparing the 5e fighter to past fighters has actually convinced me that the class is significantly more flexible than it's ever been before.

It does DEX vs STR very smoothly, something no prior ed has handled so well. Aside from that, no. It's a beatstick. It has a more varied choice of sticks than the 2e fighter, but not such great saves at high level. A 5e fighter's most meaningful contribution to his party will always be DPR. You can willfully under-perform at that function, but you can't swap it out for something equally good. The fighter's a dead end as far as that goes. Additional alternatives to caster classes are needed.

So you're complaining about 5e not excelling at a play style every past edition pretty much also ignored. A play style that D&D has never been great at replicating

No, I'm saying it should be expanded to cover several related play styles that have been with the game since its inception (all the way back to Chainmail, for that matter), and that the game did finally do quite smoothly with 4e, less smoothly in 3.5, and not so well at all in the classic versions.

5e isn't there yet, but the Warlord would be a significant step in that direction.

More than any other edition, 5e is in a good place for no-magic or low magic campaigns, as that's workable with just the core rules, as magic items are not assumed

As far as that goes, yes, it's fine for low/no magic /item/ campaigns. Such campaigns only heighten the relative importance of PC casters, though.

and there's variety in the non-magical classes.

There are no non-magical 5e classes, as yet. There's 5 such sub-classes: 3 tanky DPR, two skill-monkey DPR. No viable/meaningful alternatives. That's not variety.

 

[pemerton]

One could argue that "inspire" in this case is just shorthand for "cause to fight more effectively." The bard sings and PCs fight better because magic, with the players deciding whether or not the PCs have any emotional change.

I guess one could argue that. But I thought that 5e was meant to place a particular emphasis on the flavour text meaning what it means in ordinary language. And inspiration does have an ordinary meaning.

I'll go with it and assume that inspire does mean a change of feelings; that is the most common definition of the word, after all. In that case, a bard's song may change the way the target feels about the battle ("Raaar, I'm ready to go!") or about the enemy ("Hey, they're not so tough!") or about him/herself ("I can do this!") But it offers quite a bit of leeway for the player to decide what form it takes, and more importantly, it still doesn't require the target to feel anything particular toward the bard.

<snip>

And once again, if you see inspiring as changing feelings, then the spell changes the target's attitude about the battle, not about the cleric or about his/her deity.

<snip>

I don't see that leeway with mundane inspiration, but I'm willing to listen if anyone else sees it.

If a bard can make you feel different about your enemy by using magic, why can't a warlord do that by dint of words and personality?

That is to say, I don't understand why you think that feelings can be changed in the ways you describe using magic, but not otherwise. After all, all the examples you give ("I'm ready to go", "They're not so tough", "I can do this") are taken from real-life examples of people having their feelings changed, and (presumably) none of those real-life instances involved the use of magic.

It's also worth noting that the case where a cleric of a deity that is completely repellent to a PC attempts to bless that PC is not a particularly common in-game situation.

I'm guessing that the same would be true at tables with warlords - relatively few players are going to object to their PCs being inspired by another PC.

Note also that if bless/inspire means "cause to fight more effectively," that's physical without being about muscles or speed.

What would it be about, then?

 

[pemerton]

Now, generally, it's better to do damage than not.

That doesn't strike me as wild disagreement with my remark that "during combat, as a general rule the best contribution to success that the fighter can make is by attacking and trying to deal damage."

we're talking about playing "by the rules" not "by the houserules" or 3PP content allowing warlord type content would apply.
Similar houserules also existed for 3e and you could patch healing in 1e-2e to reduce the healer need.

The idea that house-ruling in inherent bonuses in 4e - which is utterly trivial, given that the rules expressly peg enhancement bonuses to +1 per half-tier - is comparably to house-ruling healing in AD&D is strange to me. (I can't comment on the 3E houserules you refer to.)

Where was this rule for 3e? I don't even recall one in Unearthed Arcana.

And apparently you can't comment on the 3E rules either?

I think you are seriously exaggerating the amount of innovation required to use inherent bonuses in 4e. It is absolutely trivial, because the way that enhancement bonuses are factored in is absolutely transparent.

Again, can you do that with *just* the PHB and a tiny splatbook?

With the PHB a fighter can have Come and Get It, Sweeping Blow, Silverstep, Vorpal Tornado, Warrior's Urging, and Cruel Reaper as encounter powers. Plus Polearm Gamble.

I don't know what you have in mind by a "tiny splatbook", but obviously Martial Power increases the range of options for playing a controller fighter.

 

[jayoungr]

I guess one could argue that. But I thought that 5e was meant to place a particular emphasis on the flavour text meaning what it means in ordinary language. And inspiration does have an ordinary meaning.

It does, but the ordinary meaning doesn't refer to the effect of a magic spell. I think it's conceivable that this could make a difference. But I don't insist on that reading.

If a bard can make you feel different about your enemy by using magic, why can't a warlord do that by dint of words and personality?

He can. Absolutely. It's the "and personality" part that bothers some people--I don't officially place myself among them, but I can see their concern and would like to find a solution to it. A warlord can make you feel differently about your enemy, but you have to have a particular relationship with/attitude toward the warlord in order for it to work.

As you note, plenty of people have their feelings similarly changed in real life; but not just anyone can have that effect on any other person. And sometimes people will respond one way to a message coming from one person and completely differently to the same message coming from a different person.

I'm guessing that the same would be true at tables with warlords - relatively few players are going to object to their PCs being inspired by another PC.

Perhaps. An interesting thought exercise might be to substitute "paladin" for "warlord," since the Shining Lawful Good Paladin rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

What would it be about, then?

Could be heightened awareness, could be some type of agility boost that doesn't affect the DEX score, could be efficiency of movement, could even be a simple increase of luck (that's arguably not exactly physical, but it's not emotional either). Actually, on reflection, I like the last option best for bless.

 

[Jester David]

Couldn't tell you which book. I vaguely remember it being there and people have brought it up a lot whenever the usefulness of inherent bonuses in 4e was mentioned.

It's not in any book I'm familiar with. The absence was a big complaint with both 3e and Pathfinder.

That's kinda the point. This is a discussion of a non-core addition to the game.

The discussion in general is non-core additions. This particular back-in-forth is more comparison, evaluating what is in the game.

Could the game use more options to enable low magic play? Sure. Absolutely. But it's already better than any other edition was at launch.

Sure, informal roles have been with the game throughout it's history, and still exist in 5e. But a great deal has been made of 5e not formally having roles so I didn't feel like swimming against that current. Yes, in 3.5 a low/no magic game in the sense of few/no PC casters would have a tough time for want of many party-contributions that edition made caster-exclusive. 5e currently suffers from the same problem, writ a bit larger, since it has an even higher proportion of caster PC options.

More classes with magic doesn't make magic more important. Just more potentially common. The power of spells has pretty much been reduced across the board. There's far fewer essential game changing spells. You can get by in the game without a certain type of caster much easier.

Heck, given the ratio of how many classes used magic to non-casters in later 3e and 4e, the current 5e ratio is pretty non-magical.

Even then there aren't really "more" caster options. They just took prestige classes that existed in the core rulebooks of 3e and made them subclasses. They were in the game before.

It does DEX vs STR very smoothly, something no prior ed has handled so well. Aside from that, no. It's a beatstick. It has a more varied choice of sticks than the 2e fighter, but not such great saves at high level. A 5e fighter's most meaningful contribution to his party will always be DPR. You can willfully under-perform at that function, but you can't swap it out for something equally good. The fighter's a dead end as far as that goes. Additional alternatives to caster classes are needed.

You've certainly convinced yourself of that.

No, I'm saying it should be expanded to cover several related play styles that have been with the game since its inception (all the way back to Chainmail, for that matter), and that the game did finally do quite smoothly with 4e, less smoothly in 3.5, and not so well at all in the classic versions.

5e isn't there yet, but the Warlord would be a significant step in that direction.

Sure.
And a ninja, samurai, and wu-jen would be useful for an Kara Tur/Wuxia style campaign. A corsair, dervish, and Sha'ir would be good for Al Qadim. An inquisitor, monster hunter, musketeer, and swashbuckler would work for Ravenloft. An espionage/intrigue game could use more skill based classes that are good at deception like a noble or spy.
But we really don't need a dozen different classes for each slight tonal shift in the game.

More martial or non-magical options would help in a low/no magic game. But a warlord isn't required. Any additional martial options do the trick. A non-magical ranger and more barbarian, rogue, and fighter subclasses would serve the exact same purpose.
With hit dice and overnight healing, a class with dedicated nonmagical healing isn't essential. It's just like playing without a healer.

Regardless, 5e is probably more flexible in play style and accommodating different tones of game than any other edition. And it does so right out of the gate. There could be more support but there could always be more support.

There are no non-magical 5e classes, as yet. There's 5 such sub-classes: 3 tanky DPR, two skill-monkey DPR. No viable/meaningful alternatives. That's not variety.

It's more variety than 3e. Or 4e where you could be a tanky fighter, leader warlord, or DPS ranger/rogue; that's 4 options vs 5.
And it's 5 excluding SCAG.
And between two-weapon, sword-and-board, greatweapon, and archery there's a LOT of viable options. With just the PHB, the options within those classes are more flexible than 3e or even 4e. There's not much difference between 3e barbarians and rogues, so subclasses double the options.

 

[Jester David]

That doesn't strike me as wild disagreement with my remark that "during combat, as a general rule the best contribution to success that the fighter can make is by attacking and trying to deal damage."

It's disagreement in the sense that playing an all baster/striker party is probably a bad idea.
It will work a lot of the time, but not all the time, and when it fails you risk a TPK.

A tanking fighter is well off doing damage, but they'll be thankful for the ability to Dodge or do something else with Action Surge when necessary.

(I can't comment on the 3E houserules you refer to.)

And apparently you can't comment on the 3E rules either?

Nope, since they apparently don't exist. I'll have to skim through UA again to see if they're in that book but not the SRD.

The idea that house-ruling in inherent bonuses in 4e - which is utterly trivial, given that the rules expressly peg enhancement bonuses to +1 per half-tier - is comparably to house-ruling healing in AD&D is strange to me.
I think you are seriously exaggerating the amount of innovation required to use inherent bonuses in 4e. It is absolutely trivial, because the way that enhancement bonuses are factored in is absolutely transparent.

It is pretty trivial. Almost as trivial as downloading a 3rd Party warlord class.
(And while the house rule was theoretically trivial, the reliance on the character builder by so many people made it tricky. I wanted to use that rule in my game but since my players relied on the CB I couldn't use it or many other house rules.)

With the PHB a fighter can have Come and Get It, Sweeping Blow, Silverstep, Vorpal Tornado, Warrior's Urging, and Cruel Reaper as encounter powers. Plus Polearm Gamble.

That's a very nice high level fighter that can pull people towards him but doesn't really do AoE damage or conditions, it doesn't create any hazardous or blocking terrain. And it cannot control at-will, relying on Encounter powers. (And you won't be able to have all those powers at the same time).
You're better off trying to make a 4e fighter into a striker...

It's arguably as effective at being a controller as the Purple Dragon Knight is at being support.

I don't know what you have in mind by a "tiny splatbook", but obviously Martial Power increases the range of options for playing a controller fighter.

By "tiny splatbook" I meant the equivalent of Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's not in any book I'm familiar with. The absence was a big complaint with both 3e and Pathfinder.

Oookay...

The discussion in general is non-core additions.

A specific non-core addition and what it might accomplish...
Besides, inherent bonuses may not have been 'core' in 3e, but they were 'core' in 4e.

Could the game use more options to enable low magic play? Sure. Absolutely.

Options to enable low or no-magic, or all-martial play, yes. 5e could use many more such options. The Warlord would be a great such addition. A replacement for the Defender utility lost by the fighter, and the 'Martial Controller' and 5e would be not just caught up, but breaking new ground.

But it's already better than any other edition was at launch.

On that very narrow technicality, if you consider low/no magic items only, and thus /do/ allow PC casters in your 'low magic' campaign.
But, as I carefully pointed out, that's not what I was talking about.

If you consider the broader sense of low/no-magic, and include few/limited/no PC casters, no, 5e's very nearly as bad at it as classic D&D, rising above it mainly due to the Short Rest HD mechanic scaled down from 4e. How it stacks up to 3.5 is debatable: 3.5 without casters, but with items was just barely workable, so the all-martial party wasn't impossible (you ended up with a UMD Rogue as a virtual caster, though, so, again, we're talking technicalities), and the non-caster options were at least a bit more customizeable. 5e works better without items, but has less to offer non-casters. Without casters or items, both fail.

4e though, worked quite smoothly with all-martial parties, even in a magical world, and with or without items, since items were so low-impact outside the treadmill, and inherent bonuses took care of that. The Warlord was a critical part of that - a Martial Controller would have made it even better.

More classes with magic doesn't make magic more important.

By itself, vastly more casters than non-casters, it just gives someone wanting to play a magic-user more choices. The range of things magic can do, vs the range of things that can be done adequately without it is more significant. There's reason to expect correlation between the two, of course, as it wouldn't make a huge amount of sense to have 33 sub-classes that weren't meaningfully different from eachother. That expectation might not be met, given that 15 of those sub-classes are from only 2 classes, though, and that there's a lot of overlap in spell lists.

That aside, magic can accomplish a great deal in 5e, and covers the full range of conceivable contributions a character could make to the party, while the few non-magical PC options, taken together, offer neither a significant range of meaningful choices, nor a viable range of party contributions.

The power of spells has pretty much been reduced across the board.

Relative to 3.5 where a few were wildly overpowered, sure. Relative to 4e where they were more balanced, not so much. The Warlord was balanced in 4e, where magic was more limited and less overpowered, it'll need a boost to be viable in 5e.

More martial or non-magical options would help in a low/no magic game. But a warlord isn't required.

No single class is theoretically 'required' given the range of classes we've had over the decades. The Warlord, though, comes closer to being genuinely unique than most, including most of those in the 5e PH.

Any additional martial options do the trick. A non-magical ranger and more barbarian, rogue, and fighter subclasses would serve the exact same purpose.

The issue facing the all-martial party in 5e is that they're all pretty DPR focused, and, while a party can get through some combats with little else going for it, it's not viable in the long term, nor, likely even the term of a whole adventuring 'day.' Any new Barbarian, Rogue, or Fighter sub-class is unlikely to break out of that, whatever secondary tricks or ribbons they may get. For that matter, the non-casting Ranger didn't go very far in any other direction, either. So, no, it's not just a matter of throwing more of the same at the wall and calling them 'new' options.

Regardless, 5e is probably more flexible in play style and accommodating different tones of game than any other edition.

5e's DM Empowerment does leave it wide-open to rulings, re-interpretations, modules, and house-rules to customize it to whatever you want, if you're willing to do the work. That doesn't make the system, itself, terribly flexible, though, just not actively trying to tie your hands. Unmodified, it falls far behind 3.5/PF & 4e in terms of player options, and short of 4e in terms of the range of styles and settings possible within its framework, and not just because it can't handle a dearth of casters in the party.

5e could easily become the most accommodating edition in terms of styles supported, but it's not there yet, and should continue to strive towards that goal. It'd be great to see it get there, or even just get closer. The Warlord would be a big step in that direction on a number of levels.

It's more variety than 3e.

The 3e fighter, alone, offered more customizeabilty than all 5 of 5e's non-caster sub-classes. MCing fighter, pre-casting ranger levels, rogue, & barbarian together, even moreso.

Or 4e where you could be a tanky fighter, leader warlord, or DPR ranger/rogue; that's 4 options vs 5.

There were two builds of each class, just in the PH, so that's 8 vs 5. Furthermore, that's 2 defender, 2 leader and 4 Striker options vs 5 Striker options. Then there's 17 maneuvers restricted to 1 sub-class vs hundreds for each class.

And it's 5 excluding SCAG.

If we want to go beyond release/core, then SCAG adds a few, all still mainly contributing DPR, and Martial Power 1 & 2 triple the number of build options.

And between two-weapon, sword-and-board, greatweapon, and archery there's a LOT of viable options.

Compared to 2e when TWFing and archery were the obvious-best options, sure. Compared to 3e & 4e, not so much.
Not that 5e is wholly inferior, it has a nice refinement (compared to the 3.5 & 4e feats) in how it lets a fighter (or anyone, really), easily choose DEX vs STR as their weapon attack stat, just by choosing the right weapons, for one instance, and the loss of choice/customizeability isn't for nothing: Styles & Feats let you copy a few 3.5 builds without needing so much system-mastery nor the 20-level build plan ready at the start of the campaign, for another. There's just a lot of room for more.

 

[pemerton]

It's disagreement in the sense that playing an all baster/striker party is probably a bad idea.

Sure, but you wouldn't solve that problem by playing a party of all fighters, some of whom are defend-y/tank-y sword-and-board types. Would you?

In other words, the fact that a viable party needs some non-striker members doesn't refute the claim that, in general, the best contribution a fighter can make to success in combat is using actions to try and deal damage.

It is pretty trivial. Almost as trivial as downloading a 3rd Party warlord class.

More trivial. Inherent bonuses work. Their balanced nature is obvious and transparent. Whereas it's inherent to 5e that class balance is hard to judge and depends heavily upon playtesting, which in itself is a reason to be cautious about 3rd party warlords.

That's a very nice high level fighter that can pull people towards him but doesn't really do AoE damage or conditions, it doesn't create any hazardous or blocking terrain. And it cannot control at-will, relying on Encounter powers. (And you won't be able to have all those powers at the same time).
You're better off trying to make a 4e fighter into a striker...

What's your play experience? At 7th level the character can have Sweeping Blow, Passing Attack and Come and Get It. That's good control right there, via AoE/multi-target marking plus the forced movement of CAGI. And the hazardous/blocking terrain is the fighter him-herself, who has solid, movement-preventing OAs and feat options to boost them. This sort of fighter is a near-inescapable vortex - once enemies enter the vortex (eg via CAGI) they can't escape, because of the fighter's OAs.

It does require an ability to unlock surges during combat, because inevitably a lot of damage is coming its way - dwarf helps (for second wind as a minor action), or a warlord or cleric in the party.