Water, water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink

[Jester David]

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.

The best contribution the wizard can make is to deal AoE damage. Any time they could deal AoE damage but are not it's a waste of their spell slot.
Sure, they could make the rogue invisible or the warlock fly, but since classes do close to the same damage, it's just as efficient for them to nuke themselves. After all, all of the wizard's class features are related to regaining spell slots so they can nuke more. After all, the best condition to impose upon a creature is "dead" and even spells like illusions deal damage now. The wizard is a damage dealer.
A few subclasses might have non-DPR abilities, but those are either to keep you alive while you blast more.

That's the same damn argument you're making. And it's just as silly with the fighter as with the wizard.

More trivial. Inherent bonuses work. Their balanced nature is obvious and transparent.

I didn't want to get into this as someone would appear and call out "edition warring!" but I really didn't like how inherent bonuses worked in 4e. It was all or nothing. You either used them and had no magic items or you didn't. Because the two didn't stack.
I wanted a lower magic campaign and hated having to give out two or three magic items each session and a +2 item at second level. And to have everyone swap magic items every 5 levels. And tracking who had how many magical items and such. So, bonuses. But that meant that I had no reason to give out magic items since they didn't actually make you better at hitting. And since the players relied on the Character Builder, there was no easy way to adjust.
The 4e inherent bonus system didn't do what I wanted/needed it to.

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.

And trusting official classes would be much more appealing, if WotC hadn't released such stinkers in UA and a couple pretty broken/nerfed options in the PHB.
You have to be cautious despite the source, but a 3PP class can work pretty darn well. Because they know they'll be judged harder that official content, many 3PP work harder at balance and spend longer on content than an official writer would who's just trying to hit their word count that month.

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.

What do you do the first 6 levels of the game? What do you do with enemies that are 4 or more squares away? While my 4e play experience is hazy, the times when the party needed a minion sweeper wouldn't have been much helped by that fighter.
It fulfills the forced movement, but that's akin to a defender marking a creature without the ability to deal damage and deter attacks or the high AC/hp to actually tank. It does half the job.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

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

That is an incorrect use of "anecdotal". If you offer up an analogy (sport 'leader"), that I can show to be invalid on its face, that is not using anecdotal evidence. That is disproving your entire theory.

Unless you'd care to disprove my counter-argument, that sports teams do not have "one leader"? Otherwise, its not "anecdotal", it's just that you are wrong.

Heck, here's a picture of the FOUR Chicago Bears team captains facing off for a coin toss against the FIVE Green Bay Packers team captains:



That's an awful lot of "warlords" right there, I guess...

 

[FrogReaver]

That is an incorrect use of "anecdotal". If you offer up an analogy (sport 'leader"), that I can show to be invalid on its face, that is not using anecdotal evidence. That is disproving your entire theory.

Unless you'd care to disprove my counter-argument, that sports teams do not have "one leader"? Otherwise, its not "anecdotal", it's just that you are wrong.

Heck, here's a picture of the FOUR Chicago Bears team captains facing off for a coin toss against the FIVE Green Bay Packers team captains:

View attachment 74693

That's an awful lot of "warlords" right there, I guess...

One thing of note. A rookie and novice to a group is typically not going to be able to inspire the veterans to play better or fight harder in real life.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

One thing of note. A rookie and novice to a group is typically not going to be able to inspire the veterans to play better or fight harder in real life.

Agreed. And yet, as some would have it, a newly introduced 1st-level warlord would be able to do so to an established higher level party the moment he arrived on scene. Cuz mechanics...

 

[Lord Twig]

One thing of note. A rookie and novice to a group is typically not going to be able to inspire the veterans to play better or fight harder in real life.

They would be able to if they are a Warlord.

 

[pemerton]

The best contribution the wizard can make is to deal AoE damage. Any time they could deal AoE damage but are not it's a waste of their spell slot.
Sure, they could make the rogue invisible or the warlock fly, but since classes do close to the same damage, it's just as efficient for them to nuke themselves. After all, all of the wizard's class features are related to regaining spell slots so they can nuke more. After all, the best condition to impose upon a creature is "dead" and even spells like illusions deal damage now. The wizard is a damage dealer.
A few subclasses might have non-DPR abilities, but those are either to keep you alive while you blast more.

That's the same damn argument you're making. And it's just as silly with the fighter as with the wizard.

I'm not arguing about the virtue to the players of imposing the "dead" condition on their enemies, and saying that anything else is not worthwhile. I'm arguing about what the fighter, in particular, can do with his/her actions (including via action surge) that is a powerful contribution to combat.

You had suggested that action surge is not an offensive feature, because it can be used just as well to perform support actions. My response is that sometimes it might make sense to action surge so as to help, or stabilise, but that those occasions will be atypical.

You also suggested that it might be best to use action surge to push or knock prone. I can see that for some tank-y type builds, but (i) that's not really what I (and I suspect many others) have in mind when they contrast offence with support, and (ii) even for those builds I'm not sure how typical those cases will be.

The comparison to using a spell slot to fly or conceal an ally strikes me as unhelpful - those things tend to be done before combat starts, outside of the formal action economy. And then, during combat, the wizard can use a cantrip. What action do you have in mind that a fighter might perform, using action surge, that produces a buff comparable to casting invisibility or fly in advance plus using a cantrip during the actual combat round?

I'm not really seeing what it is going to be. I don't think helping is up there, for instance.

 

[pemerton]

Agreed. And yet, as some would have it, a newly introduced 1st-level warlord would be able to do so to an established higher level party the moment he arrived on scene. Cuz mechanics...

And a newly-introduced 1st level bard can inspire a 20th level wizard who has travelled to the Astral Plane and listened to the music of creation sung by the angels of the heavens.

Because its magic? Or because level-based games generate corner-cases in mixed-level play? Or because a 1st level bard's music is really that inspiring?

 

[ChrisCarlson]

And a newly-introduced 1st level bard can inspire a 20th level wizard who has travelled to the Astral Plane and listened to the music of creation sung by the angels of the heavens.

Yep. Magically. Though I could argue that the 1st-level bard's inspiration is somewhat minor, infrequent, and inconsequential, to that epic wizard. Relatively speaking, and all things considered. After all, the wizard's epic bard frequently offers up a great deal more (and more powerful) inspirational effect(s) using his more potent magical abilities.

Because its magic? Or because level-based games generate corner-cases in mixed-level play? Or because a 1st level bard's music is really that inspiring?

Correct. Magically inspiring. I take it you weren't around a few months back when the discussion of having warlord abilities be pseudo-magical in nature (very much like a bard) rolled around the first time. Many of us (including myself) were intrigued. Unfortunately, some of the more vocal warlord hardliners saw "magic" and immediately shot it down as an abomination to be shunned and discounted.

 

[Aldarc]

Heck, here's a picture of the FOUR Chicago Bears team captains facing off for a coin toss against the FIVE Green Bay Packers team captains:

View attachment 74693

That's an awful lot of "warlords" right there, I guess...

Indeed. There are a lot of squads and special teams in need of warlords.

Agreed. And yet, as some would have it, a newly introduced 1st-level warlord would be able to do so to an established higher level party the moment he arrived on scene. Cuz mechanics...

Similar to how a level 3 BM could boss around a level 20 champion? But I suppose that level 3 fighter knows how to fight better than the level 20 one.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

Indeed. There are a lot of squads and special teams in need of warlords.

Are there? And what about the guy on the team, who is not even pictured (or a "team captain"), who ends up getting fired up during the course of a game and starts motivating his teammates on the sidelines? I guess he just spontaneously converted some of his class levels into warlord levels for the occasion, huh?

Or maybe everyone in sports is just a warlord. It's easier to just go with that so anyone stepping up to inspire the team can be justified in an otherwise poorly thought out analogy...

Similar to how a level 3 BM could boss around a level 20 champion?

Can he? That's news. How so?

But I suppose that level 3 fighter knows how to fight better than the level 20 one.

Does he? I'm looking at the PHB right now and cannot see how that is so. Have you read the PHB? A 20th level fighter can fight much better than a 3rd level one. Like, magnitudes better. It's not even a comparison.