D&D 5E What the warlord needs in 5e and how to make it happen.

[Tony Vargas]

That would do. I'll even let someone shout the skin back on after.

Hey, "No True H4ter" would allow his skin be grown back by anything but magic.

Also, the warlord existed in 3.5 as the completely under powered Marshal. It's not a 4e thing.

The Miniatures Handbook was for the "Dungeon's & Dragons Miniatures Game," kinda like the old Battlesystem that was as much spin-off as supplement. The classes in it were 3.5-compbatible, though mostly not that good, so it was like a cross-over supplement between the nominal miniatures game the actual RPG, FWIW.

Though 'Marshal' was a sub-class name later retroactively applied to all existing Warlords to differentiate them from Essentials or post-Essentials Warlord sub-classes that never saw print (or digital preview that I'm aware of), the Marshal class was nothing like the Warlord, particularly, in that, as you say, it was sorely lacking (Tier 4 seems generous to me), of course. But you're right in as far as the concept of a martial PC being a heroic leader was an old idea in D&D. When the fighter class had level-titles it could be a 'Lord' and attract men-at-arms, in 3.x the fighter was talked up as a 'natural' party leader, again, with 0 mechanics to back it up - though a 6th level character could take a Leadership feat, it wasn't a fighter-bonus feat.
The Warlord was only new in that it actually provided effective mechanical support for the concept (among others).

 

[Corwin]

Miniatures Handbook.
Why?

Oh, no reason. Just curious.

Then make a modular maneuver class that can fit everyone from assassin to defender to sniper to warlord.

Already been done. Check out the battlemaster fighter. You can make all kinds of different warrior archetypes with it. Including the warlord! And that's cool.

 

[mellored]

I remember the Marshal, I think it was an aura based class if I remember correctly.

Yes.

One of the strongest parts of the Warlord was it's triggering and interrupt abilities that were abundant in 4th edition but which aren't in 5th. Most of the people screaming for a Warlord are probably wanting the class to play very much like the one in 4th edition. We have several "Warlord" options in 5th edition but none seem good enough even though they do work.

They work, yes, but only for a little bit.

A level 11 battlemaster will make about 25 attacks per short rest, and has 5 dice.
80% of what they do is fighter-y and 20% is warlord-y.


Unlike wizards, who can swap fireball for haste. Fighter's can't swap out damage for support (or anything else, like utility).

 

[Corwin]

A level 11 battlemaster will make about 25 attacks per short rest, and has 5 dice.
80% of what they do is fighter-y and 20% is warlord-y.

Sounds good to me (even given the arbitrariness of your cherry-picked numbers). Did you know battlemasters aren't the only class to share this design paradigm? Welcome to 5e.

Unlike wizards, who can swap fireball for haste. Fighter's can't swap out damage for support (or anything else, like utility).

The heck they can't. I see fighter swap out damage for support all the time. Heck, I'm currently playing a fighter and I do it. So you are wrong. In fact, just last session I cast "hold person" on my mind controlled ally (by grappling and pinning him) so he would stop trying to kill our wizard.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A level 11 battlemaster will make about 25 attacks per short rest, and has 5 dice.
80% of what they do is fighter-y and 20% is warlord-y.

3 att/rnd, average of 2 encouters per short rest, so you're assuming 4-round combats? Oh, Action Surge....

Ok, not unreasonable estimate, but it's really up to that 20%, depending on the maneuvers called for by the situation. The BM has 3 clearly warlord-ish maneuvers (one of them even named after a Warlord at-will), out of 16 or so to choose from, and at 11lth level will have chosen 7. So only half his available maneuvers will be 'doing something warlord-y' - if he willfully ignores the others, obviously, he's under-performing, if he doesn't, his performance will be something less than 20% 'warlord-y.'

Unlike wizards, who can swap fireball for haste. Fighter's can't swap out damage for support (or anything else, like utility).

Nod. At this point, the Warlord can't work as a fighter archetype. Had the fighter been designed differently, though, given 5e's escape from the confinement of class-Role boxes, it could have been expanded to cover the Warlord. For instance, it could have used a maneuver system far more elaborate than the BM's, with enough warlord-appropriate maneuvers to fill out the various sorts possible 4e. It might also have covered the 'spell-less Ranger' a lot better in that case.
Even as it is, the 5e fighter covers the ground of the 0D&D and AD&D fighters, the Essentials Slayer, some 3.5 fighter builds including dedicated archers (that 4e was forced by Role consideration to cleave off to the Ranger), and, with the addition of the Knight archetype in UA, the 3.5PHII/Essentials Knight, as well. It's not like the fighter's exactly falling down on the job, either.
There's just too big a job still needing to be done.

Unlike wizards, who can swap fireball for haste. Fighter's can't swap out damage for support (or anything else, like utility).

Within their class-specific features they can, but only to a small degree, and mainly chargen/level-up, not overnight like a Wizard.

(or anything else, like utility).

Every 5e character has some options something like 'utility,' they can improvise actions and make checks. So the fighter isn't deprived of such, he could certainly decline his high-DPR extra attacks and take an action anyone else could have done, which is trading damage for utility (even support, there's the help action, for instance), just not a very even trade, at all.

 

[mellored]

Making maneuvers a wide spread mechanic is too late, they have used it to define the Battlemaster.

And how many times did they use the spell slot?

Though i do agree it would have been better if they started with it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Going back to the playtest, yes, it's a veritable mantra.

At this late date I don't think it's unreasonable to hope for something much better than a mere copy. Especially considering what 5e is like...

The rules for spellcasting in 5e actually were too different to allow a 5e port of the 3.5 Sorcerer, but they still made the attempt, keeping both the name and concept and adding a unique sub-system to help differentiate it. It may not have been the stunning success I'd still like to hope the 5e Warlord could be, but it's certainly better than writing off such an innovative 3e class.

5e's class design philosophy is very open. Almost anything (other than tight class balance, I suppose) is possible.

And they (and a number of other things, like Inspiring Leader, for instance), illustrate that there is nothing pernicious about the concept, nor mechanically impractical about implementing it.

Having seen a rudimentary maneuver system, morale- based hps (both temp & restored), instant non- magical healing, attack granting, etc, already working in the system, but clinging to the idea that a 5e can't build a better warlord is downright self contradictory.

Boggles my mind how folks don't seem to get that having a subclass that covers a concept doesn't replace having a class for it. Subclasses aren't very big in 5e. A character does, by a wide margin, mostly what their base class does.

The warlord-esque subclasses are more like multiclassing warlord than playing a warlord.

Or Captain.

Ima die on that hill.

But not really, cuz it's just a name, in a game.

But Captain is a much better class name.

But hey I also hate "fighter". I mean...80%+ of characters could be described as a fighter, but most of those concepts would't fit the "Fighter" class.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

The Miniatures Handbook was for the "Dungeon's & Dragons Miniatures Game," kinda like the old Battlesystem that was as much spin-off as supplement. The classes in it were 3.5-compbatible, though mostly not that good, so it was like a cross-over supplement between the nominal miniatures game the actual RPG, FWIW.

The marshal (and the healer and the PrCs) were written in the RPG's rules; the miniatures game used different, stripped-down rules. They weren't "compatible" "cross-over" classes, they were honest-to-goodness D&D classes. Organized-play legal and everything. Back when I did Living Greyhawk, one of the most memorably terrible sessions ever involved a marshal whose player's tactical ineptitude had to be seen to be believed.

They did suck. (Except for that one giant PrC that got +20 Strength instead of a base attack bonus.) But being underpowered is a math issue, not a conceptual issue. Just increase the right numbers in the right places and an underpowered class stops being underpowered. We can definitely look at an underpowered class and ask, "What can we learn from this?" and even "Can we rehabilitate this?"

The main thing we learn from the marshal is that an aura-based class is kind of boring. This seems to be a lesson game designers are learning all over: emphasize active abilities over passives. But it was also (to the best of my knowledge) the very first appearance of the action-granting concept in D&D, which would be picked up with the White Raven school and of course wholly embraced by the 5E warlord.

 

[mellored]

Sounds good to me (even given the arbitrariness of your cherry-picked numbers). Did you know battlemasters aren't the only class to share this design paradigm? Welcome to 5e.

Which other class can only do their thing 20% of the time?

The heck they can't. I see fighter swap out damage for support all the time. Heck, I'm currently playing a fighter and I do it. So you are wrong. In fact, just last session I cast "hold person" on my mind controlled ally (by grappling and pinning him) so he would stop trying to kill our wizard.

See! Martial control is fun!

And i'll bump that estimate to 30%.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

But hey I also hate "fighter". I mean...80%+ of characters could be described as a fighter, but most of those concepts would't fit the "Fighter" class.

The other classes don't fight. They cheat. Or sometimes just flail wildly in a pathetic imitation of real fighting.