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

[Tony Vargas]

Your way seems to be demanding homogeneity. Well that's 4e.

'Homogeneity' was, as you know, an edition wa-

- PSYCH! you were just going to delete the rest of my post again and rant about that, weren't you? C'mon, admit it!

OK, seriously:

4e classes weren't 'homogeneous' (they'd've had to have been /identical/ for that to have been true), rather, 4e had a very consistent class structure and very neatly balanced classes...

...sorted into 4 boxes called 'Roles' and whittled down or chopped up as needed to fit in said boxes.

Now, the consistent class structure ship sailed with the first round of the playtest (if not before), and has glided over the horizon, been burned to the waterline, scuttled, and dragged to the bottom of a deep-ocean trench by a spiteful Kraken (not the kind that advertises run, those are nice Krakens, maybe the one from the 80s Clash of the Titans movie, with jointed arms). The search parties have sailed forth, scoured the 7 seas and found no trace. The widows have grieved and re-married, and the insurance has been paid out.


So, 5e has virtually unstructured classes - they all have 20 levels, they all get one HD per level, and that's about it. Everything else is design space writers can do whatever they want with when penning a new class. That's not going to change. And it does leave endless possibilities wide open. They needed that kind of design flexibility to capture the feel of all those different editions.

The 'best' they could do for someone with an AEDU fetish would be to create a martial, divine, primal, & psionic class each structured like (and neatly balanced with) the Warlock, and let people who reeeeallly want the technical 'feel' of that run campaigns with just those 4 classes ("eugh! I can't stand the chaos of all those heterogenous classes!" "Don't like 'em? Don't use 'em!")
Heck, if the Warlock-like-advancement martial class was a Warlord, I'd put up with a DM who wanted to do that. ;P

(Hey, if they start with the Warlock and Warlord, they could all be 'war' classes. Yeah. a Warden and a Warpriest and a, uh, Warmind. Sure.)

(Wait, wasn't structuring new classes something like the Warlock what mellored was alluding to? Or was he suggesting that in the context of re-designing all classes, and recalling the existing books and sending WotC ninjas to change everyone's character sheets to conform?)

No thanks. If I want 4e I'll go play 4e. Maybe you should consider the same? That's not a bad thing. After all, it gets you what you really want. And it's that the important thing?

5e feels a lot like AD&D to me. I loved 1e, and I would go out and play it once in a blue moon when I had the chance (which was really rare, 2e popped up at the local con more often). So I'm pretty happy to run 5e and get my 1e paleogaming fix off it rather than try to dragoon players into a 1e game and convince them weapon v armor type is cool. I get to run without feats or MCing, too, so none of that 3.5 charop craziness... sometimes run with just the Big 4, I feel like that makes a fine intro game.
I've heard a lot of folks say they get a 2e vibe from 5e, too, and really enjoy that.
So some of us are being served the D&D we want (to varying degrees), in the form of 5e options, just like we were told we'd get.
And some of us aren't, and are not wrong to be asking for their turn.

(And me, I'm just overflowing with ambivalence, since I'm getting what I want as a DM, but not as a player, so I don't just /see/ both sides of that issue...)

The 5e thing is that you get to do your class shtick all of the time. Even wizards always get to cast spells all the time. They no longer need to throw darts like 3e.

In 3e they got to shoot Light Crossbows. Yeah. And we were glad we had 'em, too. We were thankful for that simple weapon proficiency after years of only being able to figure out 3 weapons...

 

[mellored]

Wait, so you have a problem with *all* battlemasters? The whole subclass? Used even to make non-warlord-y battlemasters? If so I think I'm starting to see the underlying problem more clearly. And my last post may still be relevant. Or are you saying the battlemaster is a failure primarily because you can't lazylord 100% of the time. Because that would be ludicrous.

Are you intentionally trying to misunderstand me?

Battlemaster is fine for fighter who wants to do a little bit of warlord-y things.
It is not a replacement for the warlord class, because it can only do a little bit of warlord-y things.

 

[Corwin]

'Homogeneity' was, as you know, an edition-war -

- PSYCH! you were just going to delete the rest of my post again and rant about that, weren't you? C'mon, admit it!

OK, seriously:

4e classes weren't 'homogeneous' (they'd've had to have been /identical/ for that to have been true), rather, 4e had a very consistent class structure and very neatly balanced classes...

...sorted into 4 boxes called 'Roles' and whittled down or chopped up as needed to fit in said boxes.

Now, the consistent class structure ship sailed with the first round of the playtest (if not before), and has glided over the horizon, been burned to the waterline, scuttled, and dragged to the bottom of a deep-ocean trench by a spiteful Kraken (not the kind that advertises run, those are nice Krakens, maybe the one from the 80s Clash of the Titans movie, with jointed arms). The search parties have sailed forth, scoured the 7 seas and found no trace. The widows have grieved and re-married, and the insurance has been paid out.


So, 5e has virtually unstructured classes - they all have 20 levels, they all get one HD per level, and that's about it. Everything else is design space writers can do whatever they want with when penning a new class. That's not going to change. And it does leave endless possibilities wide open. They needed that kind of design flexibility to capture the feel of all those different editions.

The 'best' they could do for someone with an AEDU fetish would be to create a martial, divine, primal, & psionic class each structured like (and neatly balanced with) the Warlock, and let people who reeeeallly want the technical 'feel' of that run campaigns with just those 4 classes ("eugh! I can't stand the chaos of all those heterogenous classes!" "Don't like 'em? Don't use 'em!")
Heck, if the Warlock-like-advancement martial class was a Warlord, I'd put up with a DM who wanted to do that. ;P

(Hey, if they start with the Warlock and Warlord, they could all be 'war' classes. Yeah. a Warden and a Warpriest and a, uh, Warmind. Sure.)

(Wait, wasn't structuring new classes something like the Warlock what mellored was alluding to? Or was he suggesting that in the context of re-designing all classes, and recalling the existing books and sending WotC ninjas to change everyone's character sheets to conform?)

5e feels a lot like AD&D to me. I loved 1e, and I would go out and play it once in a blue moon when I had the chance (which was really rare, 2e popped up at the local con more often). So I'm pretty happy to run 5e and get my 1e paleogaming fix off it rather than try to dragoon players into a 1e game and convince them weapon v armor type is cool. I get to run without feats or MCing, too, so none of that 3.5 charop craziness... sometimes run with just the Big 4, I feel like that makes a fine intro game.
I've heard a lot of folks say they get a 2e vibe from 5e, too, and really enjoy that.
So some of us are being served the D&D we want (to varying degrees), in the form of 5e options, just like we were told we'd get.
And some of us aren't, and are not wrong to be asking for their turn.

(And me, I'm just overflowing with ambivalence, since I'm getting what I want as a DM, but not as a player, so I don't just /see/ both sides of that issue...)

Thanks for the history lesson and "insights" in to the previous edition(s). But I'm pretty sure most of us are already quite familiar. At least you know I already am. And you quoted me. So now this isn't just more edition warring. Now its condescension, too. Thanks, I guess?

 

[Eubani]

Wait, so you have a problem with *all* battlemasters? The whole subclass? Used even to make non-warlord-y battlemasters? If so I think I'm starting to see the underlying problem more clearly. And my last post may still be relevant. Or are you saying the battlemaster is a failure primarily because you can't lazylord 100% of the time. Because that would be ludicrous.

Personally I think the simple fighter and the "advanced" fighter should been seperate classes so as to not limit each other by being built on the same chassis. As it is the Battlemaster suffers due to having the subclass having to do all the heavy lifting and there is just not enough design space to fully pull it off.

 

[Corwin]

Are you intentionally trying to misunderstand me?

No. I can only work with what you give me.

Battlemaster is fine for fighter who wants to do a little bit of warlord-y things.
It is not a replacement for the warlord class, because it can only do a little bit of warlord-y things.

So where are the hundreds of ranting threads and hand-wringing posts about how terrible the duelist battlemaster is. I mean, "Battlemaster is fine for fighter who wants to do a little bit of duelist-y things. It is not a replacement for the duelist class, because it can only do a little bit of duelist-y things."

Right?

I mean a battlemaster duelist is probably going to take maneuvers like: parry, riposte and lets say maybe disarming attack. I guess he sucks as a duelist, right? I mean, he can only do his signature stuff 20-30% of the time. That's an outrage, amIright? Why aren't you, and others, up in arms? Taking to the streets in defense of the poor duelist? He sucks!*

After all, the duelist is a heck of a lot more common archetype and trope than whatever a warlord is supposed to represent in the game. So cummon, guys?! Where's all the hollering for the duelist?!? Duelists need love too.



[*BTW, I played one for a while, and they don't suck. Because battlemaster is actually quite potent and useful. Superiority dice get used frequently enough that they make significant appearances virtually every fight. Just don't ask warlord demanders if that's true, because evidently they are instructed to deny it. I kid. I kid... ]

 

[Corwin]

Personally I think the simple fighter and the "advanced" fighter should been seperate classes so as to not limit each other by being built on the same chassis. As it is the Battlemaster suffers due to having the subclass having to do all the heavy lifting and there is just not enough design space to fully pull it off.

Which train were you hoping to catch? Because I think it already left.

Seriously though, I disagree. I think the entire fighter offering (core class and all three subclasses) are excellent design. They all do different enough things. But all true to the manner of their focus: fighting. In fact, I think its one of the more strongly designed in all the PHB. IMO, WotC did right by fighters this time around.

 

[Corwin]

I was going to make a firbolg brute armed with a giant hammer. Go battlemaster with the maneuvers: menacing attack, pushing attack, and sweeping attack. But then I was disheartened by the fact that I will virtually never get to do any of those cool things. Because 5e is preventing me from doing things, like sweeping attack for example, every single round. Which is lame because I could the last couple editions. So now I guess I have build a whole new class that lets him do all those things at will. Wish me luck!

 

[mellored]

So where are the hundreds of ranting threads and hand-wringing posts about how terrible the duelist battlemaster is. I mean, "Battlemaster is fine for fighter who wants to do a little bit of duelist-y things. It is not a replacement for the duelist class, because it can only do a little bit of duelist-y things."

Then you agree we need battlemaster as a full class. "Advanced fighter" or whatever you want to call it. Where you pick maneuvers and can do them all the time.

Then you can pick your duelist maneuvers, and I can pick my warlord maneuvers, and we can enjoy playing the characters that we want.

 

[Eubani]

Which train were you hoping to catch? Because I think it already left.

Seriously though, I disagree. I think the entire fighter offering (core class and all three subclasses) are excellent design. They all do different enough things. But all true to the manner of their focus: fighting. In fact, I think its one of the more strongly designed in all the PHB. IMO, WotC did right by fighters this time around.

It was a personal comment on the design choice that is made BUT the train has not left, a martial class designed to be advanced could still be designed. Personally I think that whilst the Battlemaster is mechanccaly effective it was a half ass attempt to appease those who wanted an advanced martial character. Another issue I have with fighter design is shared with the designer which is that there is a mish mash of mechanics that tell no story or flavour (Mike Mearls has spoken on this several times). I believe that a subclass should have mechanics that point to story or flavour and that is by far and wide one of the fighters failures. Mind you a lot of this is said through my personal lense which wants the fighter to be great and believes that aside from the edition that shall not be mentioned for 40 years fighter were designed by nerds who suffered having their heads flushed by jocks all their life thus fighter design is largely nerd revenge fantasy constrained by D&D tradition and grognard resistance to change. So when I discuss matial classes I am willing to admit a bias of believing that it suffers from unfair design restraints both mechanical and philosophical.

 

[Corwin]

Then you agree we need battlemaster as a full class.

Nope. It already is a "full class". It a fighter (battlemaster). It gets a whole class worth of cool things to do.

"Advanced fighter" or whatever you want to call it. Where you pick maneuvers and can do them all the time.

Such maneuvers would be so watered down as to be ribbons. No thanks. I like my maneuvers to have bite and substance. To impact play when I chose to use them. Or, conversely, in order to maintain their weight, they'd have to be delayed during advancement. So you wouldn't actually get them for the life of your "advanced fighter".

Then you can pick your duelist maneuvers, and I can pick my warlord maneuvers, and we can enjoy playing the characters that we want.

You won't like it, though. For the reasons I just gave above. That's the whole point. What you say you want here. You'd end up hating it. Because it won't give you what you really want. The devs aren't going to give you what you really want. I'll put the envelope to my temple and Carnac that right now.