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

[mellored]

Technically, you can still accomplish what the BM has (superiority dice and maneuvers) via a feat. So it's possible to do just that (have a PDK with maneuvers). I will fully admit that it might not meet the needs of what people want though.

It's the same as taking magic initiate and calling yourself a wizard.

 

[Redthistle]

It's the same as taking magic initiate and calling yourself a wizard.

My PC does that after an hour or two in the tavern. Then again, he's a forest gnome, so he starts out a bit "d'illusioned".

 

[MechaTarrasque]

It's the same as taking magic initiate and calling yourself a wizard.

I am pretty sure in the game, a PC can call him/herself anything he/she wants, but the rest of the world doesn't have to believe him/her.

 

[Imaro]

It's the same as taking magic initiate and calling yourself a wizard.

But the warlord has other things he needs to do as well... right? So this is just adding to that base not defining the whole class...

 

[Tony Vargas]

While I would like to see a Warlord class, it would be tough to keep it in balance.

Not the consideration in 5e that it was in 4e, but...

Say for example you just had a fighter chassis, but all PC in a certain range got the equivalent of constant bless spell as long as the Warlord was conscious.

The fighter chassis is pretty well loaded up on 'best at fighting,' tanky DPR, so simply layering anything worthwhile on that is potentially problematic. The problem is not 'equivalent of constant bless spell' (not by itself, but you're really talking a Marshal - passive aura - there, not a Warlord), the problem is 'fighter chassis.'

Without 5E being a powers based game it would be tough to get the concept workable and fun. Warlords made the 4e game for me though.

Maneuvers could be expanded to an equally workable & fun sub-system - and they have a better name, as a bonus.

I agree aura's should be left to the paladin.

I disagree that warlord powers can't be done, because they already are. Combine Battlemasters's maneuvers, Purple Dragon Knights insperational healing and action granting, Mastermind's help action, Bard's inspiration dice, ect... and you have yourself a solid warlord.

A proof-of-concept, at any rate. That's the point Hussar keeps trying to make: Examples of the elements are all there, so the system can clearly handle it, and, those elements have drawn little of the ire 4e did, so it should be safe.

The issue is that's spread out over 4 different sub-classes. You can't even get PDK and Battlemaster by multiclassing.

It's also very dilute. Even if you MC'd 'em all together, you'd be mixing the 3% Warlord BM with the 2% Warlord PDK and the 5% Warlord Mm, that's not going to get you 10% Warlord.

That you can't MC sub-classes /is/ an issue, in itself, sure, in that something isolated in a sub-class becomes inaccessible to the core class via MCing, while much further-afield things do not. It's a foible of the optional MC-ing sub-system.
(The other problem with the PDK is really more that only fighters and only fighters on the cusp of 3rd level, can become members of this order. That must be a very odd entrance requirement. "Nope, sorry, can't take you, you're too good!"
PDK really screams PrC.)