D&D (2024) what would a 1D&D warrior archtype look like to play like the casters?

[GMforPowergamers]

Okay so I played around with the idea of making a warlord or warblade off teh warlock frame... but I was thinking.

Imagine a class that the fluff was about being physical fit, a hero, legendary and uses weapons armors and tools.

Now imagine that class got 1/2 the choices a wizard does.
so at first level you could choose 1 or 2 at will abilities that scale (cantrips) from a list of 10+ and you get 1 or 2 more as you level
you get 3 abilities you know, but if you find more of your kind (warriors studying combat and martial exploits) you could learn from them and add it to your list of abilities. (this is a stand in for the 6 spells)
but you can only have so many 'readied' and you can only use so many per long/short rest

each level you get 1 more auto added to your ability to do things... and new and higher level more powerful abilities... at 5th level abilities you can choose are the equivalent of 2nd level spells... and at 8th 3rd level and at 11th 4th level and 14th 4th level and 17th 5th level...

would this be too powerful? would it make the fighter obsolete?

You can't give them everything fighters have ON TOP of that... so no action surge no 3rd or 4th attack inuless it is built into a 1/day 'not spell' no reroll of save (again unless it is the learned ability) no action surge
also you can't keep at d10s so lets make this d8HD class

how would this change the landscape of the game?


what if we used clerc instead... so instead of 'learning' new ability or two per level you get a whole sett of abilities you can prep from?

 

[Gorck]

This reminds me of 3e’s Tome of Battle: The Book or Nine Swords

 

[Incenjucar]

I'm not super worried about making a lackluster class obsolete. This comes up because they already are.

That said, the existing lever is frequency of use. 5E martials are heavily defined by being able to do the same thing round after round with little variation, so you trade reliability for flexibility.

 

[NaturalZero]

This is literally Tome of Battle. The idea was to give martial classes maneuvers that went up to level 9. In order to get some higher ones, you needed so many of from a school at lower levels to qualify. Different classes had different recovery mechanics, either attacking without a maneuver, or spending a standard action to get a maneuver back. It was a great attempt at bringing martials up to caster levels of competency but a lot of haters didn't like that it made martials more fantastic and some with a tenuous grasp on game-balance thought it was bad for making martial almost as good as casters.

 

[Peter BOSCO'S]

Okay so I played around with the idea of making a warlord or warblade off teh warlock frame... but I was thinking.

Imagine a class that the fluff was about being physical fit, a hero, legendary and uses weapons armors and tools.

Now imagine that class got 1/2 the choices a wizard does.
so at first level you could choose 1 or 2 at will abilities that scale (cantrips) from a list of 10+ and you get 1 or 2 more as you level
you get 3 abilities you know, but if you find more of your kind (warriors studying combat and martial exploits) you could learn from them and add it to your list of abilities. (this is a stand in for the 6 spells)
but you can only have so many 'readied' and you can only use so many per long/short rest

each level you get 1 more auto added to your ability to do things... and new and higher level more powerful abilities... at 5th level abilities you can choose are the equivalent of 2nd level spells... and at 8th 3rd level and at 11th 4th level and 14th 4th level and 17th 5th level...

would this be too powerful? would it make the fighter obsolete?

You can't give them everything fighters have ON TOP of that... so no action surge no 3rd or 4th attack inuless it is built into a 1/day 'not spell' no reroll of save (again unless it is the learned ability) no action surge
also you can't keep at d10s so lets make this d8HD class

how would this change the landscape of the game?


what if we used clerc instead... so instead of 'learning' new ability or two per level you get a whole sett of abilities you can prep from?

So like Fourth edition then? That is against current WOTC's religion.

 

[TheSword]

It would look like a sorcerer… play a sorcerer.

 

[Krachek]

Again we are in the domain of home brew, but i can imagine a warrior using the frame of a wizard ( or a warlock) for a pool of ressources and having a variety of abilties to use them.
The frames are there, just need to hide the mechanics enough to make believe a warrior!

 

[Minigiant]

I once proposed a warrior class where the character is just superhuman, either by intense training, enhancing diet, or by magical amplification.

Each superhuman feature would be associated to a body part. Using a power would exhaust the body part, turning it normal until you take the appropriate rest. Power Strike or Fastball Special would exhaust your Arms. But High Jump would exhaust your Legs and keep you from doing Super Kick.

So You'd have Eyes, Arms, Chest, Legs, etc. Subclasses would unlock other body parts, add other amplification, or grant more uses.

 

[TwoSix]

Using a caster chassis to present a warrior-type is relatively trivial, in theory. The sticking point is actually writing all new "abilities/spells/maneuvers" for all of the casting slots they have.

It's certainly doable (see Book of Nine Swords or martial classes in 4e or the maneuver system in Level Up A5e), but it's a certainly a challenge as just a personal homebrew, and certainly well outside the normal ambition WotC shows for 5e modifications.

 

[kigmatzomat]

This is literally Tome of Battle. The idea was to give martial classes maneuvers that went up to level 9. ........some with a tenuous grasp on game-balance thought it was bad for making martial almost as good as casters.

ToB came out at the end of 3.5 where it did a good job of boosting the melees to get closer to the casters.