D&D 5E Why is There No Warlord Equivalent in 5E?

[EzekielRaiden]

Nonetheless, the reason I felt compelled to answer is the quote above, and other comments in the thread which are, in my humble opinion, needlessly bashing 3e with little knowledge of how a good 3e game worked.

I have discussed this with numerous ardent 3e fans. They considered it a badge of honor to be described so. Perhaps this is not so for all such fans. But it has been so for all but one ardent defender of 3e I know--and that one exception is particularly exceptional in a variety of ways (many or even most of which I respect, even though we disagree on a great many things). They post on here relatively often, going by "Pedantic." This isn't really a conversation for them or their interests, so I'm not directly tagging them, just letting you know who it is I'm speaking of.

Simply, 3e "combos" and synergies are not immediate and intrinsic to the powers and spells used. No "pre-made," so to speak. They just do what they do because 3e is built to first describe an action proper of a fantasy world and try to write down a mechanic that is the least dissociated possible. It is up to the players to decide how to use them, often on the spot and in specific contexts.

I mean no disrespect when I say this, but...I do not, cannot take the "dissociated mechanics" argument seriously. Its creator was never actually serious about it in the first place. So I'm afraid anything which starts from that point is fruit of a poisoned tree, as far as I'm concerned.

For many 3e players, 5e is 3e without most of the things that made it interesting. Sometimes, with glaring holes.

In my experience, the only major "glaring hole"--other than those noted by Pedantic, as mentioned--that most 3e fans find is that 5e does not include the utterly monolithic amount of options for customizability (classes, feats, ACFs, PrCs, spells, etc.) Further, cutting to the quick...in many cases I find the "most of the things that made it interesting" cashes out primarily as "most of the things that made full spellcasters ridiculously powerful and required extreme practical optimization for half- or non-casters just to avoid being dead weight."

It definitely sounds like you share a number of Pedantic's stances on things, so you may wish to seek them out, I suspect the two of you would have a lot to talk about. But the fact of the matter is, if you cared even a little bit about optimization (and 3e's design really did force you to care at least a little bit about optimization, otherwise you'd fall behind), you were aware of things like the class tiers at least in general concept, and you knew that things like Natural Spell are brokenly, horribly overpowered while Toughness and Mobility are traps designed to weaken those foolish enough to take them (outside of a very, very narrow range, at least for Toughness) unless they were prerequisites for something better. You'd know that spending your turn buffing an ally is less efficient than just doing, or at least attempting to do, some solid damage yourself--because two actions that only potentially generate 1.5 attacks' worth of damage is less efficient than two attacks that each potentially generate one attack's worth of damage. Action economy is king, etc., etc.

The whole idea of making a beautiful clockwork that just (metaphorically) "runs on its own," and the players must act and react within it, cleverly leveraging what they can, is a philosophical back-formation, an idea that the 3e rules themselves frequently fell far short of actually implementing. And if that's what 3e was to you, then I can grant that no, 5e is not that. But 5e in practice works like how a great many--possibly even most--people actually did play 3e, and PF1e. In some ways, people play it like 3e/PF1e even when the books actively tell them not to, such as how people handle skill checks, even though the book doesn't support doing so and says various things that go against it (in a soft way, at least.)

 

[Kaiyanwang]

I have discussed this with numerous ardent 3e fans. They considered it a badge of honor to be described so. Perhaps this is not so for all such fans. But it has been so for all but one ardent defender of 3e I know--and that one exception is particularly exceptional in a variety of ways (many or even most of which I respect, even though we disagree on a great many things). They post on here relatively often, going by "Pedantic." This isn't really a conversation for them or their interests, so I'm not directly tagging them, just letting you know who it is I'm speaking of.


I mean no disrespect when I say this, but...I do not, cannot take the "dissociated mechanics" argument seriously. Its creator was never actually serious about it in the first place. So I'm afraid anything which starts from that point is fruit of a poisoned tree, as far as I'm concerned.


In my experience, the only major "glaring hole"--other than those noted by Pedantic, as mentioned--that most 3e fans find is that 5e does not include the utterly monolithic amount of options for customizability (classes, feats, ACFs, PrCs, spells, etc.) Further, cutting to the quick...in many cases I find the "most of the things that made it interesting" cashes out primarily as "most of the things that made full spellcasters ridiculously powerful and required extreme practical optimization for half- or non-casters just to avoid being dead weight."

It definitely sounds like you share a number of Pedantic's stances on things, so you may wish to seek them out, I suspect the two of you would have a lot to talk about. But the fact of the matter is, if you cared even a little bit about optimization (and 3e's design really did force you to care at least a little bit about optimization, otherwise you'd fall behind), you were aware of things like the class tiers at least in general concept, and you knew that things like Natural Spell are brokenly, horribly overpowered while Toughness and Mobility are traps designed to weaken those foolish enough to take them (outside of a very, very narrow range, at least for Toughness) unless they were prerequisites for something better. You'd know that spending your turn buffing an ally is less efficient than just doing, or at least attempting to do, some solid damage yourself--because two actions that only potentially generate 1.5 attacks' worth of damage is less efficient than two attacks that each potentially generate one attack's worth of damage. Action economy is king, etc., etc.

The whole idea of making a beautiful clockwork that just (metaphorically) "runs on its own," and the players must act and react within it, cleverly leveraging what they can, is a philosophical back-formation, an idea that the 3e rules themselves frequently fell far short of actually implementing. And if that's what 3e was to you, then I can grant that no, 5e is not that. But 5e in practice works like how a great many--possibly even most--people actually did play 3e, and PF1e. In some ways, people play it like 3e/PF1e even when the books actively tell them not to, such as how people handle skill checks, even though the book doesn't support doing so and says various things that go against it (in a soft way, at least.)

Hi Ezekiel,

I don't think you have any intention to seriously engage on 3e (see as an example what you wrote about dissociated mechanics, which, like it or not, ARE a thing), I would waste my time and it would be off-topic anyway.
I am sorry you have such axe to grind against 3e, but your experience is not universal. As an example, you talk about buffing in-combat which is something that CAN situationally happen but when it does, it happens because is totally not a wasted action if the buff is useful for the circumstance.
I suppose I will keep reading these opinions on 3e stated as facts while I keep lurking.

Peace.

 

[Mephista]

Charisma is self-expression, force of will, self-identity, understanding people, relating to people, influencing people, empowering people, etcetera ...

Charisma is insight, emotional intelligence, and people skills.

To make a character who has social skills and who is the "heart" of the group, pick Charisma as the high stat.

nitpick - understanding people falls under Insight and Wisdom (as the notice stuff attribute). Likewise, the ability to analyze peeps is Intelligence and Investigation; or History for etiquette and fashion.

 

[Yaarel]

nitpick - understanding people falls under Insight and Wisdom (as the notice stuff attribute). Likewise, the ability to analyze peeps is Intelligence and Investigation; or History for etiquette and fashion.

I know that too well. Separating Insight from social skills is as idiotic as separating balance from climbing. Or falling from jumping.

The 5e Abilities are a hot mess.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Hi Ezekiel,

I don't think you have any intention to seriously engage on 3e (see as an example what you wrote about dissociated mechanics, which, like it or not, ARE a thing), I would waste my time and it would be off-topic anyway.
I am sorry you have such axe to grind against 3e, but your experience is not universal. As an example, you talk about buffing in-combat which is something that CAN situationally happen but when it does, it happens because is totally not a wasted action if the buff is useful for the circumstance.
I suppose I will keep reading these opinions on 3e stated as facts while I keep lurking.

Peace.

I have seen a bard with very bad stats doing more damage than the archery optimized ranger if you calculate every damage done due to the inspirational buff towards the bard instead of the ranger. The bard, or any other character built with the same unlocky rolls, could have done more damage otherwise.

So I really agree with you: there were many good ways to play 3(.5). Buffing the heavy hitter was not bad at all.
(That said, if everyone was only optimizing, there would have been no ranger at all, but that party was very synergistic in many ways and strong and fun.)

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The abilities scores is one of the sacred cows of D&D. It would safer to start from zero with a new completely new version of d20.

My house rule is adding some abilities more.

There are different types of intelligences according psychology in our real life. You could be very good with one and bad for other. For example natural inteligence is about to find things in the Nature, and this seems like D&D perception check.

Wisdow could like interpersonal and intrapersonal inteligence, about knowing herself and understand the point of view by the rest.

Charisma wouldn't only good social skills, but also the emotional inteligence ( = self control) and the composure.

 

[Mephista]

I know that too well. Separating Insight from social skills is as idiotic as separating balance from climbing. Or falling from jumping.

The 5e Abilities are a hot mess.

There are 3 CHA based social skills, 1 INT based, and 2 WIS based. Similar breeak down in 3 and 4th editions. This has nothing to do with 5e and everything to do with CHA being a crappy attribute.

 

[Yaarel]

There are 3 CHA based social skills, 1 INT based, and 2 WIS based. Similar breeak down in 3 and 4th editions. This has nothing to do with 5e and everything to do with CHA being a crappy attribute.

A single go-to Ability for players who want social rockstar character concept, is useful for a roleplaying game. Charisma is this.

For the skills, I would do the following:

Charisma
• Insight (call it Empathy)
• Persuasion
• Intimidation (maybe, unless it really is defacto the same thing as Persuasion)

Intelligence
• Deception
• History (communicate with unfamiliar language)


To distinguish Intimidation from Persuasion, perhaps make it also responsible for morale checks for allies to resist Fear effects.

If both Persuasion can inflict the Charmed condition and Intimidation can inflict the Fear condition, then Fear is actually more powerful for combat, and it would help balance them out.

People who do forgeries, hoaxes, and serious frauds in reallife are Intelligent enough, and know what they are talking about, to fool the experts. Deception is Intelligence. "Fast talking" is Persuasion or Intimidation.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

One of the things I was looking forward to, and I was surprised when it didn't really eventuate, was a crpg using 4e as the base. They'd created a perfect game for the transition to computer games and they did pretty much nothing with it. It would have worked great as something similar to those jrpgs with bursts and squares moved, etc.

NeverWinter Online was an MMO based on 4e mechanics. While it wasn't the turn-based grid combat that you might expect, it used movement and forced movement much more heavily than other MMOs and similar games tended to.

 

[Pedantic]

I have discussed this with numerous ardent 3e fans. They considered it a badge of honor to be described so. Perhaps this is not so for all such fans. But it has been so for all but one ardent defender of 3e I know--and that one exception is particularly exceptional in a variety of ways (many or even most of which I respect, even though we disagree on a great many things). They post on here relatively often, going by "Pedantic." This isn't really a conversation for them or their interests, so I'm not directly tagging them, just letting you know who it is I'm speaking of.

You know, I actually was following this discussion, and did narrow my eyes at the initial post. I do think the idea that 5e is an improved version of 3e is pretty pernicious. I'd put it on the same plane as holding 4e up as the inevitable outcome of trying to balance D&D. 5e is missing essential components; even setting aside my maniacal focus on the incomplete skill rules, the lack of a unified PC/NPC/monster creation system and the whole bounded accuracy/limited scaling thing are massive departures.

If anything, 5e feels most like 2e wearing 3e drag with weird, inconsistent nods to modern rules light design.