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

[Yaarel]

The 3e psion was developed and released relatively early in 3e's run, actually.

The 3.5 Psion is the breakthru. And the nonvancian one.

Again, I direct you to Level Up. In this case, it's cross-class Combat Manuever system.

I will check it out.

 

[I'm A Banana]

There's a ton of spells on the Ranger spell list that are basically 'a trap that you set up with magic instead of having to develop a whole trap making subsystem'.

I'd personally be really into making a few warlord "spells" for bards and paladins especially.

 

[pawsplay]

I mean, for a barb? If we want to go with that, unarmed attack, halved to 1-2 damage? I find the easier way is to continue attacking most of the time, which is typically when the rage is needed the most because it means you're stuck in. But again, the big reason when you rage is a consideration with the berserker is because the subclass is basically broken at moment and they (as far as I remember, which admittedly was something like a year ago since I checked) did some decent work fixing things in that regard.

One of the things that doesn't get enough consideration is that movement, alone, will not keep rage going. So if you don't have an enemy in reach, you need to find a source of damage. If nothing readily presents itself, you can punch yourself, costing your action.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And that's why people play Bear Barbarians instead of the lame Beserker.

What exactly is the issue with the berserker subclass? High damage, high resistance, they seem pretty solid.

 

[Minigiant]

Then you're going to have to get at least 70% of WotC's consumer base to agree, vociferously and publicly, with you. Because that's the only way WotC makes those kinds of changes.

The community is diverse. That's the point. They won't all agree on the same things. That's how 5e turned out the way it did.

That's also why a half dozen completely different fantasy RPGs are coming out this year and the next.

WOTC has been milking name recognition as the most well known entry point and easiest group location.

If there were another RPG company with big money backing out there for marketing, the 2024 edition would be full blown 6e as WOTC would be forced to react to the community that currently exists.

 

[James Gasik]

Huh. I do but I didnt realize it.

It is reasonable to split the 5e Fighter into two separate classes, a heavy infantry Knight and a light infantry Skirmisher. The Knight gets the heavy armor, the Skirmisher gets the mobility. The Skirmisher keeps the name "Fighter".

Knight subclasses include: Cavalier, Paladin, Battlemaster, Samurai, and Eldritch Knight. (Eldritch Knight actually dabbles in light Mage Armor with magical mobility, but is a tank.)

Skirmisher subclasses include: Ranger, Champion, Scout, Athlete, and Psi War.

Rogue is special ops.

Monk is all Dex-fighting.

Warlord is military intelligence and inspiration.

I think we have 2e to blame for Fighter being a "big tent" class to cover all possible variations of "fighting man who is only supernatural by association". There was a push to get rid of "extraneous" classes- no longer were you an Assassin, that was a job title! The Complete Fighter's Handbook pushed Myrmidons, Gladiators, Swashbucklers, Samurai and more on us, with varying degrees of success, including the "magical but not really" Savage, many of which really warped the Fighter class in strange ways (I can't wear armor as a Fighter? WTH?).

3e tried to fix this with 1000 prestige classes in name only, which were more about "here's a way to make this concept work because our multiclass system kind of fails at it and despite what the DMG says about modifying classes, nobody wants to embrace alternate class features unless we publish them", but well, 1, that path could lead to madness if the DM wasn't paying attention, and 2, there are always purists who want a Fighter to be a Fighter not a Fighter 2/Rogue 4/Barbarian 2/Ranger 2 (thanks Human Favored Class!) eyeballing a few levels of Fang of Lolth and maybe Acrobat or Highland Stalker afterwards (you might laugh, but I saw someone actually work towards this insane character, and that's only after I talked them out of being a Dread Pirate!).

So while the game could totally support Gladiator, Cavalier, Assassin, and Scout as separate classes (as they were at various points during the TSR run), I can see why people might not want dozens of classes running around for fear of them either being too good (Factotum?) or mostly useless drek (Complete Warrior Samurai).

Other people want better mechanics but don't want a certain kind of narrative. Take all the people who balked at playing the Swordsage because "warrior shooting fire out of their sword" was not what they wanted to play, despite being perfectly happy with the third-tier PHB Monk (and let's not get started on the endless "Monk OP!" "Monk sucks!" debate, lol.

 

[James Gasik]

What exactly is the issue with the berserker subclass? High damage, high resistance, they seem pretty solid.

Uh the 2014 one? Exhaustion. You use your bonus action attack, you get hit with Exhaustion levels that are difficult to get rid of and can eventually kill you. This wouldn't be bad in of itself if the other Barbarian subclasses didn't give you cool features that don't have such a hefty pricetag.

202whenever Berserker? Seems fine to me.

 

[Justice and Rule]

One of the things that doesn't get enough consideration is that movement, alone, will not keep rage going. So if you don't have an enemy in reach, you need to find a source of damage. If nothing readily presents itself, you can punch yourself, costing your action.

Sure, but I see that as basic combat stuff. I never really saw wasted rages, even with new players, tbh.

What exactly is the issue with the berserker subclass? High damage, high resistance, they seem pretty solid.

Their resistance pales to the Bear and to use their power they basically have to hamstring themselves a fairly substantial amount of time. I get the idea of exhaustion for attacks, but it's just not a good tradeoff most of the time and even if it is, most players are gunshy about taking it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The community is diverse. That's the point. They won't all agree on the same things. That's how 5e turned out the way it did.

That's also why a half dozen completely different fantasy RPGs are coming out this year and the next.

WOTC has been milking name recognition as the most well known entry point and easiest group location.

If there were another RPG company with big money backing out there for marketing, the 2024 edition would be full blown 6e as WOTC would be forced to react to the community that currently exists.

That's true. Should we all pick one of WotC's competitors and invest heavily? You know the one I'd pick.

 

[James Gasik]

My problem with Rage in 5e is the same problem with Rage in 3e. Never knowing when I should use this daily resource. WTF are martials doing with daily resources in 5e anyways, lol.