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

[cbwjm]

The Controllers, now those are the ones I bet were not very popular.

Controllers were awesome, zone's and minion sweepers a plenty.

 

[Undrave]

Controllers were awesome, zone's and minion sweepers a plenty.

Alright! Everybody had role(s) they liked!

 

[cbwjm]

Alright! Everybody had role(s) they liked!

I only really tried the wizard because my friends and I only played 4e near the start of its release, but it was definitely worth having one in the party and was a fun role to play when you annihilate a couple of minions with one spell.

 

[Minigiant]

I know. But full-on healing without spending Hit Dice, means the Warlord pays the cost instead of the target. In this case, it would be a power per Short Rest.

It makes sense that the target pays for Warlord healing and is unique.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Can't be that unpopular if 1/4 of every 4e Class was a leader and people liked them. Clerics, Warlords, Bards, Shamans, I've seen or played them myself. In 4e, people loved the Leaders handing out bonuses, they loved the Defenders keeping enemies off of them and they loved the Strikers wth their big numbers.

Warlord was, in fact, so popular that it actually managed to challenge the otherwise-unquestioned, eternal hegemony of the Fighter as the most popular class in the game. Fighter still came out on top, but it was a tight race in more than one poll I saw.

The Controllers, now those are the ones I bet were not very popular.

Unfortunately, for good reason. Controller was unfocused, it lacked a core concept--it manifested almost purely through power design, not core class mechanics. Had Controller had a tighter design concept, I think it would have been more popular.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It makes sense that the target pays for Warlord healing and is unique.

Certainly. As others said, playing around with both spending HD and increasing the rate at which you regain them seems very appropriate, and helps distinguish the Warlord from other classes on a purely mechanical level. They'd likely also make use of THP (perhaps a core buff action could grant attack or AC bonuses and THP?), and I could see them making good use of the "if you have no uses of this ability, you regain the use of it when you roll initiative" type of refresh. Other classes occasionally feature that as a high-level benefit; having the Warlord use it from first level would again be distinctive and noteworthy, though not a mechanical foundation on its own.

Drawing together other things, like letting people replace D20 rolls with their raw stat scores (at -5 or whatever), amplifying Advantage (e.g. the way Elven Accuracy does), mitigating penalties like Disadvantage, setting a floor roll value, bringing back the 4e [W] notation, etc.--there's lots of mechanical bits and bobs we could use to make a Warlord that fits within the 5e mechanical language, or takes only a very small step outside it, while having a distinctive and noteworthy identity.

And--not to bring back in the "let's make fractal classes" thread too much--this is one of the really really big benefits of the "Warlock" class style. With Strategies(/Exploits/whatever, the per-short-rest effects) and Tactics(/Tricks/whatever, the usually always-on effects), you can actually empower DMs to help curate the kind of experience they want to have. Some would probably just ban the Warlord outright, but for those who are okay with the general idea of a Warlord but want to minimize martial healing as much as possible, having things cordoned off into clearly-identifiable mechanical chunks empowers DMs to say, "You can play a Warlord, but please don't take the following Strategies: Rub Some Dirt In It, Squad At The Ready, and Don't You Die On Me, nor the following Tactics: Effusive Inspiration, Tactical Triage, and Guts and Glory." Perhaps have a sidebar calling out which things are healing-related so those who just get deeply offended by the very idea of martial healing can mitigate it.

 

[Undrave]

Certainly. As others said, playing around with both spending HD and increasing the rate at which you regain them seems very appropriate, and helps distinguish the Warlord from other classes on a purely mechanical level. They'd likely also make use of THP (perhaps a core buff action could grant attack or AC bonuses and THP?), and I could see them making good use of the "if you have no uses of this ability, you regain the use of it when you roll initiative" type of refresh. Other classes occasionally feature that as a high-level benefit; having the Warlord use it from first level would again be distinctive and noteworthy, though not a mechanical foundation on its own.

I could see some verson of the Warlord handing out extra temp HP alongside the recovery of their allies. I could see the recovery of HD being tied to their 'presence' attribute (like, your allies regain stat mod HD on top of the normal HD recovery)

 

[James Gasik]

You don't need to dodge if the enemy's dead already.

Don't forget the subclass in the Sword Coast guide they never reprinted.

My experience tells me otherwise.

Nah, there's a limit to that because of what's on the pages.

So a homebrew class?

'Cary no weapon' when most of the Battlemaster abilities actually require you to attack to get the effect? THAT is building a character wrong. And how long exactly would it take for all that stuff to get online? Halfway through the campaign?

If a Wizard can be a Wizard at level 1, I want to be a Warlord at level 1. That's the crux of it, innit?

Can't be that unpopular if 1/4 of every 4e Class was a leader and people liked them. Clerics, Warlords, Bards, Shamans, I've seen or played them myself. In 4e, people loved the Leaders handing out bonuses, they loved the Defenders keeping enemies off of them and they loved the Strikers wth their big numbers.

The Controllers, now those are the ones I bet were not very popular.

In my experience, Controllers were more useful than Defenders, and could be quite powerful. Wizard, of course, being the king, but even Seeker (generally bottom of the barrel) had some powers that could be busted against slow moving enemies.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In my experience, Controllers were more useful than Defenders, and could be quite powerful. Wizard, of course, being the king, but even Seeker (generally bottom of the barrel) had some powers that could be busted against slow moving enemies.

It depended heavily on what kinds of enemies you faced. Tons of minions and standards coming at you in droves? Defender can't hold all of them, but a Controller can clear the field easily, though often dangerously. Mostly Solos and Elites with a few bodyguards? Defender is your best friend.

Some bucked the trends, e.g. Invokers were almost always party friendly, and Fighters were actually quite good at dishing out pain to a lot of enemies if they wished to (wasn't automatic but was a well-supported choice.)

 

[ECMO3]

Because high AC is good?

Oh it is good. I thought it "does not advance the game".

Come to think of it... why does it exist if, as you say, Patient Defense is vastly superior?? It's even better for your allies if you can trigger some extra OA and take no damage.

The same reason skill checks as an action in combat exist. There are rare instances where it makes sense, but SOW-disengage is not a great use of ki or especially powerful and if you made it resource free it would not substantially change the power level of the Monk because dodging as a bonus is MUCH better, even if disengage was free.

Also if you really like resource-free bonus action disengage, you can get it for free on a Monk by playng a Goblin (and get bonus action hide and fury of the small as well).

Don't forget you don't need to Rage to use Reckless Attack, something that can result into a devastating one shot for lesser enemies. And the Totem Barbarian gets abilities at level 6 that don't rely on Rage. The Barbarians has cool stuff that don't rely on Rage.

Not really devastating because the damage is not overwhelming unless you have Rogue levels or GWM and using Reckless attack kills any ability you had to tank (as does wielding heavy weapons). But it is an ability and it is pretty darn useful (when not tanking).