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

[Yaarel]

Yep, and it isn't going to stop them anytime soon. Those assumptions are there, and they aren't changing, because Team MeatPoint doesn't want them changed any more than Team Abstraction wants to change their assumptions.

We have to work with both camps...and I think that's why these discussions go nowhere.

Team meat point doesnt want it changed.

Too late.

 

[CleverNickName]

The origin of team meat point is a double standard. Gygax advised DMs to describe damage against players as nonphysical, but against monsters as physical. At the same time using Rasputin taking physical damage as an example of Constitution causes confusion. But perhaps Rasputin is the monster.

Team meat point doesnt want it changed.

Too late.

Cool, I'll let them know.

 

[pawsplay]

The 4e Monk was a Striker,

Okay. Maybe a weird choice for a character that often attacks bare-handed, but cool.

I don't know what the 5e Monk is good at because to make it be good at anything on a baseline level they need to spend their limited Ki point.

Well, they're weak. I don't know that they would be better off as a weak striker than anything else.

4e had a Striker Fighter, it was called the Ranger, but the Fighter was clearly minoring in Striker.

There was also the Slayer Fighter, which blended the striker with the defender. Hence, even in 4e, class was conceptual as much as it was role-based.

 

[FrogReaver]

Exactly? How is it an issue? We have Commander's Strike right there!

Let's compare Commander's Strike to two other Maneuvers: Lunging Attack and Maneuvring Attack. All three can be grabbed at level 3 and all three use 1 superiority dice. All three ad the superiority dice to the damage of the attack made as part of their effects.

If commanders strike was enough then we wouldn’t have 50+ homebrew warlord attempts over the years.

This means that 'Granting an allies, who spends their reaction, a single attack' is given the same 'value' in this transaction as 'Attack someone 5 feet further away' and 'An ally can move half their speed without triggering oa from the target'.

That’s not a good way to determine value.

That doesn't feel like a high value effect to me. Especially because a reaction can be REALLY costly: A Fighter with the right Subclass or feat can use their OA to stop an enemy in their track,

A reaction can also be extremely uncostly as most turns there’s at least one character with a good attack that didn’t use one.

a Wizard can use reaction to protect themselves with Shield, and both the Monk and Rogue can use it to use Evasion. It's not like 4e where you get one reaction per character's turn, you only get 1 per round.

That’s a big if. Its not like reactions for most classes come up very often.

Commander's Strike is basically sacrificing your own attack to let an ally do an opportunity attack without riders. The dice cost seems to exist only to justify the extra damage and nothing else. I don't think an at-will version of Commander's Strike that offers no damage bonus would be broken.

It would be extremely OP. Especially with all the other desired abilities tacked on. And even more so depending on the level it’s achieved and the multiclassing shenanigans that could open up.

 

[cbwjm]

There's no warlord equivalent in 5e because classes in 5e aren't defined primarily by their role. A warlord is just a warrior in the support/healer role. The only way you can remotely imitate one is to look at support/healing abilities in 5e and graft them onto something similar to a fighter or cleric.

There is already a Battlemaster Fighter. There is already an Inspiring Leader feat. There is already the Valor Bard. That's what it looks like to be a support warrior in 5e. The only way to make a "warlord" is to go a step further, and start providing non-magical healing, and maybe Beastmaster-like lazylord abilities. Maybe have a squire as a class feature.

This is what I like about 5e, I can build a warlord a number of different ways because the warlord kit was split between a number of classes and subclasses.

 

[Undrave]

The results vary wildly. Which means that the mechanic might be useless or might be OP, depending on party composition. Something outside your control. And what happens if you rely on having a Rogue, but they stop showing or change PC?

Oh I see what you mean. I think it's fine for it to not be good all the time, as long as there's no opportunity cost to have it available. If we're talking the Commander Strike's Maneuver on the Battlemaster, you really need to know your party before you actually pick it, but if it's like... one of 3 or so ability all Warlords get by default and they're all useful in different ways? Why does it matter if you never use this particular one, ya know? Spells aren't useful in all circumstances, doesn't make them bad.

So does that mean the real Ranger was the seeker?

Tha's probably what they were going for.

It's not impossible to balance. None of those are a basic attack. A basic attack is a weapon attack, something which all classes can make. Just because it isn't the best option to use your Commanding Strike for a warlock with a sickle doesn't mean it isn't possible.

Yup. It's fine if its dependant on opportunities.

It's pretty clear in play what a Monk is meant to do, because every monk I've ever actually seen in play is a focused damage-dealer who mostly piles multiple attacks into the enemy. Spending ki is an expected part of their play (spending resources is an expected part of any class's play, no?), and at low levels most monks I know readily spend it for Flurry, while maybe holding one in reserve for Patient Defense or Step of the Wind if they want to play it safe. Most other 1st-tier abilities are not oriented to their attack power (which, because of flurry, is considerable), but at 5th level they get even more attacks and also stunning strike, which effectively locks down almost every monster in the game and ups the entire party's damage potential. I've seen monks effectively solo threats meant for a whole party simply because of their ability to deny actions.

Oh yeah, you spend all your Ki points on flurry and then you get walloped on the crackback and you end up at half HP in one hit because you have 15 AC and only D8 hit points despite being stuck in melee all the time! You know a Rogue could out perform you with like a hand crossbow and sneak attacks and stay out of enemy reach with minor action disengage without spending a single ressource. And they get expertise on top.

And Stunning Strike is a friggin' trap. Your saving throw is often way too low and it's just another thing to burn your Ki on that only seem to work on enemies you were better off just attacking so your allies could finish them off before they act again anyway.

Which isn't to say they're perfect or can't be buffed or whatever, it's just to say "without ki" is a poor way to evaluate the monk. It's like evaluating the wizard without considering spells they cast, or evaluating the rogue without sneak attacks.

Nah, compare a Battlemaster without Superiority Dice to a Monk without Ki. The Monk sucks at everything.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If commanders strike was enough then we wouldn’t have 50+ homebrew warlord attempts over the years.

The corollary here is that if commander's strike (or other options) wasn't enough for most people then we would have an official version of the warlord by now when WotC responded to the outcry of excluding it by now. Heck, we probably would've had one in 2014 - these dudes have been survey-jockeys for a decade, now.

Another answer to why there is no warlord equivalent in 5e: the existing options satisfy enough people that it hasn't been a major concern for the devs (even if it definitely doesn't serve everyone).

 

[Micah Sweet]

Heh, I guess old schoolers think they dont need to read the rules about hit points.

Hit points have been interpreted many ways over the editions, as well as in D&D-adjacent games. Not every 5e player accepts it's interpretation of the game entirely.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Oh yeah, you spend all your Ki points on flurry and then you get walloped on the crackback and you end up at half HP in one hit because you have 15 AC and only D8 hit points despite being stuck in melee all the time! You know a Rogue could out perform you with like a hand crossbow and sneak attacks and stay out of enemy reach with minor action disengage without spending a single ressource. And they get expertise on top.

This theorycraft isn't born out in actual play. Most 1st-tier monks I've seen blast through an average monster by spending a single ki point on flurry when they decide to nova. d8 hp doesn't mean you get one-shotted, so you can take a round or two of hits (and a round or two is all you need), and 1 ki point left in reserve lets you access the defensive options if the monsters get lucky and crit you or something. Dead monsters give no crackback. Heck, the most recent monk I've had was effectively the party tank (a cleric, a warlock, and a bard made up the rest of the party). The comparison to a rogue is pretty apples and oranges - remove ki and you may as well remove sneak attacks, too. Expertise is a ribbon.

And Stunning Strike is a friggin' trap. Your saving throw is often way too low and it's just another thing to burn your Ki on that only seem to work on enemies you were better off just attacking so your allies could finish them off before they act again anyway.

Again, not borne out in play. Big secret that most wizards know is that monsters have doo doo saves. Sure, dragons or giants or other meaty critters might save, but you've got enough ki to take it to them round after round - everyone rolls a 3 eventually (typical D&D fight is about 3-5 rounds, so it's not like you need to conserve your resources much there). I've seen monks lock down enemies often enough that house ruling Stunning Strike is one of the few power-based house rules I've considered for 5e, due to it turning so many 4v1 fights into cakewalks for the players (didn't end up doing it, because I prefer to allow power to breathe a bit, but it wrecked some fights like arcane eye wrecks some dungeons!)

Nah, compare a Battlemaster without Superiority Dice to a Monk without Ki. The Monk sucks at everything.

That's still pretty apples and oranges. Different classes have different subclass budgets. Fighters get a lot of very solid features from their core class (which is a problem for putting Warlord in Fighter, since there's not a lot of power budget to work with!). Also, Fighters are arguably one of the most powerful classes when it comes to damage.

The game's group PvE, so you want to compare the monk to the rogue or fighter in terms of matchups against monsters of various CR's with various party members, rather than comparing raw damage outputs. Do they contribute enough? My XP says yeah, though their ribbon-to-attack ratio is a little borked (enough so that spending ki on other things, like an elemental monk's spells, has been seen as a downgrade in play).

 

[Vaalingrade]

The corollary here is that if commander's strike (or other options) wasn't enough for most people then we would have an official version of the warlord by now when WotC responded to the outcry of excluding it by now. Heck, we probably would've had one in 2014 - these dudes have been survey-jockeys for a decade, now.

Which would mean something if they ever asked a question about the warlord.