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

[Undrave]

I don’t. Doing that completely eliminates resource abilities being strong than regular ones. Always more fun to use your bigger guns, no? Why require the wizard to sometimes fire bolt, let him fireball every turn! See the problem?

Ressource management isn't a bad mechanic in itself.

 

[Undrave]

Patient defense is one of the best tanking abilities in the game. Monk can wade into alot of enemies with patient defense up and not really worry. And since enemies will start to be downed or controlled then by round 2-3 you don’t even need to keep spending ki on it. Used properly it’s cheap and very effective.

If you don’t find ‘tanking’ fun then i get the dislike, but I do and a tier 2 monk makes a solid tank. Speed to get out in front of allies. Solid ac and ability to cause disadvantage. Can stun or close distance on solo enemy that ignores him and chases allies. Can use position and patient defense against larger groups.

Well played monks are really strong (the first few levels are a little rough though).

Gotta admit it sounds good when you say it like that, but two-three turn of that and maybe 1 or 2 Stunning Strike... that Ki runs out quick and you're behind enemy lines. I think I managed to actually stun an enemy... once? In the time I played a Monk.

And I didn't really need to tank in my party, we had a Paladin and a Bearbarian, so you can understand how I felt a bit inadequate and superfluous? And our Warlock could make the Barbarian FLY.

EDIT: Also, I have to admit I kept forgetting the advantage you get after teleporting as a Shadow Monk >.>

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think that’s missing a lot of nuance. Playing well almost always requires doing something you don’t find fun.

As Undrave said. It's a matter of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

I don’t. Doing that completely eliminates resource abilities being strong than regular ones. Always more fun to use your bigger guns, no? Why require the wizard to sometimes fire bolt, let him fireball every turn! See the problem?

Not at all. It means that you make the difficulty of choosing when to use it actually fun, and you make it so that you can't just spam fireball every single time.

Your example is also not applicable, because you aren't contrasting "do the fun thing" with "do the effective thing." You're contrasting "do the fun and effective thing" vs "do the dull and ineffective thing."

It's a flaw of the overall design that the fun and effective thing is brokenly overpowered when the players are allowed to control their rate of resting. If the fun and effective thing weren't brokenly overpowered to begin with, it wouldn't be an issue. In fact, it would be a great thing that using a not-broken fireball repeatedly brings joy to the player choosing to do that.

One should already be striving for player options that are reasonable and fitting. Within that context, the player should not be forced to decide between the dull-but-effective stuff (like +2 to your ability scores, which is at least 95% of the time the most effective choice and completely boring) or the fun-but-ineffective stuff (the vast majority of feats.)

 

[CapnZapp]

That's not what I said.

My point was, and remains, the enforced double standard. Anything so-called "nonmagic" is exclusively held to standards far below those actually achievable by real-world Olympian athletes. Yet "magic" is allowed to do LITERALLY ANYTHING AT ALL.

Unless and until we recognize that "nonmagic" in a fantasy universe is fundamentally different from "nonmagic" in our universe where magic simply IS NOT REAL AND DOES NOT EXIST, we will continue to have these problems. Because the artificially-enforced double standard remains: X thing is never allowed to be anything except a weak, feeble subset of what is actually possible IRL, while Y thing is allowed to be anything at all.

At this point, I think it might be constructive if you and I asked ourselves "what might be the cause if this enforced difference?"

Not sure you've ever tried to see the value in the thing you're so clearly upset about, but if you did, it might actually help.

I believe the affairs are in this state because as a game much simpler than reality, there needs to be a clear difference between magic and not magic.

If not magic were allowed to replicate real-world athletes, the game would simply run out of map, and there'd be little left to distinguish magic.

If you think about it this way I find it easier to accept that this is likely an aspect of the game that's here to stay. Because it brings value.

Non magic is, like it or not, in the game as the introductory "easy mode" suitable for your very first character while most (all?) power builds need to switch over to the "advanced" magic "mode".

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

At this point, I think it might be constructive if you and I asked ourselves "what might be the cause if this enforced difference?"

Not sure you've ever tried to see the value in the thing you're so clearly upset about, but if you did, it might actually help.

I believe the affairs are in this state because as a game much simpler than reality, there needs to be a clear difference between magic and not magic.

If not magic were allowed to replicate real-world athletes, the game would simply run out of map, and there'd be little left to distinguish magic.

If you think about it this way I find it easier to accept that this is likely an aspect of the game that's here to stay. Because it brings value.

Non magic is, like it or not, in the game as the introductory "easy mode" suitable for your very first character while most (all?) power builds need to switch over to the "advanced" magic "mode".

No. Magic in D&D, at least the type of magic used by spellcasters, has the explicit advantage of being very very flexible. A wizard is essentially a generalist that can pick their daily specialisation per day.

If we could measure a character delta, a measurement of how different two characters are, then the greatest possible difference can only be achieved by casters.

Casters have both superior flexibility, superior reliability (they typically don't need to rely on luck when they solve problems outside of combat) and superior power. If there is an obstacle that blocks a martial, then that obstacle will not block the wizard unless the obstacle is some kind of anti-magic field.

This is really only true in D&D and derivatives. It isn't true in Mörk Borg. It isn't true in Dragonbane. In those systems the casters cannot learn absurd amounts of spells, the spells they cast are not 100% reliable.

Magic does not need to be overpowered to be magical.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

It would be very funny if the warlord class was asked in the future by fault of a CRPG where the main character is a "warlord" with a "harem" of "monster girls".

I imagine the D&D warlord as the leader of a warband from some skirmishes miniature game style Mordheim, Warcry or Warhammer Underworld.

* There aren't only warlord classes by 3PPs but also several homebrew versions. What are the best ideas to be got?

 

[Micah Sweet]

No. Magic in D&D, at least the type of magic used by spellcasters, has the explicit advantage of being very very flexible. A wizard is essentially a generalist that can pick their daily specialisation per day.

If we could measure a character delta, a measurement of how different two characters are, then the greatest possible difference can only be achieved by casters.

Casters have both superior flexibility, superior reliability (they typically don't need to rely on luck when they solve problems outside of combat) and superior power. If there is an obstacle that blocks a martial, then that obstacle will not block the wizard unless the obstacle is some kind of anti-magic field.

This is really only true in D&D and derivatives. It isn't true in Mörk Borg. It isn't true in Dragonbane. In those systems the casters cannot learn absurd amounts of spells, the spells they cast are not 100% reliable.

Magic does not need to be overpowered to be magical.

While I completely agree with you here, he is right in that this isn't going to change, because too many  customers players like it as is.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

At this point, I think it might be constructive if you and I asked ourselves "what might be the cause if this enforced difference?"

Not sure you've ever tried to see the value in the thing you're so clearly upset about, but if you did, it might actually help.

I have. It hasn't helped. If anything, it's made things worse.

I believe the affairs are in this state because as a game much simpler than reality, there needs to be a clear difference between magic and not magic.

Okay. That's not too hard to achieve. In fact, there are a lot of ways that can be done.

If not magic were allowed to replicate real-world athletes, the game would simply run out of map, and there'd be little left to distinguish magic.

How? What? Why?

I'm sorry, but I just...I can't take this assertion seriously. You're literally saying that magic, which can do literally anything in D&D, is somehow too limited to be distinctive if...people are able to do the things actual, living, breathing humans today can do on Earth? I cannot fathom how you would believe that.

There's plenty of things to distinguish magic from non-magic. Elemental effects, particularly the most purely magical ones like necrotic, radiant, force, etc. Using different processes, where some mechanics (e.g. certain ways of determining results, or contesting actions, or manifesting effects, etc., etc.) only show up as magic and others only show up as non-magic. For example, I don't believe there are any spells in 5e that grant Expertise in a skill. That's great--make sure no spell ever does. That makes Expertise an inherently mundane effect, even when learned as a Bard or via feats. Likewise, maybe elemental resistances are necessarily magical, so they necessarily shut off while in an AMF. I am, of course, spitballing; one would want to make a variety of effects, approaches, and mechanics that only appear on one side or the other, in addition to the various ones that appear on both (like attack rolls and saving throws.)

If you think about it this way I find it easier to accept that this is likely an aspect of the game that's here to stay. Because it brings value.

I don't think this achieved what you hoped it would achieve. At absolute best, you have simply confused me further.

Non magic is, like it or not, in the game as the introductory "easy mode" suitable for your very first character while most (all?) power builds need to switch over to the "advanced" magic "mode".

Nope. I absolutely will not accept this. Period, full stop. There should be non-easy-mode non-magic, and easy mode magic. This is a perfectly achievable thing.

And if the one and only meaningful difference between them is that one is brainlessly "easy" and the other "advanced", I fail to see how that, in ANY way, achieves the claimed desire of massively different entities. Difficulty is in the eye of the beholder--so your standard would be by definition a failure for anyone who finds magic easy to work with or who doesn't grok martial stuff, whether or not their appraisal of the other side is fitting. Actually using different methods, offering different effects, and featuring different mechanics is objective. If radiant damage is always magical, then there's no possible disagreement about whether a thing that does radiant damage is magic. It's just an objective fact.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

While I completely agree with you here, he is right in that this isn't going to change, because too many  customers players like it as is.

Do they? Are you sure?

Or is it just a vocal minority?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do they? Are you sure?

Or is it just a vocal minority?

Impossible to be sure I guess, but it's been 25 years since WotC took over, and 10 years since 5e was published, and not nearly enough folks have spoken up to change WotC's mind on magic. If anything they've doubled down. So for all practical purposes the majority of WotC's customer base is on board with the status quo. If that's not what you want (and you know I get it), you're going to have to look elsewhere for satisfaction.