D&D 5E Would you prefer warlord or psion as a new class?

[Argyle King]

Ardent. It was not so much a psionic warlord as it was a psionic leader class.

Fluffwise, I remember the descriptions of the powers sounding warlordy to me. I never played one because I preferred the Warlord.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Ardent. It was not so much a psionic warlord as it was a psionic leader class.

Yep. In a way, the warlord was a more iconic example of the "leader" role, in 4e, than the Cleric which had originated it, when limited mainly to healing.

The Ardent proved a capable leader, too, IMX.

 

[Mistwell]

The 4E Warlord could never shout a person's arm back on anymore than a cleric can Cure Wounds a person's arm back on. That whole thing was Mike Mearls's own strawman.

Dude. It was a joke. Complete with a funny .gif to make that super clear.

But to be even more clear, it's the over the top super serious nature of the pro-Warlord crowd which spammed the message board so much at one point it required it's own separate forum to deal with it that turned me off to the Warlord. I used to like the Warlord class, but then its fans soured me on the concept. Because of stuff like this - freaking out about Mearls' off hand joke (a joke where he ALSO made it clear he was being silly, in the moment, and yet people still take it seriously like you just did). Just like the silly gnome cartoon earlier.

 

[Iry]

If you want to play a Warlord in 5E, you can play a Paladin multiclassed into battlemaster, or, even, just a paladin. The Warlord's main abilities have already been so spread-out and cannibalized that a Warlord class would seem underwhelming if released now.

It might chuff people the wrong way, but I think the best Warlord reskin is simply... Cleric. Knowledge, Life, Order, Trickery, and War are most the most fitting domains, and it's extremely easy to pick spells that suit the themes of the Warlord and say they are not magic. I've played a Life Cleric that bellowed inspiration at people and it went extremely well as long as we didn't think too hard about Dispel and Counter.

TL;DR Use magic. Say it's not magic.

 

[Maxperson]

I like actual HP because it's abstract and not flesh anyway.

A portion of it is explicitly flesh. Cuts and bruises start being a part of hit point loss at 50% hit points, and hitting 0 results in a direct strike causing significant trauma.

 

[Aldarc]

Dude. It was a joke. Complete with a funny .gif to make that super clear.

I recognized that it was a joke, but okay. As Tony Vargas said, Mearls may have been joking but that did not stop those against 4e and the Warlord from using it as a rallying cry.

 

[Tony Vargas]

TL;DR Use magic. Say it's not magic.

Doesn't work. 5e's concept-first, natural-language design approach gets in the way. Spells are magic designed & 'balanced' as such. You can't just re-skin them as inspiration or psi powers or whatever and take away their components or render them immune from being countered or dispelled, for instance.

That's why even BM manuevers are their own, single-sub-class sub-system, rather than just "fighter Spells."

 

[Argyle King]

The "official" attempts to create Psions appear to be set on bolting the concept to the Wizard framework.

Why not Sorcerer? Sorcerer is already based around the idea of using a pool of points to gain different effects.

 

[Mistwell]

I recognized that it was a joke, but okay. As Tony Vargas said, Mearls may have been joking but that did not stop those against 4e and the Warlord from using it as a rallying cry.

No man, talk about a strawman! I was very much pro 4e and the Warlord. It was the over the top nature of the advocacy for the Warlord, and the seriousness the topic was treated with even in face of Mearls' blatant joke, which turned me off to it. It's become my rallying cry against the Warlord because people can't help but take themselves too seriously when it comes to this class.

 

[Aldarc]

No man, talk about a strawman! I was very much pro 4e and the Warlord. It was the over the top nature of the advocacy for the Warlord, and the seriousness the topic was treated with even in face of Mearls' blatant joke, which turned me off to it. It's become my rallying cry against the Warlord because people can't help but take themselves too seriously when it comes to this class.

Coincidentally, I was fairly lukewarm on the Warlord until the same debates put me firmly into the Pro-Warlord side due to how disrespectful I felt others were being towards the pro-Warlord side. Funny how perspective can change things. But you know, how many years after that joke and the pro-Warlord people are still waiting for the class in 5e? I guess you should be happy that other people's fun is soured.