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

[Undrave]

who says doing that has to be anti-warlord? or that they're specifically replicating abilities to buff themselves? imagine being able to replicate a paladin's aura, or maintain concentration on a second wizard's haste?

but a warlord is also about tactics, and who's to say the most tactical thing right now for the benefit of everyone isn't to buff yourself have a second person raging on the field right now, or to drop a moon druid's bear wildshape on yourself.

Sounds like a nightmare to adjudicate if the system isn't built from the ground up to accommodate it, and it doesn't take into account non-PC allies being a thing. Not all class powers are equal.

But I think it would be cool to have a Warlord ability that lets you roll the Concentration Check for an adjacent spell caster! That's a cool touch.

One of the biggest issues with a 5e warlord isn’t the concept itself but the insistence of the specific mechanic of attack granting or at will attack granting.

In 4e attack grants theoretically worked because basic attacks were theoretically designed to be about the same effectiveness (in practice things like frost cheese could change that a bit).

In 5e though there is no basic attack and attacks are all over the place in terms of power. Anything from like d8+3 to 3d6+5 to 4d6+5 and that’s just with single pc self buff spells and no magic items or rogues.

Usually I see warlord discussions end on this question - how to handle and balance attack granting.

Attack granting is kinda iconic but even in 4e it wasn't all they did. You could easily build a Warlord that never granted basic melee attack. And even in 4e you had classes that were better targets than other for granted attacks. I actually think granted attacks scale poorly in 5e because weapon attacks scale by adding more attacks, where as in 4e they added more [W]. And you had powers you could use as basic attacks. Without a rogue the ability kinda falls off. I don't think it's as big an issue as you think it is, considering the Warlord player could just be playing the same class as their teammates and probably get better damage output.

Shorter or unpredictable duration. Haste always lasts ten turns, unless the caster fails a Concentration check. Perhaps Exploits could have a check each round to determine if they persist or not, so there's always a chance that the effect fails after only a single turn, which would be a pretty significant downside compared to magic, I should hope.

Oooh! We could recycle the 4e Save Ends mechanic but for positive effect! Even have higher level exploits be multiple effects that can fail independently. The Haste-Alike could be three different effect: Extra Attack, Bonus to AC and Bonus to Speed. You could even have the character take some HP damage when one of those effect fail if you want to really crank up the risky downsides.

Which is, I think, why a lot of people point at the Fighter as a place to put a Warlord (as an archetype). If the Fighter already is a good portion of what the Warlord would be, then it kind of makes sense, and certainly would be more possible to see. But the subclass power budget is low, and possibly not enough for the Warlord, at least without some extra steps, and it wouldn't work especially if we need the warlord to specifically be a full class in order to be satisfying.

And we might need that! There's value in talking about why 5e doesn't accommodate new official classes very easily.

This is why I think it's easier to fit the selfish stuff in a Warlord's subclass instead of fitting the Warlord stuff in a selfish class' subclass. My idea for a Warlord is that you can choose the subclass that fits your party the best, or you can just choose a more generic one that makes you better on your own. What did you think of the subclass concepts I talked about?

People don't use Frenzy because they HATED exhaustion. The most popular reason I heard is that they really disliked an ability that killed you as you used it. Nevermind that it was effectively the same thing as saying "you can do this once per day." Virtually everyone I talked to about Frenzy hated the drawback, not the power itself.

Oh that's another possible drawback: you lose HP every turn you're under the effect. Literally burning up.

 

[FrogReaver]

Attack granting is kinda iconic but even in 4e it wasn't all they did. You could easily build a Warlord that never granted basic melee attack. And even in 4e you had classes that were better targets than other for granted attacks. I actually think granted attacks scale poorly in 5e because weapon attacks scale by adding more attacks, where as in 4e they added more [W]. And you had powers you could use as basic attacks. Without a rogue the ability kinda falls off. I don't think it's as big an issue as you think it is, considering the Warlord player could just be playing the same class as their teammates and probably get better damage output.

tell ya what. Homebrew a warlord that doesn’t do any attack granting or even just not as much attack granting as warlord fans want and see how well that goes. I promise ya I’ve seen it attempted enough. It’s not going to go well.

 

[Yaarel]

I've got zero problem with a level 20 warlord calling up supernatural help with their (entirely nonmagical) ability to call in an oath, be they angle or debil or zombo or dragin or whatever. It's a magical world, there's magical armies, this person knows how best to use them, even if they don't quite know how to do what it is they do.

Your posts describe a magical Summoner.

Differently, the whole point of a Warlord class is it is strictly nonmagical. Its Martial power source showcases amazing reallife heroism, resourcefulness, and courage in urgent situations. At least for levels 1 thru 8, its design must focus on naturalistic concepts.

Normal nonmagical humans can have nice things.

Almost the entirety of all hit points are strictly nonphysical. It is actually the absence of hit points - 0 hp - that becomes physical.

The Warlord is a powerful healer, a healer of the soul, galvanizing resolve, energy, determination, alertness, responsiveness, hope, and ingeniously and reliably discovering a way forward.

None of this is magic.

Normal humans do this every day.

 

[Undrave]

tell ya what. Homebrew a warlord that doesn’t do any attack granting or even just not as much attack granting as warlord fans want and see how well that goes. I promise ya I’ve seen it attempted enough. It’s not going to go well.

My last attempt at the Warlord doesn't immediately grants an attack, rather if the target of their ability takes the attack action on their next turn they can do an extra attack. I settled on that formula because I didn't want to rob the melee guys of their opportunity attacks and to prevent extra sneak attacks from the rogue. That's the only ability I had that granted attacks. People would prefer the classic 'they use their reaction and make an attack' but I didn't want to just copy the Battlemaster maneuver. Note that the maneuver costs 1 superiority dice but that dice gets added as damage so it's mostly spent for the extra damage and not the action itself.

If granting attacks was as unbalanced as you think it is in 5e, I don't think Commander's Strike would actually add the spent Superiority Dice to the damage and instead just use it as a limiting factor.

 

[Mephista]

Oh that's another possible drawback: you lose HP every turn you're under the effect. Literally burning up.

A people don't like list? No, no, its a to-do checklist!

Joking aside... That's not a real drawback, considering the guy creating the HP loss is also the guy burning resources to keep you from dying from the HP loss. It basically translates to "spend more resource to power this one ability." And, considering we're talking about short-rest-recharge powers, this effectively means no cost outside of a dungeon, where there's often long periods of time between encounters. Or, if we went with the gamble power thingy, it'd mean it was actively granting you more power to do things rather than a cost.


People have done the "powered by HP" thing before, across multiple editions and different D&D clones, and it pretty consistently ends up as just putting a bit more of a burden on the healer's resources instead of an active threat to one's life. Or could require more HD to heal it during a rest, but that's same idea.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Your posts describe a magical Summoner.

Differently, the whole point of a Warlord class is it is strictly nonmagical.

No, it's strictly nonmagical.

See, it says so: It's Not Magic. Right there in The Rules (as proposed).

I can't believe I'm bringing this up for the SECOND time in as many weeks, but it's a very good way to parse the talking points here: Saitama. One Punch Man. His origin story is doing a lot of exercise, now he can punch through mountains. Without magic. With just...training.

Batman. He's just super skilled, but he can go toe to toe with nigh-omnipotent alien christ figures and demigods and whatnot. He's not magical.

Even just a normal bog standard D&D champion is slaying dragons and giants by Just Being That Good.

I'm not saying a high-level warlord NEEDS to be able to (nonmagically) summon angels. But I am saying that it's entirely on theme, and entirely appropriate for what a 20th level D&D character can do. The wizard's over here granting wishes and the cleric's over there raising people who've been dead for 50 years and the fighter's next to you getting walloped with a club the size of an apartment building and not even flinching and the rogue just backstabbed an eldritch horror introducing it to a concept our mortal minds call "not being alive any more." You're a legendary person, why WOULDN'T the celestial hosts sign up to fight at your side?

Hell, there's a 4e Epic Destiny for the warlord that explicitly trucks in exactly this kind of wahoo: "Is it your greater destiny to stand at the fore of united angelic legions as they hold back the chaos? Will you lead the gods to victory over their ancient foes."

A legendary commander and you don't want them to have a class feature that lets them lead an army of literal gods? Maybe part of why there's no warlord in 5e is because people have no friggin ambition anymore.

This is kind of aesthetic policing is why the point about magic and martial abilities being mechanically simple to remix as each other is important to harp on. I get that there's "the look and feel" to consider - faerie fire's effects are pretty warlordcore, but the flavor isn't super in line with what we want a martial commander to do, for instance. That's part of why I'm not proposing 4e-style martial spellcasting as a viable immediate solution (to be a viable solution would mean to have some significant additions of "more subtle spells," at least). But if we can't imagine a world where our highest level warlords are possibly leading armies of angels, which is exactly the kind of nonsense high-level characters in D&D get up to, because "that's too magical," then our vision of what a martial hero is capable of is handicapped. Fighter hit good, rogue skill good, warlord speak good, heavens forfend that we be able to chop a mountain in twain, balance on the tip of a sword, or get a dragon to arrive at our call of their truname (entrusted only to us), no no no, that's too magical for a friggin' D&D character, only wizards can do that. Bah! 20th level Wizards are doing powerful stuff, 20th level Warlords can do powerful stuff, too!

 

[pawsplay]

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.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Sounds like a nightmare to adjudicate if the system isn't built from the ground up to accommodate it, and it doesn't take into account non-PC allies being a thing. Not all class powers are equal.

But I think it would be cool to have a Warlord ability that lets you roll the Concentration Check for an adjacent spell caster! That's a cool touch.

oh you're probably right, but the idea of being able to double up on having your class features active on the battlefield twice by having someone else be using them is still a cool idea conceptually

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My opinion is the future warlord will be designed to can be played in mass battles, but this is not ready yet.

Maybe the future warlord class is right for dungeon-crawling, but if later there is a "module" about mass battles, because the buffs by the warlord then this class could be overpowered in the battle field.

Other point is some not all D&D players use a tabletop and miniatures. Then a warlord too focused into bonus-areas or like this isn't too interesting for these last players.

Should the warlord to be a "no-magic buffer"? Could a subclass cast magic?

Could can the warlord class to be not only useful but also fun to be played?

Or could be the warlord a subclass of martial adepts focused in the school of the white raven?

* In a mass battle there aren't time for rest.

 

[Undrave]

People have done the "powered by HP" thing before, across multiple editions and different D&D clones, and it pretty consistently ends up as just putting a bit more of a burden on the healer's resources instead of an active threat to one's life. Or could require more HD to heal it during a rest, but that's same idea.

How is that not an extra cost? It's basically a maintenance cost for the ability imposed on the person granting the ability.

classes in 5e aren't defined primarily by their role.

That's why the Monk sucks.