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

[Cadence]

First of all weight does matter a lot if you play RAW, especially if you are a small PC or have a low strength.

What is the carrying capacity difference between small and medium in 5e RAW?

 

[ECMO3]

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.

This is basic math.

2 uses of patient defense and 1 stunning strike in the first two rounds of a fight is enough for a 6th level Monk to do that EVERY SINGLE FIGHT if you use normal RAW encounter pacing (6 fights and 2 short rests per day).

The ki goes even further on tables that play with fewer encounters (and that is most of them).

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.

Most Barbarians are not very good Tanks unless they have AC-boosting magic or you have other PCs healing them all the time. Their AC is weak and that translates to a ton of hits.

Also since you talked about ki running out quick, I will point out Rage is pretty essential for a Barbarian to tank and Barbarians do NOT get a lot of rages. I demonstrated above how a 6th level Monk won't run out of ki dodging 2 rounds and using 1 stunning strike per fight with normal encounter pacing. A 6th level Barbarian however WILL run out rages in that scenario .... even a 16th level Barbarian will run out of rages in a standard adventuring day and at that point a Monk can spend Ki like a drunken sailor.

 

[ECMO3]

What is the carrying capacity difference between small and medium in 5e RAW?

It is no different. Tiny is less.

 

[Undrave]

First of all weight does matter a lot if you play RAW, especially if you are a small PC or have a low strength. Second this still doesn't tell me why you wear it. Making enemies miss is not fun (your words), so why bother and why would you ever, ever upgrade?

It's a passive buff. It doesn't take away from the cool stuff I can do. It's not like a Battlemaster wasting a Superiority Dice to be able to wear armor.

You know what I don't like doing as a player? Using my action to buff others, or giving others opportunity attacks .... which is really the whole point of the Warlord archetype. I personally have a lot more fun using patient defense, or doorway dodging for that matter. That doesn't mean it is "wrong" to like that style of play or that a Warlord type class would be terrible just because I personally don't like to play my PCs that way.

That's nice for you. Still doesn't explain why it should cost a Ki to use it when a Rogue can disengage for just a bonus action. The Monk would be cooler if Patient Defense only cost a Bonus Action, then it would feel more central to its design.

 

[Justice and Rule]

That's nice for you. Still doesn't explain why it should cost a Ki to use it when a Rogue can disengage for just a bonus action. The Monk would be cooler if Patient Defense only cost a Bonus Action, then it would feel more central to its design.

And it's not like it wouldn't already have cost: most of the big class stuff (like Stunning Strike) are tied to Flurry of Blows and such, which also cost a Bonus Action. There are really two costs rather than one, because there's the opportunity cost of using your Bonus Action for something else, much like the Rogue has with using its Bonus Action for Cunning Action or an Off-hand Attack. But we aren't making the Rogue pay for those, are we? Of course not, because there is already a cost incurred, since it can't do all those things at once.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not really applicable to my point. My point is that doing the fun thing bs doing the effective thing is a necessary paradigm and not bad if itself.

The fun thing = use fireball NOW. The effective thing = save fireball for later by using firebolt now.

Nah. That's a completely artificial way of doing things--predicated on the bad design of D&D spells.

That’s a different discussion

It absolutely is not. If the fundamental design is already borked, it's a GIGO situation. That's extremely relevant. If you already have a freshly-cut sow's ear, you're not making a silk purse.

Fireball is not brokenly OP

You literally just proved it is in any environment where the players can use it as often as they like.

I’m not a fan of scaling ASIs by level so I’d agree based on that, but as long as they do allow scaling them up as you level they make for great ways to differentiate at least some characters. My barbarian/rogue that invested in con instead of str comes to mind.

So. Just to be clear. Having +1 AC, +level HP, and healing +1 more point per HD spent, vs doing +1 damage, hitting 5% (in absolute terms, not relative terms) more often, and having a 2-foot-longer running long jump, is a meaningful differentiator? Because that's all that those two choices do, other than (I guess) Con saves being generally better than Str saves. Con doesn't even add to any skills anymore, since 5e dropped Endurance, and it only adds to AC because you're talking about a Barbarian.

I don't see how that cashes out. It sounds like you have invested that choice with a hell of a lot more meaning than what the actual rules themselves communicate. Which is, unfortunately, one of the greatest problems in discussions of this sort. Rules that have long-held traditional value are given carte blanche for being flavorless nothing, while rules that actually work to produce the experience required are judged harshly with a microscopic lens. Then, they're held to the impossible standard of being flawlessly good at generating flavor but in zero ways "forcing" any flavor; any error to either side is ripped into as utterly unacceptable. Either it's "bland flavorless garbage" or it's "Golden Wyvern Adept." Nothing is allowed to exist long enough to become a new tradition, the perfect catch-22, you can't get a job without having experience, and you can't get experience without having a job.

I think the purpose of ASIs/feats is to differentiate characters. Nor do I find the effectiveness of +2 main stat compared to at least a half dozen feats for each character (and probably more) is large enough to worry about effectiveness differences.

The vast majority of characters never see more than two ASIs, because you get your third at level 12. Also, you're wrong, it's not "at least half a dozen," it's five for anyone except Rogues (six) and Fighters (seven). Giving up 50% of your actually-likely-to-get-them ability score increases, and 20% of your even-theoretically-possible ability score increases, for a usually-heavily-specialized benefit is a losing deal...in most cases, unless it's quite powerful or quite general or both. Hence Lucky, SS, PAM, GWM, etc.

Why do you think 5.5e is making first-level automatic feats a thing? Because despite feats being a popular mechanic, actually using them is very rare, except for the small handful that so many DMs continuously bitch, whine, moan, and complain about. E.g. Lucky, Sharpshooter, Polearm Master, Great Weapon Master. (Which is ironic, of course, because only one feat threatens Lucky's supremacy, and that's Elven Accuracy. A half-feat which has a more powerful bonus than almost all "full" feats.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Enough of them had a sad about sorcerers not having an inferior spell list to wizards that WotC tossed the whole three spell list idea in the garbage. Imagine the uproar that would happen if their spell power was nerfed significantly.

I don't have to imagine. I've seen how Wizard(etc.) fanboys whine about being brought back down to Earth even the tiniest bit, or being outshone in any possible way (the Illusionist must be the best illusion-user; the Transmuter must be the best transmutation-user; etc.) Hence why I don't actually bother advocating for that. It's pointless. Despite recognizing how much of an uphill battle it is to get more powerful martial characters, that is by far the more plausible approach.

That said, I've seen highly-regarded stuff that does, in fact, result in nerfing casters--but in a way that makes them more interesting. That's Drop Dead Studios' Spheres of Power rules, which are a HUGE caster nerf relative to the literally godly heights of Pathfinder 1e, but extremely popular (IME, actually comparable to, or more popular than, just using the vanilla rules, but that may be an artifact of only playing online games.)

 

[Undrave]

Most Barbarians are not very good Tanks unless they have AC-boosting magic or you have other PCs healing them all the time. Their AC is weak and that translates to a ton of hits.

Also since you talked about ki running out quick, I will point out Rage is pretty essential for a Barbarian to tank and Barbarians do NOT get a lot of rages. I demonstrated above how a 6th level Monk won't run out of ki dodging 2 rounds and using 1 stunning strike per fight with normal encounter pacing. A 6th level Barbarian however WILL run out rages in that scenario .... even a 16th level Barbarian will run out of rages in a standard adventuring day and at that point a Monk can spend Ki like a drunken sailor.

d12 hit points compared to d8 hit points is a HUUUGE difference to how much damage a Barbarian can take, especially a Bear Totem Barbarian. Who happens to be a Hill Dwarf. 4 fights in a day is not an unreasonable ammount so it'll be rare for the Barbarian to run out of Rage.

And doesn't run out of steam after 2 rounds.

 

[ECMO3]

It's a passive buff. It doesn't take away from the cool stuff I can do. It's not like a Battlemaster wasting a Superiority Dice to be able to wear armor.

And again that doesn't explain why you wear it. Having a knitting needle in your backpack doesn't cost anything either but not all your fighters have that.

That's nice for you. Still doesn't explain why it should cost a Ki to use it when a Rogue can disengage for just a bonus action. The Monk would be cooler if Patient Defense only cost a Bonus Action, then it would feel more central to its design.

Making a free dodge as a bonus action would be way OP.

Cunning action allows disengage, but that is far weaker than dodge as a bonus action. It is so much weaker that when I am playing a Monk I almost never use Step of the Wind to disengage. If I want to move and keep from being damaged by AOOs I use patient defense instead. While an AOO might hit me with disadvantage, it always burns a reaction and I am protected for the entire round from every attack, not just that AOO. If I disengage the enemy does not waste a reaction and I do not weaken other attacks coming on the enemies action. It is far weaker.

Also if you use your bonus action for Patient Defense a lot it feels pretty central to the design. It only doesn't feel central to the design for those players who would rather use a bonus action (and occasionally ki) to score meager damage.

 

[Shardstone]

And again that doesn't explain why you wear it. Having a knitting needle in your backpack doesn't cost anything either but not all your fighters have that.



Making a free dodge as a bonus action would be way OP.

Cunning action allows disengage, but that is far weaker than dodge as a bonus action. It is so much weaker that when I am playing a Monk I almost never use Step of the Wind to disengage. If I want to move and keep from being damaged by AOOs I use patient defense instead. While an AOO might hit me with disadvantage, it always burns a reaction and I am protected for the entire round from every attack, not just that AOO. If I disengage the enemy does not waste a reaction and I do not weaken other attacks coming on the enemies action. It is far weaker.

Also if you use your bonus action for Patient Defense a lot it feels pretty central to the design. It only doesn't feel central to the design for those players who would rather use a bonus action (and occasionally ki) to score meager damage.

5.2 will likely have a monk with a free bonus action dodge.

EDIT: Actually nvm, I misremembered. .