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

[Yaarel]

See the thing with AC though, is by tier 3, unless magic armor and other defensive items are in play, AC doesn't scale, so you get hit a lot more often. The Fire Giant is my poster child for how absurd this starts to get. At CR 9 and +11 to hit (and multiattack), even the heaviest armor users are going to get hit fairly reliably, and if you're in the AC 17 range or less, yikes!

So I think damage reduction effects could be fine, unless WotC wants to come out and say "uh yeah, by level X you should have AC y", which they won't, because the claim was made that accuracy vs. AC isn't a factor in CR calculations, it's just damage in/damage out (though given that AC and to hit effects damage, I'm not sure how that even works- surely they know that miss chance affects DPR?).

I saw this play out when I played Storm King's Thunder in Adventure League. Our front-liner was a Champion Fighter who dual-wielded and had an AC of 19 with Plate and his Fighting Style. He charged up to a pair of Fire Giants. Four attacks, hitting on 8's (65% to hit) meant he was looking at (on average) 72 damage. The DM was rolling damage, so I watched a Fighter 10 go from 94 to 0 in very short order.

Given at the time I had regular old Studded and Dex 20 on my character, I realized right then and there that going anywhere near melee range with those guys was bad news.

Now there are ways to handle that situation if your group is working towards it. You could cast Shield of Faith or Haste on the Fighter if you have those spells available and you don't have a better use for your concentration. You could go Eldritch Knight and be able to cast defensive spells like Shield or Blur. And you could be more cautious, something that comes with experience.

But if he'd taken Heavy Armor Master, he could have saved himself up to 12 damage which would have at least left him alive, if badly hurt.

Because of "bounded accuracy" drift, I expect high tier players, levels 13 and upward to have ACs in their 20s. That is pretty much unhittable by most low tier characters.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Designers spoke about why they avoid damage reduction. The AC chance to hit versus the armor absorption of damage are equally good ways to represent armor. But together they tend to become broken.

They would need a way for damage reduction to play nice with game balance since AC is already the option that the game engine runs on.

Yeah, I heard. But balance is not a huge concern for me, and I don't like the idea that a fire resistant creature (or whatever) still takes fire damage no matter how low the result. Besides, 3e ran on AC too, and DR worked well enough there for me. It's just more realistic to my mind and I feel it should be represented more.

 

[Yaarel]

Yeah, I heard. But balance is not a huge concern for me, and I don't like the idea that a fire resistant creature (or whatever) still takes fire damage no matter how low the result. Besides, 3e ran on AC too, and DR worked well enough there for me. It's just more realistic to my mind and I feel it should be represented more.

There is probably a way to do damage reduction in a balanced way.

Relatedly, things like "incorporeal" ignore damage.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm a simple dude.

By level 2

• Proficiency in simple weapons and melee martial weapons
• Proficiency in light and medium armor
• Intelligence Based Tactical Combat Class feature Feature
• Wisdom Based Intuitive Combat Class feature
• Charismatic Based Inspiring Combat Class feature

Subclasses at level 3 expands the Tactical, Intuitive, or Inspiring feature or adds Bravado, Insightful, Resourceful, Strategic, Terrifying, Decieving, etc feature

 

[Justice and Rule]

At high levels your AC is better than most other martials. It tops out at AC 20, the same as a sword and board Paladin or fighter and they aren't dodging while they are attacking. At high level a dodging Monk is essentially a sword and board fighter with a permanent shield spell on herself who can also stun opponents regularly.

You won't take a huge hit when dodging, you will almost never take a critical hit and in addition to having good hit points, you have the ability to heal in combat while still attacking (although it is somewhat costly).

That's only if you don't take any Feats, or you managed to convince your DM to roll-up stats and got good rolls. Their AC can be better than most, but that isn't really as true in practice because of the nature of the game. The Monk has to spend valuable ASIs, while others can simply put on armor. It can be better, but it certainly not always the case.

FOB is usually a waste of Ki.

Not sure I agree with that when the name of the game is damage output and certain archetypes have their powers tied to it.

Not very often in play. This is highly situational and rare. Keep in mind to use FOB you need to use it "immediately after you take the attack action", meaning you can not move between attacks like you can with regular martial arts. So that means all enemies you want to stun with FOB need to be in reach when you attack.

Uh, speak for yourself. Unless you are only dealing with mooks, the way health scales while damage only scales with extra attacks, I'm not sure how you aren't going to be in reach of higher level enemies with time to spend on attacks.

Presumably if you are going to use stunning strike on your FOB, you are going to use it on your other attacks too. So for FOB to allow for stunning strike you either need 4 enemies within reach when you attack or you need a number of them to make a save such that you need that 4th attack to land a stun and you need to make this decision before you make your 3rd attack. This is not common at all, especially when you consider you are making the decision before the 3rd attack and you have to both hit and have the bad guy fail his save. Additionally if you have 4 enemies in melee reach it makes Patient Defense a much more powerful mathematically.

You don't need 4 enemies in reach, you just need one with a bunch of health, like a boss monster. The name of the game is damage output. Attached things like Open Fist stuff is useful as hell, especially if you have something like a Hex on someone's main stat and attempt to knock them down.

What Stunning Strike is really good at doing is burning Legendary Resistances or locking down someone who lacks those through sheer weight of numbers at high level. That sort of power is the reason you have Legendary Resistances!

The fact you make this decision before the 3rd attack of the turn really complicates it as well. For example against one BBEG that you really want to stun - you get 2 attacks and 2 opportunities. IF both of those fail, well you still want to stun him, so at this point it is "do I try with the 3rd attack or do I FOB to get 2 more" - if you FOB here are the possibilities:

1. You use FOB and you hit with your 3rd attack and land a stun - FOB was irrelevant (to stunning enemy)
2. You use FOB and you don't stun him on your 3rd attack (miss or he saves) and you miss with 4th attack - FOB irrelevant
3. You use FOB and you don't stun him on your 3rd attack and you hit with 4th attack but he saves - FOB irrelevant
4. You use FOB and you don't stun him on your 3rd attack but do hit with 4th and he does save - This is the only time FOB did what you are talking about.

That is after you already failed to stun him twice with your attack action.

It is just a very rare situation that FOB will make a difference in stunning an enemy. What is more common is using it to get a better chance of killing a near dead enemy by giving you 2 more chances to hit instead of 1, but there too it often goes to waste as you hit with the first attack pretty often. It also can be relatively good at draining legendary actions to set up a caster, but that is rare too because you an enemy with a low Con save to be able to get 3 failures in 4 attacks.

I played a Monk end to end from 1st to 20th level and above 15th level she was the most powerful martial at the table. I used FOB very rarely, I think about twice the whole campaign. I used Patient Defense all the time.

I'm sorry, but this is overcomplicating the situation so much that I can't even recognize it as something realistic. I've both run and GM'd monks before and I've never seen this sort of thought process go into the use of Stunning Strike. Typically speaking it's a fairly easy call given the potential return on a fail, especially if you have something lowering their saves like a Bane spell or Silvery Barbs (or Lathander help you, both).

Like, your list of "failure states" misses that you have to get to those points to find out and trying to outlast up close with the Monk is dumb, especially if you are wasting Ki on dodging given how much To-Hit bonuses scale compared to AC: having a 20 AC is adorable to an adult dragon who is adding +14 to hit you, even if you decide to Dodge. The whole point of the Monk class is to do things quick to overwhelm someone: I've seen a Monk hit someone with 3 attacks and only get a stun on the third one, but even still it was massive because suddenly that creature can't do anything until the end my next turn, granting my allies advantage and the ability to do a ton of stuff.

To be clear you are making an active choice to dodge, not necessarily to tank. Dodging is a great improvement to AC, mobility and to dexterity saves, whether you are actively tanking or not.

You're making the decision to tank because you are removing most of your special abilities to move or shape the battle by doing so. If you are Dodging, you're expecting to take hits, thus "tanking" them. We're splitting hairs on words when we don't need to be.

 

[Yaarel]

I'm a simple dude.

By level 2

• Proficiency in simple weapons and melee martial weapons
• Proficiency in light and medium armor
• Intelligence Based Tactical Combat Class feature Feature
• Wisdom Based Intuitive Combat Class feature
• Charismatic Based Inspiring Combat Class feature

Subclasses at level 3 expands the Tactical, Intuitive, or Inspiring feature or adds Bravado, Insightful, Resourceful, Strategic, Terrifying, Decieving, etc feature

"Intuition" is Intelligence. At least it always should be. It doesnt matter how one arrives at knowledge − deductive reasoning, memory, educated guesses, scientific intuition, mystical intuition − knowledge is Intelligence.

Instead, the Wisdom here is:
• Willpower!
• Sensory perceptiveness − noticing what is happening on the battlefield, detecting stealth opponents


The rest looks solid for the 5e Warlord.

 

[Minigiant]

"Intuition" is Intelligence. At least it always should be. It doesnt matter how one arrives at knowledge − deductive reasoning, memory, educated guesses, scientific intuition, mystical intuition − knowledge is Intelligence.

Instead, the Wisdom here is:
• Willpower!
• Sensory perceptiveness − noticing what is happening on the battlefield, detecting stealth opponents


The rest looks solid for the 5e Warlord.

intuition​

: the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference

That's Wisdom

 

[Yaarel]

intuition​

: the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference

That's Wisdom

The D&D Abilities are already useless overlapping mishmash of contradictions.

Clarity and distinctiveness is extremely important, if a game engine is to exist at all.


The Intelligence Ability includes "irrational", lateral, methods of arriving at "knowledge", just like science does too during its eureka moments and protoscience. Not everything is "book knowledge". Cultures that lack books also have Intelligence.


Rational intuition, such as in science, and the Myers-Brigg "NT", is important for many concepts in D&D. All of the intuition about the world (not people reading social skills) is the Intelligence ability score.

 

[Minigiant]

The D&D Abilities are already useless overlapping mishmash of contradictions.

Clarity and distinctiveness is extremely important, if a game engine is to exist at all.


The Intelligence Ability includes "irrational", lateral, methods of arriving at "knowledge", just like science does too during its eureka moments and protoscience. Not everything is "book knowledge". Cultures that lack books also have Intelligence.

D&D Wisdom is literally intuition and empathy. It's "Brain turned off " score. The animalist pattern recognition. The gut reaction.

That's why Clerics use Wis. They are "Pelor take the wheel" "Thor guide me" "What Would Bane Do?" Class. No Thinking All Indoctrinated Response to Stimuli.

The Goddess say "See undead kill undead no thinky thinky."
But.
The Goddess say "See undead kill undead no thinky thinky."

 

[Undrave]

5e just isn't designed around party as a whole. It's designes around individuals.

Why is it not a 1 v 1 game then? Why do we have parties? When we complain that a class is too OP we constantly get told that 'balance doesn't matter', 'this is a team game' and so forth... but IS IT a team game or not?

i see alot of people putting martial weapons on their 'essential warlord things' and that surprises me, i fully admit i never touched 4e that was before i was in the hobby so i don't know the 4e warlord's design but given people equate it's role closer to that of a cleric i would've thought simple weapons would be fine? maybe with additional shortsword/scimitar/longsword/rapier proficiency, with it's main contributions factor being through providing support to other attackers and a little bit of tanking rather than dealing the damage themselves.

something like
d10HD,
simple weapons + shortsword, scimitar, longsword and rapier,
heavy armour + shields,
extra attack+1

Well, if we look at 4e, the Warlord had proficiency in Cloth, Leather, Hide, Chainmail armor as well as Light Shield (but not heavy shield). They had weapon proficiencies in Simple Melee, military melee, but only simple ranged weapons. And they had a +1 bonus to FORT and WILL defenses (none for Reflex, so I don't think DEX save is a good idea).

d8 HD is fine. The Warlord will often include oneself while buffing team Hit Points.

Personally I prefer d10, like the Ranger. The Warlord is probably not going to invest into CON that much so I see them as naturally having less HP, without being too frail that they don't feel like trained warriors. The 4e Warlord had the same HP stats as the Ranger (12+CON at level 1, 5 per level, while the Fighter was at 15 and 6 respectively) so why not?