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

[Mephista]

The 5e Monk sucks because it's not a proper translation, it's just a bunch of features that past monks had piled onto a 5e class with no real thought put into how 5e works or how they synergize together.

Sucked. Past tense. 1dnd monk is awesome. And, to be fair, past monks in previous editions have all just been piles of abilities with no real thought put into how the games work.

"Proper translation" implies that there's some uber-monk archetype out there, and there just isn't outside of some old Kung Fu show reruns. That's the core inspiration of the class.

EDIT - as far as I'm aware, all the monks across every edition have been... questionable quality from the very beginning. 2014 5e monk, 4e monk wasn't great, 3.x monk wasn't, 2e ... hasn't been played by me, but haven't heard anything good either.

 

[Undrave]

Sucked. Past tense. 1dnd monk is awesome. And, to be fair, past monks in previous editions have all just been piles of abilities with no real thought put into how the games work.

Well that's good to hear. I'll check it out when it's properly published.

4e monk wasn't great

I could swear I heard good things about it. I didn't have a chance to see it in play in 4e. At least it was built for a specific purpose.

 

[Mephista]

Having a different vibe from just a higher level spell seems like a good thing?

No, the other way. It ends up as a different vibe from what people would expect from "Sacrifice HP" as a mechanic. If anything, it ends up feeling MORE like just a spell thing, because you're injuring yourself to use a technique that pushes you past your normal bounds, but.. then all the injury is just healed away.

Which ends up feeling like that its just spending extra mana or whatever instead of feeling like a non-spell class.

 

[Mephista]

Well that's good to hear. I'll check it out when it's properly published.

I could swear I heard good things about it. I didn't have a chance to see it in play in 4e. At least it was built for a specific purpose.

Ish? Like, it wasn't mind blistering terrible, but it was an attempt to be a striker class (ie high dps single target) that didn't have a striker feature - it specialized in melee based AoEs, which kind of had niche applicability.

The mechanics ended up pushing you in a different direction than what it was supposed to be (a controller instead of a striker).

 

[Undrave]

No, the other way. It ends up as a different vibe from what people would expect from "Sacrifice HP" as a mechanic. If anything, it ends up feeling MORE like just a spell thing, because you're injuring yourself to use a technique that pushes you past your normal bounds, but.. then all the injury is just healed away.

Which ends up feeling like that its just spending extra mana or whatever instead of feeling like a non-spell class.

Oh I see what you mean... hmm... well we could always have it drain Hit Dice instead?

Or, if you wanted to be fiddly and really damaging: each turn you lose a Hit Dice and put it aside. When the buff end, you take all those put aside hit dice and roll them: that's the damage you suddenly take from the shock.

Or you can pull a clay golem and have it drain your MAX hp until you take a long rest. That's pretty devastating.

 

[Mephista]

Oh I see what you mean... hmm... well we could always have it drain Hit Dice instead?

Or, if you wanted to be fiddly and really damaging: each turn you lose a Hit Dice and put it aside. When the buff end, you take all those put aside hit dice and roll them: that's the damage you suddenly take from the shock.

Or you can pull a clay golem and have it drain your MAX hp until you take a long rest. That's pretty devastating.

Hrm... that could work. HD is a criminally underutilized resource that could be tapped into. Would even work with the Rogue, who is oddly the only martial without a stamina resource. Outside soul knife anyways.

 

[Remathilis]

Okay then, I wasn't following your conversations.

For what it's worth, we shouldn't NEED Antimagic zones or counter spells, magic just shouldn't be that problematic.

I don't disagree with that. The best scenario would be to boost martials slightly and nerf magical more to get them about equal. If that can't happen, give martials the magical side needed to keep up with magic. But don't give them magical equivalence with no downsides.

 

[FrogReaver]

Do you mean, it couldn't work, or that people would reject it?

Reject it. I think it could work. But attack granting is something desired and it’s a big challenge in 5e.

 

[Staffan]

EDIT - as far as I'm aware, all the monks across every edition have been... questionable quality from the very beginning. 2014 5e monk, 4e monk wasn't great, 3.x monk wasn't, 2e ... hasn't been played by me, but haven't heard anything good either.

2e didn't really have a monk class. There wasn't one in the PHB, perhaps because they wanted to keep it to something like OA. The natural consequence of this was of course that a multitude of half-butted versions came along, usually in the form of kits that allowed you to manipulate your results on the unarmed attack table (which was a whole weird thing in itself). Most of these kits were cleric variants, which meant 2e martial artists often could cast spells, which was kind of weird. Near the end of 2e, in one of the relaunched Greyhawk supplements (I think the one about the Scarlet Brotherhood), there was finally an actual martial artist monk class, which I think was mostly a straight-up translation of the 1e one.

I think there's a lesson there about warlords and psions. If you want an archetype in the game, make a bloody class for it. Don't try to twist other classes into doing something that's sort of like it if you squint. Otherwise you'll just end up with a bunch of half-measures that do not satisfy those who like the archetype and won't win over those who don't. As the man says:

 

[Shardstone]

Attack granting is not a challenge in 5E. I have no idea why people keep making this claim. I have never seen this claim appear and it seems otherwise completely nonsensical. It smells of white room analysis, not real world playtesting.