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

[James Gasik]

Tbh best monk i played was pf1 unchained monk. D10, full bab, unarmed damage starting with d6 and going to d8 and d10, then it just doubles for lv 11-12 with 2d6 2d8 2d10.

5e monk is underwhelming, specially in tier1 and 2 where most games are played. Too few ki points. Weak defense. Serious MAD ( dex/wis/con). They are ment as your quick hit and run fighters. But if you want to hit and run without enemy hiting back, you need to spend ki and you cant use flurry (which also uses ki, but it also uses bonus action). Rogue is better highly mobile hit and run class since he can do his big hit ( sneak attack) and run (cunning action) without resource expenditure. Oh, and unarmed damage scailing sucks. It should start with d6 and go to at least 2d6.

Scaled Fist Monk was the best Monk I ever played. Definitely my gold standard.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I was thinking about the "healer heroes" from videogames, for example Mercy, Lucio, Ana, Zenyatta, Moira and Brigitte from "Overwatch".

A true warlord shouldn't be only a walking magic-healer banner.

The Leader - TV Tropes

Every team needs a leader. Be it the Five-Man Band, the Caper Crew, the Badass Crew, the Badass Army, to the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, they all have one. When push comes to shove, there's gotta be someone that stands up, takes charge, and makes a …

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How would be a "warlord class" character in a D&D action-live (or animated) production?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Scaled Fist Monk was the best Monk I ever played. Definitely my gold standard.

By far my fav is the 13A Monk. The whole opening - flow - finishing attack sequence, where you can pull from any form you know at each stage, is absolutely brilliant. It manages to square a thorny design circle, namely, the question of how you combine...

1. A diverse set of options so the player feels like they're making real decisions frequently
2. A condensed set of options, so the player doesn't have to plan ten levels ahead, but can choose what sounds cool
3. Not just spamming the same choice or two every single moment because it's obviously the most powerful choice

And they did it. They really, honestly did it. 13A has some of the best class design in any TTRPG I've ever played.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

How would be a "warlord class" character in a D&D action-live (or animated) production?

Like this:

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean, they never were. That much goes all the way back to Gygax.

Meat points have always been a projection onto a system that wasn't designed to represent them and doesn't usefully map to them. But the feeling of meat points is, as with many things in the D&D design discussion space, a siren song that many are not willing to give up. They would rather have a game that is unpleasant to play but has meat points, because the aesthetic value of meat points is apparently more important than a game that is actually enjoyable to play.

And of course, there are always places where the game makes it very difficult for meat points not to be a thing at all. Poison is the go-to example, but damage types in general challenge the reign of "hit points aren't meat" and always have.

For the most part however, I agree: damage mostly doesn't occur until hp reaches zero. Most of my issues with the current system revolve around 5e being way too easy for my taste even there, and how being dropped has so little practical effect.

 

[James Gasik]

Basically Gary realized that saying hit points are meat would end up being pretty ridiculous when one sword hit kills a 0-level normal human and it takes 9 or 10 sword hits to kill a higher level Fighter. However, this did not stop him from having the Sword of Wounding cause bleeding wounds or having a Sword of Sharpness lop people's arms off!

D&D as he saw it was not realistic, and was not a simulation, and he did believe in actual physical wounds occurring- in extraordinary circumstances (I mean, by all accounts, he hated "critical hits" with a passion), but they were the exception, not the norm. The 2e DMG has a nice explanation of the problems of hit points = meat; by the time you're 5th level you'll be missing noses, ears, hands, maybe a leg, and have multiple debilitating injuries as the result of regular combat.

Simply put, yes, actual wounding does happen (however...), and there is some meat in hit points (though it should be pointed out that a Sword of Sharpness doesn't inflict additional meat damage by lopping off a leg- I once saw a guy do like 4 damage with a severing strike and we were all scratching our heads trying to figure out how that even works).

D&D also neatly sidesteps blood loss save for very specific circumstances. Which is the key. Hit points are only meat when a game element specifically makes them meat; your normal hits in combat do not do this.

That's why the game doesn't say people hit by a fireball have horrible third-degree burns and lose Charisma points, for example.

Some people want that in the game. They may play that way! But that's not how the game is written.

This isn't an admonishment; if you want to play a grittier D&D game, have at it, though I really think other combat systems like Runequest, GURPS, or Rolemaster might tackle this better than D&D does.

Now when people say that their preference is the default, despite all the text written to the contrary, and they look for validation in the gray areas of the game...

Ahem. And suddenly I realize that just about every D&D argument has people doing just that at one point or another. Myself included.

 

[James Gasik]

By far my fav is the 13A Monk. The whole opening - flow - finishing attack sequence, where you can pull from any form you know at each stage, is absolutely brilliant. It manages to square a thorny design circle, namely, the question of how you combine...

1. A diverse set of options so the player feels like they're making real decisions frequently
2. A condensed set of options, so the player doesn't have to plan ten levels ahead, but can choose what sounds cool
3. Not just spamming the same choice or two every single moment because it's obviously the most powerful choice

And they did it. They really, honestly did it. 13A has some of the best class design in any TTRPG I've ever played.

Well, what I really appreciated about Unchained Monks was their superior mobility- Pathfinder is grid-based and 13 A has very loosely defined range categories. When I could, as part of my flurry of blows, throw in a kick that lets me move 15' before the attack, in a game where you have to practically stand still to make full attacks, that's huge!

You put an ability like that in 5e though, and it's going to feel kind of meh "just spend a ki and you can run around like a chicken all turn even though that movement really doesn't matter because in most battles, they can just close with you"*.

*Campaign-dependent, but I've played a lot of 5e in dungeons where there's sometimes no way to be over 30' away from foes (and there's a good number of enemies have speeds of 40' or more).

 

[Micah Sweet]

Basically Gary realized that saying hit points are meat would end up being pretty ridiculous when one sword hit kills a 0-level normal human and it takes 9 or 10 sword hits to kill a higher level Fighter. However, this did not stop him from having the Sword of Wounding cause bleeding wounds or having a Sword of Sharpness lop people's arms off!

D&D as he saw it was not realistic, and was not a simulation, and he did believe in actual physical wounds occurring- in extraordinary circumstances (I mean, by all accounts, he hated "critical hits" with a passion), but they were the exception, not the norm. The 2e DMG has a nice explanation of the problems of hit points = meat; by the time you're 5th level you'll be missing noses, ears, hands, maybe a leg, and have multiple debilitating injuries as the result of regular combat.

Simply put, yes, actual wounding does happen (however...), and there is some meat in hit points (though it should be pointed out that a Sword of Sharpness doesn't inflict additional meat damage by lopping off a leg- I once saw a guy do like 4 damage with a severing strike and we were all scratching our heads trying to figure out how that even works).

D&D also neatly sidesteps blood loss save for very specific circumstances. Which is the key. Hit points are only meat when a game element specifically makes them meat; your normal hits in combat do not do this.

That's why the game doesn't say people hit by a fireball have horrible third-degree burns and lose Charisma points, for example.

Some people want that in the game. They may play that way! But that's not how the game is written.

This isn't an admonishment; if you want to play a grittier D&D game, have at it, though I really think other combat systems like Runequest, GURPS, or Rolemaster might tackle this better than D&D does.

Now when people say that their preference is the default, despite all the text written to the contrary, and they look for validation in the gray areas of the game...

Ahem. And suddenly I realize that just about every D&D argument has people doing just that at one point or another. Myself included.

The damage types thing is a real problem though, as is the larger issue of things doing different amounts of damage at all. That just makes no sense if nothing connects. It's an awful big part of the combat rules to only be concerned with .01% of hit points.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Edign Darvis the bard is the leader of the group, but he is not a "warlord". Daenerys Targaryen from "Song of Fire and Ice" is more a true "warlady". Tyrion Lannister in the battle of Blackwater would be close example.

I don't imagine a warlord without at least a squad to be leaded and guided.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I was thinking about the "healer heroes" from videogames, for example Mercy, Lucio, Ana, Zenyatta, Moira and Brigitte from "Overwatch".

A true warlord shouldn't be only a walking magic-healer banner.

The Leader - TV Tropes

Every team needs a leader. Be it the Five-Man Band, the Caper Crew, the Badass Crew, the Badass Army, to the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, they all have one. When push comes to shove, there's gotta be someone that stands up, takes charge, and makes a …

tvtropes.org

How would be a "warlord class" character in a D&D action-live (or animated) production?

There are endless arguments about what exactly Batman is, so I'm not really interested in hashing it out with someone who wants to dispute "well AKSHULLY Batman is..."

But I think Batman, as shown in the DCAU, is the "Warlord" of the Justice League. Int-based with, in 5e terms, a subclass emphasizing tools and his allies' powers alongside his own physical fitness. When he speaks, people listen. When he needs something done, he often doesn't even have to say it, his allies can pick up on his intent from eye movements and head gestures alone. He's clearly comfortable in a leadership position, so long as others aren't questioning his decisions in the heat of battle. And he's very, very good at leveraging others' weaknesses against themselves and his allies' strengths to greater heights than they achieve by themselves.

And Batman is an ordinary human who has, at best, peak-Olympian physique, ultra-genius intellect, and fancy martial arts training--in other words, exactly what we should expect of a martial D&D character.

Most animated materials would give the Warlord more to do personally, because flashy powers are cool, but a gadgeteer genius or "man behind the man" type (e.g. Oracle) is a common choice. Other options include characters like April O'Neil from TMNT, at least in the better-written versions of her character where she isn't just a boring non-entity damsel-in-distress. Lois Lane might fit the bill too, as she's an utterly mundane human who still manages to eke out some victories against baddies that pseudo-threaten Superman (that is, until he can figure out just how hard to punch them without splattering them).

But, frankly, I think this whole thing is just as misguided as trying to use Gandalf and Aragorn as models for D&D class design. Things that make for fun, gripping gameplay often do not have nearly as cool a look when shown as an animation from a viewpoint, and things that look great as animated choreography do not necessarily translate well to class design. They are different media. They may intersect in some places, and they certainly inform one another, but they aren't the same and expecting one to give clear examples of the other is a fool's errand.