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

[Micah Sweet]

But if these labels only exist for the players, meaning they are almost entirely non-diegetic, why would it be the case that martial skills absolutely never involve anything that is Earth-supernatural but fictionland-natural?

The real answer is because some folks don't want their fighter to do supernatural things, but in my opinion martial skills should allow that stuff. I still want those mundane/supernatural/magical labels in the game rules though.

You could also appease both camps by having supernatural stuff kick in after a certain level (I like Tier 3 as the divide), and/or have a separate class specializing in supernatural martial skills. That latter option I've advocated for in the past and still really believe in as a concept.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Healing Word in 5e is very different from how it was in 4e. In 4e, it would always heal a significant amount of hp (25% plus 1d6 per 5 levels, rounded up), and the main limit was the recipient's HD. In 5e, it heals for a piddly amount and is a leveled spell, meaning it's a daily resource that competes against cure wounds for spell slots.

But the main difference there is that the cleric had the old design to fall back on. The 5e cleric doesn't work like a 4e cleric, but it does work like an AD&D/3e cleric. There is no such old design for the Warlord.

Both the tactical grid and granular modifiers are a consequence of 4e being a game of inches and 5e being one of miles. For example, one of the 4e Warlord's at-will powers allowed an ally adjacent to either themselves or to the target to shift 1 square before the attack. This made it pretty likely to turn on flanking giving combat advantage (+2 to hit and activating certain abilities, notably the rogue's Sneak Attack). Another neat thing is that it was a shift, meaning it doesn't provoke opportunity attacks. But 5e doesn't have flanking (except as an optional rule), sneak attack is activated just by having an ally next to the target, and handing out advantage is about twice as powerful as a +2 to hit. Oh, and circling around someone doesn't provoke either anymore. So a "shift 1 square" power works great in 4e, but it has nowhere near the same impact in 5e.

That's just one example of how the bread and butter of warlording in 4e doesn't translate well at all to 5e.

You could combine the Warlord's predecessor, the White Raven discipline from the Book of Nine swords with existing 5e mechanics to make a solid start.

I would actually suggest making a more warblade-like class, but with enough flexibility in abilities to choose that it could perform fine as several different flavours of warlord as well.

 

[ECMO3]

I wasn't talking about Patient Defense. I was talking about the use of rules-aesthetics, like "well if it would be necessarily supernatural IRL, then it must be magic diegetically, and thus absolutely forbidden to characters who don't diegetically practice magic," to justify rules design that punishes people who like martial archetypes and rewards people who like magical archetypes. I was talking about things like demanding absolute rules symmetry between PCs and NPCs, which is a purely aesthetic decision, even though PCs and NPCs serve fundamentally different functions and, as a general rule, PCs do not see nor use numerous NPC rules.

Again: irrelevant. I was not talking about ensuring that every single mechanic is fun for every single player, because that's an obvious strawman position. Frankly, it's so idiotic, it's a bit insulting you'd ascribe it to me.

You quoted a post I made, a post which was specifically about mechanics associated with the Monk class and nothing I posted on this entire thread is about rules symmetry between PCs and NPCs.

Also the "mystic energy of Ki" is itself ostensibly supernatural and many of things that can be done with it are also "necessarily supernatural". So when I am talking about using Ki, I am talking about something supernatural that is non-magical.

Further I love playing martial archetypes. Well over 80% of the PCs I play are martial weapons-oriented PCs and nothing I have suggested anywhere would "punish" me. So the idea that I have a position on rules design to "punish people who like martial archetypes" is just patently false.

While we are on the topic of punishment; if supporting a certain set of mechanics which limit a class or aesthetic constitutes "punishment", then why does no one complain about "punishing people who like playing casters" when groups of people talk about "nerfing Wizards" or "nerfing spells" or "banning spells" or similar topics which come up every week? Wouldn't that be "punishing people who like to play casters"?

I was talking about how the aesthetic values of a comparative minority of players are used to dictate what ALL players are ALLOWED to enjoy.

Well my post did not suggest that at all and FWIW I think ALL players are ALLOWED to enjoy playing any of the classes.

I think that the vast majority of players who play Monks enjoy playing Monks. I don't think that is a comparative minority at all. I know there are some players that don't enjoy Monks due to the mechanics, or enjoy Monks less than other classes due to the mechanics. Those players may be a plurality or even majority of total players, but I certainly do not think they are the majority of players playing a Monk and they are "ALLOWED" to enjoy a Monk, they just don't enjoy it (much the same as I don't particularly enjoy Barbarians or Druids, but I am "allowed" to).

Finally, when it comes to being ALLOWED to enjoy a class; I enjoy playing Monks and I am beaten down with superlative statements such as the class sucks or defensive options suck and "don't advance the game", to include by people who have not played the class at all since TCE came out years ago. Am I not "ALLOWED" to enjoy the Monk? Is my experience with the class not at least as valid as others considering I do actually play that class regularly?

 

[Remathilis]

But if these labels only exist for the players, meaning they are almost entirely non-diegetic, why would it be the case that martial skills absolutely never involve anything that is Earth-supernatural but fictionland-natural?

If they aren't going to be based on Earth things, why give them Earth names and the expectations that come with it.

If a cow in Faerun can breathe fire, its not a cow. Call it a Burf or something. If a tree explodes into a ball of poison when cut, it's not a tree, it's a Vingor or similar. If a human can jump double his height standing, lift triple his body weight, and run 40 mph without tiring, he's not a human. Call him a Hume or something.

Earth names bring Earth expectations. If you don't expect me to bring Earth expectations, don't use the Earth names. Have fun with your Hume hunting Burfs in the forest of Vingors.

 

[Yaarel]

Also the "mystic energy of Ki" as a concept is itself supernatural and many of things that can be done with it are "necessarily supernatural". So when I am talking about using Ki, I am talking about something supernatural that is non-magical.

Ki is natural, like the body having electrical fields is natural.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ki is natural, like the body having electrical fields is natural.

I would accept ki as natural from a real life perspective if everything one could spend ki to activate was possible in the real world. Since we know that's not true, I think we have to conclude that ki is a supernatural power source.

 

[ECMO3]

Ki is natural, like the body having electrical fields is natural.

There is nothing at all natural about "mystic energy" surrounding your body and the things ki does for Monks is certainly supernatural as well.

This is like saying Ghosts are natural or psychics and fortune tellers are natural. You may believe these things exist IRL and many people do. But that does not make them natural.

 

[Remathilis]

The real answer is because some folks don't want their fighter to do supernatural things, but in my opinion martial skills should allow that stuff. I still want those mundane/supernatural/magical labels in the game rules though.

You could also appease both camps by having supernatural stuff kick in after a certain level (I like Tier 3 as the divide), and/or have a separate class specializing in supernatural martial skills. That latter option I've advocated for in the past and still really believe in as a concept.

The problem is right now we have too many different opinions on where that line is. Some people want Batman. Some people want Superman. Some people want Batman to turn into Superman at a certain point. There is no option I see that could possibly work at this point. Like psionics, there is so little to hang consensus on that any attempts to please a majority will inevitably anger everybody.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The problem is right now we have too many different opinions on where that line is. Some people want Batman. Some people want Superman. Some people want Batman to turn into Superman at a certain point. There is no option I see that could possibly work at this point. Like psionics, there is so little to hang consensus on that any attempts to please a majority will inevitably anger everybody.

To me the line is, "is it at all possible that a person can do this in real life? Bonus points if it can be done reliably. If not, it is supernatural by my definition (and I'm pretty sure the dictionary's).

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

This shows that you simply cannot have a system where you have "mundane" characters who are expected to reach high levels. And with "mundane" here I mean characters who have to adhere to "earth human" levels of realism.

What exactly can such a character do that they are worth having in a group?

What we need is to have the "mundane" become super powered at some point. If you don't have this, then the problem is unsolvable.

Example:

Let's add a class that is mundane up to level 20. Let's call that class Sidekick.

Let's add a competent heroic non-spell caster class that scales appropriately to high levels. Let's call this the Hero.

There is no way that the Hero can be properly balanced against the Sidekick, because the Sidekick is gimped by definition. So either you permit both to exist, or you sacrifice one of them.

D&D is misguidedly trying to balance the Sidekick against the more heroic classes by nerfing the heroics. You can see this happening when you argue that there should be a more competent martial class: Someone is going to argue that it will make class X obsolete, where X is some martial class.