Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Why is There No Warlord Equivalent in 5E?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 9338680" data-attributes="member: 2067"><p>A big reason warlord discussions often fail to go anywhere is that the warlord is, in some cases, just a shibboleth for "I prefer how 4e did things." So, the convo just becomes grousing about how 5e doesn't have 4e's model of martial powers, or how 5e doesn't officially support a purely morale vision of hit points, or how 5e's Fighters "can only do one thing," or how 5e doesn't cleave tightly to 4e's role grid, or how 5e resists option bloat (especially at low levels), or how 5e favors big effects rather than granular options. The warlord had a lot of tethers to 4e's systems, and the transition away from many of those systems is going to leave any 5e version of a warlord quite a different beast. That can be OK, if what you're looking to do is play a character who fits a warlord archetype - who is an inspiring leader and brilliant tactician. There's an abundance of options in official 5e to play a character <em>like that</em>. There just isn't much of a way to get back to some of 4e's assumptions.</p><p></p><p>Weirdly, this <em>is similar to some of the problems with the psion</em> (though change 4e for 2e/3e). At the core is a 5e design choice that I think is basically a good idea: they're reluctant to reinvent the wheel, mechanically.</p><p></p><p>So, like, <em>healing word</em>. That spell is very warlord-coded. It's literally a shout that restores hp. But, the flavor is "you're casting a spell." So a certain segment of warlord fans are never going to be happy with using that as part of their inspiring commander. If you duplicated the effects of casting <em>healing word </em>(and maybe a bunch of other healing and restorative spells), but called it an inspiring shout or battlefield medicine, you might get some people on board. And, after a few rounds of this and adding some more class features (let's add <em>command </em>to the list of nonmagical spells, oh, and here's a 4e power I really liked that could make a good nonspell, too), congratulations, you've basically recreated the core of cleric or the bard or the paladin or whatever, and all you've done is file the serial numbers off and call the magic skill/inspiration/narrative juice/etc. And it still wouldn't satisfy people who want more low-level options, for instance ("That's not a real warlord, look, I can't XYZ at 1st level in addition to other things, this is just proof 5e is bad at this, if only the devs would realize this...").</p><p></p><p>There isn't a lot of apparent appetite in the 5e developer tower to spend their limited budget and pagecount for the year on something that is basically "the bard, but replace magic with inspiration, disappoint about 1/3rd of the people in the process, and maybe open up the hit point debate for a brand new generation." And I can't really blame them for that. The risk/reward just doesn't pan out. I'm sure their surveys have given them this feedback, too - the juice hasn't been worth the squeeze. </p><p></p><p>You can see the same phenomenon at work with the psion. There's spells out there that do what we'd expect a psion to do, but the flavor is a little different. It's "you're casting a spell," not "you're using MIND POWERS." We could file the serial numbers off of several spells and throw them into a class and get a lot of people on board. But, then we have recreated the psion or the wizard or the warlock and all we've done is say "It's not <em>that kind of</em> magic!" And we still would leave people who wanted something more radical out in the cold ("Where's my power point escalation mechanic?!"). </p><p></p><p>I'm sure if their surveys told them that what we want is, idk, four versions of the warlock with subtly different magical coding (arcane! martial/narrative! psionic! and here's a version with runes, too!), they'd give it to us. And, I don't think the warlord (or psion!) fans are wrong for not being satisfied, for whatever reason they have for not being satisfied, even if the reason they're not satisfied is only because they really liked how 4e did things when it came to warlords, and 5e just will never be the same. That's valid, and one of the limits of 5e is that it won't ever be 4e, or 3e, or 2e, or 1e. It's not the same and won't ever be the same.</p><p></p><p>But I do enjoy playing my college of swords bard as an inspiring leader whose words can lift armies and curse my enemies. And I enjoy playing my battlemaster fighter as an action economy thief who can lock down big threats until they decide to pay attention to him. And I enjoyed playing my alchemist artificer as a non-magical healer who brewed medicinal tonics in the heat of combat. And I enjoyed playing my devotion paladin as a tactical genius / blowhard who always thought he knew what was best for people and who enjoyed using his party members as his weapons most of all. Just like I enjoyed playing my 4e warlords as team dads, lazy drunken bosses, and literal princesses.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 9338680, member: 2067"] A big reason warlord discussions often fail to go anywhere is that the warlord is, in some cases, just a shibboleth for "I prefer how 4e did things." So, the convo just becomes grousing about how 5e doesn't have 4e's model of martial powers, or how 5e doesn't officially support a purely morale vision of hit points, or how 5e's Fighters "can only do one thing," or how 5e doesn't cleave tightly to 4e's role grid, or how 5e resists option bloat (especially at low levels), or how 5e favors big effects rather than granular options. The warlord had a lot of tethers to 4e's systems, and the transition away from many of those systems is going to leave any 5e version of a warlord quite a different beast. That can be OK, if what you're looking to do is play a character who fits a warlord archetype - who is an inspiring leader and brilliant tactician. There's an abundance of options in official 5e to play a character [I]like that[/I]. There just isn't much of a way to get back to some of 4e's assumptions. Weirdly, this [I]is similar to some of the problems with the psion[/I] (though change 4e for 2e/3e). At the core is a 5e design choice that I think is basically a good idea: they're reluctant to reinvent the wheel, mechanically. So, like, [I]healing word[/I]. That spell is very warlord-coded. It's literally a shout that restores hp. But, the flavor is "you're casting a spell." So a certain segment of warlord fans are never going to be happy with using that as part of their inspiring commander. If you duplicated the effects of casting [I]healing word [/I](and maybe a bunch of other healing and restorative spells), but called it an inspiring shout or battlefield medicine, you might get some people on board. And, after a few rounds of this and adding some more class features (let's add [I]command [/I]to the list of nonmagical spells, oh, and here's a 4e power I really liked that could make a good nonspell, too), congratulations, you've basically recreated the core of cleric or the bard or the paladin or whatever, and all you've done is file the serial numbers off and call the magic skill/inspiration/narrative juice/etc. And it still wouldn't satisfy people who want more low-level options, for instance ("That's not a real warlord, look, I can't XYZ at 1st level in addition to other things, this is just proof 5e is bad at this, if only the devs would realize this..."). There isn't a lot of apparent appetite in the 5e developer tower to spend their limited budget and pagecount for the year on something that is basically "the bard, but replace magic with inspiration, disappoint about 1/3rd of the people in the process, and maybe open up the hit point debate for a brand new generation." And I can't really blame them for that. The risk/reward just doesn't pan out. I'm sure their surveys have given them this feedback, too - the juice hasn't been worth the squeeze. You can see the same phenomenon at work with the psion. There's spells out there that do what we'd expect a psion to do, but the flavor is a little different. It's "you're casting a spell," not "you're using MIND POWERS." We could file the serial numbers off of several spells and throw them into a class and get a lot of people on board. But, then we have recreated the psion or the wizard or the warlock and all we've done is say "It's not [I]that kind of[/I] magic!" And we still would leave people who wanted something more radical out in the cold ("Where's my power point escalation mechanic?!"). I'm sure if their surveys told them that what we want is, idk, four versions of the warlock with subtly different magical coding (arcane! martial/narrative! psionic! and here's a version with runes, too!), they'd give it to us. And, I don't think the warlord (or psion!) fans are wrong for not being satisfied, for whatever reason they have for not being satisfied, even if the reason they're not satisfied is only because they really liked how 4e did things when it came to warlords, and 5e just will never be the same. That's valid, and one of the limits of 5e is that it won't ever be 4e, or 3e, or 2e, or 1e. It's not the same and won't ever be the same. But I do enjoy playing my college of swords bard as an inspiring leader whose words can lift armies and curse my enemies. And I enjoy playing my battlemaster fighter as an action economy thief who can lock down big threats until they decide to pay attention to him. And I enjoyed playing my alchemist artificer as a non-magical healer who brewed medicinal tonics in the heat of combat. And I enjoyed playing my devotion paladin as a tactical genius / blowhard who always thought he knew what was best for people and who enjoyed using his party members as his weapons most of all. Just like I enjoyed playing my 4e warlords as team dads, lazy drunken bosses, and literal princesses. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Why is There No Warlord Equivalent in 5E?
Top