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Why is There No Warlord Equivalent in 5E?
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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 9339683" data-attributes="member: 2067"><p>No, it's strictly nonmagical.</p><p></p><p>See, it says so: It's Not Magic. Right there in The Rules (as proposed).</p><p></p><p>I can't believe I'm bringing this up for the SECOND time in as many weeks, but it's a very good way to parse the talking points here: Saitama. One Punch Man. His origin story is doing a lot of exercise, now he can punch through mountains. Without magic. With just...training.</p><p></p><p>Batman. He's just super skilled, but he can go toe to toe with nigh-omnipotent alien christ figures and demigods and whatnot. He's not magical.</p><p></p><p>Even just a normal bog standard D&D champion is slaying dragons and giants by Just Being That Good.</p><p></p><p>I'm not saying a high-level warlord NEEDS to be able to (nonmagically) summon angels. But I am saying that it's entirely on theme, and entirely appropriate for what a 20th level D&D character can do. The wizard's over here granting wishes and the cleric's over there raising people who've been dead for 50 years and the fighter's next to you getting walloped with a club the size of an apartment building and not even flinching and the rogue just backstabbed an eldritch horror introducing it to a concept our mortal minds call "not being alive any more." You're a legendary person, why WOULDN'T the celestial hosts sign up to fight at your side?</p><p></p><p>Hell, there's a 4e Epic Destiny for the warlord that explicitly trucks in <em>exactly</em> this kind of wahoo: "Is it your greater destiny to stand at the fore of united angelic legions as they hold back the chaos? Will you lead the gods to victory over their ancient foes."</p><p></p><p>A legendary commander and you don't want them to have a class feature that lets them lead an army of literal gods? Maybe part of why there's no warlord in 5e is because people have no friggin <em>ambition</em> anymore. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p><p></p><p>This is kind of aesthetic policing is why the point about magic and martial abilities being mechanically simple to remix as each other is important to harp on. I get that there's "the look and feel" to consider - <em>faerie fire</em>'s effects are pretty warlordcore, but the flavor isn't super in line with what we want a martial commander to do, for instance. That's part of why I'm not proposing 4e-style martial spellcasting as a viable immediate solution (to be a viable solution would mean to have some significant additions of "more subtle spells," at least). But if we can't imagine a world where our highest level warlords are possibly leading armies of angels, which is exactly the kind of nonsense high-level characters in D&D get up to, because "that's too magical," then our vision of what a martial hero is capable of is handicapped. Fighter hit good, rogue skill good, warlord speak good, heavens forfend that we be able to chop a mountain in twain, balance on the tip of a sword, or get a dragon to arrive at our call of their truname (entrusted only to us), no no no, that's too magical for a friggin' D&D character, only wizards can do that. Bah! 20th level Wizards are doing powerful stuff, 20th level Warlords can do powerful stuff, too!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 9339683, member: 2067"] No, it's strictly nonmagical. See, it says so: It's Not Magic. Right there in The Rules (as proposed). I can't believe I'm bringing this up for the SECOND time in as many weeks, but it's a very good way to parse the talking points here: Saitama. One Punch Man. His origin story is doing a lot of exercise, now he can punch through mountains. Without magic. With just...training. Batman. He's just super skilled, but he can go toe to toe with nigh-omnipotent alien christ figures and demigods and whatnot. He's not magical. Even just a normal bog standard D&D champion is slaying dragons and giants by Just Being That Good. I'm not saying a high-level warlord NEEDS to be able to (nonmagically) summon angels. But I am saying that it's entirely on theme, and entirely appropriate for what a 20th level D&D character can do. The wizard's over here granting wishes and the cleric's over there raising people who've been dead for 50 years and the fighter's next to you getting walloped with a club the size of an apartment building and not even flinching and the rogue just backstabbed an eldritch horror introducing it to a concept our mortal minds call "not being alive any more." You're a legendary person, why WOULDN'T the celestial hosts sign up to fight at your side? Hell, there's a 4e Epic Destiny for the warlord that explicitly trucks in [I]exactly[/I] this kind of wahoo: "Is it your greater destiny to stand at the fore of united angelic legions as they hold back the chaos? Will you lead the gods to victory over their ancient foes." A legendary commander and you don't want them to have a class feature that lets them lead an army of literal gods? Maybe part of why there's no warlord in 5e is because people have no friggin [I]ambition[/I] anymore. ;) This is kind of aesthetic policing is why the point about magic and martial abilities being mechanically simple to remix as each other is important to harp on. I get that there's "the look and feel" to consider - [I]faerie fire[/I]'s effects are pretty warlordcore, but the flavor isn't super in line with what we want a martial commander to do, for instance. That's part of why I'm not proposing 4e-style martial spellcasting as a viable immediate solution (to be a viable solution would mean to have some significant additions of "more subtle spells," at least). But if we can't imagine a world where our highest level warlords are possibly leading armies of angels, which is exactly the kind of nonsense high-level characters in D&D get up to, because "that's too magical," then our vision of what a martial hero is capable of is handicapped. Fighter hit good, rogue skill good, warlord speak good, heavens forfend that we be able to chop a mountain in twain, balance on the tip of a sword, or get a dragon to arrive at our call of their truname (entrusted only to us), no no no, that's too magical for a friggin' D&D character, only wizards can do that. Bah! 20th level Wizards are doing powerful stuff, 20th level Warlords can do powerful stuff, too! [/QUOTE]
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