D&D 5E Spellcasters and Balance in 5e: A Poll

[Vaalingrade]

Aside from a 1-to-1 translation of warlord being clunky and overbearing in 5e, the warlord's abilities have, indeed, been displaced about the various different classes and would suffer from lack of identity.

I never got what was so attractive about class niche and identity.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The fundamental problem with this specific assertion is that the warlord doesn't exist.

Again, this isn't 4e , this is 5e. Aside from a 1-to-1 translation of warlord being clunky and overbearing in 5e, the warlord's abilities have, indeed, been displaced about the various different classes and would suffer from lack of identity.

Bards inspire on the battlefield, heal from a distance, augment other character's attacks, and have some shared martial aspects.

Paladins incentivizes cooperative play through their auras, stand resilient when faced in melee, and are able to protect others from a distance

Sorcerers remain in the backline while controlling the battlefield but are more resilient than most other fullcasters. They can do great damage from a distance while also providing some of the best support abilities in the game.

They literally all did all that in 4e. And yet there was space for a warlord. There has been no displacement - in reality Bards are actively less able to cover for warlords now they are spellcasting powerhouses than they were in 4e.

What is Warlord doing that's unique to any of these three classes?

Plenty. Including handing attacks out and being far better at coordinating and distracting.

Have you ever played or even looked at a warlord in 4e? Or is your only knowledge of the class from message boards?

Ive never played a class for its theme, ever. To be quite honest, I don't like the overall theme of D&D as a whole. But I enjoy D&D for the mechanics that it has and how they are structured, even if it has a few hiccups.

And that was one of the places the warlord was incredible. Have you ever played a Bravura Warlord?

And this is the meat-and-potatoes of my argument:
As of now, there's no spotlight that the Warlord isn't trying to take away from other classes. There's nothing in this proposed Warlord class that makes me say "Wow, they'd play very differently from any other class, maybe I'll try them out."

And what mechanics have you actually looked at? Because nothing you have said shows you have anything approaching a clue about how they would work mechanically.

This Warlord class has yet to show anything else but the bitter feeling of players who wanted a class they enjoyed from a previous edition brought back into the current edition.

Pure projection.

There's emotion but there's no tangible essence involved.

No. There's plenty of tangible essence. Have you ever seen one in play?

Instead of making a Warlord, we're making arguments about its identity and what we really saw in it.

You are the only one I can see doing that.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yeah. Let's just have a game with classes called Defender, Close Distance Striker, Ranged, Striker, Support, etc. Then they could have abilities like Single Target Attack 1, Single Target Attack 2, Area Attack 1, HP Replenishment 2 and so forth, that they could use to defeat foes such as Fast Enemy 4 and Elite 2.

Absolutely! Glad you're on board, mate!

 

[Asisreo]

Plenty. Including handing attacks out and being far better at coordinating and distracting.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. "Better at a concept than others" is not deserving of its own class feature. So is handing out attacks the only unique thing a Warlord can do? If so, its a start but it heavily depends on exactly how that's done. Otherwise, it leads to problems.

They literally all did all that in 4e. And yet there was space for a warlord. There has been no displacement - in reality Bards are actively less able to cover for warlords now they are spellcasting powerhouses than they were in 4e.

Exactly. It was fine in 4e because that's kinda how 4e worked. I wasn't a fan of that which is why I didn't play much of 4e. But I like 5e because none of the classes have this shared identity. Heck, 5e basically made it more explicit by removing the concept of Arcane, Divine, Primal, Martial. If you notice, almost none of the classes reference what another class is doing in 5e in almost any way. Even the spellcasting features were different enough to warrant having them be in the ability list rather than just the Spellcasting chapter in the PHB. Because almost each instance of spellcasting has differences that span more than "Martial, Arcane, Divine, etc."

I never got what was so attractive about class niche and identity.

It was the fact that gameplay and class feel makes or breaks the game for me. If the flavor of a class is this awesome rendition of epic tales and great adventure but the gameplay loop involved (for a ridiculous example) having to write essays on the history of the atlantic ocean to use it, I'd never touch that class.

 

[Neonchameleon]

This is exactly what I'm talking about. "Better at a concept than others" is not deserving of its own class feature. So is handing out attacks the only unique thing a Warlord can do? If so, its a start but it heavily depends on exactly how that's done. Otherwise, it leads to problems.

A key thing is that warlords aren't damn casters. They are martial but they can still keep up in terms of coordinating with casters

Doing it without spells and especially spell lists is a huge mechanical difference that anyone who actually cares about mechanics should be salivating over.

Exactly. It was fine in 4e because that's kinda how 4e worked. I wasn't a fan of that which is why I didn't play much of 4e. But I like 5e because none of the classes have this shared identity.

Rather than sharing tags they instead literally share class features like fighting styles, and they share spells outright. No shared identity there...

Heck, 5e basically made it more explicit by removing the concept of Arcane, Divine, Primal, Martial. If you notice, almost none of the classes reference what another class is doing in 5e in almost any way.

They just literally copy and paste abilities and spells. Or steal them outright in the case of the bard.

Even the spellcasting features were different enough to warrant having them be in the ability list rather than just the Spellcasting chapter in the PHB. Because almost each instance of spellcasting has differences that span more than "Martial, Arcane, Divine, etc."

As they did in 4e where even two fighters would often get entirely different powers rather than attacking in exactly the same way.

For someone who claims to care exclusively about mechanics you seem incredibly hung up on pure fluff with no mechanical impact like power sources and entirely uncaring of characters that move identically and where the only difference between the main class features can be which book someone prepared out of or what they asked their god for that morning.

It was the fact that gameplay and class feel makes or breaks the game for me. If the flavor of a class is this awesome rendition of epic tales and great adventure but the gameplay loop involved (for a ridiculous example) having to write essays on the history of the atlantic ocean to use it, I'd never touch that class.

That's everyone.

 

[Asisreo]

Rather than sharing tags they instead literally share class features like fighting styles, and they share spells outright. No shared identity there...

They share some class features but not all. Rogues and Bard share expertise while Rogues and Monks share Evasion. Yet Rogues share Cunning Action, Sneak Attack, and Uncanny Dodge; features that define the rogue's playstyle, with no other.

The same could be said for Fighter's 7th ASI, Action Surge, and their 3rd/4th extra attack. These are features that define and differentiate the fighter's class.

The warlord, as it stands in this conversation, only holds that it can share attacks. But that's not enough to truly make it stand out if the rest of the abilities are "Cast Haste but not a spell." or "Cast shield but on another character."

And nonmagical isn't an identity nor is it tangible to gameplay. I'm sure you appreciate the fact that Warlords are nonmagical but if Warlords were a poor performing class yet was complex and nonmagical, would you say that the nonmagical aspect of it made it better? Do you think other players would be more likely to play the class if its gimmick was that its nonmagical?

 

[Fanaelialae]

They share some class features but not all. Rogues and Bard share expertise while Rogues and Monks share Evasion. Yet Rogues share Cunning Action, Sneak Attack, and Uncanny Dodge; features that define the rogue's playstyle, with no other.

The same could be said for Fighter's 7th ASI, Action Surge, and their 3rd/4th extra attack. These are features that define and differentiate the fighter's class.

The warlord, as it stands in this conversation, only holds that it can share attacks. But that's not enough to truly make it stand out if the rest of the abilities are "Cast Haste but not a spell." or "Cast shield but on another character."

And nonmagical isn't an identity nor is it tangible to gameplay. I'm sure you appreciate the fact that Warlords are nonmagical but if Warlords were a poor performing class yet was complex and nonmagical, would you say that the nonmagical aspect of it made it better? Do you think other players would be more likely to play the class if its gimmick was that its nonmagical?

If you take inspiration from the 4e warlord, there are a variety of things the warlord can do aside from sharing attacks. Repositioning allies, temp hp, etc.

While I agree that being nonmagical isn't enough to distinguish a class, it is important. It would be weird if the warlord suddenly lost their ability to assist allies through tactics because they're standing inside an antimagic zone.

 

[Minigiant]

For all the push of Warlords to be played as spellcasters in 5e, the buff spells are very tame and severely hampered by concentration in 5e.

Big spells are too expensive. Weaker spells can't often be stacked.

 

[Asisreo]

If you take inspiration from the 4e warlord, there are a variety of things the warlord can do aside from sharing attacks. Repositioning allies, temp hp, etc.

While I agree that being nonmagical isn't enough to distinguish a class, it is important. It would be weird if the warlord suddenly lost their ability to assist allies through tactics because they're standing inside an antimagic zone.

To me, them being magical or nonmagical is almost equivalent to fluff. I'm neither opposed to it nor unopposed but I wouldn't enjoy a class that just rewrote spells and said "look, they're nonmagical now" And called it a day.

Repositioning allies would be better if the base assumption for 5e was ToTM. Which is one of the reasons why 4e's warlord doesn't really have that good of a translation onto 5e. If we're translating abilities that allow a character to move after an attack like Bravura Presence, well, that ability is redundant since characters are already allowed to move as a free action. You'd need to provide some other benefit.

If you translate something like Intuitive Strike, it would kinda mess up the whole point of bounded accuracy with such a large bonus and also mess up the whole "no finnicky bonuses" tactic that 5e employed.

 

[Neonchameleon]

They share some class features but not all. Rogues and Bard share expertise while Rogues and Monks share Evasion. Yet Rogues share Cunning Action, Sneak Attack, and Uncanny Dodge; features that define the rogue's playstyle, with no other.

Which means that they share more than simple fluff words like "Primal" or "Defender".

The warlord, as it stands in this conversation, only holds that it can share attacks. But that's not enough to truly make it stand out if the rest of the abilities are "Cast Haste but not a spell." or "Cast shield but on another character."

Which precisely none of the warlord attempts I've seen including my own do. Your objection to the warlord therefore boils down to you not liking it because you have no experience of one in play and no vision of one.

And nonmagical isn't an identity nor is it tangible to gameplay.

In a game where of eleven core classes six all have maximum level spellcasting and two have half-casting then if you care either about thematics or mechanical distinctiveness then yes it is tangible to gameplay.

I'm sure you appreciate the fact that Warlords are nonmagical but if Warlords were a poor performing class
yet was complex and nonmagical, would you say that the nonmagical aspect of it made it better?

Absolutely, completely, 100% it would make them better. It wouldn't make them good - but it would give them much of their thematic and mechanical identity.

Do you think other players would be more likely to play the class if its gimmick was that its nonmagical?

Absolutely completely 100% there would be people who would be likely to play them if it added variety to the characters they could play without having to wade through a tedious spell list as long as that wasn't its only gimmick. People already ask for non-magical paladins.

Also anyone who appreciates mechanical variety would appreciate a non-caster in a role that was dominated by casters with tedious and irrelevant spell lists.

If it was done well it would also be appreciated by anyone who appreciates mechanical design and integration of design and thematics and played by many of them.

And this in addition to the 4e fans glad to have it back. And people who want it for the style.