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

[UngeheuerLich]

Warlords were a niche class in 4e (sorry, but you know it's true) and they were expressly designed to work with that system, with its emphasis on role over class. 5e is designed on the idea that each class is significantly self-contained. I'm having trouble conceptualizing a class that goes a lot further than the battle master does as a leader/support role, while still being good autonomously.

Nooo.... i was trying to prove a point. Now Minigiant will point to your post and tell me that you propose the warlord to be just a subclass. :/

Other than that, I agree with your point. The warlord should be autonomly useful. This is why I propose adding more warlord abilities to the fighter. A fighting style that allows them to just use their second wind on allies and allows them to grant attacks to allies will go a long way to supporting the warlord style.
Many of the 4e powers won´t work well in 5e, because they allow tiny movements and positioning you need to track on the battlemap. Which is something 5e explicitely does not want.

 

[jayoungr]

I can't help but wonder why such a wildly popular class concept has not been introduced to 5E.

Read this thread and where it went.

Now imagine that discussion 500 times over.

That's why there's no warlord equivalent in 5E.

(So far, at least. But I kind of think that if there were a way to thread that needle that made the majority of fans happy, it would have been found by now.)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I was speaking more holistically, not about 1st level specifically.

That being said, paladin is a little weak at 1st level for my taste. Although it's not like 1st level balance is actually important, anyway.

Yes, I agree. The paladin lvl 1 is no match for a fighter. No fighting style. only 5hp/LR instead of 1d10+1/short rest and more MADness.

 

[Undrave]

The whole concept is somewhat antithetical to the 5e core design, which is essentially that everyone has an "I attack," option, with the exception of maybe certain clerics.

Warlords had plenty of attack powers. What makes you think they wouldn't have an 'I attack' option? They had Martial Weapon proficiency and many of their powers were 'you attack, then your pal gets bonus X'.

If there isn’t a spell that has the effect you want create a custom spell and add it to the bard list. Or use that homebrew you like.

As already stated, the warlord was invented to fill a mechanical gap in the 4e rules. A gap that doesn’t exist in any other version of D&D.

It existed so you didn’t need to rely on a Cleric to have a support character and had a different style than a cleric. The Warlord has more reasons to exist than the Wizard.

They will fight over Int, WIS, or Cha build. They will fight over Inspiring, Tactical, Insightful, or Mascot focus.

The biggest strength of 4e class was how different they could feel by simply choosing a different secondary stat and playing up that choice's strength.

For Warlord fans, this is literally identical to saying, "I don't think 'Wizard' is a class. I think it's a character concept. One that can be put together using Bard, Eldritch Knight, or Arcane Trickster."

The Wizard isn't even a character concept! It's just one mechanic: the spell book. Everything else a Wizard can be is covered by the Bard, Sorcerer or Walorck. We don't need the Wizard.

In reality, 4E has just crashed and burned as the least popular edition.

I'd argue it didn't crash, it BURNED OUT.

In this very thread, multiple people who like the Warlord concept are arguing about how it should be implemented.

Okay, and? It just proves people like it enough to have strong opinions about it. There's plenty of controversial classes in 5e: The Ranger, the Monk, the Sorcerer, people hate the Warlock's short rest structure...

 

[James Gasik]

I'd argue it didn't crash, it BURNED OUT.

Better to burn out than fade away!

 

[Reynard]

Aren’t most of the people on this forum DMs? So if they like a 3pp class they can simply give it to the players as an option.

Yes and no? For example, I run most games via Fantasy grounds. implementing something like laserllama's Warlord would be a pretty big undertaking, so the probability is much lower that I would encourage someone to play it, even if I like it.

 

[Reynard]

The paladin provides 5hp per long rest...

I was speaking more holistically, not about 1st level specifically.

That being said, paladin is a little weak at 1st level for my taste. Although it's not like 1st level balance is actually important, anyway.

My first thought was it felt a little powerful, too, but an easy fix is to have the target have to spend that HD.

 

[pawsplay]

That's not the point of the Warlord archetype. That's only for the Lazylord, the derivative build of the archeytpe.

I don't care about the "lazylord." It's not something I'm interested in seeing in the game. I'm saying for a vanilla warlord, what would they have that is not already represented by a Battlemaster Fighter with Inspiring Leader and team-friendly maneuvers?

 

[pawsplay]

Warlords had plenty of attack powers. What makes you think they wouldn't have an 'I attack' option? They had Martial Weapon proficiency and many of their powers were 'you attack, then your pal gets bonus X'.

So... a fighter.

 

[Reynard]

I am team "replace the fighter with this sort of thing" because frankly the fighter is useless anyway.