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

[FrogReaver]

I've ran several of these in my games from levels 1-10 and 3-10 and they've never been OP. On top of that, it has been through well over 20 rounds of edits and a huge amount of playtesting from his patreon and other strangers on Reddit and discord. While it doesn't have 500K playtests behind it, I can assure you it is balanced and does nothing to disrupt the game.

one just needs to look at the level 1-3 abilities to see that isn’t the case. Now it may be balanced enough for you, but it is obviously stronger than most if not all fighter class+subclasses at those levels.

Does it even on out later? I doubt it but when seeing how out of tune it was early I didn’t need to dig in further for my point to stand. So it’s possible.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

That's just numbers going up.

At 5th level, a wizard gets to fly, deal damage in enormous AOEs, turn friend against friend, make a whole group of enemies stand around dumbfounded until they're attacked, deny enemies access to parts of the battlefield, or create shelter for the night that is perfectly safe. At 11th level, they can petrify enemies, possess them, teleport whole groups of people wherever they want, or see through any illusion.

At 5th level, the fighter gets to attack twice per round. At 11th level, thrice. Even the Battlemaster, who is the Fighter That Gets To Do Cool Stuff, doesn't get to do cooler stuff at higher levels. It's a bit like an 11th level wizard only being able to cast 1st level spells. Upcast into higher slots, sure, but still doing the piddly kind of stuff they do at 1st level.

Sure, Wizards gets cool magical spell options, but not all at once. They are limited by design, including by spell slots (and it seems you are assuming some of those slots are being saved for noncombat purposes), 1 spell per round, concentration, and enemy saving throws, legendary saves, and magic resistance that can negate a lot of their spells' effectiveness. They can do great things, and can also suffer great disappointment with their gambles. They also use the same limited slots for attack and defense and support. If they focus too much on one on a given day, that lessens their ability to be good at the others.

You seem to be very critical of the Fighters, but it is a very solid class that does what Fighter fans want (especially the playtest Fighter). They hit hard, often, and reliably, and survive to do so. The Fighter is able to go after their their chosen opponent(s) with multiple attacks, choosing whatever maneuvers, class abilities, and weapon mastery abilities that all can be synergistically used interchangeably multiple times per round, to dominate the battlefield. They are also going to survive better than the wizard. They can burst with Action Surge, sure, but one of their special abilities is consistency/reliability/survivability to do their job. (The Barbarian has it too).

The classes are designed to do different things well, and be fun for the player when doing those things. Some classes have been a bit better at it than others, and I hope the 2024 books help to clean that up a bit (weapon masteries are a great tactical impact, for instance.)

Yes, a true "gish" that uses magic attacks that aren't spells is not currently in the game. That is its own issue, but that doesn't make fighters bad.

 

[Shardstone]

one just needs to look at the level 1-3 abilities to see that isn’t the case. Now it may be balanced enough for you, but it is obviously stronger than most if not all fighter class+subclasses at those levels.

Does it even on out later? I doubt it but when seeing how out of tune it was early I didn’t need to dig in further for my point to stand. So it’s possible.

You should actually olaytest it like me and many others have. You are far off the mark and way too confident in your casual analysis.

 

[Mephista]

The issue of course is many on the design team were adamant that the fighter also support the easy mode Champion. That was top priority

And this is why the Battlemaster falls to provide the Warlord fantasy

There was a demand for the 3e style of Fighter where it was just all feats like expanded critical and enhanced fighting style stuff. Sure, I can agree with that. It did shape the core Fighter.

I'm not sure I can agree that its why the Battlemaster fails to provide the warlord fantasy. I think I would sooner blame the fact that the Fighter really didn't lean into its core archetype and flesh it out first.

Here's the thing. The 5e Fighter walks the line between being part 3e Fighter, and 4e Fighter. Champion was the simple 3e Fighter, and Battlemaster is meant to kind of reproduce 4e maneuvers, with a few warlord-inspired maneuvers added in. Eldritch Knight was added in as a Fighter-Wizard gish hybrid option to round out the class.

That's a crappy way to design subclasses.

The Fighter's big class fantasy includes being the mercenary man, the ex-guard, the soldier girl, the gladiator. The Fighter's subclasses should have revolved around those kinds of things. Warlord should have been a core subclass that got attention. The Gladiator subclass should have had options for being flashy and using weird weapons like the net or whip. Guards should have been all about perception and putting down things without necessarily killing. Mercenary should have been a thing that had a few abilities that related to earning gold and being efficient hunters. I don't mind the Eldritch Knight subclass.

I mean, we can blame the Champion, sure. The Fighter design was so focused on threading the needle between 3e and 4e that it didn't give the warlord the weight and consideration for working within 5e framework the attention it deserved. So its kind of true. But its only a part of the story.

 

[Undrave]

Cool. I never seen them. Did they fall off the page really fast from a lack of responses by any chance? Or when Warlord was its own subthread here ( I avoided that one like the plague - it was so toxic you could feel the poison seeping in through the computer screen).

My last post on the matter was in 2021. It actually got a bunch of positive responses and suggestions from people. I think I still have room for improvement and there were some good suggestion but I found my motivation waning as I lacked an ongoing game and the restrictions of the system were frustrating me a little. Maybe I'll take another crack at it.

 

[Undrave]

You seem to be very critical of the Fighters, but it is a very solid class that does what Fighter fans want (especially the playtest Fighter). They hit hard, often, and reliably, and survive to do so. The Fighter is able to go after their their chosen opponent(s) with multiple attacks, choosing whatever maneuvers, class abilities, and weapon mastery abilities that all can be synergistically used interchangeably multiple times per round, to dominate the battlefield. They are also going to survive better than the wizard. They can burst with Action Surge, sure, but one of their special abilities is consistency/reliability/survivability to do their job. (The Barbarian has it too).

Yeah and it's a Fighter, not a Warlord.

 

[Yaarel]

My point being, although the structure of both powers and spells are quite similar on an individual level the structure of the entire system around them that they are used by, AEDU VS spell slots respectively, is significantly different, and that means ‘just give warlords spells’ has entirely different implications for them in 5e than it did in 4e.

The 5e Warlock is AEDU. The cantrips are Atwill, the slots are Encounter, the Arcanums are Daily, any of them can be Utility, and the Invocations might be any of them.

Suppose mages (or some mage subclasses) have access to a nonmagic "Martial spell school". These are defacto spells, using the spell format, but called "maneuvers" (techniques, stances, exploits) when strictly nonmagical mechanics. This is an effective way to build a gish. It can even build a rigorously nonmagical Warlord.

If a Bard, Cleric, or Paladin serves as the chassis for the Warlord, it has Atwill maneuvers/cantrips, and Daily slots. Plus various class features. The Daily maneuver description can be anything. For example, its Duration can be a 24-hour always-on "stance". This stance can grant an Atwill benefit for the duration of the stance, and in addition, with "great exertion" a dramatic effect, which requires a Short Rest to do again.

Anything that 4e powers can do, 5e spells can do.

A "Martial spell school" can be a helpful design approach to achieve a "full" 5e Warlord.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of this approach is caster-martial balance. When gish players are using a same spell slot to choose between a Martial maneuver or an Arcane spell, it becomes crystal clear which option is more powerful and which options are about equal to each other. Designers can use this precise information to carefully fix any issues with Martial classes.

 

[Yaarel]

My experience with 4ed is limited.

This may be hot take, but i don't see warlord as a class. For me, it's more like character concept. One that can be put together using existing classes. Mix and match, bard fighter paladin, depending how much magic you want.

Part of the reason why Warlord must be a class is, it must mechanically benefit from Charisma and Intelligence, centrically, for every level at every tier.

The Fighter is already Multi-Ability-Dependent, requiring Str/Dex, Con, and maybe Wis. Pouring Intelligence or even Charisma into the Fighter class is like pouring sugar-water into a car gas tank.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Yeah and it's a Fighter, not a Warlord.

All a Fighter "Warlord" subclass needs is a broad "Maneuver/Exploit" system, similar to the Battle Master or Invocations, and a few support abilities at subclass levels. Many special ability concepts/ideas can exist, but individual Warlords don't get them all. They have to choose from the options at level-up. (This works similar to 4E because despite a Warlord having lots of options in character-building/progression, they didn't get access to all of them at any time.)

Warlord/Commander subclass:
L3: Exploit System based on an at-will to short-rest recharge. Run numbers to see if it needs a scaling die like the Battle Master's Combat Superiority, or if the scaling should work differently.
L3: Choose between 3 buffs, one for each Mental ability score. These can really cater to existing Warlord themes.
L7: Enhance Exploit access/options. Scaling die bump if that is needed?
L7: Get decent ability usable by any type of "Warlord" can use.
L10: Choose between 3 new great abilities tied to your preferred Mental ability score.
L15: Enhance Exploit access/options. Scaling die bump if that is needed?
L18: Choose between 3 capstone abilities for your preferred Mental ability score.

Just give lots of options to choose from at the appropriate levels, like a Warlock's invocations, Battle Master Fighter's maneuvers, or Totem (Wildheart) Barbarian's totem spirit options.

 

[Zardnaar]

I find this absolute resistance to the Warlord class very interesting. The class itself is conceptually uninteresting to me, but I can imagine people want it. Especially since PF2 is just play testing their own attempt at this class.

I really don't understand the hostility to a D&D implementation.

1. It's 4E 5E isn't really designed for it.

2. Lazylord concept is broken in 5E.

Ironically I've probably seen more warlord types from wotc in 5E than most here. Several battlemasters, order cleric, Masterminds. And haste being used on Rogues.

Not quite at will attack granting but copious and its really good espicially with rogues and the -5/+10 feats.

We got through Curse of Strahd comparatively easy because of an order cleric. Several stinker fights were easy eg death house, windmill.

So to incorporate at will attack granting the warlord has to be weaker than some existing classes in 5E.

If it's not you basically break the game where it's already easy mode.

Support classes don't tend to do much damage. You can kinda cheese a cleric there with nova abilities but it's not that impressive overall campaign depending on magic items for warrior types.

At will attack granting in 5E in effect means your support character now is dealing Striker level damage. On top of their existing abilities.

I do let 3rd party material into my games would consider a warlord hypothetically. But any at will attack granting is a nope for me. BM almost gets it already if the player isn't stupid or builds around it but the BM isn't a support class so it's not as bad.