D&D 5E How Important is it that Warlords be Healers?

[pemerton]

Unlike magic, health, damage, and healing are real concepts that everyone is familiar with and has some understanding of. Any break from tradition should logically move the game closer to those concepts. Things like martial healing that break away from reality (and most fiction) are more aversive to non-rpg players

Martial healing, among other things, serves neither of those ends; thus it's hard to justify its inclusion.

What I mean is designing the game that would be designed if D&D didn't exist. The game that a novice would expect when you explain to him what an rpg is.

I'm not sure how you are working out what a novice would or would not expect of an RPG. But I personally don't see that being able to be reinvigorated by your allies inspiring words is either at odds with fiction (at least the heroic/romantic genres that are important to D&D), nor with any sort of default expectations one might have about a fantasy RPG.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I agree but maybe for a different reason - in general the different playing role of players and GM means that playes need different sorts of resources - including warlord powers - from GMs. Hence it makes sense that PCs and NPCs be built differently.

But I don't see this is an argument against warlords in the game.

I'm thinking in terms of a naturalistic world where you assume that classes describe NPCs the same way they describe PCs (in the sense of "for every 30 buccaneers there will be a 4th-level fighter"). As I said, it's not really a problem if you say PC warlords are unique snowflakes.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I'm not sure how you are working out what a novice would or would not expect of an RPG.

Well, there's my memory of my beginner years, and my experiences teaching others. I find that despite diverse perspectives, there are convergent aspects. All the newbies I've ever met wondered how health and injury were represented in the game, and found hit points to be inadequate, if generally tolerable.

But I personally don't see that being able to be reinvigorated by your allies inspiring words is either at odds with fiction (at least the heroic/romantic genres that are important to D&D), nor with any sort of default expectations one might have about a fantasy RPG.

You're trying to equate being reinvigorated with martial healing. But they're not the same thing at all.

For one thing, that sort of inspiration generally arises because of the relationships between people, not because one person has specific training (i.e. it's more of a default combat action and perhaps a teamwork benefit, not an exclusive class ability). For another, there are (as has been discussed) many mechanical representations of inspirational aid, even under the very limited existing rules structure. In other words, your positing a false dichotomy between martial healing and ignoring the effects of inspiration completely. As is often the case. There are other options besides "the 4e way" and "the legacy way".

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[Jester David]

I'm out. The logic presented is so flawed it's not even worth attempting to untangle. However, I will take solace in the fact that there really is no need to do so. The logic and ideas presented are so incoherent, contradictory, and so far out on the fringe, I don't think there's any real chance that WotC or anybody else is going to take them seriously.

So, adieu. Enjoy the rest of the thread.

What?! You disagree with me so I'm being illogical? My arguments cannot even been untangled?
That's unfair.

Okay, part of the problem is this is not a logical problem. It's an issue of desire and preference. If this was a pure logical problem we could break out some Aristotelian Symbolic Logic and show conclusively who is right and who is wrong. But since neither of our arguments have fundamental logical flaws it's a matter of the validity of our statements.

Given the poll is split four ways with just as many people being strongly opposed to martial healing as strongly for, I also do think it's fair to say the position I'm arguing for (which is not one I fully support BTW) is "so far out on the fringe, I don't think there's any real chance that WotC or anybody else is going to take them seriously".

 

[Jester David]

Yeah, I'm with Pour, I have NO IDEA what you mean by this. I don't know what 'both styles' you refer to. In 4e, IF YOU WISH, you may of course make NPCs using PC classes, nothing can stop you from doing this. There is even a simplified method of doing it in the back of the DMG (in chapter 10 I believe, right after the monster design rules).

I'm not 100% sure but I believe he means the mechanics-first design of 4e versus much of the story-based design of earlier editions.

4e designed around the basis of the mechanic. As always, there are exceptions and there was quite often a story-kernel at the basis of the design, but it was often much narrower than the role of the class in the larger world.
The warlord is one example of this, being designed first and foremost around the concept of the martial leader that can grant attacks, damage, and movement while also healing. When you describe a warlord first and foremost you describe what he does in combat and his mechanics.
Ditto the avenger which was based around the oath mechanic, the idea of a Batman character that fights alone while being part of a team, and the visual of a lightly armoured sword wielder.

5e is starting with the story first, describing what the class is in the world, what its role is, how it is unique and then looking at mechanics. Or so we've been told.

When you start with the story, you'll always get a good world hook. And there's nothing preventing you from making equally unique mechanics and designing an awesome class.
When you start with the mechanics first, sometimes you're going to get a good world hook and sometimes you're not. Few of the 4e classes really stand out for their flavour. The battlemind is a mass of story contradictions completely divorced from its flavour. The seeker and runepriest overlap with the ranger and the cleric. The battlerager fighter should have been a defender barbarian.

But I disagree with GX.Sigma that mechanics first cannot lead to good story and classes. I thought the swordmage worked fine, and the warlord does still deserve to be it's own class.

In fact D&D was invented as a game of dungeon exploration. No greater 'world' than "the town" where you could buy supplies ALA Diablo (the original game with the hard-coded town) was envisaged by those rules, and the game up to 4e didn't really change those assumptions much at all. No thought was ever given to how the world was supposed to work. The few parts of it the PCs were ever expected to interact with were just given as hard and fast rules, prices, hirelings, followers, castles, etc were all simply hard-coded in the DMG "this is how it works" with numbers of gold pieces and etc and NO explanation of how that could possibly be logical when you considered the implications of even level 1-3 spells.

Chainmail was a game of dungeon exploration. D&D was that for thirty seconds and quickly evolved. It did not take long for D&D to move beyond the dungeon, for worlds to grow larger and grander. For people to start questioning how the world the mechanics were creating might actually work and interact.

And while the game was simple now, you can't go back to that. The genie is long out of the bottle and people do wonder how classes interact and affect and alter the world. The world consequences of clerics with cure spells has been known for twenty-five years and was part of the basis of the original Dragonlance world. We cannot design like it was 1974 anymore.

 

[Sadrik]

So how big of a deal is it to you that warlords have (or not have) the ability to heal?

Honestly, No. But I wont be that hurt if they can. The heal skill is where the healing should be coming from outside of magical healing. If the warlord is a combat medic and gains better use of the heal skill, I might be able to buy it. Another potential mechanic is the use of temporary HP. But just shoe horning it as healing by another name would not be acceptable to me.

I think more important to the discussion is if they are even warranted as a class in the PHB. I think the concept of a combat medic is pertinent enough to include in the book. It should simply be a feat.

And please, let's not turn this into another debate about how abstract hit points are or aren't. That topic has already been argued to death, and its dead corpse beaten until tenderized. I'm just wondering how important the healing issue is to those who like to play warlords, and whether or not it's something they'd be willing to do without.

I think this is wishful thinking.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's how it is in 4e, too. It's just the class's specific mechanics that don't carry over between PCs and NPCs. If you have a PC who's a Psion, it says something about the setting. Ditto, Warlords. And Paladins. And so on... You can still have NPCs who are Invokers, Wizards, Scouts, etc. I've seen this first-hand, having run Dark Sun for over two years, with its lack of divine PCs.

-O

This is true of course. Its also equally true that all monsters tell us something about the imaginary world they live in, but I don't hear people screaming to not have magical flying monsters because it forces the world to allow for magical flight, even though that's probably at least as big a deal as anything that PCs can do. The very existence of undeath and the undead must logically have a huge impact on game worlds too, I guess those should go also!

Heck, lets just invent Pencils & Paperclips!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, there's my memory of my beginner years, and my experiences teaching others. I find that despite diverse perspectives, there are convergent aspects. All the newbies I've ever met wondered how health and injury were represented in the game, and found hit points to be inadequate, if generally tolerable.

I think any thinking person will quickly realize that hit points are an abstraction. It might take them a bit longer to understand the necessity of that sort of abstraction, and all of its ramifications, but they'll quickly 'get' that there's more to hit points than tracking wounds. If you introduce the concept of 'Gygaxian Hit Points' they'll pretty quickly learn to accept that. This is why Gary put that paragraph in the 1e DMG and PHB. He knew the question would come up often.

You're trying to equate being reinvigorated with martial healing. But they're not the same thing at all.

For one thing, that sort of inspiration generally arises because of the relationships between people, not because one person has specific training (i.e. it's more of a default combat action and perhaps a teamwork benefit, not an exclusive class ability). For another, there are (as has been discussed) many mechanical representations of inspirational aid, even under the very limited existing rules structure. In other words, your positing a false dichotomy between martial healing and ignoring the effects of inspiration completely. As is often the case. There are other options besides "the 4e way" and "the legacy way".

I think the Army would disagree. Not all sergeants may be made equal, but you don't need to be on a first-name basis with them to have them light a fire under your arse! There is quite a bit of specialized training that goes into that too, as I'm sure many posters here can attest to. The problem with the notion that there are "many ways to do it" is that any way that doesn't allow the PCs to endure and continue the adventure and doesn't work relatively efficiently like healing does, won't fill the niche that the warlord is desired to fill, which is the party support role. Thus you are still left with the necessity for any really effective party to contain a cleric or pack some form of easily renewable healing magic. THAT is the problem with your line of reasoning. Its not flawed, it just doesn't arrive at the desired conclusion.