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

[Jester David]

I think this claim is obviously false.

No doubt there are some different instances where it is easier to add than to subtract. But that is not at all a general truth.

"False" might be too strong. I agree than in some cases, subtracting is easier. It is much easier to have a rule and be able to ignore it than lack a rule. That's very true (and the basis of the Basic game).

But some content is going to be easier to subtract and some content is going to be easier to add.
Anything that could be an optional modules likely should be an optional module.

Subtracting dragons from my game isn't going to have any unintended consequences that I can see. In 4e, the consequences of subtracting the cleric from my game are clearly spelled out - if the players want a leader they'll have to build a warlord, bard, shaman or ardent. And in AD&D, nothing at all is going to happen if I subtract half the polearms on the weapon list. (Even subtracting the longsword probably won't have any non-obvious consequence.)

I'm sure there are some cases where subtraction can have unforeseen consequences, but I don't think there is any reason to think that it generally will, or that those consequneces will be any more severe than the unforeseen consequences of adding things (look at all the warnings in classic D&D, for instance, about adding new spells or new items - the designers clearly thought that adding that sort of stuff could be potentially gamebreaking).

Right. Except that if included as a module presumably there will be advice and designer notes on the module that make it easier to add.

The feats are neither here-nor-there - 4e has so many feats that the game would survive the excision of a dozen or so of them. But you are correct that trying to remove inspirational/martial healing from 4e would be a near-hopeless task.

Hence my reluctance to advocate its base inclusion in 5e when it works just as well as an option.

The idea that you can just add inspirational healing to a game designed without it and have it all work smoothly strikes me as pretty optimistic. As you yourself have pointed out, making it work in 4e involves embedding it into the systems from the ground up.

It won't be as embedded with as many related options, but there's no reason it cannot work smoothly. There just needs to be advice for DMs on handling parties with greater access to healing and who heal faster. With 5e, it's also a little easier to just add higher level opponents, knowing the PCs have a greater ability to heal the increased damage while still being able to hit.

I don't really see the reasoning whereby mystical assassin is too narrow to be a class, but armour-wearing priest of the Knights Templar variety - ie the traditional D&D cleric - is not. The divine assassin picks up a good chunk of the monk archetype (which Monte Cook tackled in AU with the Oathsworn), plus the religious zealot idea as well, which I think has a reasonable degree of popular currency.

And the unique defining mechanic for the classic D&D cleric is healing and turning undead. I'm not seeing how that's radically broad compared to the avenger's movement and Oath of Enmity.

It's also similar to the inquisitor from Pathfinder.

The avenger works in 4e, a game with limited multiclassing where you cannot get a little chocolate in your peanut butter and with hard roles. But 5e sounds like it will have 3e style multiclassing that makes it a little unnecessary You could have a DPR paladin, a pally rogue, a cleric rogue, a cleric ranger, a fighter with the acolyte background, and the like.

"Divine assassin" is a neat character concept but less of a class concept. What does an avenger with the guardian build look like? Or with the healer build?

 

[Manbearcat]

Originally Posted by Jester Canuck
The origins of the Avenger class come down to needing a divinestriker.

I've sort of given up on this thread but I didn't see this one before. That is pretty preposterous right there. The archetype of the implacable, single-minded, ideologically-driven zealot who hunts his prey to the ends of the earth has deep roots in popular culture. The Crow, The Punisher...I would say Roland Deschain fits the bill of an Avenger probably better than Paladin. A long term player of mine has basically been playing this archetype forever and no edition captured it as well as 4e. The idea that it had no thematic backing and was just a mechanical contrivance of 4e to "fit a power source/role roster" really has no merit.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I've sort of given up on this thread but I didn't see this one before. That is pretty preposterous right there. The archetype of the implacable, single-minded, ideologically-driven zealot who hunts his prey to the ends of the earth has deep roots in popular culture. The Crow, The Punisher...I would say Roland Deschain fits the bill of an Avenger probably better than Paladin. A long term player of mine has basically been playing this archetype forever and no edition captured it as well as 4e. The idea that it had no thematic backing and was just a mechanical contrivance of 4e to "fit a power source/role roster" really has no merit.

The idea wasn't articulated perfectly, but is quite accurate. It may be that there are fictional examples that one can map an avenger to (or a warlord, or another class), but that's not what precipitated the development of the class. Nor is it is justification for creating a class for that concept. This whole line of reasoning is no better than the fighter=Hercules mess.

A class isn't a convenient way of aping your favorite fantasy character, it's a representation of a career/profession/persuasion within the game world. Most clerics aren't adventurers. They run temples or travel and proselytize. Most fighters are military officers, mercenaries, gladiators, or otherwise not adventurers. Most wizards are academics or hedge wizards. Most monks are ascetics. And so on and so on. There are many characters in the world, some of whom have levels in adventuring classes but almost none of whom organize in four-man groups and dungeoncrawl for a living.

What is an avenger that isn't part of a small party of treasure-seekers that regularly fights small-scale combats and needs a "striker"? (Or a warlord without a party, for that matter).

As is often the case, this is not to say that such characters can't exist, merely that they aren't classes unto themselves.

 

[pemerton]

A class isn't a convenient way of aping your favorite fantasy character, it's a representation of a career/profession/persuasion within the game world.

That's a view of class that, as far as I'm aware, is true in only one edition of D&D - namely, 3E.

It's not true in classic D&D. Nor is it true in 4e. (I'm not 100% sure about 2nd ed AD&D, but I don't think AD&D makes such strong claims for its class system.)

""Divine assassin" is a neat character concept but less of a class concept. What does an avenger with the guardian build look like? Or with the healer build?

I'm not sure I follow the question.

With respect to the healer build (do you mean specialty?), the avenger with those feats looks like a bog-standard mystical assassin and healer. I'm thinking Stick and The Hand from Daredevil comics (and the Elektra movie), but that's not the only place that image is found.

With respect to the guardian build (do you mean defender specialty?), it seems to involve shield use and so the avenger couldn't take it. But why is that any more of a big deal than the monk or the wizard - both of whom are currently playtest classes - not being able to take that specialty?

Like I said, I have a feeling I've not really understood your question.

 

[pemerton]

Most clerics aren't adventurers. They run temples or travel and proselytize.

While wearing plate mail and carrying shields?

Most fighters are military officers, mercenaries

In 1st ed AD&D, though, most mercenaries aren't fighters, and their officers who are modelled as fighters are expressly denied the ability to gain levels - the fighter class is simply used as a template to allocate the right attack bonus and right number of hit points.

 

[Jester David]

I'm not sure I follow the question.

With respect to the healer build (do you mean specialty?), the avenger with those feats looks like a bog-standard mystical assassin and healer. I'm thinking Stick and The Hand from Daredevil comics (and the Elektra movie), but that's not the only place that image is found.

With respect to the guardian build (do you mean defender specialty?), it seems to involve shield use and so the avenger couldn't take it. But why is that any more of a big deal than the monk or the wizard - both of whom are currently playtest classes - not being able to take that specialty?

Like I said, I have a feeling I've not really understood your question.

Really what I'm asking "what does a non-striker avenger look like"? 5e doesn't have explicit roles so it's possible to build a character that does different things.
Put bluntly, if you take an avenger and build it as a defender or leader, how different does it look from a paladin or cleric? Is an archery or two-weapon build viable and different enough from a rogue or ranger?

 

[Manbearcat]

The idea wasn't articulated perfectly, but is quite accurate. It may be that there are fictional examples that one can map an avenger to (or a warlord, or another class), but that's not what precipitated the development of the class.

I'm not sure why you say this and I'm certainly not sure how you know this with the certitude that you seem to express. The idea of that class was not conjured out of whole cloth. There are pulp archetypes that match the ethos and thematic weight of that class. It seems more likely (or at least just as likely...although that would be an odd coincidence) that, just like the designers are apt to remind us repeatedly about 5e, the fiction bore the mechanics...rather than the other way round.

A class isn't a convenient way of aping your favorite fantasy character

It seems to me that is precisely what a class is. Its a gamist construct meant to facilitate gameplay as an adventurer (in D&D). It has pulp elements married to mechanics which seek to capture a playing experience for a thematic archetype (some more focused/deep than others).

If your response is; "No, its a world-building tool. Its an in-world, setting descriptor used as a reference point for who you are and what you do. When NPC warrior Bob refers to someone as a 'fighter', he is referring to what is on your character sheet. This is common, setting vernacular."

Then we are at an impasse.

What is an avenger that isn't part of a small party of treasure-seekers that regularly fights small-scale combats and needs a "striker"? (Or a warlord without a party, for that matter).

As is often the case, this is not to say that such characters can't exist, merely that they aren't classes unto themselves.

And then you write this. And it leads me to believe that...we are in agreement? I have no idea.

An avenger that isn't a PC is either color or a hook. He wouldn't wear an "A" on his chest but, as color or a hook, he would be recognizable as stark figure, committed to righting some wrong or "avenging" something lost, taken, or defiled. He could be as easily recognized and differentiated as a thematic figure associated with "vengeance" as any fighter would be with "swording" or any monk would be with "asceticing".

 

[Jester David]

I've sort of given up on this thread but I didn't see this one before. That is pretty preposterous right there. The archetype of the implacable, single-minded, ideologically-driven zealot who hunts his prey to the ends of the earth has deep roots in popular culture. The Crow, The Punisher...I would say Roland Deschain fits the bill of an Avenger probably better than Paladin. A long term player of mine has basically been playing this archetype forever and no edition captured it as well as 4e. The idea that it had no thematic backing and was just a mechanical contrivance of 4e to "fit a power source/role roster" really has no merit.

Better example might be Shadowbane from Erick Scott deBie's Realms series, created as a rogue-paladin multiclass but well-suited to be an avenger with rogue-paladin multiclassing being un-optimal in 4e.
Soloman Kane might be another good example of a religious hunter.
I don't think you can call the Crow or the Punisher or even Batman avengers. There's no religion or faith in those characters. And "implacable, single-minded, ideologically-driven zealot" is a description of a personality, not a class. You could role-play an avenger as a cheery, bouncy Pinky Pie character but it would still be an avenger.

And the above examples aren't so prominent that they scream "this MUST be a class." Not without first looking at the gap of the divine striker and wondering "what could fit here?"
They toyed around with designing a martial controller for the same reasons.

There are many, many archetypal characters that don't have classes. Because they're character archetypes and not class archetypes. Not every potential character idea deserves to be its own class.
There's no lightly armoured Dexterous swashbuckling class yet the Three Musketeers is very iconic. The wrestler/ brawer/ mixed-martial-artist is quite big and lacks the ki powers of the monk, so it's a very different creature. And with rangers getting spells from level 1 there's the Robin Hood archer type character that's not magical. And D&D has never done the Van Helsing/ Rudolph Van Richten smart monster hunter archetype well, always forcing it down the rogue or ranger path.
But we don't need more classes. They're redundant.

What's an avenger?
Depends on the character. The more religious might be a paladin or cleric. Some might be multiclassed with the ranger (for favoured enemy) or the rogue. Or they might be straight rogue/ranger/fighter with a religious-based background (acolyte IIRC) and the flavour of church sanctioned assassin. Or even just straight fighter with flavour-based faith in a higher power.
There are lots of ways to play the religious-themed hunter of evil.

 

[Jester David]

It seems to me that is precisely what a class is. Its a gamist construct meant to facilitate gameplay as an adventurer (in D&D). It has pulp elements married to mechanics which seek to capture a playing experience for a thematic archetype (some more focused/deep than others).

If your response is; "No, its a world-building tool. Its an in-world, setting descriptor used as a reference point for who you are and what you do. When NPC warrior Bob refers to someone as a 'fighter', he is referring to what is on your character sheet. This is common, setting vernacular."

Then we are at an impasse.

They're both. This is an example of particle-wave duality. Neither party is right and neither party is wrong. Classes are a gamist construction designed to aid the creation of character archetypes through enabling and complimentary mechanics and worldbuilding tools that establish the lore of the world describing the identity and abilities of NPCs.

When I say "my character is a wizard" it is just as meaningful as when the DM says "the villain is a wizard" or the worldbuilder muses "the leader of this nation is a wizard."

 

[pemerton]

Really what I'm asking "what does a non-striker avenger look like"?

<snip>

if you take an avenger and build it as a defender or leader, how different does it look from a paladin or cleric?

Well, I haven't seen the paladin yet. But compared to a cleric, I would expect lighter armour and therefore greater mobility. That is, elements of a monk (as are found in the actual avenger class as it currently exists).

Is an archery or two-weapon build viable and different enough from a rogue or ranger?

Compared to a rogue, I would exect magic - invisibility, dimension door, etc; plus oath mechanics. As for the ranger, given that I don't know how the ranger differes from the fighter, I can't really answer the question yet. But 4e managed to distinguish these 3 classes even though they're all strikers.

And "implacable, single-minded, ideologically-driven zealot" is a description of a personality, not a class. You could role-play an avenger as a cheery, bouncy Pinky Pie character but it would still be an avenger.

I'm not sure that any class is completely divorced from personality - I find it hard to imagine a genuinely cowardly fighter, or an anti-intellecual wizard. But in the case of the cleric (of a given god), paladin or monk I think the range of personalities is narrower. Avengers are a bit more like that.