D&D 5E [Warlords] Should D&D be tied to D&D Worlds?

[pemerton]

[MENTION=42582]So, bottom line, you think that healing (specifically in-combat healing) is Really Important.

<snip>

Moreover, even if it were, that just takes us to where a couple of other posters whose names I don't feel like looking up got us several pages ago: a class is not a metagame tool to fill in a hole in the rules.

I don't know what you mean by "a metagame tool to fill a hole in the rules". As I see it a class, in a class-based game, is a package of mechanical elements that makes sense within the action resolution rules - but that's a pretty abstract description.

Here is my view, repeated again - my bottom line, if you like: a battle captain should be able to keep his/her friends going in a fight, by means of inspiration; in D&D, the overwhelming salient measure of ability to keep going in a fight is hit points; therefore, a battle captain character should interact with the hit point mechanics, and the most time-honoured and play-tested way of doing this in D&D is via hit point restoration.

If other people want to speculate about variant combat mechanics, and variant inspiration mechanics, don't let me stop you (and I've already mentioned one multiple times in this thread: Burning Wheel's Steel attribute and associated mechanics, like the Command skill). But in the meantime I'm interested in what actually works within D&D as it currently exists.

We've moved on a bit from the posts you're quoting there, but I wanted to tease this out because I think it feeds into what we're talking about.

It does more than "feed into it". It is a reiteration of [MENTION=2303]Starfox[/MENTION]'s point that you responded to in the same post - namely, that class features make up the bulk of a PC's mechanical capability in any version of D&D since 3E at least (in earlier editions magic items can actually be more important in this respect).

A non-class-based form of non-magical spike healing cannot both be (i) balanced with other non-class-based mechanical abilities and (ii) roughly comparable in output to a cleric's healing spells + channel divinity.

And you still haven't commented on my proposal in post 89, which tries to actually sketch out a balanced first level warlord for D&Dnext (but would benefit from input from those with a better handle on the system maths than I have).

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=2303]Starfox[/MENTION], [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] - I have started a new thread with my build suggestion in it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Back in the day when I used to run over dunes and hills carrying a ceramic vest, weapons and ammunition with thirty of my closest friends (actually I used to drive around in a 60 ton behemoth with the ability to annihilate everything in a 3 km radius) we had an Lt and we had a medic and when you got injured you didn't called for your Lt. you called the medic (or to your mother more often than not).

A combat leader job is to use his soldiers in the best way possible and keep their moral and fighting spirit up, it got nothing to do with treating wounds or healing. A good combat leader os 50% mother 50% seducer and 50% mean SOB and considering the fact that there is on't 100% of him it's not an easy task.​

Indeed. But in D&D the same resource measures wounds, morale, and fighting spirit. And it's quite obviously not just wounds that are measured by hit points because you aren't impeded with them. If there are different resources added to separate these then the warlord can focus on one of them (although we'll hit Gresham's Law - one will be fundamentally more important than the rest). As it is, your ability to keep going is measured by your hit points.

I think we might be able to work with that as a thesis, yes?

And I note that it doesn't involve spike healing as a class ability, or any reference to a need for a class at all. I'll take this as agreement that you don't necessarily need a warlord class to get the effects you want. Whether or not the effect is a class ability is open to discussion, at least.

It's open to discussion. It is, however, too powerful to be a feat when compared to feats seen so far.

Lets take something no one is seriously proposing, but that meets your criteria above. I've been thinking about equipment recently, so what if it was, say, a mundane item, a piece of gear only as character-defining as a greatsword or heavy armor or a shield might be.

Battle Standard (xxx gp): When this item is worn, it provides hope and resolve to all who fight in its presence. This may take the form of a flag, a pennant, a medal, an insignia, or even a particular battle cry any other rallying point you can imagine. If it isn't a specific item, the GP represents the training and practice that goes into having the capacity. A bearer of a battle standard can (insert favored spike healing rules here, copypasta'd from the identical cleric ability).​

That would allow a player to organize a non-magical party who would benefit from spike healing and so be mechanically and psychologically indistinguishable from a cleric doing the same thing magically. It would not be a class choice, it would be a choice of equipment, like choosing to wear plate mail.

First it's a magic item. Which is inherently problematic for oh so many reasons.

Second I'm going to propose an alternative solution, stolen from WFRP 3e (although I don't think that the idea was original there). A party sheet to go along side individual character sheets - and the party sheet has its own "class" and can be replaced. It also outlines how the characters work together (WFRP ones include "Brash Young Fools", "Coven on the Run", "Notorious Scoundrels", and "Righteous Champions"). And that can include spike healing in the form of "Pushing through." The Warlord at this point could interact with and augment the party in ways that make it very distinct as a class.

Presume the item is properly balanced with other items and the action economy and whatever (ie, that it is a valid item): in what way would it not "work" conceptually?

First, it's a magic item. We're running into the Christmas Tree Effect. Second it's a magic item. Which again ties it down in ... awkward ways.

I don't follow your logic, but that's irrelevant. This would presumably happen in a 4e party full of warlords (or other leaders), too. Or, hell, a 4e party full of warforged.

For the former it does. I've experience of this on both sides of the screen. DMing for a party with too many leaders is obnoxious.

But we can fix what may have been problems in 4e, so lets put in a hurdle. Instead of everyone automatically getting inspiring word, we have a feat that lets you use the equivalent of inspiring word, but limited to characters with a Cha of 13+. Now it requires an investment in terms of ability score opportunity cost and a feat: likely only one member of the party is going to opt in, and occasionally you might have two or three, but you're not realistically going to have them ALL do it (hypothetically possible, though, still).

This also allows you to have a party that isn't magical that has spike healing exactly equivalent to a cleric's spike healing. It still does not require a class. Does this also fail to meet some un-stated threshold of "working?"

You've just made a feat that's about three times as good as any other I'm aware of in D&D Next. Class features are generally much, much stronger than feats (one of the failings of the 3e Fighter). This could, admittedly, be solved by bumping up the power of feats to make the rest competative there.

@Neonchameleon , you baffled me too !
In the OP, you tell a beautiful story about Warlords adding to the depth of D&D-compatible tropes.... (this, I could get behind)
Then your argument take a Gamist point of view, advocating for "spiked healing" and "focus fire", which seem tangential at best to our make-believe gumdrop elves.

D&D is an RPG. A Role Playing Game. If you don't get the gamist part right you aren't designing well.

This, I will oppose vehemently ! Focus fire is a DDism I would like to die in a fire !

Focus fire (and the maxim that "The more you use the fewer you lose") is orthodox miliatary strategy in just about every military guide book known.

The Art of War
3.8. It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy's one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two.

3.9. If equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him

Or in short focus fire when you can and evade where you will take the focus fire.

Only in D&D can you see people refusing to engage their adversaries, and being rewarded fof such a smart tactic.

The Art Of War
3.2. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

(See 3.9 above as well).

Focus fire is simple common sense and works on a personal skirmish level as well as for large military units. Two people attacking someone split the defender's attention. Only in D&D and real life and just about every military strategy or tactics game ever (remember D&D was derived from tabletop wargaming) do you see people refusing to engage their adversaries unless at an advantage or creating a holding action and this being considered smart tactics.

At least, your gripe becomes obvious : you are pissed off with the demise of 4e, and particularly with Mr Mearls (I sympathize, but it's time to move on and accept 5e won't copy and paste whole pages of 4e, for obvious marketing reasons)

Of course it won't be copy and paste from 4e. No one in their senses thinks it will. I'd be much happier if it was trying to be its own thing.

Also, the OP references low-magic campaigns like Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser...

Has it occured to anybody that if a healing priest from FR travelled through a magic portal and joined up them, that Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser would then be that much more heroic??

So perhaps Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser have always been operating at "significantly reduced capacity" in their low magic world and they've been doing just fine.

You mean that spellcasters uber alles is a feature and not a bug? Because if not I don't understand what you are saying.

 

[Ratskinner]

Here is my view, repeated again - my bottom line, if you like: a battle captain should be able to keep his/her friends going in a fight, by means of inspiration; in D&D, the overwhelming salient measure of ability to keep going in a fight is hit points; therefore, a battle captain character should interact with the hit point mechanics, and the most time-honoured and play-tested way of doing this in D&D is via hit point restoration.

If other people want to speculate about variant combat mechanics, and variant inspiration mechanics, don't let me stop you (and I've already mentioned one multiple times in this thread: Burning Wheel's Steel attribute and associated mechanics, like the Command skill). But in the meantime I'm interested in what actually works within D&D as it currently exists.

I'm not trying to quibble with your points here, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], this just seemed the most salient point to enter with my thought.

I think that (having re-read much of the thread) the main communication problem is that two things are/were being conflated in the OP namely (a) a "battle captain" class to rival the cleric and (b) support for non/low-magical campaigns. I don't think anybody really objected to either (a) or (b), but the conflation of the two isn't necessary. The rest of the arguing, to my mind, just come down to the same old hit point arguments a few steps removed. If we could finally get rid of the eternal lousiness which is the hit point system, this whole issue goes away...but y'know...<angelic voice>moo</angelic voice>.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Here is my view, repeated again - my bottom line, if you like: a battle captain should be able to keep his/her friends going in a fight, by means of inspiration

A non-class-based form of non-magical spike healing cannot both be (i) balanced with other non-class-based mechanical abilities and (ii) roughly comparable in output to a cleric's healing spells + channel divinity

Oy.

By questioning the premise, you're missing the point of the thought experiment. An item like this allows a battle captain to keep their friends going in a fight by means of inspiration. It meets the needs you claim to have. It also meets Neonchameleon's stated needs of non-magical spike healing.

The premise is that this thing works and the game is designed like this and that it is well balanced and all that. In order for us to get anything useful out of this thought experiment, you need to first be able to imagine that this premise is true in some impossible way.

I want to find out if your needs may be more complex than what you stated them as. They seem to be something else. I'm trying to get this mantra to be examined, so that we can decide what your actual requirements are, so that I can talk about them with you coherently. If the item doesn't work conceptually, then your needs can't possibly be as simple as you've stated them.

That's conceptually. In order to find that out, we need to accept the premise, accept a game in which items carry that weight and are well-balanced and basically that this concept works mechanically. They just do. Accept the premise. Battle commanders can now keep their allies fighting with inspiration simply by spending some GP. This is the reality that we're operating under -- how realistic it is or how like previous D&D games it is is superfluous. Operate as if this is the case. Either this item then meets your requirements (as it seems to be OK for [MENTION=2303]Starfox[/MENTION]), or it doesn't and your requirements are actually more complex than just a battle commander that can keep their allies fighting with inspiration.

If X, then what? Don't tell me how it can't be X. That's not useful. That's not the question I'm asking. If X, then what? If this item exists and thus meets your stated needs, how does that reveal what your needs actually are?

(As an aside, this isn't remarkably different than what the wands of Cure X Wounds in 3e became. It's also not very far removed from 1e/OD&D and the view of equipment as the major class feature. But since I'm not seriously proposing this as a solution, none of that is really relevant.)

It is, however, too powerful to be a feat when compared to feats seen so far.

Ah, but compared to a +1 ability score bump? We haven't seen it in the playtest yet, but it's been advertised that feats in 5e might be huge. Tossing out some heals, or +1 to an ability score (a power on par with old school Wish)?

First it's a magic item.

You're wrong about the premise. It is a mundane item. No more magical than a greatsword or full plate.

First, it's a magic item. We're running into the Christmas Tree Effect. Second it's a magic item. Which again ties it down in ... awkward ways.

It's no more a magic item than the a warhorse or a heavy shield. It's part of your character's equipment.

You've just made a feat that's about three times as good as any other I'm aware of in D&D Next. Class features are generally much, much stronger than feats (one of the failings of the 3e Fighter). This could, admittedly, be solved by bumping up the power of feats to make the rest competative there.

You seem to have a pre-existing notion of what a feat can be (along with pemerton's pre-existing notion of what a class feature can be).

Remove that notion. Imagine a world in which feats are comparable to, say, a +1 to an ability score. Accept the premise that feats can be this powerful.

Does a feat then work?

 

[Starfox]

It's not an intended solution, it's intended as a thought experiment

When it comes to gaming, I feel concrete examples work better for me than lofty thought experiments, but I'll try and oblige.

And it's true that by not tying this mechanic to class, you make it available to anyone who happens to equip the item, whatever their class. Is the idea of non-magical spike healing exclusive and unable to be combined with a Fighter or a Cleric or a Ranger or a Paladin?

If it could be integrated into another class, sure. I don't think anybody would mind. I was never debating that, in fact I was supporting it. But that is not how DnD works. DnD parcels out powers by class. If you take a ranger and give him cleric-like healing, that is no longer a ranger but a nature-themed cleric, because something has to be taken out to compensate for the sudden gain in abilities.

We could make the classes more modular - in effect moving more effects into backgrounds or similar add-on elements. If this was done, the "combat healer" element could be basted onto any class. That would work. It would then be in competition with other combat roles such as the buffer, sniper, tank, scrapper et al. Each character would combine one combat role with one noncombat role (break-in expert, scout, diplomat, medic, tracker, fix-it-guy, whatever), a background (as in Next). and a påower origin (arcane, mundane, psi, divine). Each of these choices would combine to make a character, with the first three determining what a character can do and the last describing how he does it. This is another way to build characters that are still level based. But it is quite close to an open point bye and very far from DnD in any incarnation I've seen. I'd say Pathfinder comes closest with the large add-on components in the Oracle and Sorcerer classes - still miles form this.

So the conciet is that this fits within the budget -- that this is a viable thing for a character to purchase.

Ah, this is the "cleric in a staff" artifact used early in Dragonlance, and many house campaigns (including those I ran in as a teen). To avoid forcing a cleric PC, you include an artifact or NPC healer that can keep the party running without forcing anyone into the healer role. In effect an NPC that never speaks and only heals. Sure that works. Because artifacts are priceless there really is no competition - the PC's can't spend these resources on anything else, as the GM controls availability, they can't all have one. This option is (sort of) available trough the leadership feat - take a healer follower and you are pretty much set, as long as the DM agrees this character is never targeted by opponents.

Magic items bought with gp that heal as well as a cleric are certainly possible. Magic items can make a fighter fly, or give a wizard the AC of plate mail. So I guess they could make anyone heal. But I also think a wizard would be miffed if all his spells could be cheaply duplicated. As would a cleric. Or rogue (this happens with spells, and rogues in DnD has always suffered for it). So while technically possible, this is not a good solution.

The question is, if such a thing exists, does it meet the needs of a warlord fan?

I am not strictly a warlord fan, so maybe I am not the best guy to answer this. But my take is this:

The artifact "cleric in a staff" certainly would not satisfy a warlord fan. It is handy for the DM, but what the OP seems to be looking for is a mundane solution, and this is not.

The bought item would create tensions and balance problems among the players, and dilute roles beyond what is in any way sensible. It is not satisfying for anyone. As a magical solution it would not satisfy the OP. You are presenting this as a mundane item, which I find even more at odds with how DnD works than having it as a mundane class ability. If you can bye a flag that does this, why can't you have it as a reult of lifelong training? And you are REALLY cheapening the cleric.

I think modular classes would work, but is functionally equivalent to having a warlord class. The warlord would be a combat healer package coupled with a mundane origin, not a class - but since there are no classes any more, where is the difference? This choice is also too far outside the DnD paradigm to be an option for Next.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But that is not how DnD works.

I think this is addressed mostly by my post above: Assume X is true. If X is true, what happens to Y. Don't tell me how X can't be true -- I want to find out if Y remains the same, or if it changes in response to a change in X.

Because I want to make sure that if I'm talking about a point, that I understand that point.

 

[Starfox]

I kind of over-answered your post then. The answer is there and I also make reflections on how this meshes with DnD.

Short answer: The one way I see this working is by breaking up the class system. Your other suggested approaches would not satisfy a warlord-fan.

Very short answer: No.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Oy.

By questioning the premise, you're missing the point of the thought experiment. An item like this allows a battle captain to keep their friends going in a fight by means of inspiration. It meets the needs you claim to have. It also meets Neonchameleon's stated needs of non-magical spike healing.

If it's an item anyone can buy then it's effectively an ability anyone can have so everyone gets spike healing - see my comments earlier about that. If it's an item that only a warlord can use then for most practical purposes it's a warlord class feature with a minor gear limitation applied. If it's an item you need a feat to use then it's a feat with a minor gear limitation applied.

What are the pre-requisites for using this thing? Because the item nature you've given it is simply a special effect.

Ah, but compared to a +1 ability score bump? We haven't seen it in the playtest yet, but it's been advertised that feats in 5e might be huge. Tossing out some heals, or +1 to an ability score (a power on par with old school Wish)?

What makes you think that +1 to an ability score is that powerful? First it can get overriden by e.g. Gauntlets of Ogre Power, or the monk capstone ability that sets all stats to 20.

But more importantly look at what it actually does.

Spend two feats on Strength as a fighter. That gets you +1 to hit. +1 to damage. +2 to certain rare saves. And a few small skill bonusses. One feat as a fighter if your strength is odd is pretty good. But I can think of a number of 4e feats of comparable power even for a fighter with an odd numbered strength. Starting with [] Expertise, Superior Will, Superior Fortitude, and a wide array of multiclass feats (including, yes, ones that get you spike healing). And a feat dropped in strength when it doesn't increase your strength bonus isn't that great. Throw in a number of Paragon and Epic feats and it's entirely possible to build a character in 4e where if you were to replace all the feats with +1 to their primary stat would probably be less effective overall. Even in 3.5 adding +2 to strength for a fighter (two feats) isn't much better than adding Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialisation in their favourite weapon - two feats known to be more than a little weak.

As for a power on par with Wish, um... no. Not even on par with a mere single use of wish This is the same difference as between spike healing and regeneration. It's on par with one of the least gamechanging uses of wish in a situation when you are not under pressure.

You're wrong about the premise. It is a mundane item. No more magical than a greatsword or full plate.

Then, as I said above, what does it take to use it? If a specific class then it's a very slightly obfuscated class feature. If anyone can then it's an ability everyone has, only slightly obfuscated. Or if only one member of the party can use one then it's effectively the party sheet I mentioned above.

You seem to have a pre-existing notion of what a feat can be (along with pemerton's pre-existing notion of what a class feature can be).

Remove that notion. Imagine a world in which feats are comparable to, say, a +1 to an ability score. Accept the premise that feats can be this powerful.

Does a feat then work?

No. As I said. +1 to an ability score isn't that powerful. Imaginine that world? In 4e we're playing in that world. In fact in 4e we're playing in a world in which you can get pretty significant spike healing 1/day for less than the cost of a feat (the artificer multiclass is surgeless so is true healing and you can double multiclass into bard for Majestic Word and Skald's Aura - and all these multiclass feats also provide skill training).

Those are some of the best and most common multiclass feats in my experience - and far more useful than a mere +1 to a stat. Giving people panic buttons is worth far more than half of a stat bonus boost. But in Next the value of the feats would be much, much greater because spike healing is fundamentally rare and spike healing is one of those things made more valuable by scarcity.

 

[Alzrius]

Short answer: The one way I see this working is by breaking up the class system.

I think that this is an option worth exploring, but I doubt I'd get much agreement on that point. I'm currently using a class-less point-buy character in my Pathfinder game, and I'm much happier for it. If I want to be able to heal and/or inspire the other characters, I just pick up an ability to do so.