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

[Neonchameleon]

One point I stiil don't get, NC :
Why do you want to *compete* with the cleric. It might be true the cleric is OP, not because of CoDzilla issues, but because "spike healing" is so shiny. (I personnally doubt it is "too powerful", but it certainly changes combat dynamics). But I can't understand why you *need* a cleric. If you want to play in a "not D&Desque" setting, I think you should cope with combat healing being scarcier.
I don't get why you need the exact same healing capability.

Because spike healing is incredibly powerful, flexible, and versatile. It's a panic button As I have already said on this thread, if the cleric's healing was regen rather than spike (or Cure Light Wounds took several rounds to cast) you wouldn't need the Warlord to heal with a spike. Or even at all in combat. I've already suggested that the cleric uses CLW to give back one extra hp/round for 1d8+level rounds (or whatever) - at which point the warlord doesn't need a spike at all. And the only instantaneous large heal a cleric gets is Heal.

But that's not the situation we have now.

And a warlord doesn't need the quantity of healing a cleric gets. But what they do need is a Panic Button to match the instant heals. I've suggested another - absolute ability to negate hits with a powerful warning given at the last minute (i.e. after the attack roll is made).

I am on your side with healing being available to inspirational leaders, but I consider having the ability to miraculously close wounds should give you an edge at it !

Which is the 4e situation. Where the Warlord doesn't provide surgeless healing and clerics routinely do.

I suppose I've been saying that fixation of measuring the warlord against the cleric is an arbitrary one.

Which I went into in the very first post in this thread.

If we go back to the problem you had that a fighter was operating a significantly reduced capacity without a cleric (or warlord). But then you wrote that Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser "should be able to last 50% longer" if you add a rogue to the group. So you understand that there is a possible multilayered approach to boosting fighter capacity, but the only thing that matters to you is having a warlord who is equal to the cleric.

Go back and read the very first post in this thread.

Why isn't this thread called: Neonchameleon wants a warlord in D&D Next? Everything else is just filler.

Because it was triggered by KM asking what the fighter would need to become a warlord. And the answer is a panic button of the quality of the Cleric's spike heals. Which is hard as spike heals are just about the best panic button this side of instant teleportation.

 

[urLordy]

Go back and read the very first post in this thread.

I just re-read it, for like the 4th time. Yet it is still true to me that your solution of the warlord is not the one and only implementation to achieve the fictional-inspired objectives you outline in the OP. All other implementations (like the anectode of adding a rogue to the party) just doesn't do it for you. OK. But it doesn't allow this thread to go anywhere except Neonchameleon wants a warlord in D&D Next, and that's that.

 

[pemerton]

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.

Reading this makes me want to reiterate what I said upthread - that the paladin and the battle captain/warlord occupy the same archetypical space, but get wedged apart in D&D because of its very strong magic/not magic divide. So in talking about a warlord I'm talking about a way of achieving this archetype on the non-magic side of things.

Is this responding at all sensibly to your post, or am I off target?

Pemerton seems to do just fine separating the game rules from the fiction, and even advocates it.

I don't know why you say this. I'm emphasising at least two aspects of the fiction that are key for me: the battle captain as a non-magic-user; and the battle captain as inspiring his/her allies.

Of course it's crucial to look at mechanical implementation. But that's not independent of the fiction - it's how you realise it. For instance, if the class write-up says "this character is inspiring", but the mechanics don't express this, then the write-up is a failure. That's why the battle captain's inspiration has to actually matter, in play, such that his/her allies have greater resolution than they otherwise would. And the most straightforward mechanical way to achieve this is via hp restoration (ie healing).

 

[Neonchameleon]

I just re-read it, for like the 4th time. Yet it is still true to me that your solution of the warlord is not the one and only implementation to achieve the fictional-inspired objectives you outline in the OP. All other implementations (like the anectode of adding a rogue to the party) just doesn't do it for you. OK. But it doesn't allow this thread to go anywhere except Neonchameleon wants a warlord in D&D Next, and that's that.

My solution isn't the only one to implement a fictional warlord in an arbitrary game. If I was trying to put a warlord into Apocalypse World this entire conversation would be very different. The point is that D&D is not an arbitrary game. Certain things (spike healing being one) are massively powerful and versatile. And [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and I are not, I think, in disagreement. The boxes lead to the clouds - change what's in the boxes and you change what's in the clouds. And change the clouds and you change the boxes.

 

[Alzrius]

Of course it's crucial to look at mechanical implementation. But that's not independent of the fiction - it's how you realise it. For instance, if the class write-up says "this character is inspiring", but the mechanics don't express this, then the write-up is a failure. That's why the battle captain's inspiration has to actually matter, in play, such that his/her allies have greater resolution than they otherwise would. And the most straightforward mechanical way to achieve this is via hp restoration (ie healing).

It's the last sentence of this that some people (myself included) seem to disagree with.

Instead of utilizing healing (that is, the restoration of hit points) as the mechanical method of showcasing this class feature, why not utilize something that removes the penalties associated with reaching 0 hit points (that is, making it so that a character at 0 hit points (or less) can still take actions, due to the warlord's inspiration)? The mechanical result is the same - the character is still functional where he wouldn't normally be, thanks to the warlord's use of his class ability to "motivate" the character to keep fighting - and it avoids the larger issue of non-magical spike healing?

 

[urLordy]

I don't know why you say this.

That was my afterthoughts from post #117

I'm emphasising at least two aspects of the fiction that are key for me: the battle captain as a non-magic-user; and the battle captain as inspiring his/her allies.

A "captain" might be misleading then. A captain leads and inspires soldiers that look up the chain of command. I don't see that being true in most stories of adventuring companions.

Of course it's crucial to look at mechanical implementation. But that's not independent of the fiction - it's how you realise it. For instance, if the class write-up says "this character is inspiring", but the mechanics don't express this, then the write-up is a failure.

What if the mechanical expression overcompensates? For example, what if a character had the "Beautiful" trait, and every PC and NPC was mechanically expressed as considering the character to be beautiful. Now the mechanical expression has forced only one story: where everyone finds that person to be beautiful. However, if the "Beautiful" trait was expressed as a +3 bonus to applicable checks, then that mechanical expressions allows for different kinds of stories.

Similarly, I don't like the kinds of stories created from the mechanical expression of the 4e Warlord as is. (Again, not that I can do anything about it, but if the warlord was mechanically expressed differently, we might be having an entirely different discussion.)

 

[Starfox]

why not utilize something that removes the penalties associated with reaching 0 hit points (that is, making it so that a character at 0 hit points (or less) can still take actions, due to the warlord's inspiration)?

Because fighting on at lower than zero hit points is a killer, and makes the warlord responsible for his team-mates pushing themselves to death.

If people find it improbable that a warlord could heal wounds, but acceptable that he restore morale, can we quantify how much of Hp is morale? Even roughly? Say half? Then a warlord could inspire a character by removing half of all current damage - once per fight only for each character. Is this more palatable?

 

[urLordy]

If people find it improbable that a warlord could heal wounds, but acceptable that he restore morale, can we quantify how much of Hp is morale? Even roughly? Say half? Then a warlord could inspire a character by removing half of all current damage - once per fight only for each character. Is this more palatable?

Palatable from a story POV? It depends. If I understood why the warlord had a monopoly (if a monopoly was expressed mechanically) on inspiring his equals and I understood why others needed to wait for a warlord to shout something before feeling inspired to raise their own morale. Given that we're not talking here about ordinary people. We're talking about dragon slayers who have faced death numerous times, and yet still look up to their leader for inspiration. It's not a story I like, in the way I understand the human condition. And other things like how they always hear the warlord shouting in the thick of combat. My post #166 was only half joking.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It's the last sentence of this that some people (myself included) seem to disagree with.

Instead of utilizing healing (that is, the restoration of hit points) as the mechanical method of showcasing this class feature, why not utilize something that removes the penalties associated with reaching 0 hit points (that is, making it so that a character at 0 hit points (or less) can still take actions, due to the warlord's inspiration)? The mechanical result is the same - the character is still functional where he wouldn't normally be, thanks to the warlord's use of his class ability to "motivate" the character to keep fighting - and it avoids the larger issue of non-magical spike healing?

As Starfox says, that stuff gets people killed.

That was my afterthoughts from post #117

A "captain" might be misleading then. A captain leads and inspires soldiers that look up the chain of command. I don't see that being true in most stories of adventuring companions.

What if the mechanical expression overcompensates?

If the trait overcompensates then you file it down. This is what playtesting is for.

Similarly, I don't like the kinds of stories created from the mechanical expression of the 4e Warlord as is. (Again, not that I can do anything about it, but if the warlord was mechanically expressed differently, we might be having an entirely different discussion.)

Fine. You don't have to use one. Those of us who like them want something equivalent (more streamlined because Next Combat looks a lot more minimalist than 4e).

 

[Neonchameleon]

Palatable from a story POV? It depends. If I understood why the warlord had a monopoly (if a monopoly was expressed mechanically) on inspiring his equals and I understood why others needed to wait for a warlord to shout something before feeling inspired to raise their own morale.

Who says the warlord has a monopoly? It's one of thee things the warlord needs to be extremely good at. But no one is saying they need a monopoly on, merely to be functionally far better at it than people who don't specialise in this. (The Bard, of course, does).

We're talking about dragon slayers who have faced death numerous times, and yet still look up to their leader for inspiration. It's not a story I like, in the way I understand the human condition. And other things like how they always hear the warlord shouting in the thick of combat. My post #166 was only half joking.

The warlords I've played so far have been Taclords and Bravelords. The Taclord is a "Just as planned" type. That everything that happens works into their plan.

The Bravelord is first in, jumping down the dragon's throat, and leaving the Barbarian impressed by their recklessness.

Both highly inspiring in their way even by seasoned adventurer standards.