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

[Manbearcat]

To each his own. I've tried various health track/vp systems, but in my current homebrew I have something very much like hit points and when I play Pathfinder, I use the baseline hp rules found there. And that's after 34 years of Player/DM experience.

Oh I wasn't speaking for myself personally. I'm fine with HPs. That is just my experience with ardent process sim players over the years. Accordingly, the idea of the Warlord as fundamental to making the HP as meat lobby twitch doesn't comport with my experience with ardent process sim players, nor with my own reasoning. The premise itself is problematic, thus the earnest search for, and exultation at discovery of, an internally consistent life ablation scheme.

Once upon a time I was pretty hardcore process sim > hated HPs > lost interest in process sim > found HPs agreeable again.

 

[Ratskinner]

I know its myriad faults predated 4e. The arguments you refer support this. I was talking about actual gameplay. A hodgepodge of player types all at one table.

Ah gotcha.

Well, there may be tables where the 4e Warlord split them up by making the HP situation intolerable. I don't really know, and I would be surprised to find that it was a primary reason for the splits.

If HP are some kind of "third rail" mechanic, and anything that causes examination must be avoided, then I think that's even more justification for abandoning them.

 

[Hussar]

Why does nobody consider what fighters in D&D do epic? It's pretty unrealistic what they can do, the damage they can mete out and withstand.

Because if that's true, then HP=Meat is incompatible. You can't have it both ways. If the fighter is actually withstanding enough physical punishment to kill an elephant, without magic, what the heck is going on?

 

[billd91]

Because if that's true, then HP=Meat is incompatible. You can't have it both ways. If the fighter is actually withstanding enough physical punishment to kill an elephant, without magic, what the heck is going on?

I'm not one of the people advocating that 100% of all hit point damage is physical. Rather, I think 100% of all hits that do damage have a physical component as well as others. So I don't know why you're quoting me on a hit points = meat argument.

 

[Hussar]

I'm not one of the people advocating that 100% of all hit point damage is physical. Rather, I think 100% of all hits that do damage have a physical component as well as others. So I don't know why you're quoting me on a hit points = meat argument.

You asked why people don't see fighter capabilities as epic. That's why. It's inconsistent with the other side of the argument. If HP's lost are ALWAYS a physical loss then how do you possibly justify regaining 144 HP in 3 days (any 12th level PC in 3e) without any magic? And, if you can justify it, then what's wrong with 1 day?

I'd have a lot more faith in the arguments if they had appeared during 3e. But they didn't. This was barely an issue during 3e, despite 3e having virtually the same HP recovery rules as 4e. And, yes, I do consider 3 days vs 1 day to be virtually the same. I mean, changing 4e's recovery rate to match 3e would be trivial. Instead of full HP/ full rest, you gain 30%. Done.

So, if 4e's natural healing rate matched 3e's, would warlords then be acceptable? Why not? After all, now both systems use IDENTICAL HP definitions.

 

[billd91]

You asked why people don't see fighter capabilities as epic. That's why. It's inconsistent with the other side of the argument. If HP's lost are ALWAYS a physical loss then how do you possibly justify regaining 144 HP in 3 days (any 12th level PC in 3e) without any magic? And, if you can justify it, then what's wrong with 1 day?

I'd have a lot more faith in the arguments if they had appeared during 3e. But they didn't. This was barely an issue during 3e, despite 3e having virtually the same HP recovery rules as 4e. And, yes, I do consider 3 days vs 1 day to be virtually the same. I mean, changing 4e's recovery rate to match 3e would be trivial. Instead of full HP/ full rest, you gain 30%. Done.

So, if 4e's natural healing rate matched 3e's, would warlords then be acceptable? Why not? After all, now both systems use IDENTICAL HP definitions.

"Virtually the same"? Regaining 1 hp per level engaging in normal activity, x2 for bed rest, x2 again for medical care vs 100% back with a 6 hour rest. That's not really the same for most PCs unless they have terrible luck rolling hit points and don't have a Con bonus.

We've had this discussion before.

For most PCs, recovering full hit points will take a couple of days at least. By shifting the party decision from "Shall we spend 6 hours" to "Shall we spend a few days", you open up a significant strategic difference. To make use of the x2 rate for bed rest, the PCs pretty much have to find a much better venue than holing up in a dungeon cul-de-sac, hoping they won't be found. And that's usually a big decision.

 

[Hussar]

"Virtually the same"? Regaining 1 hp per level engaging in normal activity, x2 for bed rest, x2 again for medical care vs 100% back with a 6 hour rest. That's not really the same for most PCs unless they have terrible luck rolling hit points and don't have a Con bonus.

We've had this discussion before.

For most PCs, recovering full hit points will take a couple of days at least. By shifting the party decision from "Shall we spend 6 hours" to "Shall we spend a few days", you open up a significant strategic difference. To make use of the x2 rate for bed rest, the PCs pretty much have to find a much better venue than holing up in a dungeon cul-de-sac, hoping they won't be found. And that's usually a big decision.

Like you said, "couple of days". And that's not "at least". That's AT MOST. There's nothing in the rules that say I need a comfortable feather bed. I just need a place to stay. Tent and cot works. And it's not a case of "bad HP and no Con". Gimme a break. 12 level PC gains 48 HP/day of rest. Even a 12th level Barbarian is cheating on his die rolls to have more than 150 HP. And that's about the max HP you should see for a PC at 12th. The wizard? Up to full on the first day. Funny that. The skinny wizard with tuberculosis heals several times faster than the hulking barbarian. And that's totally within people's suspension of disbelief line.

But, this isn't going to go anywhere. For some bizarre reason, 3 days is perfectly believable for my burnt to a crisp fighter to be fighting trim, but, 1 day? Oh hell no. That's totally unbelievable.

Yes, the healing rates between 3e and 4e are virtually the same.

Let me ask this, how often, in the course of a campaign, has it ever taken more than 1 day to regain all your HP in a 3e game? One time? Two times? Maybe?

The reason that this keeps coming up is because it's Edition Warring. If you were comparing AD&D to 3e and 4e? Then I could see your point. There are significant differences there. But 3e and 4e? Gimme a break. It's just a quick way to try to pretend that there are these massive differences between editions that have very little to do with any actual play. 3e is good. 3e had slightly slower natural healing. 4e is bad. It had slightly faster natural healing. Therefore we can stand on our soapbox and decry 4e and all things 4e. Warlords are bad because they point out how illogical our interpretation of HP always was. Oh, wait.

Sigh. Yeah, 45 pages and I let myself get sucked in. This is not going to go well.

 

[billd91]

But, this isn't going to go anywhere. For some bizarre reason, 3 days is perfectly believable for my burnt to a crisp fighter to be fighting trim, but, 1 day? Oh hell no. That's totally unbelievable.

Yes, the healing rates between 3e and 4e are virtually the same.

Let me ask this, how often, in the course of a campaign, has it ever taken more than 1 day to regain all your HP in a 3e game? One time? Two times? Maybe?

The reason that this keeps coming up is because it's Edition Warring. If you were comparing AD&D to 3e and 4e? Then I could see your point. There are significant differences there. But 3e and 4e? Gimme a break. It's just a quick way to try to pretend that there are these massive differences between editions that have very little to do with any actual play. 3e is good. 3e had slightly slower natural healing. 4e is bad. It had slightly faster natural healing. Therefore we can stand on our soapbox and decry 4e and all things 4e. Warlords are bad because they point out how illogical our interpretation of HP always was. Oh, wait.

Sigh. Yeah, 45 pages and I let myself get sucked in. This is not going to go well.

I've said, in this thread, that I don't see much inspiration for a warlord-style character to provide healing. I've also said that 3e's healing is significantly different than 4e's because of that difference between overnight and > 1 day and the strategic decisions it can change. Is that edition warring now? It seems to me that you're the one bring that up in our conversation, yet you're trying to attribute it to me. Why is that?

 

[JamesonCourage]

And, yes, I do consider 3 days vs 1 day to be virtually the same. I mean, changing 4e's recovery rate to match 3e would be trivial. Instead of full HP/ full rest, you gain 30%. Done.

So, if 4e's natural healing rate matched 3e's, would warlords then be acceptable? Why not?

To be fair, 6 hours of sleep does not equal 3 days of complete bed rest with a healer hovering over you for hours at a time; what can change in 6 hours is vastly different than what can change in 3-10 days. And the multiple healer-less parties I saw during 3.X definitely experienced this.

Though, my RPG has physical wounds explicitly separated, and even has actual wounds (like concussions / broken bones) that can takes weeks to months to heal (if they do heal). So, 3.X definitely wasn't sufficient for me, regardless.

At any rate, the play experience I'd get out of "6 hours of rest" would be vastly different than "three full days of doing nothing", much less "we rest for one day, but continue on injured" that I encountered far more often. Not that I'm against the Warlord; I stated earlier in the thread that I think the Warlord deserves to be its own class. But, the healing rates being the same in 3.X and 4e? Well, they wouldn't seem like it at all in my games. YMMV. As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

I view that as an implication of using a class-based game system. Fighters hit things. Wizards magic things. Thieves/Rogues sneak about doing stuff that the others don't.

I agree with [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION] - the problem with this is that "magic" things encompasses both hitting things (with lightning bolts, for instance) and sneaking about doing things others can't (via fly, invisibility and knock, for instance), plus just about every other sphere of (demi-)human adventure.

I think Marvel Heroic RP has an interesting way of handling "magic can do anything". Magical heroes (Dr Strange and his ilk) have an attack power (Mystic Blast) which mechancially plays pretty much the same as Wolverine's claws or the Punisher's gun. They also have a Sorcery ability, but this can only be used to generate buffs or debuffs, not to impose damage directly. Now within the system just about anything can be a buff (eg equipment, in the system, is mechanically treated as a buff) - so this isn't much of a restriction within the fiction. But in the gameplay it has a significant impact on the action economy - because the magical hero will be spending actions to create these buffs rather than to actually inflict "hit point" loss. Finally, these characters also have a Mystic Expert ability, but this is itself primarily a buff to other rolls ("I know an ancient Tibetan ritual that will help us with this") rather than a direct source of ability to overcome challenges.

(Apologies to those familiar with MHRP for my slight butchering of the system in the preceding description. I'm trying to translate it into D&D terms without being wildly misleading about how it works.)