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

[pemerton]

And if anyone at the gaming table thinks you are doing it "wrong", it is so easily mitigated, isn't it? Give it the same treatment as science-fiction: A healing house using herbalism and bone-shaping to quickly mend broken bones.

<snip>

IMO there is an easy off-screen solution or two, and is not quite comparable to the issues raised with in-combat healing.

Are you talking about your own preferences here, or trying to offer a general solution?

I can tell you that my players have no problem with inspriational healing - PCs who revive when they get their second wind, or are urged on by a comrade - but would laugh at the idea of the healing houses that you mention being ubiquitous and inexpensive.

it would be nice if the game natively supports many playstyles, including the "time-honoured" battle of attrition. This is not compatible with encounter-based, free healing. Healing should have a cost, a la healing surge. Hit dice ? It would please my sensibilities if in-combat healing was made more expensive than out-of-combat. I get the appeal of a panic button, but I want strings attached to it.

I must confess that I've mostly lost my grip over where Next is at as far as healing rules are concerned - I've been reading Mearls' L&L columns, but not following all the permutations in the rules documents.

But encounter-based healing (inspirational or otherwise) needn't be at odds with attrition, as you note with your reference to healing surges. If Next doesn't have healing surges, there are other ways of imposing a rationing requirement - eg the inspirational healing must happen with N rounds of the hit points being lost (or, to make the bookkeeping easier, you could say that it must happen within the temporal scope of the same encounter).

I also get where pemerton wants to bring his players, emotionnally speaking. Last minute healing can contribute to these moments, but, divine or mundane, these kind of SFX should be earned, not spammed casually. More generally, the ability to nova kills both the fun of the sport and the tactical depth.

I don't quite get what "earning" is in this context. Nor do I quite follow your point about "nova-ing". Provided that nova-ing is properly rationed, the choice whether or not to nova is part of the tactical depth, and also part of the emotional experience (eg "That really ticked me off. Now I'm going to go all out!").

the L&L about dragons sparkle some hope for a Fate Points system (fueling dailies ?). Let's remember Mearls wrote Iron Heroes and its pool-building system.

I don't understand why Fate Points or Iron Heroes-style token pools are radically different from rationing via encounter or daily limits. Obviously the technical details are different, and hence the play experience, but I'm missing why one involves tactical depth and the other doesn't.

Two editions of D&D might hand wave hit points as being an abstraction, but all seven versions of the game only cause you to lose them when a physical event penetrates or bypasses your physical defenses.

AD&D had psionic attacks causing hit point loss. 4e has psychic damage. And AD&D and 3E all had the Phantasmal Killer spell, which causes hit point loss due to terror.

By the RAW, you don't lose hit points to blocked blows that were simply exhausting or a strain to defend against, and you don't lose hit points to any kind of miss.

This is not true of the rules of Gygax's AD&D, nor of 4e. I don't know later AD&D or 3E well enough to comment.

The warlord was contentious exactly because it forces a closer examination and requires the gaming table to get on the same page in a way they were never asked to before.

The problem is not entirely "what do/should hit points represent" but "should any aspect of the game (like a 4e warlord) compel us to examine more closely what hit points represents?" Because once we examine it, we have to decide which is what, and probably splinter D&D into subset playstyles

Hit points should continue to be ambiguous in D&D Next. It's not hurting anyone. It's not even exhausting or causing strain to anyone.

<snip>

The purpose of D&D Next is to bring D&D back to baseline, not to turn the game into a dozen things it was never intended to be. And for what it's worth, for my part, the warlord falls outside of D&D baseline. The warlord is an attempt to hand wave several integral assumptions about the D&D universe, and it falls down on a number of counts.

The warlord is essentially an in-game nod to the out-of-game absolutist opinion that hit points cannot be and are not meat. A warlord character would never describe what he does as healing, but in order for his class to be a viable player choice, it has to be able to provide damage amelioration on a level with the cleric, which means that at high level he has to be able to help allies recover from spell attacks like Disintegrate, which do not fart around about exactly what they are doing to characters. They are causing grievous bodily injury.

Even at low levels, the warlord has to be able to exhort his allies to get up following /greataxe criticals/.

<snip>

As near as I can tell, the only purpose the warlord really serves is to provide fuel to the fire of the argument over the nature of hit points. If you don't want magical healing in your campaign, then you don't want clerics OR warlords -- neither class obeys the laws of physics and nature as we understand them.

Bot these posts are written making presuppositions (or series of them) that I (and perhaps other likers of warlords or of 4e more generally) do not share.

For instance, I see a purpose for warlords other than to "provide fuel to a fire" or force us to work out what hit points represent- namely, to explain what is occupying a space that the game should always have had, given its definition of hit points, but that it never did.

The suggestion that, until 4e, hit points never caused any issues is simply not correct. I am one of many D&D players who left the game for its late-70s and 80s rivals (in my case Rolemaster, for many others Runequest or HERO or other simulationinst system) precisely because of dissatisfaction with the D&D combat system, and in particular the oddities around hit points - they were at one and the same time physical (because required days of rest, or cure wounds spells, to restore) but not physical (because you could lose nearly all of them yet be not at all physically impaired). 4e brought me back to D&D because it presented a coherent picture of hit points, embracing the implications of them being a metagame device for tracking combat resilience. And the warlord is one element of that. (Another is the recognition in some adventures - eg the Cairn of the Frost King - that Intimidate checks can cause hit point loss.)

I think the Disintegrate spell is a telling example. I mean, if hit points are meat, and a PC loses all but 1 or 2 of them to a Disintegrate spell, then how is that PC healing to full from resting? Is s/he a lizard or salamander that can regrow limbs? Why does the Regeneration spell not have to be used?

Whereas in 4e none of these questions arise. If you take damage from a Disintegrate spell but haven't been reduced to a pile of ash, then we know what happened - you fought off the magic, but got worn down (emotionally, physically) in the process.

My problem is not that HP are FitM, its that the "Middle" part of HP stretches out too long. That is the narration of a given HP loss may not be "complete" until well after many other checks and actions have taken place; alternatively, the "post-battle phase" narration often invalidates or ret-cons the narration during the battle. All of which, IME, has the net effect of discouraging actual narration and participation in the fiction during the battle. Which generates the situation where a player asks something like "Can I tell how he's doing?", which is code for something like "Does he have less than <my average damage> HP?" New DMs quickly learn not to put too much detail into combat descriptions because it just causes them trouble later.

I have some views on how this can be handled - whether they are more widely workable solutions I don't know.

On "How well is he doing?", I use the 4e bloodied condition as a solution. You can tell when he's bloodied. (And this can be narrated pretty easily for most opponents - for stone golems and the like it gets a bit trickier, but they're not that common as enemies.)

On the description that is then invalidated by later events - the "long middle" - I find that this pushes narration away from "The orc hits you and your guts start spilling out", towards a more comic-book or "PG cinema" style of narration - more emphasis on the action, less on the actual injury. A post upthread mentioned greataxe criticals as an objection to warlords, but in AD&D or 3E if you narrate a greataxe critical against a PC in any graphically vivid way you're then going to have to confront the issue that anyone can stabilise that wound, and that the PC in question will be up and about even without medical attention in a time ranging from a few days (3E) to a few weeks (AD&D).

(Narrating vicious wounds against NPCs is a completely different matter. There is no need to treat their middle in such a long fashion - when they go down, they're DOWN!)

I think your last two paragraphs there (particularly the last) are a fine portrayal of the joys of Gamism! I don't have objection to that. I will say that I think that those of us who are more fiction-oriented find that that can become limiting

<snip>

I think 4e, from that perspective, is very successful at creating the particular proxy experience you write of.

<snip>

All of which leaves me in a strange place wrt 5e and D&D in general. I feel like a lot of their concerns during development have played around within and between the Gamist and Simulationist end of things and haven't really given me much hope that the new edition will prioritize story more than any previous edition

I think that what I described is not just gamist (at least in the sense of "step on up"). Feeling the desparation of your PC via a mechanically mediating device is key to combat in Burning Wheel, for instance, and that is a narrativist system by default (though no doubt hackable to a certain sort of gamism).

I also don't think that it's not fiction-oriented: part of the point of the mechanical mediation is to bring the fiction to life for the players via the sort of proxy experience I am pointing to. But I don't disagree that it is (or can become) limiting - there are stories and thematic material that 4e will never support, for instance (and likewise Burning Wheel).

I'm not 100% sure I know what you mean by "prioritising story". I think that in a certain sense of that phrase 4e prioritises story (eg by trying to ensure that its mechanical systems engender the relevant experience, so that your paladin plays as a stalwart ally, your fighter as a master of the battlefield, your warlord as an inspirational leader, etc) but I'm assuming that's not the sense that you have in mind. I don't know FATE well enough to just read your intentions off your reference to it, but are you envisaging a wider range of conflict situations than just combat as being viable? And/or a wider range of player narrative/metagame resources than 4e's power system?

It is telling how in the "Joke Components" thread, the reasonable answer is "just ignore them if you don't like them" but in this thread, the same answer is not correct when it comes to the warlord as a class (as implemented in 4e) and inspirational healing.

Yes, I mentioned this point in that very thread. I think I'm on pretty much the same page as you, [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION] and [MENTION=79401]Grydan[/MENTION].

And at least perhaps in the same book as [MENTION=6688937]Ratskinner[/MENTION], though maybe in a different chapter.

 

[Mike Eagling]

I agree with @Obryn - 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.

So, is this then an issue of balance? It seems like you want mundane characters to have powers equivalent to those of spell casters?

 

[urLordy]

Are you talking about your own preferences here, or trying to offer a general solution?

A theoretical example, not a general solution or my preference.

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.

Bot these posts are written making presuppositions (or series of them) that I (and perhaps other likers of warlords or of 4e more generally) do not share.

Maybe, except that I suggested that the warlord "heralded" a splintering of the fanbase, not initiated it. (May I give you both a 'C' on reading comprehension?)

The suggestion that, until 4e, hit points never caused any issues is simply not correct.

I never suggested it never caused any issues. I suggested there was an uneasy truce between at least two denominations. This paradigm well allows for some people dropping out on both sides, while allowing a bulk of different players remaining at the gaming table. I believe it is true IME (I can't be sure, I didn't survey my fellow gamers asking what they thought about hit points, etc). Your return to D&D 4E did signal an inverse and signficant outflow of D&D players, which I think was symptomatic of the aforementioned inevitable splintering as the game evolved.

Yes, I mentioned this point in that very thread. I think I'm on pretty much the same page as you, @Obryn and @Grydan.

I don't see it as the same thing. I mean, it could be the similar, but it depends. For me, if a cigarette and lighter is a spell component, then a warlord is like second hand smoke - I can ignore it, but sometimes, it might blow in my face. This is not my argument for a tyranny of the minority, but an illustration of how they're not the same thing for me. Note that you had a problem with spell components being embedded in the main spell description and wanted to see it an optional sidebar. AKAICT from the Hit My Points article, that's how they're thinking of warlords and non-magical healing so far. If they were the same thing for you, wouldn't you have not argued against spell components in the main spell description?

 

[Neonchameleon]

So, is this then an issue of balance? It seems like you want mundane characters to have powers equivalent to those of spell casters?

Either they should have equivalent flexibility or when a mundane character takes on a spellcaster at something the mundane specialises in the mundane character should be able to cut through the caster without breaking a sweat. Or option C is that mundane characters should be marked "Hard mode. For expert players or troupe play only."

If we're going for classes being archetypes in a non-action movie game then the fighter should be able to curb stomp the cleric (because the cleric gets healing, commune, silence, and other spells) and swat the wizard and fighter with a casual backhand. And the rogue should be able to out-sneak an invisible wizard. Because that is what they get and what they do. This doesn't mean that the rogue needs to be able to teleport even if the wizard can. But a wizard going flat out burning all their spells should still not be a better rogue than the rogue.

 

[Manbearcat]

AD&D had psionic attacks causing hit point loss. 4e has psychic damage. And AD&D and 3E all had the Phantasmal Killer spell, which causes hit point loss due to terror.

I was going to jump in there and mention Phantasmal Killer effectively causing "Fear Damage" and against a Fortitude (?) Save at that.

Also, having odd interactions with the HP as meat paradigm is the entire Shadow Conjuration line of spells which all bring forth illusory phantasms whose touch becomes "quasi-real" if believed and almost fully unreal if disbelieved. These save vs WIll.

Of note is that neither of the two above were mechanically fitted to the 3.x subdual system for HP ablation, which confines temporary damage (which presumably "fear" or phantasm" damage would be once you have confirmed, by way of your companion testimony or your own reasoning, that the illusory effects were only present in your mind) to its own domain (with its own rules for quick-recovery).

Finally, we have the fact that 3.x, the only D&D that angled to be a legitimate process-sim experience, siloed its poisons and diseases away from the HP system (in order to move all of those wonky 1st order interactions to 2nd and 3rd order) in the way of ability damage as the 1st order effect. Of course, this carries the 2nd order effect of interaction with Constitution modifier to HPs on the poisons and diseases that diminish Constitution (thereby diminiishing total and current HP pool). Then that begs the question (which is another at the heart of the discussion) precisely what the Constitution complement to HPs is. Clearly its not "more meat" as size, girth, density is not gained in proportion to Constitution complement. How about the vague (yet functional) "physical resolve" which can represent any number of things from the runner's drive to carry one once you hit the calorie wall to a cancer patient's will (turning into a placebo) to refuse a doctor's terminal prognosis and thusly living well beyond those allotted years to playing/fighting on through a sprained ankle or non-terminal/ambulatory injury.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Isn't the easiest method to produce a 'warlord' just a simple case of reskinning?

You use "spells"... but you reskin them as "exploits" or "powers". Boom, you're done.

You have a Fighter. You multiclass into warbringer Cleric. You take Healing Word as your "exploit". It's up to 50 feet (ie within earshot), and it's a Word (as that's the very name of the power). So the "warlord" shouts a word and the target regains hit points. Then all that's left is to reskin out the religious facets of the cleric class and scrub your brain of the idea that "magic" can't be re-skinned (which is baloney by the way)... and you have your Warlord.

After all... if there's one thing we DID learn from 4E... it's that ALL the mechanical game abilities could be exactly the same and used by every class, and it was just what the little descriptive text that was added to it is what determined whether it was "magical" or "mundane". Push an enemy 1 square? A shield bash if you were mundane, a magical force push if you were magical. So by the same token for D&DNext... take the game mechanics of certain spells and just refluff them with mundane action. And you can thus get your non-magical paladin, non-magical ranger, and yes... your non-magical warlord.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Isn't the easiest method to produce a 'warlord' just a simple case of reskinning?

It's the easiest, sure. And masters of metagame should have no problem taking a cleric and being like, "Boom. Magic? He just has martial daily powers. Et Viola!."

It's not necessarily a great way to do it out the gate, though -- a lot of the complaints leveled against 4e's "just reskin tripping the ooze!" response would apply equally.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It's not necessarily a great way to do it out the gate, though -- a lot of the complaints leveled against 4e's "just reskin tripping the ooze!" response would apply equally.

True... but this time it'd be the 4E fans that would be complaining about re-skinning. Which would be the pot calling the kettle black, since it was the fans of 4E who accepted re-skinning as part of what made the game what it was.

If the 4E fans considered the reskinning of the Ranger to an archer fighter to be a standard part of the game... they should also be able to accept the reskinning of a cleric multiclass into the abilities of a warlord.

 

[Mike Eagling]

they should have equivalent flexibility

True.

when a mundane character takes on a spellcaster at something the mundane specialises in the mundane character should be able to cut through the caster without breaking a sweat.

And I think our opinions begin to divide here.

If we're going for classes being archetypes in a non-action movie game then the fighter should be able to curb stomp the cleric (because the cleric gets healing, commune, silence, and other spells) and swat the wizard and fighter with a casual backhand. And the rogue should be able to out-sneak an invisible wizard. Because that is what they get and what they do. This doesn't mean that the rogue needs to be able to teleport even if the wizard can. But a wizard going flat out burning all their spells should still not be a better rogue than the rogue.

My approach to this is roughly as follows:

A cleric and a fighter of equal level should be evenly matched in a straight fight, provided the cleric has sunk their allotment of divine grace into martial prowess and prepared for the fight accordingly. If the cleric diverts any of that grace elsewhere the fighter quite rightly gets the advantage in a fight.

Similarly, a magic-user should be evenly matched against a fighter by burning all their spells. The fight, however, will be asymmetrical because the magic-user must use offensive and defensive magic to avoid being hit: if the fighter can land blows he'll likely beat the wizard to death. This may mean the wizard "wins" the fight by running away.

If both a wizard and a thief/rogue of equal level attempt to steal the Gem of Awesome from its suitably guarded safe their chances of doing so successfully should be about even. The rogue will stealthily subvert the defences using their skills on both the way in and the way out. Unfortunately, the wizard has prepared for this burglary and used magic to get in and out in a fraction of the time. The wizard has out-rogued the rogue! However, the wizard burned all his spells in the process. The rogue's skills don't run out and the wizard can only swear and curse his disappointment when he discovers the gem isn't where he stashed it.

 

[Obryn]

Isn't the easiest method to produce a 'warlord' just a simple case of reskinning?

You use "spells"... but you reskin them as "exploits" or "powers". Boom, you're done.

Reskinning relies on constructing an appropriate or innovative narrative for established rules.

I'm unconvinced the cleric's mechanical details (turning undead, pillars of fire, mediocre with weapons) fit a warlord's fictional role.

-O