Jester David
Hero
I'm okay with "balance" (to a point) but I'm not a fan of symmetry.Yeah...I have yet to see actually effective, balanced (or "at parity," if balanced is a four-letter-word to you) options that manage to make damage resistance, THP, or buffs equivalent to actual healing. The balance-point appears to be so narrow that almost every attempt overshoots or undershoots, and it's almost always the latter. People tend to call the former "cheesy," to boot. The only place I've seen even moderately effective "mitigation-based" death prevention is League of Legends, and even there it's substantially less effective than just outright healing (and higher HP pools).
The difference between "regains 8 hit points" and "gains 8 temporary hit points" or "parry to negate 8 damage" is functionally irrelevant. You still walk away from the fight with 8 more hit points than you would have otherwise. Healing gets characters back into a fight they had been removed from, but temp hp and damage mitigation prevent them from going down in the first place and potentially preventing lost turns.
The big difference is one of flavour. It makes sense for a warlord to parry or call out a warning allowing an ally to duck. Healing doesn't make sense, and so regaining hit points doesn't work with all definitions of "hit points". Mechanics have to be neutral in regards to stuff like that.
Making it an option helps for the healer issue. So warlords can opt not to be "healers".Ah, okay, so...I didn't at all get what you were trying to say there. I understand now. And all I can say is, I see "Has Cure Wounds, Regenerate, etc. on its spell list" as being dramatically more important for the Cleric's identity than "Has a hard-coded ability that gives HP." If the hard-coded-ness is the issue, would you be placated by making it an option? For example, a choice between getting that ~or~ getting an extra use of Improved Action Surge or the like? Since the 4e Warlord was, after all, more about the force-multiplication than the healing per se.
However, it does leave that option at the PC's disposal. Which means they're determining the definition of hit points for the campaign, not the DM. And that opens a can of worms. HP is problematic. So long as nothing draws attention to the wackiness of hit points, people who think they're meat and people who think they're fatigue can play together just fine. But once powers suggest one or the other it creates a narrative disconnect for some. Which causes problems. Having martial healing would be just as problematic as a spell or power firmly stating hp was health.
That doesn't work as well in 5e, since there are no "surges" that would wear out. Characters will either always be able to benefit, or the healing would be limited some other way. Like superiority dice. And, really, there's no good narrative reason why someone can't benefit from repeated pep talks and encouragement. Rocky doesn't just stop listening to Mick because Mick talked to him once before that day. Someone having been beaten up in four or fights prior and being out of surges shouldn't affect the warlord's abilities; one class' limited powers shouldn't depend on another character's resources.No, but I do equate actually-competent captains, sergeants, and other there-on-the-battlefield people with having the ability to push their comrades (whether subordinates or not!) to tap resources they didn't know existed, which is precisely how Warlord healing was fluffed--you're injured, but you draw on some of your inner reserves (Healing Surge) to keep going despite the pain. You can't do it forever (the Surges will run out), but you can do it now, and possibly again in the future.
And the ability described above works just as well with temporary hit points. Better since the "healing" a pep talk provides necessitates the person being awake and won't last forever, as the weariness and injuries will quickly return. And the commander could also give everyone the inspiring talk before battle, rather than in the middle.
I've played in a LOT of organized play during 3e. And playing with healer was rare. And even when we had a cleric, most healing was handled by CLW wands between fights, so the cleric could save their resources for combats or stuff they wanted to do.I don't deny that those things are more interesting. The point is that groups that don't have Clerics suffer for it majorly, and I've never seen anyone successfully achieve a Cleric replacement that can't do even a little bit of actual, real, legitimate, non-temporary healing. I also truly believe that the Warlord should be at least able to have a little bit of actual healing, without having to give up (much) of the other stuff that, I completely agree, makes it an interesting class to play.
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A 5e party is at a severe disadvantage if they don't have a caster that can heal, and I don't believe your Warlord can do enough to make the difference often enough. Surely it will help--no question. I just don't think it is enough, and (as I noted before) would have liked to see more. Your subclass is a huge improvement over the Battlemaster, no question--I just feel it doesn't (quite) go far enough.
And the game did not implode.
Forgoing a healer for extra DPS or crowd control works find a lot of the time. I had a bard in 3e (Living Greyhawk) that was pretty much a cleric replacement. The healing wasn't as good in combat, but it kept people up. But the other buffing took enemies down faster, so less damage was taken overall. So it balanced out.
And since the game is run by a living, thinking, human being who can account for the group dynamic, healers aren't that essential. My Pathfinder home game prefers recruiting an NPC as a healer and having them tag along, rather than someone filling that role.
Instead of thinking of groups without a cleric as being disadvantaged, I prefer to think of groups with a healer cleric as having an advantage. It's a bonus. A perk. And the best way to work towards that is to not assume healing in the game and not assume healing is coming from other sources. 5e isn't perfect in that regard but it works well enough without constant healing.
Changing the question to "Who's going to play the leader?" isn't much better. It still mandates one person has to play a certain type of character. It's *slightly* less annoying because there's more choices than just one, but it still limits their choices to a smaller pool of 2-3 classes.because it finally, well and truly cut the shackles of "Who's gonna play the Cleric?"
But, really, there's always been choices. The druid for one. And the bard since 3e. And now the paladin can work somewhat. There's no shortage of emergency healers in the game.
And, worst case scenario, the fighter/warlord can multiclass (into cleric or bard) and get a feat or two.