D&D 5E How many fans want a 5E Warlord?

[steeldragons]

Would you like me to pipe in so you don't take your "universality" as a given?

Knock yourself out.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Not to stir the pot, really, but what proof/data do you have to warrant or justify your assertion that those who don't like/want martial healing in the game are nothing more than a minority? Seems nearly universal from the posts here I see.

The same as offered by those insisting that only a vocal minority want the warlord: none.

The number of folks who post is tiny compared to the number who play, so really, it's all vocal minorities - leavened with enough confirmation bias to convince some of the members of those minorities that they speak for some imagined majority.

 

[Gnashtooth]

I thought he was referencing "martial healing" as relates to warlords...the topic of this thread.
The "vocal minority" where martial healing for the warlord is concerned is in regards to the "shout healing" model of 4e. The "You're unconscious to ok...because I said so." That poses a nice variety of immersion breakage and suspending the suspension of disbelief. Folks that don't care about that as much, obviously, don't care if the warlord can do that. Is that segment the majority of players or the asserted "Vocal minority"? My anecdotal evidence, which just as good and valuable as yours or anyone else's, says to me folks who do not want the warlord performing significant martial healing are not, in fact, a minority, vocal or otherwise.

Exhibit A: Warlord shouting someone's arm back on.
(Mike Mearls said this wasn't possible!)

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

My anecdotal evidence, which just as good and valuable as yours or anyone else's, says to me folks who do not want the warlord performing significant martial healing are not, in fact, a minority, vocal or otherwise.

There are those who cannot comprehend how adding nonsensical mechanics to a game could damage the play experience for those who don't want those mechanics in the game. Now we have a concrete example of such a mechanic: Ambuscade on the UA Ranger. If Ambuscade ever makes it into 5E officially it will compromise the logic of the game world, make it harder for me to DM, and perhaps incentivize me to switch to another game. This holds true even when I can house-rule it back out of existence.

Bad mechanics impose a real cost on the rest of the game. A PC who could use his action to move other PCs around the battlefield, without telekinesis or expending at least the other PC's reaction a la battlemaster maneuvers or Dissonant Whispers, would be such a negative mechanic. I haven't experienced "shout healing" but if it were explicitly nonmagical and didn't utilize a healing kit or at least physical contact/treatment, it would likely be a negative mechanic as well, for me.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There are those who cannot comprehend how adding nonsensical mechanics to a game could damage the play experience for those who don't want those mechanics in the game. Now we have a concrete example of such a mechanic: Ambuscade on the UA Ranger. If Ambuscade ever makes it into 5E officially it will compromise the logic of the game world, make it harder for me to DM, and perhaps incentivize me to switch to another game. This holds true even when I can house-rule it back out of existence.

Bad mechanics impose a real cost on the rest of the game. A PC who could use his action to move other PCs around the battlefield, without telekinesis or expending at least the other PC's reaction a la battlemaster maneuvers or Dissonant Whispers, would be such a negative mechanic. I haven't experienced "shout healing" but if it were explicitly nonmagical and didn't utilize a healing kit or at least physical contact/treatment, it would likely be a negative mechanic as well, for me.

So. Just so we're clear here. You're seriously positing that the presence of optional mechanics--not even included in the core books, only available through online supplement--drives you out of the game, and that it is thus better to drive out the people who want these purely optional features than to drive you out.

Even if I bought the idea that creating a more diverse mechanical palette 'drives people away from the game,' why are the preferences you espouse more important or significant than the preferences that "Ambuscade" caters to? And, if we grant that WotC is a business interested in selling product--and its core books are, currently, its highest-ticket items--doesn't WotC have an incentive to expand the mechanical palette provided by the game, seeing as that could drive sales of both core and peripheral products?

 

[Jester David]

5e HAS martial healing. That's a fact. It's pretty common martial healing too - anyone who plays a fighter is likely using it multiple times per session. Never minding things like Hit Dice which are effectively non-magical healing aka Healing Surges, in all but name. Then you have a feat which allows healing as well. It's not like martial healing is absent from the game.

The fighter is funky and a lot of people don't like second wind either. (There were debates and threads on that too.) But it's limited and it's self-healing. And it's there, so debating and complaining won't change anything.

Hit Dice healing being martial is a poor argument as it was designed to be flexible. The base rule is to accommodate the desires for fast healing among the majority of players (or largest minority). But a not insignificant percentage of players will slow down healing so Hit Dice are less martial. And there are lots of rules to help customize this healing. It's very easy to make spending HD the result of bandages and ointment.

So, why would adding an optional class, which is not in core, be a problem for the majority?

It's not the majority. Every poll asking for a warlord splits fairly evenly between those who want it, those that don't that don't care. Now, with many no-voters not even bothering to look as they have no strong feelings it's a pretty safe bet only a small minority of players want a warlord.

I also don't get the "optional class" excuse. Shouldn't the intent be to make a class that appeals to the most people as possible?
And so many of these warlord threads are presented as being a call for an official warlord. If it were only about optional fan ones these threads would be gone, since there are LOTS of unofficial ones already. I've seen a few on the homebrew boards here, a few on reddit, and one in En5ider. People can pick that warlord they like the best. But they don't and the threads continue, because it's about getting a WotC published class. And if an official one is made, it's pretty close to being non-optional. As non-optional as anything in the PHB.

Warlord is the only class that appeared in a PHB that got left out of 5e.

Other than the assassin.

They made space for gnomes to come back, so, why is it such a big deal that people would like the same thing for warlords? Why is this being painted as a zero-sum game? If we make warlord fans happy, warlord critics are going to be so sad that they quit the game? What possible difference could it make to someone who didn't like warlords for WotC to include an optional 5e warlord update?

I imagine it's because people want a warlord or warlord style class, but just don't want one that wrecks havoc with their verisimilitude. For the exact same reasons as the pro-martial healing camp have problems with an opinion 5e warlord that is completely optional but relies on granting temp hp .

 

[Bluenose]

Exhibit A: Warlord shouting someone's arm back on.
(Mike Mearls said this wasn't possible!)

If you're going to treat hit point damage as involving arms being chopped off, then you also get to explain how you sleep it back on. Apologies to any Newts reading this, but that's not normal where I come from.

 

[pemerton]

If you're going to treat hit point damage as involving arms being chopped off, then you also get to explain how you sleep it back on. Apologies to any Newts reading this, but that's not normal where I come from.

It's very easy to make spending HD the result of bandages and ointment.

There are those who cannot comprehend how adding nonsensical mechanics to a game could damage the play experience for those who don't want those mechanics in the game.

<snip>

I haven't experienced "shout healing" but if it were explicitly nonmagical and didn't utilize a healing kit or at least physical contact/treatment, it would likely be a negative mechanic as well, for me.

Hemlock, who do you think wants nonsensical mechanics in the game?

My guess is that no one does. This is not a debate about whether or not to include nonsensical mechanics - it's about whether or not it makes sense to sleep arms back on, or to heal someone's disembowelment with a few bandages and some ointment.

For those who think there is a place for inspirational healing in the game, it is because they have the view that - in the context of a fantasy game - any injury which can be overcome with a few night's sleep can likewise be overcome by a rousing speech from an inspiring companion.

A PC who could use his action to move other PCs around the battlefield, without telekinesis or expending at least the other PC's reaction a la battlemaster maneuvers or Dissonant Whispers, would be such a negative mechanic.

A distinct feature of 4e is that it contains mechanics that expressly model the PCs trying harder. In 5e, the closet analogue to this is the fighter's action surge, which permits him/her to try harder - reflected, mechanically, by breaking the action economy.

A character who lets others break the action economy by inspiring them occupies the same sort of place in the fiction.

If you want a more modernist, Conan-esque game then you probably won't want those sorts of characters - all effort comes from within, so Second Wind and Action Surge are OK but inspirational analogues are not.

If you want a more romantic, Tolkien-esque game then the warlord fits right in. Being inspired by great leaders and brave companions is part and parcel of the romantic fantasy genre. There is no need, in this genre, to confine Second Wind and Action Surge-type effects to coming only from within.

This has nothing to do with whether or not mechanics are "nonsensical".

 

[Manbearcat]

Bad mechanics impose a real cost on the rest of the game. A PC who could use his action to move other PCs around the battlefield, without telekinesis or expending at least the other PC's reaction a la battlemaster maneuvers or Dissonant Whispers, would be such a negative mechanic. I haven't experienced "shout healing" but if it were explicitly nonmagical and didn't utilize a healing kit or at least physical contact/treatment, it would likely be a negative mechanic as well, for me.

If you're going to treat hit point damage as involving arms being chopped off, then you also get to explain how you sleep it back on. Apologies to any Newts reading this, but that's not normal where I come from.

If you want a more romantic, Tolkien-esque game then the warlord fits right in. Being inspired by great leaders and brave companions is part and parcel of the romantic fantasy genre. There is no need, in this genre, to confine Second Wind and Action Surge-type effects to coming only from within.

This has nothing to do with whether or not mechanics are "nonsensical".

Referencing to the other area of what Hemlock was referring to (Martial Forced Movement), there are those of us who feel that not only is it not a "negative mechanic" (presumably negatively impacting immersion or some such) but actually a "positive mechanic" as it simultaneously (a) emulates genre and (b) enhances immersion.

The idea that participants in a melee skirmish are standing around like rock 'em sock 'em robots in a tightly confined space for many seconds at a time is utterly nonsensical to me. Positioning in a 25 SF space is abstract just as is movement in the melee skirmish. We reference it to facilitate functional gameplay as we consult our proxy (the resolution mechanics) for "what happens next/now" as we make action declarations for our PCs and NPCs that interface with that proxy. Or at least we do so in equal parts to conjuring the elements of the shared imaginary space in our minds and therefore "immerse."

Forced movement should be a base assumption. People should be ranging all over the place due to forces (eg terrain and combatants imposing their will upon their allies/enemies and putting them in positions for success or failure due to technique/acumen/agility) external to their own personal locus. Again, this reinforces both genre tropes and "what happens in real life in martial exchanges."

These things happen almost (not totally, but almost) exclusively at the subconscious level without conscious deliberation. It is mostly instantaneous processing of information based on "honed instinct" and muscle memory. After the fact you can deliberate over "what just happened," but when it is occurring, you're barely cognizant of your decision-making process.

Action Economy and rock 'em sock em' robots positioning by figures on a battlemat/scratch sheet of paper are both artificial (eg metagame) mechanics to facilitate a certain sort of play (at all) and have no representation in the shared fiction. But they aren't "negative mechanics". If anything, I utterly hold that "martial forced movement" and "inspirational healing" both much firmer ground in genre tropes (for emulation) and for importing our real world phenomenon into the fiction. These things happen in The Princess Bride, Lord of the Rings (et al) and in every athletic endeavor (from physical combat to ball sports) I've ever been involved in.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Hemlock, who do you think wants nonsensical mechanics in the game?

My guess is that no one does. This is not a debate about whether or not to include nonsensical mechanics - it's about whether or not it makes sense to sleep arms back on, or to heal someone's disembowelment with a few bandages and some ointment.

That's a different debate than the one I'm addressing. As for who thinks I shouldn't be able to object to nonsensical mechanics, see EzekielRaiden's post above in #195. That's a perfect example of someone who apparently thinks game design is purely additive, and that Ambuscade cannot possibly degrade my play experience. I don't buy that.

Whether or not (nonmagical) "shout healing" is nonsensical is a separate debate, really a subset of the "what are Hit Points debate". Those who believe in HP as meat (like myself) will likely view shout healing as nonsensical; those who view them as morale will likely view them as just fine. 5E is tolerable to me partly because it was designed to be largely compatible with old-school mechanics including views on HP, and the PHB is explicitly neutral on what fraction, if any, of HP comes from morale vs. meat. Shout healing would not upset me to the degree that Ambuscade does, or to the degree that sliding other PCs around the battlefield like chess pieces would, but it would likely negatively impact my play experience by turning 5E into something which officially is not compatible with my vision of D&D physics.

If Ambuscade as written were in the PHB, do you think it would be illegitimate for someone to have been turned off 5E? If so, why?

It's not like there aren't other games out there. You pick the one that best matches what you're trying to accomplish.