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

[Manbearcat]

I have a question: why is the Warlord contingent so keen on cleric-level healing that has to be non-magical? Is it for playing in campaigns without magic? Otherwise why is that aspect so vitally important?

I assume you're a WotC forum refugee given your join date. If you are, I would assume that this would have been canvassed at some point (if not at many points) during conversations there. If either of those assumptions are off, then my apologies. I say that because this is pretty trivially answered and seems intuitive.

1) It allows for an adventuring party without a magical healer (adventuring-day extender > @Hussar ), thereby removing the paradigm of the necessity of a Cleric, Bard, Druid. I know that 5e relaxes this somewhat due to its combat paradigm and the cribbing of the non-combat usage of Healing Surges from 4e (while siloing its important feature on play - intra-combat triggering and how it creates the 4e "Rally" - to a module in the DMG...but without intraparty synergy - triggering allies' surges - both tactical depth and genre components are lost).

Much more important than that...

2) The leveraging of Inspirational (martial/nonmagical) Healing (of which the Warlord might be the standard bearer) opens up the genre/trope space considerably for heroic/romantic fantasy. Battle Captains can rouse the spirits of their allies and allow them to rally from the brink of defeat (a la Mick in Rocky, Gandalf or Aragorn in LotR, or Captain Winters in Band of Brothers). Big Damn Heroes can "dig down deep" for their reserves of heroic mettle and rally of their volition (a la John McClain in Die Hard, Rocky in...well...Rocky, or Boromir's last stand when he should have perished long before he finally fell).

But truly, let us not kid ourselves. Much of this is merely a proxy for the HP as Mojo vs HP as Meat Battle and the Warlord is ground zero.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I assume you're a WotC forum refugee given your join date. If you are, I would assume that this would have been canvassed at some point (if not at many points) during conversations there. If either of those assumptions are off, then my apologies. I say that because this is pretty trivially answered and seems intuitive.

It was heavily discussed during Next Playtest, but honestly the Warlord threads kind of died away when 5e went live. And during Next I had just come back from a D&D hiatus since pre-4th Ed., so I had been happily oblivious to the whole argument until then and honestly didn't understand most of it. (Meat vs. Mojo has always existed as a point to be debated, but the rest of it was new.)

1) It allows for an adventuring party without a magical healer (adventuring-day extender > @Hussar ), thereby removing the paradigm of the necessity of a Cleric, Bard, Druid. I know that 5e relaxes this somewhat due to its combat paradigm.

I can understand the desire to not need one of those classes, to allow for broader choice. But that doesn't explain why it would have to be non-magical.

Much more important than that...

2) The leveraging of Inspirational (martial/nonmagical) Healing (of which the Warlord might be the standard bearer) opens up the genre/trope space considerably for heroic/romantic fantasy. Battle Captains can rouse the spirits of their allies and allow them to rally from the brink of defeat (a la Mick in Rocky, Gandalf or Aragorn in LotR, or Captain Winters in Band of Brothers). Big Damn Heroes can "dig down deep" for their reserves of heroic mettle and rally of their volition (a la John McClain in Die Hard, Rocky in...well...Rocky, or Boromir's last stand when he should have perished long before he finally fell).

Sure, but that still doesn't explain why it explicitly needs a non-magical explanation. There are lots of abilities woven through the classes that represent common, non-magical tropes from myth and fiction that are implemented as magic, or at least left unexplained. (Is the Monk's "Ki" magical? How about Ranger's Volley?) I guess it's sometimes debated (e.g. a Ranger's affinity for the wilderness...should it be spells or just something innate) but never with the passion and stubbornness of the Warlord debate.

But truly, let us not kid ourselves. Much of this is merely a proxy for the HP as Mojo vs HP as Meat Battle and the Warlord is ground zero.

I have to admit, the Warlord debate is so firmly stuck in trench warfare that it raises suspicions that most of the contested points are really proxies for something else.

 

[Manbearcat]

Sure, but that still doesn't explain why it explicitly needs a non-magical explanation. There are lots of abilities woven through the classes that represent common, non-magical tropes from myth and fiction that are implemented as magic, or at least left unexplained. (Is the Monk's "Ki" magical? How about Ranger's Volley?) I guess it's sometimes debated (e.g. a Ranger's affinity for the wilderness...should it be spells or just something innate) but never with the passion and stubbornness of the Warlord debate.

I can only go back to this from my post:

Much more important than that...

> Inspirational Healing opens up the genre/trope space considerably for heroic/romantic fantasy.

> Battle Captains can rouse the spirits of their allies and allow them to rally from the brink of defeat.

> Big Damn Heroes can "dig down deep" for their reserves of heroic mettle and rally of their volition.

The heroic/romantic fantasy genre in general and "The Rally" trope in particular is what this is about for advocates. Inspirational healing enables folks who dig the emotional quality inherent in those things to have them manifest in play. One of many personal anecdotes in games that I've run included an NPC "princess build" little girl (minion with Warlord tech; (1) encounter power to heal her father and (2) another power which allowed her father to intervene on her behalf - immediate action shift, eat an attack and counterattack) and her NPC father who was built as a Defender/front-line Warlord hybrid (buffed her while she was adjacent, created openings for her to shift out of danger, gave her temp HPs, and classic Defender suite of catch-22 mark enforcement). When the PCs came upon the harrowing scenario (they were refugees from an outpost the PCs were seeking, cornered in the woods by a pack of bloodthirsty gnolls), the emotions were amped due to the vulnerability of the girl (as a minion), the way the mechanics gave them an actual fighting chance to keep her alive, and the way the mechanics conveyed the love and desperation inherent to the encounter with the 2 NPCs. It was very romantic fantasy.

I have to admit, the Warlord debate is so firmly stuck in trench warfare that it raises suspicions that most of the contested points are really proxies for something else.

Trust your intuition here.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But truly, let us not kid ourselves. Much of this is merely a proxy for the HP as Mojo vs HP as Meat Battle and the Warlord is ground zero.

Heh, I think you might have a point.

Part of the scandal of the warlord is that if one class heals HP and it is fluffed as "you are inspired to keep fighting!", that defines what HP must be for everyone at the table. No longer can your hit points have a grounding in flesh - if they did, then inspiration wouldn't heal. A lot of advocates would then insist that hp has always been inspiration anyway so this shouldn't be a big deal, but those who never narrated hit points that way before might take a great issue with one class feature dictating how everyone must narrate this mechanical element. What hit points represent is better off in the hands of a DM, determined for the entire campaign, and if you can presume that a DM does that, a "warlord" that heals is trivially easy, but probably not a core element of an entire class. Any warlord class would have to stand without it as an assumed element.

But if the conversations about granted actions and being the "Boss" are anything to go by, inspirational healing is only one element of a warlord. If you presume inspirational healing to be exported to an optional rule, you have to ask what ELSE is the warlord.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

But truly, let us not kid ourselves. Much of this is merely a proxy for the HP as Mojo vs HP as Meat Battle and the Warlord is ground zero.

That Is why I would sugest that the healing a warlord would do is to alouw characters to spend healing hitdice during combat instead of during a rest.
This way It would not add a kind of healing that is not already in the game.

 

[JohnLynch]

Part of the scandal of the warlord is that if one class heals HP and it is fluffed as "you are inspired to keep fighting!", that defines what HP must be for everyone at the table. No longer can your hit points have a grounding in flesh - if they did, then inspiration wouldn't heal.

The fighter's second wind already defines this. At level 1 they can go from "death's door" to "Fully healed" a few times a day (with a bit of luck). If we go with hit points are flesh then we already have to compromise that definition somewhat to accommodate the fighter.

A lot of advocates would then insist that hp has always been inspiration anyway so this shouldn't be a big deal, but those who never narrated hit points that way before might take a great issue with one class feature dictating how everyone must narrate this mechanical element.

This advocate argues that people should simply ban the warlord class if it doesn't fit their style of game. Frankly I find hit dice, the fighter's second wind and rapid overnight healing much more troublesome for those who are in the "hit points are flesh" group (it is for this reason that during the playtest I advocated that second wind not be baked into the core fighter class).

 

[MG.0]

I likely wouldn't object to someone who insisted they wanted to play a Warlord, but I don't like them.

It's not the healing thing that seems to bother everyone else that gets me though. It's the fact that their main reason to exist is to direct and inspire people. That may work in a wargaming type situation where you have a leader type directing and inspiring the actions of a bunch of zero-level nobodies, but adventurers are a very skilled/educated/crafty lot already and the idea of someone trying to 'improve' them through verbal direction just falls flat with me. I just keep picturing the other party members having a brief exchange followed by nods and the wizard dropping a fireball on the warlord to end his "self-help" rhetoric.

 

[mellored]

That Is why I would sugest that the healing a warlord would do is to alouw characters to spend healing hitdice during combat instead of during a rest.
This way It would not add a kind of healing that is not already in the game.

works for me.
assuming it comes with a bonus, then you could easily match the healing of a bard (IMO, clerics should remain best healer).
though getting it to scale right could be a bit tricky.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

works for me.
assuming it comes with a bonus, then you could easily match the healing of a bard (IMO, clerics should remain best healer).
though getting it to scale right could be a bit tricky.

Too late, bards are already better! Lore Bards outclass the cleric by 250% at healing efficiency once they hit 6th level and get Aura of Vitality.

 

[steeldragons]

That Is why I would sugest that the healing a warlord would do is to alouw characters to spend healing hitdice during combat instead of during a rest.
This way It would not add a kind of healing that is not already in the game.

This is exactly what my homebrewed warlord fighter subclass does.