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

[FormerlyHemlock]

It is not, however, incompatible with the Standard Game. HD, Second Wind, and overnight healing are already contrary to the idea that hps represent serious wounds, and that restoring those hps them must include the wounds disappearing. No wound heals with a little rest and untrained first aid in an hour, no nearly-fatal wound heals on its own in 1d4+1 hours, and no remotely serious wound disappears while you sleep.

It's a fantasy game, with fantasy physics, fantasy astronomy, and fantasy biology. All these things that you say are impossible are exactly how it happens at my table, and the Standard Game says that is just fine. You don't get to tell me that that's not allowed in 5E, because clearly it is.

 

[MechaPilot]

would you be ok if you could only use it on concious people?

In general, yes; and, I don't even have a problem with a language limitation either.

In specific, I would prefer if the warlord also had some type of CPR revival ability that would allow an unconscious target to spend HDs for healing when stabilized by the warlord. However, the theme of such an ability naturally places certain limitations on the ability that I would not expect to see on shouted inspiration. For example, the warlord would have to occupy either the same space as the target or an adjacent space.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

It's a fantasy game, with fantasy physics, fantasy astronomy, and fantasy biology. All these things that you say are impossible are exactly how it happens at my table, and the Standard Game says that is just fine. You don't get to tell me that that's not allowed in 5E, because clearly it is.

Well there are diferent way to make the world fit the mecanics.
The way we tend to do it is that things like broken bones and wounds that would be fatal ( or at least hamper you from functioning at 100% combat eficiency) never happen to player characters.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's a fantasy game, with fantasy physics, fantasy astronomy, and fantasy biology. All these things that you say are impossible are exactly how it happens at my table, and the Standard Game says that is just fine.

I'm sorry, I was going on the assumption of the usual double-standard of 'realism,' in which the world is a fantasy world, /except/ for things that lack supernatural powers: like warlords or people healing naturally. Of course, if magic permeates the world to that extent, there are no realism considerations and the point is moot - you actually /could/ have warlords 'shouting wounds closed' by exhorting & inspiring their allies to exceed their usual levels of already-fantastic healing.

I don't care for that much more than I do the double-standard I mentioned, but it's your table, and when you DM, it's your rulings that matter.

And, it's a very good point you bring up on another level.

What they want is a class that presumes HP is not really about injury

As Hemlock has shown, above, you can take a system that can be taken as implying one thing in the narrative, modify the assumptions of the narrative, and take it to imply something else.

Any unique class mechanic could thus be taken to 'presume' something, or, under different assumptions, made to imply something else.

It's kinda a rabbit hole, though, isn't it?

 

[MechaPilot]

Are you willing to concede that people on this side of the fence are likewise not saying some of the things being attributed to them? Or the nefarious motives being implied? Cuz I haven't seen those either...

I'm certain that some of the things and motivations attributed to people on both "sides" are crap.

That said, it always rubs me the wrong way when people refuse to be okay with the existence of an option that they don't have to use, but that others want to use. Back on the WotC forums (in the 4e days) I ran into a poster who said that he never wanted rules for firearms to exist in any D&D product whether published by WotC or 3rd party because he didn't want to have to tell his players they couldn't use them. Sometimes when I'm reading warlord threads, I get a little bit of Deja Vu relating back to that encounter.

The attitude that the mere existence of an option is not okay is offensive to me. I am the "options for everyone" girl (and have been since well before the 5e playtest); though I don't demand that all those options come from WotC*. I think options for everyone is the only way that everyone can have the kind of D&D that they want to play, even if that means that separate tables have preferences so different from each other than

* BTW, WotC, please finish the freaking license already!

 

[MechaPilot]

The assumed way Hp work in the PHB seems to be that there are no real wounds before your down to half hitpoints.
It might be a idea that the ability is most efective on people who are still above half hitpoints.

not only might this be more aprealing to people who are more in the HP are wounds camp, but it also ,eam the healing style the warlord has would be difrent from the cleric.
A cleric would let a character go down to low HP then trow out a big heal, while the warlord would use smaller heals to keep the targets topped up from the moment combat starts.

The primary issue that I have with the half HP line of demarcation is that low level warlords who opt for the inspirational healing route will be largely ineffective because of the low starting HPs. In many cases, at first and second level a character can take enough damage from a single hit or a single monster's multiattack to fall to or below half HPs.

A secondary issue is that it essentially creates two pools of HPs. Now that's not the worst idea in the world, but it's not something that I advocate for. I'd much rather see a 1 HP line of demarcation than the half HP line.

 

[Remathilis]

The primary issue that I have with the half HP line of demarcation is that low level warlords who opt for the inspirational healing route will be largely ineffective because of the low starting HPs. In many cases, at first and second level a character can take enough damage from a single hit or a single monster's multiattack to fall to or below half HPs.

A secondary issue is that it essentially creates two pools of HPs. Now that's not the worst idea in the world, but it's not something that I advocate for. I'd much rather see a 1 HP line of demarcation than the half HP line.

The key thing here is that 5e lacks a "bloodied" condition. There are a few powers that work if hp is above/below 50%, but beyond that, "bloodied" is merely a descriptive term a DM can use if he wants (its mentioned as a suggestion in the DMG), but it confers no special status. PCs don't gain or lose abilities based on it; monsters don't change because of it, the rules don't interact with it except in a few rare corner cases. So by in large, a PC with 99/100 hp and 1/100 hp are the same status as far as the rules are concerned.

The "below 50% is real wounds" thing is purely fluff the DM can use to describe an attack; it has no meaning. Its not even related to the bloodied description above. Therefore, using this flavor text as a basis for essentially reintroducing mechanical "bloodied" is weak at best, for reasons you just described. I mean, Cure Wounds recovers HP above 50%, even though there is no "wound" to cure. So trying to say below 50% = meat and above 50% is mojo isn't going to work. A warlord's healing power should work the same at 1/100 as it does 99/100. WHAT IT DOES is still debatable, but it shouldn't be based on a bit of flavor text in the PH.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'm sorry, I was going on the assumption of the usual double-standard of 'realism,' in which the world is a fantasy world, /except/ for things that lack supernatural powers: like warlords or people healing naturally. Of course, if magic permeates the world to that extent, there are no realism considerations and the point is moot - you actually /could/ have warlords 'shouting wounds closed' by exhorting & inspiring their allies to exceed their usual levels of already-fantastic healing.

My quibble here is that it's not magic that makes HP behave this way at my table. You can tell because HP don't go away in an anti-magic field, any more than gravity goes away. It is an alternate physics, just like (A)D&D's binary gravity, and Aristotelian view of elements (vs. the periodic table).

PCs in my game aren't even composed out of cells, although none of the players know this. They're a mass of mostly-undifferentiated stuff called "flesh" wrapped around stuff called "bones" and animated by life-force. No matter how closely you look, you will not see cells, or atoms, or electron-clouds. The Standard Game is just fine with that view, and indeed supports that view really well.

In essence, my actual game physics works the way most people think real-world physics works, so it's really easy to adjudicate.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The attitude that the mere existence of an option is not okay is offensive to me. I am the "options for everyone" girl (and have been since well before the 5e playtest); though I don't demand that all those options come from WotC*. I think options for everyone is the only way that everyone can have the kind of D&D that they want to play, even if that means that separate tables have preferences so different from each other than

Conversely, the idea that some people take offense at other people taking offense at a cluttered design offends me. I'm a software engineer by trade, and I know from experience that cruft is bad.

I guess we all get offended by something.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The key thing here is that 5e lacks a "bloodied" condition. There are a few powers that work if hp is above/below 50%, but beyond that, "bloodied" is merely a descriptive term a DM can use if he wants (its mentioned as a suggestion in the DMG), but it confers no special status. PCs don't gain or lose abilities based on it; monsters don't change because of it, the rules don't interact with it except in a few rare corner cases. So by in large, a PC with 99/100 hp and 1/100 hp are the same status as far as the rules are concerned.

I know disciple of life can only bring you back up to half-health, so you could say it only works above 50%. What abilities are there in 5E which only work above 50%?

WHAT IT DOES is still debatable, but it shouldn't be based on a bit of flavor text in the PH.

Interesting. I didn't realize the PHB had any such flavor text. Do you have a reference?