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

[FormerlyHemlock]

What Hemlock is calling 'cruft' is probably what we'd call bloat. There's probably very little in 5e that is outright problematic or worthless to everyone who plays the game, as 'cruft' might imply.

I think if WotC can summon up the design discipline to stick to what they've been doing: relatively slow in releasing new material, putting new stuff in AL circulation for the season, but not adding it officially to the Standard Game, they can avoid a lot of that. Individual DMs can keep what they like of optional material as they go. AL players will have something new in some seasons, but they won't accumulate and bloat the system.

Yes, I think that could potentially happen. Just because something could be objectionable design doesn't mean that Warlords have to be that bad design. Remember that I'm responding to MechaPilot's complaint about people being offended by "more options", not to the substance of whether any particular option is offensive. It's a metaconversation.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I don't find it quite as different as you do. And I do find the resistance to the idea that optional material would really optional to be - well, not as bad as 'in bad faith,' but definitely more disquieting than just 'odd.'

To a certain extent I agree with you. The fact that the "no one should be allowed to homebrew" option in this poll (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?469863-Homebrew-Warlord-poll) has two votes was really disquieting to me, especially at first when two votes constituted 25% of total votes. Now that the sample size has grown those votes turn out to be a minority I am somewhat comforted but I still don't comprehend that attitude, to the point where I can't help wondering if those votes were cast in earnest.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Then there is no possible objection to "Inspirational Healing." None. Such objections rest entirely on exactly that sort of 'realism.'

No, they can rest on aesthetics. You said yourself that you find the idea of actually, physically shouting wounds closed distasteful. Anyone who dislikes the idea of "shout healing" and/or doesn't find it cool can object to it, without regard to whether or not it is "realistic."

"Realism" is a red herring.

I would have no problem with an Inspiring Word that was described/implied as being non-supernatural and working via Inspiration to the same level of rigour as the Paladin's Lay on Hands is implied/described as being supernatural and working via divine power. If you can squint hard enough at Lay on Hands to convince yourself it'd work in an anti-magic field, then I'd be fine with an Inspiring Word that required a similar effort to judge it as not doing so.

Huh. Would you find it acceptable in a game where it was implied to be magic but non-supernatural? I.e. powered by mana, just like a spell?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

(Deleted)

 

[pemerton]

Does anyone (either side) object to the warlords giving HP only via a healing kit feature (1 per creature per short rest)? Similar to the healer feat.

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

I wouldn't regard "warlord" healing that was via a healing kit feature, or that only worked on conscious people, as giving me what I want from a warlord.

Personally I find healing kits somewhat silly - the idea that with 6 seconds of treatment using mediaeval technology a person can be brought from unconsciousness to wellness, or can have a serious injury healed, is something I find pretty unbelievable. And I've never encountered it in any fantasy book or film that I can recall.

Whereas the idea that the reassuring words of a friend or ally, or a thought or memory of a loved one, can stir a person on to efforts that otherwise wouldn't have seemed possible, is something that I think is very common to fantasy books and films, though not quite ubiquitous.

I got no objection to spending healing kits to restore HP a la the Healer feat, but embedded into a class. It's not from across the room, and it's not just from "inspiration", it's something that could conceivably heal wounds in a non-magical way, it works just fine for me. It could be roughly equal to Cure Wounds, and I'd be fine with it.

I kind of get the impression that because it doesn't have to be inspirational, it won't work for those who really want to tether their warlords to inspirational HP, though. Unless I'm mischaracterizing their position, they want the effect of "I scream at you to get up and you get up and this is modeled by significant HP restoration" as a significant class feature, and anything else is simply unacceptable.

I think your characterisation of my view is needlessly pejorative/caricaturing. The phrase "Aragorn (or Gandalf) screamed at so-and-so to get up" appears nowhere in LotR, but descriptions of them reassuring and restoring and inspiring by their words are relatively frequent. Likewise Faramir's ability to "master both beasts and men".

There is no reason anyone has to use inspirational HP if they use the game as normally played - they can, but it absolutely is not required. Wound HP requires no module or adjustment in any rule. 5e is even explicit about this when it describes the "typical" way of describing HP loss (below 50%, you're suffering some injury, and an attack that makes you hit 0 is a traumatic injury).

The intent is clear to me: the designers wanted to leave room for multiple HP interpretations, without invalidating either of the main narratives.

Which means any addition to the game, I believe, should also leave room for multiple HP interpretations. If an addition requires one model or the other, it's proper home is likely behind the wall of an optional module (one that is more explicit about what HP narrates as), not in a class ability.

I don't know how you reconcile Second Wind, and the spending of HP, with the idea that serious wounds are healing. But I don't understand why you couldn't use whatever story you tell there, to explain what happens when a warlord speaks an encouraging word. The flavour text for Second Wind says "You have a limited well of stamina that you can draw on to protect yourself from harm." I don't see why Inspiring Word can't likewise draw forth a well of stamina that otherwise the character couldn't tap.

Or, if you narrate Second Wind as the fighter strapping and bandaging his/her wound (although without any equipment requirement and outside the normal action economy), then I don't see why Inpsiring Word can't be the warlord telling the character how to strap and bandage his/her wound (again without any equipment requirement and outside the normal action economy).

There will always be corner cases. I might have to ignore the bit of the rules that allows a healer's kit to magically stabilise the dying. You might have to ignore the bit of the rules that allows Inpsiring Word to rouse an unconscious character. I don't see the big deal.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think your characterisation of my view is needlessly pejorative/caricaturing. The phrase "Aragorn (or Gandalf) screamed at so-and-so to get up" appears nowhere in LotR, but descriptions of them reassuring and restoring and inspiring by their words are relatively frequent. Likewise Faramir's ability to "master both beasts and men".

The specific image in my head was the Sarah Connor scream - she screamed, someone got up and continued to fight. Apologies if that description wasn't sufficiently nuanced, but there was no offense intended by it.

I don't know how you reconcile Second Wind, and the spending of HP, with the idea that serious wounds are healing. But I don't understand why you couldn't use whatever story you tell there, to explain what happens when a warlord speaks an encouraging word. The flavour text for Second Wind says "You have a limited well of stamina that you can draw on to protect yourself from harm." I don't see why Inspiring Word can't likewise draw forth a well of stamina that otherwise the character couldn't tap.

Second Wind has several important limitations. You can't do it when you're unconscious (so no getting up from that life-threatening wound). It's also something that happens on your own turn, so rolling it into some form of bandaging, salving, staunching, etc., is narratively plausible. And it only affects you, so the idea that you're doing something to your own body is doubly assured.

There's also a problem with agency in the narrative of "a well of stamina that otherwise the character couldn't tap." It's disempowering for someone else's character to tell me that my character has a well of stamina that only their character gets to access. That makes my character seem ignorant and ineffectual. Oh, I can master the utmost forces of the cosmos, but there's this hidden well of stamina in me that only this guy gets to access? My character is suddenly a resource for him? How am I the hero of this story again?

Or, if you narrate Second Wind as the fighter strapping and bandaging his/her wound (although without any equipment requirement and outside the normal action economy), then I don't see why Inpsiring Word can't be the warlord telling the character how to strap and bandage his/her wound (again without any equipment requirement and outside the normal action economy).

If they're conscious, there's not much of a problem there, but one of the stated requirements of a warlord is that they can wake you up when you're unconscious. If you're unable to take actions, you should be unable to heal yourself as well. This while conscious + some form of die hard mechanic would, I think, be compatible with wound HP.

There will always be corner cases. I might have to ignore the bit of the rules that allows a healer's kit to magically stabilise the dying. You might have to ignore the bit of the rules that allows Inpsiring Word to rouse an unconscious character. I don't see the big deal.

A healer's kit stabilization isn't magical. It's explicitly "bandages, salves, and splints," so the healer's kit presumably stabilizes the dying via some combination of making the wound less traumatic, enabling natural healing, and rousing the character with something chemical/herbal. So I don't think you do need to ignore that for the purposes of inspirational hp - in a game of inspirational hp, it can conceivably include kind words, exhortations to wake up, reassurances that "it's all gonna be okay," and other kinds of psychological "mom-healing." Salve might not even DO anything aside from placebo in such a campaign.

 

[Aldarc]

I want a clean design for 5E. I'm pretty happy with what we've got today. I wouldn't mind more monster content, but I think the current design is in a pretty good place.

How would an unpublished, let alone un-designed, hypothetical warlord class make 5e less clean? Would the potential inclusion of the Psion/Mystic or Artificer give 5e an unclean design too?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

How would an unpublished, let alone un-designed, hypothetical warlord class make 5e less clean? Would the potential inclusion of the Psion/Mystic or Artificer give 5e an unclean design too?

Increasing the number of classes in the game is one design cost. It might be worth it, depending on the details of the class, but it's a cost that applies to the Warlord if it's implemented as a separate class (vs. a Bard or Fighter subclass), and it would apply as well to the Psion and Artificer.

Increasing the number of interacting mechanics is another potential cost. Whether or not this cost applied to the Warlord, or Psion, or Artificer depends on the details of that class. We saw some pushback with the Psion when one of the classes had its own special snowflake mechanic that involved attacking a creature's Int instead of its AC. Some proposed versions of the Warlord do not have this cost because they implement the Warlord entirely within the 5E idiom (e.g. bonus action to knock prone on successful melee attack, +CHA damage to allies within radius X). The more unique the mechanics, the higher the design cost.

There's a potential cost to some classes in increased complexity of tracking/maintaining game balance going forward. This cost isn't likely to show up in the Warlord, but it's one reason why AL doesn't allow you to mix-and-match story backgrounds (combinatoric complexity) and it's something that we saw with the UA Ranger 2.0 recently (Ambuscade, which was both a unique new mechanic and more powerful than the existing Thief 17 ability and increases game balance complexity by interacting with Assassinate/Paladin Smiting/Action Surge/etc.)

So if you're asking "How would the Warlord make 5E less clean?" it depends entirely on the details of what the Warlord were. If you're asking "How could the Warlord make 5E less clean," the answer is "by adding a new class, by adding new mechanics, and by adding class abilities that have potential synergies with other class abilities on the same or a different character." For those who desperately want a Warlord, no cost will be too great for them to pay, and some people may even view increased complexity as a benefit, not a cost. But it is incontroversial that it would make the design of 5E more complex, which I'm calling "less clean" for reasons that are partially subjective.

 

[pemerton]

A healer's kit stabilization isn't magical. It's explicitly "bandages, salves, and splints," so the healer's kit presumably stabilizes the dying via some combination of making the wound less traumatic, enabling natural healing, and rousing the character with something chemical/herbal. So I don't think you do need to ignore that for the purposes of inspirational hp

I explained in the post that I quoted why I might have to ignore it. Here it is again:

Either being unconscious at 0 hp means a severe/traumatic wound has been suffered, or it doesn't.

If it doesn't, then the idea that inspiration can rouse a person from unconsciousness is unproblematic, and a healer's kit has no special work to do;

If it does, then I findt the idea that a "healer's kit" based on mediaeval-era technology and applied in 6 seconds or less might somehow alleviate the wound a pretty silly idea.​

Therefore, I might have to ignore the use of healer's kits to stabilise the dying. (If they were magic potions it might be different; hence my description of their stabilitsation function as magic, in my view. But making them magic has other unhappy consequences, a bit like the 4e sunrods which I also prefer to mostly ignore.)

 

[Tony Vargas]

No need to bring realism into the scene. Narratively, it doesn't. I'm not really aware of any example in fiction where someone's wounds are healed because of encouragement and inspiration. There are examples where people ignore their wounds because of it - even wake up from unconscious because of it - but notably, the wounds are not healed, they're simply ignored. That points at die-hard mechanics, not healing.

There also aren't any examples of peoples wounds vanishing with an hour's rest without some other agency at work beyond ordinary natural healing.

But you are able to credit natural healing with that. So it's not just a narrative thing, there's an additional factor here...

Heroic fantasy protagonists can and do. Narratively, they have taken the time to repair the damage long enough so that it isn't life-threatening. There's maybe some tenderness, some scarring, maybe soreness, maybe it still oozes blood a bit.

So wounds needn't actually be healed to restore hps. You can be at full hps, and still have wounds, they've just been stabilized.

And, wounds can be stabilized with a heal check, or you can stabilize on your own with successful death saves, so treating the wound physically isn't /strictly/ necessary.

And even if they have been treated, they're not gone, so even under the 'narrative' you're choosing, you can be wounded, and at full hps, meaning that the restored hps are not all a matter of healing the wounds. If they were, the wounds would have to be healed completely.

I don't know of any real narrative examples of people being encouraged and having their vitality sped up such that wounds heal within seconds without the application of some kind of mystical force.

There are also no such examples of wounds healing in an hour without some sort of mystical force.

I know of examples of people ignoring the effects of injury, but, again, that's not healing.

I see nothing wrong with ignoring injury as hp restoration.

Apparently, you're OK with it as temps?

BTW, how do envision temp hps in this 'narrative' of yours? A character given a fairly big chunk of temps is wounded, but still had temps left. What's the 'narrative?'

I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but that sounds close. If you wanted to make a "martial" character who teleported across a 3' wide stream, I think that would break the narrative (there's no narrative precedence for teleporting without, essentially, magic, ultra-tech and the like included).

Agreed. OTOH, I'd have no problem with 'teleport' as a mechanic (jargon) that did not involve /actually/ teleporting, merely allowed something that could be convenient modeled with it.

If you want to make someone who can inspire wounds close without something supernatural, that would break the narrative in much the same way.

But, if inspiration speeding up healing had a natural basis, it wouldn't be supernatural, and it'd be OK for preternatural or extraordinary or superhuman inspiration to do so. Right?

Frankly, this premise that every class in the game must allow every mechanic in the game to be interpreted any way anyone might like strikes me as a bit of a stretch. Magic in D&D, for instance, little resembles the narrative of magic in any genre source, and any number of gamers might want very much to envision a very different narrative of magic than vancian memorization or neo-Vancian prep-and-slots. No accommodation is made for that.

But I'll set that aside for now, if we can find a 'narrative' rationalization that works, or an alternate mechanic that is workable, we won't even have to go there.