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

[FormerlyHemlock]

The technical use of "hit" - meaning a successful attack roll - and "damage" - meaning depletion of hit points - is pretty well known. Back in 1979 Gygax's DMG explained that not all successful attack rolls result in actual physical injury - hence, he said, a hit location table would not make sense, and hence the possibility (as determined by a saving throw) that a successful attack by a snake or spider can still result in the character not being poisoned.

If so, the Gygaxian idea of "maybe you weren't really hit" has clearly been abandoned in 5E. A Flying Snake, for example, grants you no saving throw against its poison. If it hits you, you take poison damage.

 

[pemerton]

If so, the Gygaxian idea of "maybe you weren't really hit" has clearly been abandoned in 5E. A Flying Snake, for example, grants you no saving throw against its poison. If it hits you, you take poison damage.

4e also takes it in a different direction from Gygax's AD&D. A hit from a snake will do poison damage, as in 5e. But that doesn't mean that every successful roll to hit has to be interpreted the same way. The dice rolls just set the parameters for narrating the fiction - hence damage on a miss (= failed attack roll), damage on a hit (= successful attack roll) that doesn't have to be narrated, in the fiction, as a scraping away of flesh, etc.

My point is that, at least from my point of view as an AD&D and 4e player, that "hit", "damage", "healing" etc are technical terms whose relation to the fiction is (i) not always literal, and (ii) quite flexible. I don't have enough 3E experience to comment on it. But I would think that 5e must at least be reasonably flexible, given that - like 4e - it has psychic damage. I haven't yet seen the thread discussing the use of a CHA (Intimidation) check to deal psychic damage, but I'm sure it's coming!

Likewise the thread discussing how many hit points can be restored by a successful CHA check (at least at tables where hp are understood as having a morale/"oomph" component). And as a subthread - is skill in either Performance or Persuasion applicable to that hp restoration check? (This will be more or a headache in 5e than 4e, because 5e doesn't have the healing surge limitation that 4e has, and so there will be a problem with skill checks generally being "at will".)

 

[pemerton]

I do expect D&D heroes to be pulp heroes, by and large, so they do not need others to be heroic. The standard rules are comfortable with that narrative, and, I believe, should continue to be so in the material they add to the standard game. Which isn't to say that there's no place for inspirational healing, just that it should be part of a campaign style choice you make, not something decided for the table when someone opts into a particular class that seems neat. Rather, a conscious choice of campaign tone, just as horror or wuxia or steampunk is.

I don't see this sharp contrast between "campaign style choice" and class choice. Having a monk in the campaign already adds elements of wuxia. Having a warlock already adds elements of horror. Having a paladin already adds elements of "Arthurian knights in shining armour". MANy of the 5e classes are not flavour/style free.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

My point is that, at least from my point of view as an AD&D and 4e player, that "hit", "damage", "healing" etc are technical terms whose relation to the fiction is (i) not always literal, and (ii) quite flexible. I don't have enough 3E experience to comment on it. But I would think that 5e must at least be reasonably flexible, given that - like 4e - it has psychic damage. I haven't yet seen the thread discussing the use of a CHA (Intimidation) check to deal psychic damage, but I'm sure it's coming!

I don't see what makes psychic damage innovative. Energy drain has been in the game for decades. Psychic damage is just more of the same: damage without wounds. If you die from psychic damage you'll be dead without a mark, unless the DM decides your nose and eyeballs start bleeding or something. It's not even new. AD&D (2nd edition) had psychic damage in the form of Psychic Crush. I think 1E had psionic damage as well but I didn't play it so can't vouch firsthand.

I can't imagine Intimidation dealing psychic damage. The things which deal psychic damage have always been... paranormal, shall we say. Generally psionic in nature, though 5E bards do psychic damage with Vicious Mockery.

 

[pemerton]

I don't see what makes psychic damage innovative. Energy drain has been in the game for decades. Psychic damage is just more of the same: damage without wounds. If you die from psychic damage you'll be dead without a mark, unless the DM decides your nose and eyeballs start bleeding or something. It's not even new. AD&D (2nd edition) had psychic damage in the form of Psychic Crush. I think 1E had psionic damage as well but I didn't play it so can't vouch firsthand.

In AD&D 1st ed, Psychic Crush generally had a % chance of killing outright. In some circumstances, psionic attacks could deal hp damage, but in discussions about hp as morale vs wounding I have generally seen it treated as a corner case, whereas psychic damage as a more widespread damage type makes it a big more central.

I personally don't see it as analogous to energy drain. Energy drain has been reconceptualised, in many cases, as necrotic damage - and in AD&D when a character gets energy drained I've always assumed that there is some sort of physical mark (eg flesh necrosis, or at least puncture marks in the case of a vampire).

Whereas with psychic damage, if it doesn't kill you (death by massive shock - and perhaps an associated heart attack) then I'm not sure what the physical wounding is envisaged as being. (Unless it's the blood from the ears/nose/eyes - I've used that more than once in my 4e game to narrate "bloodied" from psychic damage.)

I can't imagine Intimidation dealing psychic damage. The things which deal psychic damage have always been... paranormal, shall we say. Generally psionic in nature, though 5E bards do psychic damage with Vicious Mockery.

I tend to think if psychic damage can be caused by the stress of a bard's Vicious Mockery, then it should be able to be caused by extreme non-magical stress. Though that may well be a minority view.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I don't see this sharp contrast between "campaign style choice" and class choice. Having a monk in the campaign already adds elements of wuxia. Having a warlock already adds elements of horror. Having a paladin already adds elements of "Arthurian knights in shining armour". MANy of the 5e classes are not flavour/style free.

And adding monks adds a level of wuxia, sure. But you can play a D&D paladin without playing a campaign about knights in shining armor, and you can play a D&D monk without defining your campaign as wuxia. The level they add is localized. You could even play them next to each other and they could both be in, I dunno, a steampunk-y setting (like Eberron). You can't, however, have a class that heals HP with inspiration without defining your HP as inspirational for everyone at the table. Once inspirational healing is "on," it defines the narrative for the game.

An inspirational healing ability is a little unique in this regard mechanically, but imagine if dwarves defined all iron as coming from dwarven lands (so anyone with an iron weapon got it from a dwarf), or if the cleric defined one god as true and all the others as impostor-demons (so anyone who worships any other god is living a lie), or if playing a barbarian immediately meant that all characters from the city were decadent and weak (and so had a STR cap!), or if playing a human meant that all other races were genetically engineered humans by ancient primal humans and so had a part of their DNA code that lets you command them (charm person 1/day). Playing such a character would do more than add a little element of that narrative, it would define the narrative for everyone at the table - suddenly the halfling would be playing in a game where she was the creation of ancient humans, and maybe that's not a story she's particularly interested in telling, or an element of her character she didn't want to explore this time around (especially because it's really an element of Bob's character).

You can even see this in a more limited way in elements like the Warforged not being "core." Warforged have a narrative of being created as the perfect artificial magical soldier, and this implies a level of magitech that not all campaigns have or are comfortable with existing. There's no warforged in 5e, and when they're introduced, they'll likely be behind the Eberron gate - if you play Eberron, a level of magitech is a safe assumption. If you play D&D in general, that level of magitech isn't a safe assumption.

Those are campaign-level decisions that should be made with everyone's buy-in. An enhanced wound module or something would fall into the same camp.

The closest thing to a middle ground for inspirational healing is I think either breaking it into two (at 0 hp you don't get healed but you can press on and remain conscious, and > 0 hp, where, sure, an allies' cry that your wound is worse than it feels might get you to pay attention to it), or allowing for the "it's kind of mystical, but not overtly magical" interpretation in a way similar to what Lay on Hands does.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, my suggestion was that rather than have A single warlord class, there could be like three prestige classes. Set the bar fairly low (3rd level, Int 13, Cha 13, History proficiency) but have the three classes focus on different aspects (effectively, acting like mini subclasses).

1.) A healer/inspirer/cleric replacer
2.) A straightforward buffer
3.) A maneuvers and action granter

This has the advantage of allowing the DM to pick which types of warlords he'd allow in his game. He might be fine with buffs and actions, but ban inspiring healing, for example. Rather than ban the whole warlord class, he just bans the healer PrC. Similarly, it could allow the PCs to custom tailor his warlord (focusing on buffs, but ignoring maneuvers) or bounce between them as they want to get some features from both. Lastly, the 3rd level limit (on par with when most classes get a subclass) can be used to eliminate the "neophyte, wet-behind-the-ears 1st level PC being a combat leader" problem. As an extra bonus, it doesn't need to use the warlord name either; for those who find it distasteful.

Hmmmm, lets contrast two approaches here, just to see where this really goes...

The 'base class' approach would have a warlord class as a primary class with presumably 3 level 3 subclass options.

The PrC approach would have 3 PrCs, enterable at level 3, which would each pretty much recapitulate the subclass options above.

The base class approach IMHO has the advantage of being something you can pick as your character's archetype. I could be the young King Arthur for instance, or just starting out as an officer, non-com, etc. Inexperience doesn't exclude one from being in a leadership position or acting as some sort of leader, so there's certainly a viable concept there.

You can still MC into this class of course, but you'll have to take 3 levels to get to the 'good stuff'. OTOH there may well be base class features worth having at level 1.

With the PrCs you're going to have to recapitulate the base aspects of 'being a warlord' 3 times, or else the entirety of your shtick is ONLY one feature? That's possible, but why would this as the only alternative be a superior design choice?

In all I'm just not seeing what PRCs gain you, aside from the people that just hate warlords get to say out of the side of their mouths "there isn't REALLY a warlord class, see, we were right!" which IMHO isn't really a design goal, even if it will please someone somewhere.

Honestly, I'm not saying I think that a PRC warlord would be all bad. The one advantage that PRCs could have, in principle, is some freedom from usual class progressions. As with the Rune Scribe, a small number of levels could compress a lot of advancement into them, with the proviso that the power range can't be much more than what would be true for any other 5 level advancement.

Honestly, I almost think PRCs are a bad idea as envisaged. I'd rather see some sort of 'overlay', more like the 4e Theme design, where instead of advancing in a different class, you just get appropriate power/feature/spell/whatever choices at specific levels based on membership in the 'PRC'. That allows the design to accommodate something where it can have say a level 17 or level 20 'capstone' that is really impressive, instead of just kind of petering out after 5 levels like Rune Scribe does. Now, admittedly, a designer could simply provide better runes at high levels and make more of that specific design, but I doubt the same would be true of a warlord PRC, it would have to contain heavy scaling within all of its features in order to remain a relevant part of the character. If instead you simply got more extra cool stuff at higher levels and continued to advance in your regular class, it would be a bit nicer conceptually.

The problem of course is that such an 'overlay' is virtually bound to be a power up. Since 5e has unfortunately eschewed any sort of common resource use framework it can't do what 4e did and make an overlay that offers power swaps (even 4e themes are at some level power ups, admittedly, but they COULD have been designed not to be). So, we're probably boxed into PRCs that have to either advance fully to level 20, provide some sort of additional scaling mechanic, or simply become largely irrelevant after a few levels.

 

[mellored]

In all I'm just not seeing what PRCs gain you

IMO: it gives flexibility to build a character you want.

inspiring cleric? A tactical monk? Maneuver druid? Medic rogue? ect...

Can't do those if you mix them all together in a single warlord class. You fall into the same "trap" that the fighter has. You can't skip multi-attack to get more dice.

Similarly, a monk couldn't skip inspiration to get more tactics.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

4e also takes it in a different direction from Gygax's AD&D. A hit from a snake will do poison damage, as in 5e. But that doesn't mean that every successful roll to hit has to be interpreted the same way. The dice rolls just set the parameters for narrating the fiction - hence damage on a miss (= failed attack roll), damage on a hit (= successful attack roll) that doesn't have to be narrated, in the fiction, as a scraping away of flesh, etc.

Its more flexible than that even... In 4e you could have 'mixed damage', and often did, where poison could be a separate rider, even a separate attack. This approach was used in the MM, though not consistently, and later abandoned, probably due to just being too fiddly.

At another level its very flexible too. Is 'poison damage' actually being poisoned, or could it also represent the extra skill and luck required to avoid even the most trivial scratch, or the fear and loss of morale suffered by having poison dripping on you from the slavering fangs of the giant spider? The dwarf interestingly has a +5 save vs poison, but this has no bearing on basic damage from poison attacks, which he has no special resistance against.

It really is an ABSTRACT system, very abstract. You can't nail down hit points by any of these lines of argument, they're just not as simple as 'meat'. Nor does it need to be entirely true that 0 hit points is that 'special'. It was pretty common parlance in our 4e games to consider 0 hit points the measure of defeat, but not necessarily the measure of dying. Often the bard would defeat some creature with Cutting Words and it would simply throw away its weapon and cower, morally defeated, if not physically dying. Its not precisely an articulated concept in either 4e or 5e, but it certainly isn't any more an extrapolation of what the rules actually say than "wounds are always physical".

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

In AD&D 1st ed, Psychic Crush generally had a % chance of killing outright. In some circumstances, psionic attacks could deal hp damage, but in discussions about hp as morale vs wounding I have generally seen it treated as a corner case, whereas psychic damage as a more widespread damage type makes it a big more central.

I personally don't see it as analogous to energy drain. Energy drain has been reconceptualised, in many cases, as necrotic damage - and in AD&D when a character gets energy drained I've always assumed that there is some sort of physical mark (eg flesh necrosis, or at least puncture marks in the case of a vampire).

Whereas with psychic damage, if it doesn't kill you (death by massive shock - and perhaps an associated heart attack) then I'm not sure what the physical wounding is envisaged as being. (Unless it's the blood from the ears/nose/eyes - I've used that more than once in my 4e game to narrate "bloodied" from psychic damage.)

I tend to think if psychic damage can be caused by the stress of a bard's Vicious Mockery, then it should be able to be caused by extreme non-magical stress. Though that may well be a minority view.

Viscious Mockery is a magical spell, which is the only reason I can stand it. I'd houserule any effects of verbal damage that wasn't explicitly magical in my game, but others may have a greater tolerance for such things.