Are we overthinking the warlord?

[FrogReaver]

So... if you want to play a warlord that heals, apparently you just need to take the Healer feat and you're as good as the cleric.

But no where near a cleric with the healer feat...

 

[Zardnaar]

So... if you want to play a warlord that heals, apparently you just need to take the Healer feat and you're as good as the cleric.

In terms of hp regained the healer feat is generally better unless the cleric wants to blow a huge amount of spell slots on healing. At lower levels the feat beats a life cleric.
1d6+4+level per person per short rest is very good vs daily spell slots.

 

[Dualazi]

This assumes:

1) The party needs a primary healer

Doesn't *need* one but it's been a long time since I've seen a table with no one to fill that role. Cleric is one of the core 4 for more than just legacy reasons.

2) The cleric and druid are primary healers.

They are, with bard now added to that list.

3) Healing is the only benefit provided by "leader" characters.

By no means the only, but it's certainly the baseline. You can just look at the multitude of threads here on enworld about people being repeatedly brought back by healing word to know that it's frequently one of the most discussed aspects of leader archetypes.

1) 5e doesn't require combat healing. That was 4e design, which has been replaced by Hit Dice.

See above. 5e doesn't really require anything by design but healing, even in combat, is hugely impactful.

2) Only one cleric domain of the nine mandates healing. And none of the druid circles You can play a cleric and bard and druid and never cast a healing spell. In the case of the bard, you might not even know a healing spell.

And you can play a fighter and never swing a sword, doesn't mean that it's advisable or that most groups do it. Just about every player I've inducted to the hobby that has played one of the aforementioned characters or types of characters has taken healing options, even if it was only for their own selfish use.

3) A component of a "leader" characters is removing status effects: poison, disease, curses, petrification, lost limbs, drained stats, lycanthrope, etc.

Agreed, which is why ideally a warlord would be able to do these competently as well.

And even if it was, a non-magical replacement is unable to stand in as a replacement for a cleric/ bard/ druid/ divine soul sorcerer/ celestial warlock.

There is nothing to support this statement whatsoever. Nothing stops Wizards or homebrew design from making a warlord that is every bit as good of a healer mechanically speaking, and if you're referring to that being narratively unpalatable then that's your own hangup to deal with and can (and should) be disregarded when designing said class.

This is not a factually accurate description of the words I have posted.

How so? Assuming you take 1 short rest per day, at 5th level your warlord will be healing a measly 2d10+10 total over the course of an adventuring day. That's nothing, certainly not enough to replace a dedicated healer/support, and then it has the additional con of being a worse version of Healing Word, since it requires the target to be able to hear. Inspire Second Wind is too weak and infrequent to ever meaningfully replace a healer, or even a paladin's Lay on Hands.

Same story for Call to Action. Decent burst, but easily outpaced by spells like Haste in terms of buffing potential, and it's usage will be infrequent even with multiple short rests.

Coordinate attack is decent, but that's because you didn't fall into the same trap as with the other abilities; it's something you can be making reliable use of and thus makes you distinct as a warlord. Ideally there'd be some verbiage in there to support cantrips but that's an unnecessary nitpick since I realize this has just been spit-balling.

....and then you fall back back into it with Indomitable leader, another one-off ability use that is weaker than most established healing/buffing options and can only be used 1/short rest.

Basically, after you spend those short rest resources, you're going to be a fighter that plays like a fighter usually does and just uses his reactions to grant attacks to his buddies. Your time spent playing a fighter as opposed to playing a warlord will be skewed to the extent that I would not call it the class (or subclass, in this case) that it is trying to be.

 

[Zardnaar]

Doesn't *need* one but it's been a long time since I've seen a table with no one to fill that role. Cleric is one of the core 4 for more than just legacy reasons.



They are, with bard now added to that list.



By no means the only, but it's certainly the baseline. You can just look at the multitude of threads here on enworld about people being repeatedly brought back by healing word to know that it's frequently one of the most discussed aspects of leader archetypes.



See above. 5e doesn't really require anything by design but healing, even in combat, is hugely impactful.

And you can play a fighter and never swing a sword, doesn't mean that it's advisable or that most groups do it. Just about every player I've inducted to the hobby that has played one of the aforementioned characters or types of characters has taken healing options, even if it was only for their own selfish use.

Agreed, which is why ideally a warlord would be able to do these competently as well.




There is nothing to support this statement whatsoever. Nothing stops Wizards or homebrew design from making a warlord that is every bit as good of a healer mechanically speaking, and if you're referring to that being narratively unpalatable then that's your own hangup to deal with and can (and should) be disregarded when designing said class.




How so? Assuming you take 1 short rest per day, at 5th level your warlord will be healing a measly 2d10+10 total over the course of an adventuring day. That's nothing, certainly not enough to replace a dedicated healer/support, and then it has the additional con of being a worse version of Healing Word, since it requires the target to be able to hear. Inspire Second Wind is too weak and infrequent to ever meaningfully replace a healer, or even a paladin's Lay on Hands.

Same story for Call to Action. Decent burst, but easily outpaced by spells like Haste in terms of buffing potential, and it's usage will be infrequent even with multiple short rests.

Coordinate attack is decent, but that's because you didn't fall into the same trap as with the other abilities; it's something you can be making reliable use of and thus makes you distinct as a warlord. Ideally there'd be some verbiage in there to support cantrips but that's an unnecessary nitpick since I realize this has just been spit-balling.

....and then you fall back back into it with Indomitable leader, another one-off ability use that is weaker than most established healing/buffing options and can only be used 1/short rest.

Basically, after you spend those short rest resources, you're going to be a fighter that plays like a fighter usually does and just uses his reactions to grant attacks to his buddies. Your time spent playing a fighter as opposed to playing a warlord will be skewed to the extent that I would not call it the class (or subclass, in this case) that it is trying to be.

Bards not a primary healer but can be built to be one. They can be built to be a blaster as well.

 

[MechaPilot]

Why not just play multi class Fighter/Bards and be done with it?

Why not just remove the paladin, because you can MC Fighter Cleric?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Doesn't *need* one but it's been a long time since I've seen a table with no one to fill that role. Cleric is one of the core 4 for more than just legacy reasons.

And none of the groups I'm in has one or feels like they need one.

Hah! My anecdote fu beats your anecdote fu!

Agreed, which is why ideally a warlord would be able to do these competently as well.

You want a nonmagical warlord to have nonmagical solutions for... lost limbs, lycanthropy, and petrification.

Just play a freaking cleric already.

How so? Assuming you take 1 short rest per day, at 5th level your warlord will be healing a measly 2d10+10 total over the course of an adventuring day. That's nothing, certainly not enough to replace a dedicated healer/support, and then it has the additional con of being a worse version of Healing Word, since it requires the target to be able to hear. Inspire Second Wind is too weak and infrequent to ever meaningfully replace a healer, or even a paladin's Lay on Hands.

Funny thing: I've had people argue just as strenuously as you are now that short-rest healing is inherently overpowered.

Coordinate attack is decent, but that's because you didn't fall into the same trap as with the other abilities; it's something you can be making reliable use of and thus makes you distinct as a warlord. Ideally there'd be some verbiage in there to support cantrips but that's an unnecessary nitpick since I realize this has just been spit-balling.

Yeah, not just spitballing re: cantrips. No cantrips. You want to spam extra cantrips, you can find some "magelord" that is balanced properly for it.

Basically, after you spend those short rest resources, you're going to be a fighter that plays like a fighter usually does and just uses his reactions to grant attacks to his buddies. Your time spent playing a fighter as opposed to playing a warlord will be skewed to the extent that I would not call it the class (or subclass, in this case) that it is trying to be.

You talk as though the class you apparently want the warlord to be -- the cleric, or perhaps the paladin -- were not gated with *gasp* long rest resources.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

You're probably right about the hearing thing, though, since unconscious people technically can't hear and we definitely want the warlord to be able to get people back up again.

 

[MechaPilot]

Agreed, which is why ideally a warlord would be able to do these competently as well.

I have no issue with a magical subclass of the warlord being able to do all that, but in my expectation of the non-magical warlord it will not have tools to deal with lost limbs, lycanthropy, curses or petrification. I could see them having tools for helping with poison and (to a lesser extent) disease, but those would not be the immediate curing kind of tools that magical characters like clerics would have. I can also see a warlord having tools to help with certain status effects and with drained stats.

And that's all perfectly fine, for one very good reason: the warlord is a combat-focused support character. They should be able to heal and help with some of the things you'd generally want a cleric for, but that kind of support should have a built-in cut-off for kinds of things it can't do. That's part of what makes it okay for the warlord to perform other support actions, like enabling off-turn actions, without doing too much.

 

[i_dont_meta]

Yes. We ARE overthinking the Warlord.

 

[FrogReaver]

You're probably right about the hearing thing, though, since unconscious people technically can't hear and we definitely want the warlord to be able to get people back up again.

I was thinking that would be a feature not a bug