D&D 5E (2024) Bard Playtest discussion

[Yaarel]

There are Irish folktales of Bards causing people that mistreated them to die from hearing their satire on them. If their words can kill then they surely can sure.

Yeah, the folkbeliefs about the reallife bards: their satire injures, but their praise brings wellbeing.

 

[Haplo781]

In the 1e DMs Guide, Gygax describes what he means by hit points. Heh. He is the source of all of the later conflicts about how to interpret hit points.

Essentially, there is a doublestandard.

• For player characters, hit points are almost entirely nonphysical.
• But for monsters, hit points are almost entirely physical.

This doublethink allows players to ignore the inconveniences of actual wounds. At the same time, the DM can go into gory detail about hacking up a monster for its visceral entertainment value.



Unsurprisingly, there are some further inconsistencies. Despite describing the player character damage as nonphysical, the amount of time it takes to heal might imply the healing of actual wounds. When Gygax describes the Constitution bonus to hit points, his example (Rasputin) goes into graphic violence to describe the ability to survive many death-dealing physical injuries. His main point seems to be, some individuals have high Constitution, while others dont. But by extension, at least the hit points that come from Constitution seem to refer to physical trauma. That said, Constitution is also responsibility for avoiding fatigue, so that implies buffing the nonphysical hit points too.

Anyway, we happen to know what Gygax thinks about hit points, and it is complex and inconsistent, depending on which context one is describing when referring to hit points.



In my view, 4e and 5e have the best systematization of the conflictive D&D traditions about hit points.

From max hit points until half hit points is strictly nonphysical, except for allowing some glancing contact if dealing poison or similar contact effect.

At half hit points, the creature becomes "bloodied". The damage is still mostly nonphysical, but there is cosmetic superficial physical damage, the kind that leaves bruises and requires bandages.

Only at zero hit points, can there actually be a deadly wound − the proverbial sword thru the gut.

Vitality and wounds from 3.5 UA/Star Wars d20 Revised was a nifty solution.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm dismissing it because it's an obscure corner-case issue which would impact a tiny number of users of the Bard class with one specific subclass in a very rare situation, whereas this issue would affect a significant number.

In the real world, it's literally my job to make assessments like this. And it's important to make assessments like this. You're exactly like the user who can create this specific, reproducible error, but where it does not meaningfully impact his day-to-day workflow, just minorly annoys him once every few days, who think that's a major problem deserving of serious attention. It ain't. Major problems are major problems, not corner-case issues. Even if that issue is never fixed, it's not a big deal. Most players will just move on with their lives and never care about it.

Whereas the significantly lower amount of Inspiration at lower levels will impact all Bard players.

So, a Lore Bard potentially never using Bardic Inspiration, because Cutting Words is more valuable is 100% fine, a minor corner case that will never cause any issues.

Dual-Wielding requiring a bonus action so that Ranger's may not use Hunter's Mark was an issue so large that they fundamentally changed how the entire Dual-Wielding system worked.

Aren't these.... the exact same issue? Haven't we multiple times on these threads talked about overloading reactions and bonus actions being a poor design? Yet suddenly this doesn't matter just because you say the majority of players won't care about it. You can't prove that in any way, you are just stating it as if it were a fact.

Bards effectively get three features. Spellcasting, Expertise/Jack of All trades, and Bardic Inspiration. I think an issue where subclass uses of the resource can completely supersede the main classes use of their most iconic ability isn't "a corner case"

 

[Chaosmancer]

That's not all correct. All bards in 5e get 2 spells in Magical Secrets at 10th again at 14th and again at 18th. Only the Lore Bard gets 2 Additional Magical Secrets at 6th. The playtest replaces this with a different ability, Cunning Inspiration which is nowhere near as potent, IMHO.

My bad though, the base bard gets it 3 times, not twice but the Lore bard gets it earlier and gets more instances than the others.

The playtest does fundamentally change how it works since you get to choose different spells after a long rest instead of the Magical Secrets being the ones you have.

I did forget that bard's got it at 14th, I was actually coming back to correct that when I saw you pointed it out.

But still, with the new way Magical Secrets works, if the Lore bard got a third instance of it, then Bards would just be able to effectively cast any spell in the game. I don't think that is really something we actually want to happen, so I can understand why they cut it.

Maybe, if people really feel Lore Bard needs more spells, it could be that they can prepare an additional two spells, or swap spells, but those feel like mage features, not bard features.

 

[Yaarel]

Vitality and wounds from 3.5 UA/Star Wars d20 Revised was a nifty solution.

Am unfamiliar with the wound systems of 3e and Star Wars.

I am sure, an enduring injury should only become possible at zero hit points. And even things like losing a limb, would be instead of losing a life after three failed saves.

But otherwise, I am flexible for how to determine a particular injury. The system would need to be flexible enough for the DM to determine on the fly, the nature of the injury, whether a burn or a drowning or a fall or a stabbing, and to what extent it impairs the character.

One idea is, all damage from Exhaustion instead reduce the proficiency bonus. If the proficiency goes below zero, it is instead zero, and the character makes death saves. Enduring wounds would be part of this Exhaustion system.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Okay. What if "inspirational healing" like what the Bards get can't heal you if you're Bloodied. Because you start showing signs of physical damage once you're below half your hit point maximum. You could make a rule saying that Warlords/Bards can nonmagically heal with words/speeches, but that it doesn't work once the character has shown signs of physical damage (in order to prevent a situation where a character stops bleeding from a bullet-wound because a Warlord told them to shake it off).

Would something like that suffice?

Sure, I like it. WotC wouldn't go for it, because it introduces a tiny dollop of the dreaded complexity, but I would definitely use something like that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The Bard is full-on magic. Magical healing is appropriate.

Regarding nonmagical healing and the "Bloodied" condition, nonphysical healing still makes sense.

For example, say someone gets a shaving cut, a "bleeder", or a blackeye. One might have lost hit points at that moment. But after a short rest sotospeak, one can completely ignore it. The person is back to full hit points, even if wearing a bandaid, or it hurts to touch it.

Even a person with a broken arm, as long as the arm safely secure, is back to full hit points, even while currently unable to use the arm.

The death saves mechanic implies a deadly injury has incurred. If a person reduces an opponent to zero hit points (such as in a fightsport), the damage can be nonlethal. Thus it is possible to be at zero hit points without incurring death saves.

You can't get a broken arm, or any other debilitating injury, in 5e without an optional rule.

 

[Haplo781]

Am unfamiliar with the wound systems of 3e and Star Wars.

I am sure, an enduring injury should only become possible at zero hit points. And even things like losing a limb, would be instead of losing a life after three failed saves.

But otherwise, I am flexible for how to determine a particular injury. The system would need to be flexible enough for the DM to determine on the fly, the nature of the injury, whether a burn or a drowning or a fall or a stabbing, and to what extent it impairs the character.

One idea is, all damage from Exhaustion instead reduce the proficiency bonus. If the proficiency goes below zero, it is instead zero, and the character makes death saves. Enduring wounds would be part of this Exhaustion system.

Vitality And Wound Points :: d20srd.org

tl;dr: you have wound points equal to your Constitution score, the rest of your health pool is vitality, which represents your ability to not get hit.

When you take damage, it comes off vitality first, only dipping into wounds if you run out... Unless it's a critical hit, in which case it does no additional damage but comes straight off your wounds.

At 0 wounds, you fall unconscious and start dying.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Vitality And Wound Points :: d20srd.org

tl;dr: you have wound points equal to your Constitution score, the rest of your health pool is vitality, which represents your ability to not get hit.

When you take damage, it comes off vitality first, only dipping into wounds if you run out... Unless it's a critical hit, in which case it does no additional damage but comes straight off your wounds.

At 0 wounds, you fall unconscious and start dying.

I always liked that system.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Sure, I like it. WotC wouldn't go for it, because it introduces a tiny dollop of the dreaded complexity, but I would definitely use something like that.

I highly doubt this would be too complicated for WotC. They already have a feature like this for the Champion Fighter, it just works the opposite way (you regenerate until you're no longer bloodied). Just reverse that for this ability.