Can a warlord "heal" an unconscious character


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And what do you call a guy who gets hit by a greataxe ten times, and continues to fight as effectively as he did at the start of the combat?

-Hyp.

I call it D&D and I have enjoyed every edition, including 4th, to date. I have never considered a character at 50% hit points to be half dead. I think your question indicates that you don't either. If a person has taken the time to read Gygax's description of hit points in 1st edition I don't understand how they could see it any other way.

When it comes to hit points and healing wounds, the worst bit I have ever encountered was the Cure Light Wounds wand of the 3rd edition era. In one of my groups we routinely referred to 10 charges of a CLW wand as a "10 pack" that automatically healed 55 hit points just to save the group time on rolling.

A Warlord's inspiring word being used on an incapacitated ally doesn't even come close to 3rd's reliance on CLW wands to keep a party going on my list of unenjoyable gaming mechanics.

Shane
 


The movie Collateral has a great scene that helped me during my first read of the 4E Players Handbook.

(spoiler...)
I may be misremembering the exact scene, but it's something like this:

Max the cab driver decides to go all "super-double-nihilism back-in-your-face" at Vincent, and purposefully wrecks the cab at high speed. The car finally comes to a rest, and it's a hard call if it was even survivable. There are twisted forms in the wreckage, and blood and liquids everywhere, mixed with broken glass. Then there is a flickering of fingers, and Vincent somehow uncontorts himself from the mess. He manages to stand upright, and stiffly walks away. Soon after, Max frees himself and manages to get to his feet as well.

At this point, they are both clearly well past bloodied, with very few hit points remaining. It also possible that either/both of them may gone into negative hit points, and used some sort of bad-ass Power to spend a surge back into positive. (Maybe there was a Warlord buddy in a phone booth 25 feet away.)

Within minutes, both characters are at full strength, displaying scratches on their faces but engaged fully and physically in the action. Vincent in particular is a total killing machine, showing no weakness to betray the accident he just about crawled from. In 4E terms, they've both taken Short Rests and are at full or near full hit points.
 

I'm glad someone brought up the CLW wand [or the equally fun Wand of Lesser Vigor for 'short rest healing'].

When the game became about "how to use magic to get around the realism of it taking a long time to heal" ... it was easier just to make healing easier instead of creating a whole system of "five minute adventure day" and hospital on a sticks.

We question how someone can 'bounce back' from having an Axe stuck in them and recover from unconciousness and being bloodied ... but the fact that they fight JUST as effectively at 1 hp as when they are at full [and in some cases, more effectively for, say, a Dragonborn] which has been around in EVERY edition of D&D is perfectly fine?

I guess if they update to an even newer edition, they should just eliminate martial completely, because it isn't as realistic as unexplained, undefined magic making the wound that doesn't seem to have any noticeable effect [other than bloodied related effects] go away in an undefined way. There is no missing body parts, no permanent disabilities, etc ... unless they are specifically introduced through some sort of lasting effect, like a disease. So, already the wounds are obviously not THAT bad. There is a risk of death, but it isn't necessarily someone holding their guts in during the fight.

Healing surges are actually a realistic mechanic, as much as people may not like it. The idea that someone can be infinitely healed, without rest, as long as you have the available magic, seems to ignore how much punishment a person can take. If this represents real wounds, even being fully "healed" of the wounds wouldn't account for the mental toll that the pain they accumulated would give them. They could take thousands of damage in the day, but as long as there are charges remaining in the wand, they are fine. With healing surges at least, there appears to be an internal limit to the ammount of healing remaining.

Also, not there are specifically magical forms of healing, like Lay on Hands and the Cure Light Wounds, etc... which provide "external" forms of healing, which do not come from the healing surge. Heck, the Cleric's ability is basically the same as the Warlord. It is a prayer, some kind words, doesn't necessarily mean it's invoking divine intervention.

It's not that warlord's word is magic ... it's that the cleric's isn't as magical as some of his other powers. Not all of the cleric's power is drawn from divine sources, some of it is good old fashioned martial might and some inspiration to the group to boot.
 


Well, it's not reasonable for Heracles to get up after getting knocked around, but he does 'cos he's a badly written fiction.
There's also a lot of badly written fiction out there, whether in books or movies, since hit points is a silly concept.

DnD is a great game, but it has always failed at simulation.
 


Well, the Eladrin Warlord in my group doesn't even really speak at all, due to part of his psyche being trapped in the feywild, and although to begin with I thought that inspiring word would certainly need something to be said for it to have an effect, I didn't want to mess with his character concept.

Now, given the style that the Warlord plays, that is, with much panache and courage, I have no problem in imagining him lifting his comrades through deed alone, even if they are 'unconscious'.
 

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