Essentials nostalgia - the death of martial healing

[Scribble]

Precisely what "future support" did it need? The warlord is presented in the PHB. It has new powers and new builds in two separate Martial Power books. Odds are pretty good that we wouldn't have seen much more expansion on the class for a good long while with or without the Essentials line. Odds are even better that we wouldn't see another martial healer, because there was no point to it.

So I'm honestly not sure where any of this is coming from.

Hey don't look at me- I'm not the one who started the thread!

My only comment was that I like martial healing, and would not like to see if downplayed in the future of the game.

 

[Garthanos]

In a snarky mood mostly... but folks newbies who buy these arent going to even see that martial healing.

Obviously they arent taking it away and well its not one of the more crumbly broken classes that need fixing. A more controller like wizard (hypnosis anyone... cool)

But the flavor of hit points and there nature as an abstraction of heroic luck and morale and energy... is pretty much set and defined by the existence of the martial healer.

Functionally these essentials classes may be new builds of some classes but they are also a first face for people coming in new.

A warlord represents far more characters in fiction than clerics do... and is far more fundamental to me because of that. The choice of classes to include is nostalgic not logical.

 

[DarthMouth]

But a essential warlord would be nice.

I did not know Warlord have that low aception. Or Wizz thinks new players can not digest him ?

I love warlord on first sigh.. my favorite class. Cleric cant cover that.

sad.

 

[Mengu]

Anyone who decides to get into D&D, and downloads CB, is going to see everything. Essentials line is not taking anything away.

And I doubt future support will recede for the non-essentials classes. Through Dragon, they can continue to give "equal" opportunity to any class they feel deserves it. I put equal in quotations because the support is rather lopsided in favor of martial classes for the moment.

 

[Garthanos]

Woo hoo!!!

It always was like having the janitor do brain surgery.

And thou art ever so imaginative and you demonstrate the problem exactly.. how talented of you.

Healing the key word needed to be allocated to rituals alone and removing wounds that only occur on criticals or when reduced below zero hero points.

Inspiration would then have been the key word for various effects which restore those hero points.

oh yeh hit points... did I say hero points.

Which game edition did you say we were talking about? wheres that damn time travel device.

 

[Klaus]

The death of martial healing - cant you see it hit points as bits of flesh whacked off only healable by spell casters the only leader is an oxymoronic war priest.

The fog of war fading in to nothing expect control to be the realm of casters only too.

No more building non-combatant heros.-- it was an accident they were supported anyway.

So long Warlord - you are "essentially" dead.

The grognards without imagination have taken over the asylum.

Well, you could certainly build a warlord using PH1, pick up a build from Martial Power 1, some powers from Martial Power 2 and add some shadow stuff from Heroes of Shadow, according to Bill Slaviczek's column.

 

[P1NBACK]

People play D&D for Fighter, Cleric, Wizard and Rogue.

Not for Warlord.

It's not an essential class.

And, HP abstraction still gets people even with the existence of the Warlord. In addition, some people don't like martial healing (old 3E guys who WotC are probably trying to get to give a second look at 4E through essentials).

I'm fine with not including the Warlord (even though it's one of my favorite 4E classes).

 

[Garthanos]

Anyone who decides to get into D&D, and downloads CB, is going to see everything.

Think so?

I think you are optimistic... how many times do you see "We are gonna play and use just phb one classes ONLY" out here on the interweb cause everything else is so broken/uses up too much brain space... etc etc. I expect this will be the new core game for many people. Especially if they come in new.(I am sure that is the hope) though I expect WOTC want to bring in grognardians that they missed as well.

 

[Garthanos]

Do they intentionally aim to breed more of...
"oh I dont think our DM allows that old class I mean healing by talking at people doesnt make sense does it now?"

Recognizing even the cleric healing has a direct analog of RL faith healing and is as much just improving morale etc as the Warlords - will be even less common.

Get ready to saddle yourself to a cleric in every party guys.. doooom doooom doooom.

 

[mearls]

So long Warlord - you are "essentially" dead.

The grognards without imagination have taken over the asylum.

Two things:

First, as others have mentioned the warlord is still a perfectly legit character class. Remember, Essentials adds to the game. It doesn't replace anything (save for rules updates we've made and a few tweaks here and there).

Second, I think the real knock on the warlord isn't that it's a martial healer. The thing, to me, is that the class heals in exactly the same way as the cleric and other classes. I think that sells the flavor of a martial healer a little short. It's an interesting design challenge, and I like interesting challenges.