D&D 5E (2014) For the Record: Mearls on Warlords (ca. 2013)

[Bawylie]

Then maybe that's a subclass of WL that does it. Idk.

If I were designing it, and I guess I apparently am now, I'd first look at what feels right before putting numbers in. Out-of combat field medic seems to fit.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Where does the book address descriptions of healing again??

Lol seriously? That's your dodge attempt?

Since you want to narrate wounds, tell me how you'd narrate those healing effects in a way that makes sense.

As much as I think the G/N/S divide is pretty much navelgazing nonsense, HP are pretty much a pure game construct. Trying to narrate them or treat them as a simulation of actual injuries just leads to madness. Relax your brain and just roll with it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Agreed. It is my opinion that THPs is the ideal mechanic to simulate something like inspirational "empowerment" in battle. The demand for it to be real healing, by some, is strange to me.

What is it about THPs that doesn't fit the effect desired? Is it just that it cannot restore an unconscious ally? Because other than that it does everything else the same. In fact, thematically it works better. Because now you are playing to the trope of the motivational character giving the big speech before the battle (or early into it) that pumps his allies up. Gives them something more to fight for. That extra oomph to carry them through the fight.

My understanding is that it is mostly just that - it cannot restore an unconscious ally.

There have been statement of other things ("corner cases") in my discussions, as well, and while true (temp hp *is* another rule on top of other rules), I'm finding it hard on my end to give up the idea of a potentially broadly acceptable warlord class because of some minor corner case oddities.

As much as I think the G/N/S divide is pretty much navelgazing nonsense, HP are pretty much a pure game construct. Trying to narrate them or treat them as a simulation of actual injuries just leads to madness. Relax your brain and just roll with it.

I'm not Imaro, but as someone who tends to describe HP as wounds, I think that what's important here is that I'm not interested in *simulating* the wounds at all. The wound has no mechanical effect, it's just present in the narrative. It's abstracted. If you take a cut to your arm, it's just not something that has any mechanical effect because you're an awesome hero type person - part of why you don't die at 4 hp like a commoner.

 

[Mistwell]

Oh, I apologize then. I didn't realize your post had veered off into off-topic territory.

It didn't. The first step of the power to heal someone who is unconscious using words alone would be for them to be able to hear you. It's entirely on-topic. Now that we've established there is support for it to be "logical enough" to be heard by someone who is unconscious, we can move on to the rest of the debate; which says that words can heal a person within the context of what hit points mean in this game. You can agree or disagree of course with that part of the argument, but "communicate with the unconscious using words" was clearly on-topic and the first part of the discussion.

 

[Aldarc]

Or maybe Mass Combat expertise. I wouldn't mind "Warlord" as a sub-class name if it were pretty explicitly tied to giving orders to NPCs during mass combat.

Maybe once you make "I like nature" into a sub-class and get rid of the ranger and druid, so I could play as a "I like nature" fighter or a "I like nature" cleric instead of having to play the incredibly redundant ranger and druid classes.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

Maybe once you make "I like nature" into a sub-class and get rid of the ranger and druid, so I could play as a "I like nature" fighter or a "I like nature" cleric instead of having to play the incredibly redundant ranger and druid classes.

Or we could even slide all the way down that slippery slope and put everything under one "I like adventuring" umbrella?

 

[ChrisCarlson]

...but "communicate with the unconscious using words" was clearly on-topic and the first part of the discussion.

To be on topic, it would have to be, "Routinely communicate, from across a room or field, with unconscious strangers using words." Which that trope does not even remotely broach.

 

[I'm A Banana]

To be on topic, it would have to be, "Routinely communicate, from across a room or field, with unconscious strangers using words." Which that trope does not even remotely broach.

Being the Topic Police is off-topic. Either it's a contribution to the conversation or it's not and if it's not, don't respond. Report the post if it bothers you. No need to drag the conversation into a meta-conversation about off-topic-ness.

 

[Shasarak]

How did a wound, which was so bad that you were dying of it 12 hours ago, disappear so completely that you are now back on your feet?

That is a very good question.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Maybe once you make "I like nature" into a sub-class and get rid of the ranger and druid, so I could play as a "I like nature" fighter or a "I like nature" cleric instead of having to play the incredibly redundant ranger and druid classes.

It literally took me 5 minutes to figure out WTF you were saying, then I realized you took my post out of context.

In a discussion about a new Warlord-like class, in which I was suggesting it have a different name, I then proposed that one of the sub-classes of this new Warlord-like class could actually be called "Warlord" and its speciality would be mass combat. Or at least structured/formal combat, such that things like Shield Walls would be in its purview.

/sigh