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

[Aldarc]

This trope is almost always tied to a relationship: notice that it's never strangers that whisper/cajole/yell somebody back from the brink, it's always somebody with a strong bond. And it's also not dependent on the archetype of the person: it could be a coach, a love, a teammate, etc.

So giving that ability to one archetype, and making it independent of relationship, doesn't really fulfill the trope.

This is like saying, "In a lot of stories there's a romantic connection between characters, so therefore we need a Lover class for the other characters to fall in love with."

Or, "In many myths and in history there is the figure who betrays the hero, so we need a Betrayer class."

Or how about, "Conan, Gandalf, and other heroes are able to intimidate foes just by staring at them. We need a class for that."

Shall I go on?

There's no need to go on when you're clearly rushing out the door to pat yourself on the back for an imagined argumentative victory.

People also go into rages. Civilized folks. Trained heavily-armored fighters. Rangers. Paladins. All sorts can work themselves up into a frenzy. Yet there is a class and an archetype, the barbarian, that gains the 'rage' mechanic regardless of whether its appropriate that all barbarians rage or whether other distinct archetypes can. People other than clerics call upon gods, and the gods may answer them, often due to the matter of relationship. Yet clerics are the ones who get it as a class ability. You should consider going through the list of classes and see what other sort of things probably don't deserve to be exclusive class abilities based on the sort of reasoning you express here. I can assure you that it's quite fun and rewarding. (Nevertheless, I presume that the Warlord, in all likelihood, will be using this ability on people with whom it has a relationship, whether its their fellow traveling companions, a squadron/battalion, hometown villagers, etc.) Did the Hulk really have any prolonged 'relationship' with Tony Stark? Tony Stark interacts almost entirely with the Bruce Banner side, but has little to no interaction in the Avengers film with the Hulk himself or his voice.

 

[Guest 6801328]

There's no need to go on when you're clearly rushing out the door to pat yourself on the back for an imagined argumentative victory.

Snark as a rhetorical technique?

People also go into rages. Civilized folks. Trained heavily-armored fighters. Rangers. Paladins. All sorts can work themselves up into a frenzy. Yet there is a class and an archetype, the barbarian, that gains the 'rage' mechanic regardless of whether its appropriate that all barbarians rage or whether other distinct archetypes can. People other than clerics call upon gods, and the gods may answer them, often due to the matter of relationship. Yet clerics are the ones who get it as a class ability. You should consider going through the list of classes and see what other sort of things probably don't deserve to be exclusive class abilities based on the sort of reasoning you express here. I can assure you that it's quite fun and rewarding. (Nevertheless, I presume that the Warlord, in all likelihood, will be using this ability on people with whom it has a relationship, whether its their fellow traveling companions, a squadron/battalion, hometown villagers, etc.) Did the Hulk really have any prolonged 'relationship' with Tony Stark? Tony Stark interacts almost entirely with the Bruce Banner side, but has little to no interaction in the Avengers film with the Hulk himself or his voice.

I think you're missing the point entirely, as evidenced by your choice of examples. I was trying to describe ways that characters typically relate to each other, socially and emotionally. Not how characters' emotional states are tied to their other actions. There is a difference. And the difference is especially important, vis a vis this discussion, when the characters are on the team, because in an RPG that means they're probably going to both be Player Characters.

I suspect I've already lost you, so I'll try this from a different angle:
- The trope of a hero channeling rage and turning it into might (Hercules, Conan, etc.) is an example of emotional state being directed into a non-social outcome. (Killing things, etc.)
- The trope of two heroes falling love is an example of emotional state affecting the social dynamic between those characters.

Did that make sense? Two different and, I think, fairly distinctive categories. (I'm sure gray areas could be found, but as the saying goes, 'the existence of twilight does not invalidate the difference between day and night')

In my opinion, examples of the second category, especially if they happen between two player characters should not be governed by rules and mechanics. Those interactions belong solely in the domain of roleplaying.

Again, it's my opinion. I'm not trying to prove that I'm right and you're wrong. I am only trying to explain (if you care) the philosophy underlying my opposition to "Yell at them until they heal".

As I said before, I'd be more amenable to such a mechanic if there were corollary mechanics/rules that measured the strength of the bond, and the healing mechanics depended on that bond to succeed.* I'd rather not go that direction with the particular game we're discussing, because I think it would start to turn it into a different game, but I offer that as an illustration of how I'm thinking about this puzzle.

In the meantime, I find rules that mechanize intra-party social dynamics to be encroaching on roleplaying turf. Which is exactly what language like "Your companions' awe for your natural leadership causes them to..." does.

Just in case you missed it the first few times....in my opinion.

*To riff on that a little more: you would have an interest in building the bonds with other characters over time so that it's effective when they try to use that bond to heal you. I could dig that. In a different game.

 

[Guest 6801328]

"Neo, you can't be dead because you're the one. And I love you. And whatever whatever."

Then Neo gets right back up and is all Supa-Jaysus.

And how about "Don't you die on me, man! Come on, you can't leave me!"

Sarah Connor does it.
Katnis Everdeen does it to Peeta Melarck.

On My Name Is Earl, Earl is hospitalized after being hit by a car (again) after he doubted Karma. This time, his injuries are a lot more serious than they were the first time around, and he goes into a coma. His condition starts to deteriorate rapidly, and he's actually dying. Randy and co. decide to take care of a list item, and Earl's ECG comes back up. As they do more and more list items, Earl gets better and eventually comes out of the coma.

There's the Clip Show episode of The Simpsons where Homer is put in hospital by Bart's beer bomb. When Bart confesses, Homer starts to come around, and the ECG actually shows Homer's heart line as Bart outlines.

So, I mean, it's not like we NEVER see this happen

Any examples of total strangers doing it, just based on their natural leadership ability?

 

[Aldarc]

Snark as a rhetorical technique?

More akin to conversational venting.

I suspect I've already lost you, so I'll try this from a different angle:

Again, it's my opinion. I'm not trying to prove that I'm right and you're wrong. I am only trying to explain (if you care) the philosophy underlying my opposition to "Yell at them until they heal".

In some respects you have already lost me. I still disagree with your opinion, and I am willing to mostly leave it at that, but not without providing a little opinion of my own.

As I said before, I'd be more amenable to such a mechanic if there were corollary mechanics/rules that measured the strength of the bond, and the healing mechanics depended on that bond to succeed.* I'd rather not go that direction with the particular game we're discussing, because I think it would start to turn it into a different game, but I offer that as an illustration of how I'm thinking about this puzzle.

I would agree with you if that was the case for all effects, including magical ones, and not just the warlord's potential inspiring word that gets singled out for being determined by relational bonds.

In the meantime, I find rules that mechanize intra-party social dynamics to be encroaching on roleplaying turf. Which is exactly what language like "Your companions' awe for your natural leadership causes them to..." does.

Jeez. It's flavor text. It's meant to help get people into the archetype and make it sound exciting for people to actually play one. Have you read the other class flavor text?

Bard:

A stern human warrior bangs his sword rhythmically against his scale mail, setting the tempo for his war chant and exhorting his companions to bravery and heroism. The magic of his song fortifies and emboldens them.

Laughing as she tunes her cittern, a gnome weaves her subtle magic over the assembled nobles, ensuring that her companions’ words will be well received.

Is this mechanizing intra-party social dynamics? Who cares if its magic? It's still mechanics dictating intra-party social roleplaying for me.

Cleric:

Clerics combine the helpful magic of healing and inspiring their allies with spells that harm and hinder foes.

Who says that this inspires me to do anything of the sort? But apparently if I say that I'm not inspired then I get denied the mechanical benefits of their divine inspiration. That's ridiculous! It shouldn't be that way. And what if I hate that deity? What if that deity hates me? Or what if I am a servant of that deity? Or what if I'm a friend of the cleirc? Shouldn't that healing spell heal me more?

IMHO, magic is a reason why it would or should work for the bard and cleric, but not the warlord.

Any examples of total strangers doing it, just based on their natural leadership ability?

Doctor Who likely has with complete strangers.

 

[Ristamar]

My biggest hurdle with spurring a "downed" PC back to his feet with some rousing words is that it always requires the DM to narratively retcon the severe/mortal wound (e.g. "I guess I wasn't hurt as badly as I had thought.") This is a byproduct of D&D's combat system, specifically the ability of a character to function just as well at 1 hit point as he does at 100 hit points. While this is preferable to a death spiral, it does necessitate the drop to 0 actually means there is severe, traumatic damage, and the potentially lethal wound can't be overcome by simply shaking off the cobwebs and jumping right back into the fray, IMO.

 

[Azzy]

And this is why we can't have nice things.

 

[Fralex]

And this is why we can't have nice things.

Let's not give up on them just yet, maybe we can still have SOME nice things?

Like, the question of whether or not healing via motivational speech is plausable seems pretty clear at this point to be a personal opinion. Any warlord class added at this point will, as mentioned earlier, be something totally optional, so the people who find it implausible wouldn't need to allow it in their games anyway. I personally think it makes no sense that someone unconscious would be able to hear inspirational words and get back on their feet without magic. For me, that breaks my willing suspension of disbelief. But some people have objections similar to mine about certain core classes, like monk and bard. Near as I can tell, this did not actually ruin the classes for anyone else, so adding one more that not everyone agrees with won't be too bad.

 

[Bawylie]

Any examples of total strangers doing it, just based on their natural leadership ability?

Faith healers.

Whatever you may think of them, they can, through charisma, awe, and the willingness of the recipient, evoke intense feelings of euphoria and spike adrenaline.

People used to faint at Beatles concerts and candidate Obama's speeches. They likewise rose from their wheelchairs to walk a bit under big tents after hands were laid on them.

It seems to me to be a similar psychological effect. The relationship can be basically 1 way, even strangers, so long as the practitioner can affect the recipient.

Heck, hypnotists bring subjects in and out of consciousness routinely. On stage and in therapy.

Yes - there's a weird psychosomatic thing going on with all of that. But it's still not unheard of.

 

[Li Shenron]

I wonder what happened to specialties....they sound a little like maybe they turned into Feats at some point. So your healer specialty became the Healer feat.

Themes/specialties were nothing but suggested combinations of feats. You were still meant to be able to cherry-pick feats if you didn't take a specialty as a whole.

Feats changed a lot when they decided that instead of being similar to 3e feats, they needed to be significantly larger to be on par with ability score increases, so that a player could always choose either a feat or a stat boost. However, this would have minimal effects on specialties, except the obvious rearrangement of the suggested specialties... but as a whole there could still be specialties.

In a sense, specialties were just 'feats packages' similarly to how backgrounds are mostly 'proficiency packages'.

It would be totally possible to create specialties from the feats in the PHB, and present them to players who are interested in feats but may want suggestions on a cohesive theme, so that instead of going through many pages of feats, they'd just check the list of specialties and pick one.

Well they didn't do it in the PHB, but it could be easily done and then publish e.g. a UA article.

As for an 'inspiring leader', there are many ways to do that already, not only (and not necessarily) with feats. Several Warlord-like abilities were implemented as Battlemaster maneuvers for instance, but those explicitly require to be a Fighter. Themes/specialties would have the benefit of being more generic and accessible to all.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Themes/specialties were nothing but suggested combinations of feats. You were still meant to be able to cherry-pick feats if you didn't take a specialty as a whole.

Uh...that's not how I remember it. Specialties were originally something everyone got, at level 1, which had various effects. Here's the Q&A post about them (one of the few references that remain to them, due to the WotC forum change destroying all the blog posts):
"Were specialties ever considered as a means of implementing multiclassing during the development process?

In a sense, yes. I like to think of that as “soft multiclassing.” We really like the way some specialties act as pseudo-multiclassing for players who only want to dabble in the kinds of things another class does. For example, the Magic User specialty does a great job of letting any class dip its toe into the wizard’s water, without us needing a full multiclass system for that. In fact, I’d go so far as to argue that a significant portion of players who multiclass do so for thematic and story reasons, not for mechanical reasons. For those players, specialties are perfect for reflecting that thematic dabbling; it’s a dash of one flavor layered over the top of another class’s flavor. Even themes like Dual Wielder go a long way toward helping communicate that feel; a cleric that takes the Dual Wielder specialty can feel a lot more like a fighter, or even a ranger (depending on the choices that cleric makes with background and in-class decisions) without having to change classes. I think we want to keep this soft multiclassing concept while we explore ways to multiclass that are more conventional and put a bigger focus the class features as building blocks of a character."

Feats changed a lot when they decided that instead of being similar to 3e feats, they needed to be significantly larger to be on par with ability score increases, so that a player could always choose either a feat or a stat boost. However, this would have minimal effects on specialties, except the obvious rearrangement of the suggested specialties... but as a whole there could still be specialties.

In a sense, specialties were just 'feats packages' similarly to how backgrounds are mostly 'proficiency packages'.

It would be totally possible to create specialties from the feats in the PHB, and present them to players who are interested in feats but may want suggestions on a cohesive theme, so that instead of going through many pages of feats, they'd just check the list of specialties and pick one.

Well they didn't do it in the PHB, but it could be easily done and then publish e.g. a UA article.

As for an 'inspiring leader', there are many ways to do that already, not only (and not necessarily) with feats. Several Warlord-like abilities were implemented as Battlemaster maneuvers for instance, but those explicitly require to be a Fighter. Themes/specialties would have the benefit of being more generic and accessible to all.

Honestly, I think a very significant reason why the Warlord didn't show up to the satisfaction of Warlord fans is because of the prolonged, often-reconfigured nature of the playtest.

The above podcast thing is from mid/early 2013 as I recall (and searches of forum posts here and elsewhere back me up on it)--early enough that they hadn't yet settled on the feat paradigm they were planning to use, since they're still talking about Specialties as a thing. I think what happened was something like this:

Early pass: "The Warlord is one of the popular classes of 4e. We should include it."
Second pass: "Y'know, this is about 80% like the Fighter. We've already got this idea of Specialties--it would save a lot of space and complexity to make the Warlord a type of ally-helping Fighter with a healing Specialty. Let's do that."
Third pass: "Jeez, these Specialties are ending up really clunky, and kind of confusing for character generation. Let's just fold them into Feats and call it good."
Fourth pass: "Well hm. The Battlemaster isn't really the same as the Warlord without Specialties, but we can't grandfather them back for just one subclass..."

And then from there on out, they were in a bind--they didn't have the time to re-create an entire Warlord class. Since they had already committed themselves to the idea that the Warlord was a special type of Fighter, they had to work within its bounds, like getting four attacks, Action Surge, Second Wind, dealing extra damage (from adding Expertise dice to most of their maneuvers or Improved Critical), etc. So they made what I would call, in 4e, a Fighter with a Warlord multiclass feat, and hoped that it would be good enough that they could tide people over until they could try again with fresh material.

The unwise nature of the "but his hand didn't grow back, hur hur" comments aside, this really reflects to me that they didn't have enough of the system nailed down for many of the commitments they were making for classes until far too late in the design cycle--and the warlord fell through the cracks as a result. I mean, they even literally say, right in that podcast, that the "tactical fighter" isn't enough unless you add that specialty. If that's not the closest we'll ever get to a developer directly saying 5e doesn't have a..."complete," if you will...Warlord in it, I don't know what is.

Edit:
In fact, in reading over all of this...I really, really get the feeling that they were hanging a great deal of the 4e-related stuff on the Specialties mechanic ("Defender" specialty, talk of making a "Leader" specialty...), only to drop it later on, so late that they couldn't come up with a suitable replacement in time. Because with Specialties in the mix, it sounds like you could quite easily have a Fighter who gives attacks to other people, inspires allies to greater heights, and (potentially) even heals allies through stirring words and exhortations. Now instead, all of that gets condensed into granting a buffer of THP (IMO relatively slim, at least after level 3 or so), or spending money in the form of Healer's Kits to restore 1d6+4+level HP per rest (requiring 2 feats to do so).

More or less, I think that they saw that 90% of the Specialties were just overcomplicated pre-bought feats, so they eliminated the idea...but that remaining 10% was a cost. Whether they accepted that cost and planned to address it down the line, or were unaware of it and have needed that time to come up with a solution, I don't know. But it certainly sounds to me like that is where the TCM and the other 4e-centric mechanics went--sucked into the removal of Specialties.