It's totally narrative. "Vanishing with an hour's rest" isn't specifically required by the narrative tropes typically in use with wound-based HP.
First of all, while I'm fine with genre tropes like the ones you describe being stretched to accommodate a 'wound-based' model of hp, it hardly /typical/. Proponents of that model fought tooth-and-nail against HD, Second Wind, and overnight healing, and there are slower-natural-healing in the DMG that address those concerns. When ideas like the ones you are expressing now were brought up in those debates they were roundly rejected as adequately modeling hps in that way, and the insistence on /only/ magic providing quick healing, because recovering hp implied all wounds were /gone/ has also seemed like a solid corner-stone of the 'typical' presentation of the hps-must-all-represent-wounds model.
If you were making the below arguments a few years ago as an argument for allowing short rests, healing surges, and overnight healing into Next, you'd probably find the typical 'all-meat' hp model proponent roundly rejecting it. (Of course, as an argument /against/ the Warlord, I'm sure they'd be all for it.)
With a bit of downtime, all of the below tropes become narratively plausible
I'm not actually seeing a lot of 'with a bit of downtime....' in those.
So, what you're really saying is that you can just squeeze the 'wound' model into these tropes /if/ you /add/ a bit of downtime to them. They don't actually require it.
The distinction you're drawing between restoring hps and temp hps isn't present in them.
Getting over an injury quickly is a tried and true narrative device in action media, so much so that it's often over-used.
Quickly? Most of what you just quoted could just as easily be (and often is, all but instantly). In fact, if it seems to take the hero a little time to recover in the middle of a fight while the Villain mysteriously does nothing, it's probably just the time dialation trope - the action pauses to let the audience take in the drama.
I've been watching a lot of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer these last few weeks and when someone had to go to the hospital after they got knocked unconscious it was an
exception to the usual rule of getting punched/chived/bludgedoned and getting over it.
The narrow use of the word "heal" to mean only "heal completely" is unnecessary. "Healed enough to not suffer its effects" is more often the case (though I've got no major issues with "healed completely" in most cases, either - descriptions of something lingering is pure color).
"Healed enough to not suffer its effects" under the tropes you quoted above, could very easily be
not healed at all. Take Second Wind, for instance, it's instantaneous, a free action, not even a bonus action, it doesn't require healing supplies or second wind, but it restores hps. How did you rationalize that one in your 'wound model?'
See above (especially Hollywood Healing). I'd be fine with a warlord that is as magical as a paladin's Lay On Hands or a cleric's Channel Divnity
Not quiet what I asked. In another thread, you closely parsed some rules and concluded that Lay on Hands and Channel Divinity, among quite a lot of other obviously-magical things, could be ruled 'not magic' (setting aside that anything could be ruled 'not magic' because Rulings not Rules). I didn't ask would you be OK with the warlord being presented with obviously-intended-to-be-magical abilities that could, on a close parsing of the rules, be declared non-magical, but the reverse.
Would you be OK with a Warlord that had powers, include Inspiring Word that restored hps, that were clearly and obviously presented as non-supernatural (for the fantasy setting, no more so than Second Wind, for instance), but could, on a close parsing of some related rules, be ruled to be supernatural or even magical?
- not "magical" per the rules, but clearly something beyond mortal capacity. That warlord would be looking less purely martial in that case, though.
Not magical but clearly beyond 'mere mortals,' is practically the definition of martial. Martial heroes have often been presented as being as rare and exceptional as casters. I think the 3e DMG came right out and said that. And, the presentation of martial classes as a choice of PC with no lower 'cost' to the player to choose than casters, also implies that - especially in the gamist sense of trying to avoid 'trap choices.'
So, no, I don't need PC fighters, rogues, & warlords to be crushingly mundane.
The main way if fails to model the narrative is that it doesn't wear off.
But, you're OK with Temp hps, even though, in 5e, they can last until your next long rest?
There's no point at which you actually need to tend to the injury
Couldn't that just happen 'off screen' the next time there's a moment to pause in the action? It seems a fairly easy thing to toss in there to salvage the model.
Temp HP is good for representing a bit of "padding" or a shield or a wellspring of pluck. It's good because it makes you feel better (you're farther away from death!) without actually making you any better (it doesn't heal your wounds). Psychologically, that's perfect - you know as a player that you're not fully up, but you've got a bit of extra juice before you suffer any consequences for it anyway.
Apparently it's very much psychological, since you're OK with restoring hps not healing wounds, at all, just stabilizing them. Wrap a handkerchief around that severed artery and you're good to go.
The fact that it doesn't prevent unconsciousness at 0 hp helps model the fact that padding and pluck won't save you from a potentially lethal sword wound, even if they will help you out until you get there.
Unfortunately it also make it strictly inferior as a sole option for a support class, which is functionally the same as simply blocking the class completely. Also, that limitation doesn't match the narrative, since be brought back to consciousness - even from the brink of death, by nothing more than the voice of a comrade or loved one is another of these cliched genre bits we've been considering.
Aside: So, I want to put something that's bothering me about this line of reasoning behind us. You're advocating for the Warlord being unable to restore hps, only provide temps, on these grounds we've been discussing. It would also 'coincidentally' make the warlord strictly inferior to all other potential support characters, even third-string ones like the Ranger. Now, I would hate to add a new mechanic (it'd certainly be 'cruff' to Hemlock, for instance), but, hypothetically, if the Warlord gave 'temps' that even /expired faster than regular temps unless the wounds in question got some attention after the fight/, so more closely modeled your narrative than current temp hps, but stacked with eachother and brought characters back from 0 hps, would that be OK?
I prefer it when rules language is natural language as opposed to jargon.
And 5e goes that way, so you're good. I was just illustrating my PoV.
Possibly-hypothetically. The biggest difficulty is that it would have to actually heal the wounds of someone who is unconscious from a traumatic injury
That is not consistent with the tropes, above. Like the one about traumatic head injuries. If you lose consciousness, even for a second, from a blow to the head, IRL, that's a traumatic brain injury (aka concussion), it can take you months to fully recover. But, in the narrative you prefer, you can get right back up and be fine, no months of healing required, for just one example. Now, for your narrative, you might /need/ to have those wounds dealt with in some mundane way right away /after/ you've fought at few effectiveness for the rest of the scene and beaten the bad guys.
The closest I can think of is maybe something like prayer for someone in a coma? But even there, the narrative way to model that in D&D is divine power (which is very supernatural), not non-magical inspiration.
You've already come up with this theory that that /wouldn't/ be magical, anyway. And it's not like the documented 'power of prayer' IRL convinces atheist like myself that there's a God answering those prayers. It's just a specific case of mood affecting healing - depression and stress have been shown to slow the healing process, and the reverse to be true of being kept in 'good spirits.' It's not dramatic, but it's clinically significant, and easily explains the 'power of prayer' results.
There's prep-and-points (spell point option), and no-prep-and-points (any class with Spells Known instead of a prepared list from a pool),
And there are now at-wills yes. At wills work fine, but one consequence of the spell slot system is that you can run out of lower level slots first. So, as you 'tire' you can still cast magic missle - but only very powerful ones. Spell points are provided as an alternative module to address that issue, just as slower rates of natural healing are to address more typical wound-interpretations of hps.
But hit points also have some higher requirements that magic systems can get out on because magic is made up artifice from the get-go, but not dying after getting hit with a sword is something that people need explaining away to accept.
There's the double-standard. Magic is part of the genre, D&D magic fails to model genre tropes very well. If I find a way to rationalize that, and decide that, say, Psionics, messes with that rationalization, then I could mount the same attempt to block or sabotage the mystic as you are doing here with the Warlord. It wouldn't work because there's a double standard.
For that matter, there are myriad mechanics in the game that could be interpreted in alternate ways, and then the claim could be made that any new addition to the game could collapse one of those house of cards.
And if the Warlord must have an inspirational healing mechanic or not be a "true" warlord, then it becomes a question of what you make optional.
I'm good with the whole Warlord being optional, so that it can be designed for people who might actually use it, rather than people who just want to block or, failing that, sabotage it.
If that can moot this whole line of reasoning, that'd be OK. Though I'm still hopeful that you're keeping an open mind and we can find a narrative rationalization that works for you as well as the ones you have found for HD, overnight healing, and...
....Oh, right: Second Wind, how did you make that work as hp-recovery in your wound model?
