D&D 5E How much healing, how much mitigation for a warlord?

[Bawylie]

Both of these assume mitigation comes in the form of temp hp, or some other preventive.

It doesn't HAVE to be. And I argue it maybe shouldn't be. What about reactive DR? What about interruptive AC boost? Or save throw boost?

Temp hp is not the full extent of what mitigation includes.

 

[Tony Vargas]

. And I argue it maybe shouldn't be. What about reactive DR? What about interruptive AC boost? Or save throw boost?

Reactions get used up. You use a reaction to mitigate for one ally, another gets dropped, if you're 100% mitigation, you can't help him.

I've played a character or two (one was a Minotaur Artificer who looked like "the Nimon" f/Dr.Who) that tried to use mitigation in preference to restoring hps. It can work well sometimes, but you have to fall back on getting allies back on their feat some of the time. You need flexibility, the support role isn't functional without it, because it's innately reactive, no matter how hard you try to be pro-active.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Both of these assume mitigation comes in the form of temp hp, or some other preventive.

It doesn't HAVE to be. And I argue it maybe shouldn't be. What about reactive DR? What about interruptive AC boost? Or save throw boost?

Temp hp is not the full extent of what mitigation includes.

OK.

Interruptive AC boosts and saving throw boosts both suffer from the same problem. You can't control them with anything like the finesse you can control hit point recovery.

There are two conditions - the first when you know the enemy total (in which case you know that your AC boost will work) and the second where you don't and it might do bupkiss. Even in the first case you can only use it reactively and not strategically.

And reactive DR is weird, but can work for some of it.

If you combine reactive DR and temp HPs between them you can fake most of the advantages of hit point restoration while twisting the already shaky hit point metaphor into a marshmallow pretzel.

And you can have most of your damage mitigation as creating misses out of hits. But there's, when push comes to shove, no substitute for the real thing.

 

[Bawylie]

Actions get used up too. Both healing and mitigation are subject to a per-round limitation.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Of course actions & reactions are both finite within a round, but mitigation doesn't help after the fact, while healing does, so healing can use future actions (until someone fails three death saves, anyway). So mitigation still runs up against the problem of needing 'prescience' to make best use of that reaction. 100% healing, and needing two heal to allies when you only have one action means the ally gets healed next round. 100% mitigation and trying to reactively prevent two allies from dropping means one of them stays dropped.

I'm sorry, I do see how the two being equivalent could be an elegant solution to a thorny, if contrived, problem, but they're just not equivalent.

Both ways of helping to manage your party's hps - and flexibility between the two, and other options - are just something you need to be viable when primarily contributing support.

Now, if a class is just supplemental support, it could go one or the other, or be inflexible about it, because it's just 'nice to have,' it's not being depended upon - by the game, as well as by the party.

 

[mellored]

My preferred mitigation would be cutting words (or the warlord equivalent).

"As a reaction, you reduce an attack by 1dx, potentially causing an attack to miss."

It's active, risky, and pretty powerful. It can also avoid some on-hit effects like poison.

 

[Bawylie]

Of course actions & reactions are both finite within a round, but mitigation doesn't help after the fact, while healing does, so healing can use future actions (until someone fails three death saves, anyway). So mitigation still runs up against the problem of needing 'prescience' to make best use of that reaction. 100% healing, and needing two heal to allies when you only have one action means the ally gets healed next round. 100% mitigation and trying to reactively prevent two allies from dropping means one of them stays dropped.

I'm sorry, I do see how the two being equivalent could be an elegant solution to a thorny, if contrived, problem, but they're just not equivalent.

Both ways of helping to manage your party's hps - and flexibility between the two, and other options - are just something you need to be viable when primarily contributing support.

Now, if a class is just supplemental support, it could go one or the other, or be inflexible about it, because it's just 'nice to have,' it's not being depended upon - by the game, as well as by the party.

I'm not anti-healing. I'm just saying, all things equal, mitigation is functionally equivalent to healing.

Each of the drawbacks you bring up wrt mitigation applies also to healing.

The only material difference is the prescience argument, which is applicable for THP but not reactions.

What if there are 2 allies that need some help? Could you THP one and reactively mitigate the other? You could!

What if 2 allies need healing? It all amounts to the same thing.

Barring, weirdo corner cases, because there are exceptions to every rule, right? But we don't design around corner cases, we design around typical utility.

Now here's the kicker, healing comes in only ONE form. Add numbers to current HP total. While mitigation comes in MANY forms. Both are nice and adaptable, provided you don't shoehorn mitigation to meaning only one thing. So it's dependent on delivery in a way that healing isn't. But it's free from doing only one thing (increasing HP total).

 

[Bawylie]

But overall, sure, if you add a bunch of limitations to mitigation and ignore that those same limitations would apply to healing, then yes, healing is totally better.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm not anti-healing. I'm just saying, all things equal, mitigation is functionally equivalent to healing.

Each of the drawbacks you bring up wrt mitigation applies also to healing.

You can't mitigate damage after the fact. You can heal after the fact. I'm sorry, there's just no way around it - not without radically changing mitigation, I guess.

The only material difference is the prescience argument, which is applicable for THP but not reactions.

What if there are 2 allies that need some help? Could you THP one and reactively mitigate the other? You could!

Not if both options took an action. And, if you needed to THP one before hand, what if it's a third that ends up needing the help.

What if 2 allies need healing? It all amounts to the same thing.

You can't see how a character who can bring allies back from 0 has an edge over one that can't?

Barring, weirdo corner cases, because there are exceptions to every rule, right? But we don't design around corner cases, we design around typical utility.

Allies getting dropped is not a corner case. Not being prescient is not a corner case. You're not-prescient 24/7.

Now here's the kicker, healing comes in only ONE form. Add numbers to current HP total. While mitigation comes in MANY forms. Both are nice and adaptable, provided you don't shoehorn mitigation to meaning only one thing. So it's dependent on delivery in a way that healing isn't. But it's free from doing only one thing (increasing HP total).

That's just another strike against mitigation. AC buff is mitigation. Doesn't help when the party's fireballed. Healing does. Save bonus is mitigation. Doesn't help when you're beaten down by an ogre. Healing Does. Resist fire is mitigation, doesn't matter when a white dragon breathes on you. Healing does. Negating an enemy's attack is mitigation. Doen't matter when an ally falls in a pit. Healing does.

I'd be delighted if the equivalency you posit were true, it would make certain things easier.
But, I'm afraid it just doesn't hold up.

But overall, sure, if you add a bunch of limitations to mitigation and ignore that those same limitations would apply to healing, then yes, healing is totally better.

Healing heals hps, it doesn't matter where the damage came from, unless your maximum hps have been reduced (there's what, one monster that does that, and it's arguably broken?). Temp hps are about as good as it gets for mitigation, because at least they don't care what kind of damage you're going to take. But whether you take damage still matters, and they can't bring you up from 0.

From there, specific sorts of mitigation all get more and more situational.

Where temps and other forms of mitigation are 'better' than healing is when you /are/ feeling a little prescient, when you know there's a fight coming, or you know it'll be with something that does a specific damage type, or whatever. Then you can use actions in advance to set up the most useful sort of mitigation for what you expect - saving actions for other uses in combat.
Which is great, but further illustrates that they're not equivalent.

 

[Bawylie]

You can't mitigate damage after the fact. You can heal after the fact. I'm sorry, there's just no way around it - not without radically changing mitigation, I guess.

Not if both options took an action. And, if you needed to THP one before hand, what if it's a third that ends up needing the help.

You can't see how a character who can bring allies back from 0 has an edge over one that can't?

Allies getting dropped is not a corner case. Not being prescient is not a corner case. You're not-prescient 24/7.

That's just another strike against mitigation. AC buff is mitigation. Doesn't help when the party's fireballed. Healing does. Save bonus is mitigation. Doesn't help when you're beaten down by an ogre. Healing Does. Resist fire is mitigation, doesn't matter when a white dragon breathes on you. Healing does. Negating an enemy's attack is mitigation. Doen't matter when an ally falls in a pit. Healing does.

I'd be delighted if the equivalency you posit were true, it would make certain things easier.
But, I'm afraid it just doesn't hold up.

Yeah there you go again. You're right, buffing AC in response to fireball wouldn't be helpful. So, maybe, the person playing wouldn't do that - and might try reducing the damage or increasing the save instead.

And you know what else, not dropping to zero > healing from zero.

As much as you ....

Screw it. Done. Discount versatility all you want. I don't care anymore.