D&D (2024) How should the Warlord be implemented in 1DnD?

[CreamCloud0]

According to 5e rules.

The damage while fresh, before becoming bloodied, is strictly nonphysical damage: namely fatigue, distraction, luck running out, etcetera.

But when damage reaches half the total hit points, in other words bloodied, then damage includes superficial physical damage, the kind that leaves bruises, requires bandages, and so on. Only at zero hit points, is the character downed, with catastrophic, possibly life-threatening damage.

I feel more DMs should make a point to play these injuries up. For example, if a character did get bloodied during a fight, then the next day when the characters go to see the mayor, the mayor is shocked and comments at the terrible black eye, "What happened?", to remind the players that they are still walking around with bruises and bandages, even at full hit points. Getting bloodied leaves a mark.

When DMs understand more clearly what the rules for hit points are, then the concept of a Martial healer makes so much sense, and adds to the realism of the D&D game.

It is conceptually reasonable, even enhancing verisimilitude. If a character is still fresh and hasnt gotten bloodied, and is merely fatigued and shaken, a Martial peptalk can and should restore the character to full hit points. We see this in movies and in reallife fightsports all the time.

The only challenge is keeping gaming mechanical balance. The flavor itself is useful and helpful.

using this definition magical healing almost makes more sense as a supernatural adrenalline/caffiene shot

 

[Yaarel]

using this definition magical healing almost makes more sense as a supernatural adrenalline/caffiene shot

This could be the difference between "Healing Word" (before zero hit points) versus "Cure Wounds" (at zero hit points)?

Or maybe Cure Wounds removes a black eye, and Healing Word doesnt?

 

[James Gasik]

Hit points are really just plot armor. Any damage characters take is "just a flesh wound". You have to use 80's action movie logic. In our reality, healing magic would be amazing, but in a D&D world it's nothing special- which is an intentional design decision, since WotC doesn't want people thinking they have to play a character who heals damage.

This is why 50gp gets you a Resident Evil-style "first aid spray" that characters can even make themselves (...with 50gp of green and red herbs, presumably)!

Magical healing hasn't been special or unique for 20 years now, heck, in 3.5 Fast Healing not only wasn't considered magical, even the Fighter could get it!

But some people still want "realistic" healing in their fantasy game, so that an all martial party has to take two weeks to heal up from one battle...even though they have to warp and bend the game's rules in order to make it come about (altering when you can take a rest)!

Which, unless you're playing in a "West Marches" style game, where you switch to different characters, just leaves you with large amounts of downtime that I presume are skipped over between sessions anyways, all to preserve one's sense that this isn't just a make believe game.

And if you're going to alter the rules that much, you shouldn't care if the Warlord can heal, because you'd just alter or ban them for your games anyways.

This is really my main issue with people who don't like the Warlord concept (including predecessors like the Marshal)- rather than treat it as what it is, an option that can be altered or discarded, their arguments come down to "the Warlord exists, therefore it must be condemned".

I don't care for the new classes from 1e's Unearthed Arcana. Guess what? Were I to run an AD&D game, I could just ignore them. Oh sure, I might have that one guy who is upset he can't play one (there's always one, any time you remove an option), but it won't affect the game itself.

What really annoys me, though, even if WotC decided the Warlord is a bad fit for the PHB, they had 8 years to drop him into a supplement. Instead they made a bunch of "mini-Warlords", like the Battlemaster, Purple Dragon Knight (who totally can heal people without magic, btw!), Mastermind, etc.. As if they know the concept is viable, but they're terrified to commit to it.

Meanwhile we have the Monk, which is a much more tortured concept that no gaming company has ever gotten right, and which rumors persist that someone in WotC actually despises.

I don't get it, at all.

 

[mellored]

They should not do less healing.

Healing is the Clerics niche. Everything should do less than the cleric

Warlord healing should be closer to a paladin. Maybe bard with the right sub-class.

 

[Mistwell]

Healing is the Clerics niche. Everything should do less than the cleric

Warlord healing should be closer to a paladin. Maybe bard with the right sub-class.

Well if people insist on keeping a Warlord mundane and not magic, then I agree. But if people want them to do a lot of healing in a short amount of time, I say give them some magic to do that.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Warlord should get a short rest ability that just straight heals one person back to full. No numbers, just a couple of band-aids and a peptalk.

Karate chop meat points right in the throat.

you know the healing kit in the 2014 PHB has an ability if you have a feat to spend 1 charge from it and the character heals 1d6+ there level. You are limited to I think 10 uses I would have to look that up, but you can only apply it to a person once per short rest.

If you took that concept as medical healing you could make it work even with meat points.

but I prefer that it's the way the books always said it and fatigue luck and toughness all rolled into one

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

I feel more DMs should make a point to play these injuries up. For example, if a character did get bloodied during a fight, then the next day when the characters go to see the mayor, the mayor is shocked and comments at the terrible black eye, "What happened?", to remind the players that they are still walking around with bruises and bandages, even at full hit points. Getting bloodied leaves a mark.

in 4e everytime my swordmage got bloodied or dropped we described a bad blow that would leave a looking visable wound. SOMETIMES but not always if an attack did ongong damage we describe a lesser injury, and as such when roleplaying sometimes for weeks we would bring up her visable injuries.

by the end of that campaign around level 17 I was always walking with a limp and had a bad left shoulder and 5 or 6 small scars that you could see and more then that if you saw meant we were being undressed.

That might have been my favorite campaign ever for that. We had both a Warlord and a Multi classed cleric in that game and playing up the cleric healing as closeing the wounds but the warlord just getting us to push past it was amazing.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Healing is the Clerics niche. Everything should do less than the cleric

Warlord healing should be closer to a paladin. Maybe bard with the right sub-class.

I like that 4e had clerics have more heal as if you spent HD but as daily and warlord focused on spending surges better

 

[Vaalingrade]

using this definition magical healing almost makes more sense as a supernatural adrenalline/caffiene shot

"Filled with the holy spirit."

 

[Vaalingrade]

Healing is the Clerics niche. Everything should do less than the cleric

Warlord healing should be closer to a paladin. Maybe bard with the right sub-class.

Let's get rid of niche protection in its entirety while we're at it.

It is dumb and limiting.