Well, one way would be a smaller choice, like a fighting style, that lets a warlord opt into damage mitigation.
In Zard's warlord thread I suggested his Rallying Cry power could have options. One could be temporary hit points, while other options could be more commanding.
Wait, now it's not just that they categorically can't heal, even the damage mitigation has to be purely opt-in? Please tell me I'm misunderstanding you.
It's not ideal as it still leaves the warlord more complex than the other martial classes, with two big decision points instead of one. One potential advantage of a warlord class is that it's a "simple healer" in contrast to the resource management heavy spellcasters.
I'll address this more later, but two quick things. One, is there actually any desire for a "simple" healer? Two, is it really appropriate to call it a simple
healer if, as you've repeatedly said, it can't "heal" (that is, restore HP)?
Shifting the Rallying Cry/temp hp power to second level would also likely be necessary, if not higher. There's only so much you can do with 1st level characters. If the warlord is getting any kind of superiority dice, there's not much room for anything else.
First-level Fighters have Second Wind. Don't see why first-level Warlords couldn't have something too.
One level of superiority dice is equivalent to a level of spellcasting.
Uh, what? No, I'm not at all convinced of that. A single spell and a slot to cast it is equivalent to a single, reduced-size die (1d6, if you aren't already a BM) and two maneuvers--as far as feats are concerned. By 3rd level, when the BM is first getting its four dice, the Cleric has four first-level spells *and* two second-level spells, plus all their other class and subclass features (including Preserve Life for Life Clerics, which is a pretty hefty chunk of healing). How are you determining the equivalence between "one level of spellcasting" and "one level of superiority dice"?
Clerics get a level of spellcasting at first level and their domain. But first level domain powers are rather weak. Thus, if a warlord gets maneuvers like the battlemaster then there's really room for a small power, equivalent to a domain power. Possibly a little less since the warlord should have heavier armour and better weapons.
I wouldn't call them "weak." They're still substantial--not
large, but substantial. Often bonus armor or weapon profs; specific domains get bonus skills, fairly substantial bonus HP from heal spells*, fairly substantial magic damage boost (+Wis to cantrips--Warlocks pay invocations for that kind of bonus), or bonus attacks (Wis mod times per day). They're not
build-defining, to be sure, but they make a very solid commitment to whatever the domain should be doing, and matter most in the earliest levels while still doing useful work even at 20. I'll grant you that Trickery is a touch on the weak side (a
single ally gets advantage on Stealth? Really?) and Nature's benefit is mostly for charop (nicking a Druid cantrip basically means "you can get Shillelagh"), but otherwise the domains seem to be a solid start on the domain's core focus.
*The minimum bonus is +3 (2 + first-level spell), which is equal to your spellcasting modifier at that level (max stat, absent a lucky roll). This is more than a 50% bonus to Healing Word, and exactly 40% bonus to Cure Wounds--hardly what I'd call "rather weak." It doesn't scale well, but at levels 1 and maybe 2, it's enough to turn lucky-to-average spells into full 0-to-max heals for many classes: CW gives 7.5 average HP with 16 Wis, or 10.5 average HP with Disciple of Life.
The "unconscious for 1d4 hours" problem cannot be solved by the warlord. Should not.
The former is flat-out wrong--it
can be solved by the 5e Warlord, since the class is not yet set in stone; or, rather, it would be better to say it
may or may not, depending on how one was created. How you can make the claim that it
should not--an evaluative judgment--I'm not sure.
Yep, which makes flexibility an important attribute of support classes.
Agreed. Though personally, I'd call it "adaptability" rather than "flexibility" per se. Each support class has access (sooner or later) to a variety of benefits, but can also focus, to one degree or another, on dealing with particular issues. Clerics are best at Big Heals if they specialize, Bards can create a unique package of magical benefits, Druids...I'm honestly not quite sure about, though my only practical experience with them has been Moon Druid so I don't quite know how the more spellcasty ones would work.
I see nothing wrong with a Warlord that can
opt into restoring HP, as one choice among a palette of other options, supplementing rather than replacing their other, native sources of "day extension" (THP and/or defense bonuses, frex) and "force amplification" (which may, or may not, include attack-granting). One Warlord may double down on the THP, another may instead go for greater force amp--the latter is, after all, what most 4e Warlord guides advised.
Who/what are you quoting there?
I probably shouldn't have used quotes. I was trying to mark off the argument from the rest of my words, not indicate that I'd actually heard someone say that specific thing, but clearly I did that poorly. Though it has come up, here and elsewhere, that it is kind of sucky to design a feature for a particular class or subclass...which interferes with the most natural feat(s) one would take to improve one's abilities. Shield Master is perfectly compatible with the Protection Fighting Style, for example; having a feature for defending with a shield that used up your Bonus Action, for example, would conflict with that feat despite it being a (if not the) logical choice for such a character. Similarly, forcing a Warlord to focus primarily on THP makes Inspiring Leader largely a wasted investment, since it actively conflicts with any
other sources of THP.
Balancing hp mitigation vs restoration options isn't that hard, they both have their pluses and minuses, so a choice between the two can be balanced. It's the lack any choice that's problematic.
My thoughts exactly.
They're simply not equivalent, so, yes, enough damage mitigation to obviate the need for healing would simply be too much damage mitigation.
Thank you. This is what I was trying and failing to say. Bolded for emphasis.
The problem comes in when someone is down and you have no healing to bring them back, so you need to rest for an hour so they're awake enough to rest for another hour.
That's unrelated to warlord healing as it could just as easily happen to a party with a theoretical healing warlord of they were the one dropped by a lucky crit, or the warlord had used their healing for the day.
I am willing to accept "we overextended ourselves beyond the resources we had available." Such a problem is, as you've noted, shared by
all support classes, and thus it is no big deal that a new class also suffers from the same problem.
I am not willing to accept a class which suffers from this problem
every single time a party member is reduced to 0 HP, when 100% of other support classes
can address it if they haven't completely depleted their resources for the day--even at level 1. Why should the 5e-Warlord be saddled with such an onerous burden, being completely unable to fix a common problem faced at all levels (but especially level 1 and 2)?
Not really.
Right now healers come in one variety: complex. A low complexity healer would be good. That is a play style that is currently NOT supported at all.
A complex warlord would help add some complexity to martial classes, true, but there are plenty of complex classes in the game already. It's not filling an absent play style so much as filling an absent checkbox for high complexity martial.
As I said above: Can we really call it a "low-complexity
healer" if, by your own words, it wouldn't actually "heal"?
Also: "complex martial character" is definitely an absent thing to fill. And how is "high-complexity martial"
any different from "low-complexity healer"? If the former counts as mere "checkbox filling," why doesn't the latter, when they're effectively identical (combining a description of complexity and a particular kind of playable character, one thematic, one mechanical)? The similarity is so fundamental, I'm struggling to understand why you'd even try to use this argument.
Beyond that, even if "simple healer" is a desirable thing (and I'm not arguing it's
undesirable, merely that I don't know that there is yet call for it), the Warlord doesn't
have to be that class. We've already seen one Divinely-reflavored arcane class, so why not have an "Angel" pact Warlock that gets special healing-related invocations? Or perhaps the Mystic, which we know is coming and is intended to embrace a wide variety of "psionic" classes, could include a healing-focused subclass (possibly cribbing notes from the 4e Ardent?) Hell, one could even go for a heavily Healing-focused Paladin subclass, just as the Oath of the Crown is apparently a pure tank (haven't seen or read about its specific features so I cannot say for sure), though that might not be "simple" enough since it still uses spells.