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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6832153" data-attributes="member: 996">The idea of the 4e fluff text being quoted is that buoying the ally's spirits restores hps.  If you have some hope left, you have some hps left.  In that context, the 'eternal optimist' you posit would have to have infinite hps.  So, sure, if you talked the DM into giving you infinite hps, you would never need an inspiring word.  Seems consistent enough.  Also seems like you want to play very extreme, one-dimensional characters, for the sake of bolstering a position you've already conceded, above. No, you can always make up something that conflicts, you are inventing a problem where none exists.  Look, you've already acknowledged that you have no problem with the Warlord being an optional addition to the game.  There is no possible way it could be anything but an optional addition to the game, so what are you even trying to accomplish with this line of non-reasoning?That's an aspect of a class-based system.  If you want to mix capabilities of different classes, you do some MCing.  5e takes it a bit further with background and feats that partake of most classes' shticks.  You can be a something/rogue, or you can just take the criminal background.   You can be a something/Cleric or just take the Acolyte background and maybe Magic Initiate feat.  You can be a something/warlord or take the Soldier background for rank and maybe the Inspiring Leader feat.Really, the maybe-a-little-bit-warlordy stuff is already in place.  Backgrounds, a feat or two, a couple of SCAG sub-classes.  It's just the full class that's needed.But what if you're an 'eternal optimist' who's always pumped up & energize?  Or you're Eyore and /never/ pumped up & energized?   The magic overrides that (no saving throw, no opt-out), taking away your player agency in that instance.If it's inspiration, OTOH, you can always decline it, so you clearly retain your agency.Imagine any of them having 'Cleric' written on their sheet and it'll make even less sense.Maybe he has a level of Warlord, maybe he has a feat that gives him one warlordly trick, kinda like Martial Adept gives you a Battlemaster trick.  Maybe the fact that literary characters preceded the class system means they don't have to conform to it.  Instead, the system needs to model them, and a Warlord would help D&D do so a lot better.No, the quotes you mention don't describe the Bard's inspiration power as magical, they describe the bard as using magic - which he does: he casts spells.That's another issue that was hashed out in this sub-forum, already.  If you need to believe that only magic heals, or only magic inspires, or whatever, you /can/, just leave the door open to that same sort of (EX) power or magic-of-the-universe explanations as Bardic Inspiration, Dragon Breath, or what-have-you.  Rationalize it.There's a lot of room between non-magical and outright mundane.  PCs in an heroic fantasy game may or may not use magic, but they're not likely mundane.  Extraordinary, but not supernatural, might be a better way of thinking about it.  Bless or Aid uses a supernatural agency (divine power) to force a specific feeling on a target whether it makes any sense for him to feel it or not.  Inspiration can produce similar feelings, and it's a RL (mundane) phenomenon.  In the context of heroic fantasy, you might very well have an Extraordinary individual who does something that's not supernatural, but does it to a degree or with a consistency or a disregard for mitigating factors that far exceeds the mundane.  Just having more than a handful of hps is an example of such extraordinary ability:  a D&D character can enter into quite a lot of danger with virtual certainty of survival (without lasting consequences) that'd be quite impossible in a mundane context.</blockquote>

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