D&D 5E Purple Dragon Knight = Warlord?

[Tony Vargas]

I question the level of "consciousness" needed by someone to hear an ally up 60 feet away who is saying SOMETHING and processing it fully enough to warrant "inspiration" from it.

Do you mean in a scientific/realistic sense, or a D&D-traditions sense, or a genre/trope sense?

Inspiration, to me, implies a certain amount of understanding; you have to be aware of what the person is saying enough to be "inspired" by them. If a character at 0 hp is conscious enough to be aware of his ally speaking, understand what is being said, AND become inspired by it

Inspiration is an emotional reaction, so it could very well be in response to the sound of a familiar voice rather than to exactly what it's saying, for instance. Seeing, but not hearing the PDK also seems to work - and I'm assuming sign language isn't involved.

that implies a high level of awareness, enough that I must ask if he is aware enough to perceive, say, two people speaking (in a non-combat situation) and recall the conversation, or recall anything that happened (perhaps with the eidetic memory from Keen Intellect) while he was unconscious.

Any of those things might happen, if the DM ruled they did. 5e is pretty open that way. A class ability can be a little more consistent, though, especially if it's expending some limited resource.

Now, if you want to say that an unconscious PC is completely capable of hearing a buddy give him a shout of encouragement from across the room, then that's fine.

I don't want to say that for you or anyone else. Rulings not Rules. I'd just like the rules to lay out a viable class - DMs are free to rule on details and render it non-viable, or more straightforwardly, ban it - if they wish.

It just smacks as defeating the "unaware" portion of unconsciousness to me.

Ever been woken up by something but not realize or remembered what it was that woke you up? Unconscious, unaware, but not deaf, nor entirely unresponsive. Hardly implausible for a hero in a fantasy universe who might (natural 20) pop back up with 1 hp at any moment, anyway.

 

[El Mahdi]

Inspiration, to me, implies a certain amount of understanding; you have to be aware of what the person is saying enough to be "inspired" by them.

Inspiration is an emotional reaction...

Yup. Inspirational Recovery is predominantly Emotional, not Intellectual. Emotion is mostly an instinctive, non-rational thing - not one of understanding. Not only is emotion to a large extent, uncontrollable - our cognition is informed by emotion far more than we'd like to admit. It's possible that very little of what we do is really free will.

There is such a thing as intellectual inspiration, but that's not what's happening with Inspirational Recovery. Inspirational Recovery appeals to the base emotions and emotional triggers of the subconscious.

Much like this: http://kfor.com/2015/09/14/mother-a...ng-newborn-babys-cries/?shared=email&msg=fail

 

[Tony Vargas]

There is such a thing as intellectual inspiration,

Do you think Inspiring Leader falls into that category? Or bardic inspiration (or check-buffing in general)?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Unconscious still doesn't equal Deaf, something it's strangely necessary to point out repeatedly in these threads.

If you want to rule that "unaware of your current surroundings" means that you can still hear things in your current surroundings, I suppose nothing's going to stop you. But I'm also free to rule that it means you can't hear things and thus you can't hear your buddy shout at you and that is entirely consistent with RAW. That's enough for me to say, "cool." It's enough to say that you can't be inspired back from a potentially fatal injury. And it doesn't stop you from ruling that you can, either.

A better compromise than any thread about the thing, I think, which is probably why they are paid game designers and we're goofballs on the internet.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you want to rule that "unaware of your current surroundings" means that you can still hear things in your current surroundings. But I'm also free to rule that it means you can't hear things.

One of the strengths of 5e is Ruling over Rules, yes. I have to consider 'unaware' and 'deaf' to be two very different things, but that's just me, and 'blind' and 'unaware' can certainly be used like synonyms if the former is used figuratively/idiomatically, so I could see equating them, too, and stretching a point to deafness, as well. You could closely parse rules and engage in thought experiments to 'prove' it one way or another. When you fail a perception check, for instance, you're unaware of something, you failed to notice it - the sense in question didn't shut down, you just didn't notice something you might have.

But, that's just parsing text, as a DM I look at what's good for my game. With the heal-from-0 rule, an ability that restores hps, but not from zero, is significantly inferior to one that can (and such abilities are fairly common and easy to acquire). So I have to ask myself, which version balances the sub-class better? Which works better for my campaign? And, if the answers are different: is this sub-class appropriate for my campaign, at all? Even if I do decide to keep the class and go one way or another, in general, I can make different Rulings based on what works best for the game in a given situation.

That's the beauty of 5e, and why parsing RAW and whingeing over it's worst-case implications for the narrative isn't the huge issue it's sometimes made out to be.

 

[El Mahdi]

Do you think Inspiring Leader falls into that category? Or bardic inspiration (or check-buffing in general)?

I think they can fit in that category, but they're not limited to it. Depending on the character (which attribute one wants to focus on), or the narrative that the player or DM use, I think it can be.

I think a Warlord can be an Intelligent Leader (using Intellectual Inspiration), I think a Warlord can be a Wise Leader (experience and empathy, both Intellectual and Emotional Inspiration), and I think a Warlord can be a Charismatic Leader (using purely Emotional Inspiration).

This is also why I think a Warlord class should have the choice of using Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma as its primary attribute.

 

[ZickZak]

Unconscious still doesn't equal Deaf, something it's strangely necessary to point out repeatedly in these threads.

Unconscious is when you are unable to answer to environmental activities, usually called coma/tose state.
Being asleep / hypnotized is different.

 

[Hussar]

I question the level of "consciousness" needed by someone to hear an ally up 60 feet away who is saying SOMETHING and processing it fully enough to warrant "inspiration" from it. Inspiration, to me, implies a certain amount of understanding; you have to be aware of what the person is saying enough to be "inspired" by them. If a character at 0 hp is conscious enough to be aware of his ally speaking, understand what is being said, AND become inspired by it, that implies a high level of awareness, enough that I must ask if he is aware enough to perceive, say, two people speaking (in a non-combat situation) and recall the conversation, or recall anything that happened (perhaps with the eidetic memory from Keen Intellect) while he was unconscious.

Now, if you want to say that an unconscious PC is completely capable of hearing a buddy give him a shout of encouragement from across the room, then that's fine. It just smacks as defeating the "unaware" portion of unconsciousness to me. YMMV and all that good stuff.

How do you wake people up in your world? Do alarm clocks and roosters not work? After all, if I'm unconscious, loud noises wake me up, so, I'm capable of hearing, even while unconcious. Note, I cannot take actions or reactions, so, I cannot make skill checks while unconscious. But, hearing something isn't a skill check. There is no Listen skill in 5e. There's Perception, but, that's different, and not applicable here since the PDK wants me to hear him. I'm in range, I can hear him. "Unaware of its surroundings" doesn't mean I'm in a coma state. Not when I can come back from it so easily.

Now, to be fair, the Sleep spell does not actually allow loud noises to wake you up. You have to take damage or be physically interacted with. By RAW, you can shout at a target of Sleep all day long and it won't wake him or her up. This is also true of other similar spells like Hypnotic Pattern.

Honestly, I think this is just one of those vague areas where every DM will have to make his or her own determination.

 

[Hussar]

Possibly true, but, then again, slapping around a comatose person isn't going to wake them up. And we can slap Unconcious targets awake.

 

[Imaro]

Possibly true, but, then again, slapping around a comatose person isn't going to wake them up. And we can slap Unconcious targets awake.

Wait... what? Where is that rule at?? As I understand it a physical strike on an unconscious creature is an auto-critical... so you'd actually be making his condition worse by beating on him or her...