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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6732995" data-attributes="member: 37579">There is absolutely NO need for that kind of insulting or hostile tone. If you cannot have a civil discussion in a mature manner then feel free to converse with someone else. I don't hate the warlord on a conceptual level. Or even on a practical level. I hate martial healing on an emotional level and the proposed warlord on a design level.Inspiration and tactics don't really go together. Heck, they're not even really tied to the same ability score (Int vs Cha). The guy making the inspiring speeches isn't always the guy planning the attack. That and inspiring leader moment tends to happen before the battle. Focusing on both tactics & strategy and inspiration & leadership really makes the warlord MAD as all get out. And it really goes together ONLY because it went together in 4e. Because of the conventions of that edition. Which is circular reasoning: tactical leaders heal because the warlord was a healer so a 5e warlord should be a healer because it's a tactical leader. You don't expect the squad's sergeant to heal you. A new player won't look at a class called "the warlord" and is described as a "tactical commander" and assume that's the guy who restores your health. Heck, half the job of a military commander is sacrificing troops and letting people die to win the battle. That's the opposite of a healer.So you're okay with a warlord class who cannot heal by default? A warlord whose healing is a subclass feature? Or an variant rule in a sidebar?(Honestly… I'd be okay with a sidebar. Putting a "healing maneuver" aside like that would emphasise that it's optional in a way that reiterating DMs have a choice over and over does not. And keep the mechanic from propagating throughout the game, by emphasising to designers that it's non-standard.I believe I proposed this several times in the past, and it was always rejected because healing was "an essential, mandatory, and non-optional part of the warlord".)Spending an action to get an ally back into the fight works if the damage that party member can do is significantly higher than the potential damage of the healer (or, in the case of a princess warlord, any other party member). It also assumes that the party member is in a position to do said damage on that turn and can act before they're reduced to 0 hp again. Because the amount even a good healer can restore is less than the damage a monster can dish out in a round. And the healer is in a position where they can reach the injured party member. That's very situational. Really, a warlord power that granted temporary hit points and woke up an ally (slapping them away and inducing a surge of adrenaline) could arguably be more useful. Because temp hp don't last beyond the fight the power can grant more health than healing, increasing the chance of the ally doing something effective. It's not a playstyle, it's math. Math and the rules. A healer is likely to restore 7 hp with an average cure wounds at first level. This goes up to 12 at 3rd level, 16 at 5th level (assuming no stat bump), 21 at 7th level, 25 at 9th, and 30 at 11th. (Although, at 11th level heal is likely the better choice, healing 70hp.)With a couple stat bumps this will go up a point or two, but not that much. The amount you heal goes up by 1d8 every two levels while you hp goes up by one die every level. Healing doesn't keep pace. This is also at a range of touch. The numbers drop significantly if done farther away (restoring 5, 8, 10, 13, and 15).In contrast, the expected damage of a monster goes up by 6 points every level. A Challenge 1 monster does 11-ish damage, a Challenge 3 does 23, a Challenge 5 does 35, and a Challenge 7 does 47. A healer will generally need to cast cure wounds a couple times for every monster turn.Combat healing is just *not* an effective strategy. The healer will spend a huge chunk of their resources to heal 16 hp and the monster will come over and deal 20+ damage. But if you can kill the creature before it can attack you have more hp for the next encounter. And? The selling feature of the warlord in 4e was not that it was a healer that wasn't a spellcaster (because that was just flavour in 4e) but to be a healer that wasn't a cleric. It was to provide a choice for that fourth role.Now there is a choice. You can be a cleric or a druid or a bard. And you can be a good off-healer as a ranger or paladin. Heck, a sorcerer a single level dip in bard or wizard with a feat can also be a solid healer. (Albeit without the restoration spells.)The warlord's hook of being a cleric alternative is no longer needed. It's free to do its own thing outside of the shadow of the cleric. Plus, giving a warlord abilities that function identically to spells makes it a spellcaster, even if the abilities are called something else.That wasn't a shot at 4e. Don't make this into an edition war. I was making a design observation. 4e had fewer lasting conditions, and most negative effects ended with the encounter. Those few that persisted could be removed by any character at the cost of a feat, a ritual known, and some gold. But even then, those conditions were far more rare, and most were purposly places so they were encountered at the end of the Heroic tier at the earliest. Hit point recovery was an adequate means of being the "healer".In contrast, in 5e even low Challenge monsters can unleash some hefty negative conditions and effects that persist until removed. And there are more lasting conditions. A healer style character is far more than just hp recovery.Is there a non-magical way to regrow eyes, turn a statue to flesh, or remove a curse?This is odd to me. What's the point of playing a low/no magic game if there are classes that replicate the gameplay effects of spells? Part of the interesting tone in a low magic game is how it changes the assumptions of play. Of course, I found this argument problematic in 4e as well. One of the points they used to sell the warlord in prior to launch was that you could play a Dragonlance game prior to the War of the Lance when there were no clerics. Which seemed odd, as one of the major themes of such as game is the absence of clerics. The lack of clerics was meant to be detrimental, and their return was meant to be a momentous event. It falls flat if there's another character running around replacing the cleric. I agree. And I'd like to see it be even *more* different and unique, to focus on what makes it interesting and special. To be its own thing rather than focusing on an old edition's grid-filler abilities to strip away half its class features. To step out of the shadow of the cleric and truly become its own class, rather than being forced to conform to a paradigm of a very different class. To function in a support role that doesn't overlap at all with the "healer" classes allow it to be desirable in a party with those other classes without either feeling redundant.</blockquote>

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