D&D 5E Warlord Healing

[El Mahdi]

1) The actual mechanism for a death due to loss of hitpoints is incredibly vague.

No, it's really not. The rules are quite clear, as are the mechanisms at play.

0 HP is not Dead. It means the character is unconscious and possibly dying. Their body is fighting to stabilize, and the character makes death saving throws. Succeed at three and you stabilize. Fail at three and you're dead.

That even mirrors real-life fairly well. The body is trying to re-establish homeostasis. If it succeeds, the person lives. If it fails, the person dies.

The bodies attempt to re-establish homeostasis can be aided by outside influence; i.e., a Healers Kit or the Healers Feat - or pre-empted by Magic.

Barring that, taking massive damage (taking damage beyond 0 HP equal to or exceeding your HP maximum) overwhelms, obliterates, or circumvents the bodies ability to recover; and the body dies.

The mechanics are quite specific, and the mechanism is consistent with real-life.

 

[Saeviomagy]

No, it's really not. The rules are quite clear, as are the mechanisms at play.

0 HP is not Dead. It means the character is unconscious and possibly dying. Their body is fighting to stabilize, and the character makes death saving throws. Succeed at three and you stabilize. Fail at three and you're dead.

That even mirrors real-life fairly well. The body is trying to re-establish homeostasis. If it succeeds, the person lives. If it fails, the person dies.

The bodies attempt to re-establish homeostasis can be aided by outside influence; i.e., a Healers Kit or the Healers Feat - or pre-empted by Magic.

Barring that, taking massive damage (taking damage beyond 0 HP equal to or exceeding your HP maximum) overwhelms, obliterates, or circumvents the bodies ability to recover; and the body dies.

The mechanics are quite specific, and the mechanism is consistent with real-life.

I would disagree on a lot of levels with your analysis. For starters 30s, the maximum time one can 'linger' in D&D is incredibly short compared with the real world. For another, there's no condition in 5e where you are conscious but dying.

Most of all, that wasn't really my point. My point was "when you die in D&D, we don't actually know what you died of". If you linger on the threshold, are you bleeding out? Hemorrhaging into your brain? Suffering a cardiac arrest? If you die from massive damage, are you missing a limb? Your head? Or just a lot of blood? Or you just went into shock very quickly? Or you died because your brain ceased operation because of a lack of water? Maybe you're just choking?

In short - there is no point where the rules say that your body is in such a state that CPR would be impossible, with the exception of some very specific conditions, like disintegration that aren't curable by revivify anyway.

 

[El Mahdi]

In short - there is no point where the rules say that your body is in such a state that CPR would be impossible...

Yes there is. If one takes damage equal to or greater than their max HP after reaching 0 HP, or after three failed death saves.

That's it.

The D&D 5E equivalent of CPR is use of a Healer's Kit or using the Healer Feat - neither of which work after the above conditions are met.

This is all explicitly laid out in the rules.

After those conditions, the only thing that works is magic.

Now if the issue is the short time period in which death-saving throws occur (about 18 to 30 seconds), when people are revived for up to a few minutes in real-life (or longer if cold), then houserule the time frame of death saving throws to a minute each instead of each turn/round.

But giving a Warlord an ability equivalent to Revivify? Especially when someone with the Healer Feat can't do that... Why on earth would a Warlord somehow be able to do something a trained Healer can't?

That's the equivalent of fixing a shortcoming in the rules with a patch that makes no logical or conceptual sense - both in-game and real-life.

I would disagree on a lot of levels with your analysis. For starters 30s, the maximum time one can 'linger' in D&D is incredibly short compared with the real world. For another, there's no condition in 5e where you are conscious but dying.

Most of all, that wasn't really my point. My point was "when you die in D&D, we don't actually know what you died of". If you linger on the threshold, are you bleeding out? Hemorrhaging into your brain? Suffering a cardiac arrest? If you die from massive damage, are you missing a limb? Your head? Or just a lot of blood? Or you just went into shock very quickly? Or you died because your brain ceased operation because of a lack of water? Maybe you're just choking?

Actually, it doesn't matter what you died of - in D&D or real-life. A good DM will likely narrate it anyways, but it doesn't matter mechanically.

Death is simply put, brain death due to the cessation of biological functions as a result of loss of homeostasis. Period. It doesn't matter what led to it - whether disease, trauma, shock, heart-attack, stroke - whatever. The brains support system - the body - no longer functions; or the brain itself no longer functions (from direct damage). End of Story. This is the point at which a character has failed a third death saving throw or experienced massive damage. Why no longer matters.

But just because the rules default to unconscious at 0 HP, doesn't mean the DM can't allow some amount of consciousness - final last words, a cry for momma, etc.

And frankly, the idea of conscious but dying is extremely rare even in real-life. If there's any failure in the rules concerning this, it isn't that 0 HP equals unconscious, it's that 1 HP equals fully functional.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Yes there is. If one takes damage equal to or greater than their max HP after reaching 0 HP, or after three failed death saves.

No, in the rules there is no such thing as CPR. There is a state of dying that can last at most 30 seconds. 15% of people who fall into this state stand up again of their own accord if left alone. The remaining 85% die. If you intervene, there is a procedure you can do in 6 seconds that will stop them from dying, but won't help them regain consciousness.

This is clearly different from someone who has been dead for less than 4 minutes and can be revived via CPR which may last a minute or more.

Death is simply put, brain death due to the cessation of biological functions as a result of loss of homeostasis. Period. It doesn't matter what led to it - whether disease, trauma, shock, heart-attack, stroke - whatever. The brains support system - the body - no longer functions; or the brain itself no longer functions (from direct damage). End of Story. This is the point at which a character has failed a third death saving throw or experienced massive damage. Why no longer matters.

While that's certainly one definition of death, it's clearly not the version that happens in D&D, for the reasons I outline above. Brain death takes minutes, not a maximum of 30s.

 

[El Mahdi]

No, in the rules there is no such thing as CPR. There is a state of dying that can last at most 30 seconds.

I said using a Healer's Kit or the Healer Feat is the D&D equivalent of CPR. If you don't want to see it that way, that's fine; but it doesn't change the fact.

Even historically, mouth to mouth resuscitation was known as early as 850BC (Elisha in the Bible - Book of Kings). Paracelsus described a form using bellows in the 1500's - that's late medieval age/early renaissance, consistent with most D&D. From the same time periods there's also records of compression-like techniques used on individuals - especially drowning victims.

Why would you think a Heroic D&D Healer wouldn't know these things? The Healer Feat is vague on this on purpose. D&D is used for too many genres and representations of far too wide of a range of pseudo-historical periods to do so, shouldn't require players to know the history of medicine, and the PHB shouldn't be Gray's Anatomy.

And not to mention, I think you over-value the impact of CPR. CPR is effective in our modern day because of modern emergency room care and things like defibrillators. CPR is mostly just a stop-gap until some other form of care can begin. By itself, CPR has only about a 10% to 15% success rate of reviving people.

That would be an 18, 19, or 20 on a D20 roll... Pretty long odds, and definitely not consistent with a non-magical form of Revivify.

And again, that would be the realm of a character with the Healing Feat - someone the Feat describes as an "able physician" - something that a Warlord, by concept, simply is not.

Now if a Warlord wants to take the Healer Feat, that's a different story.

15% of people who fall into this state stand up again of their own accord if left alone. The remaining 85% die. If you intervene, there is a procedure you can do in 6 seconds that will stop them from dying, but won't help them regain consciousness.

That's incorrect. A Healer using a Healing Kit restores a character to 1 HP and consciousness - by the rules.

This is clearly different from someone who has been dead for less than 4 minutes and can be revived via CPR which may last a minute or more.

While 10% to 15% of people may revive with CPR, I'm betting the percentage of those that revive after a minute or more of CPR alone is extremely rare - like one in a million rare.

Reviving after a minute or more would almost always require defibrillation (the D&D equivalent being Magic), or long-term life-support with potential revival after a significant period of time and medicinal stimulation.

Again, waaaaaay outside the concept of a Warlord - and not to mention way outside the concept of D&D itself.

While that's certainly one definition of death, it's clearly not the version that happens in D&D, for the reasons I outline above. Brain death takes minutes, not a maximum of 30s.

No, D&D doesn't clearly describe death at all - just the mechanical effects and when it happens. However, the real-life definition of death is consistent with D&D - with the only exception being time.

While I fully agree that the time aspect in D&D is inconsistent, it's hardly reinforcement for the argument that a Warlord should be able to revive a dead character.

 

[Umbran]

This is clearly different from someone who has been dead for less than 4 minutes and can be revived via CPR which may last a minute or more.

Guys, if I may...

The number of cases where death from violent causes (as normally seen by adventurers) can be fixed by CPR is small. While D&D isn't specific about wounds, if you've been in a swords, maces, tooth and claw fight, if your heart has stopped, it is a secondary effect - the primary cause of death likely internal hemorrhaging or blood loss, which CPR won't fix. Even in the real world, despite what TV shows may depict, CPR is only actually useful in a small number of cases, and then isn't commonly used to revive the subject, but merely to maintain them until more advanced medical services become available.

So, really, it isn't a good analog for "bring someone back from the brink". It might be useful for "extend the period over which we get to make saves or receive treatment".

But, in any case, I don't expect it is something that supports strident argument.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I said using a Healer's Kit or the Healer Feat is the D&D equivalent of CPR. If you don't want to see it that way, that's fine; but it doesn't change the fact.

Even historically, mouth to mouth resuscitation was known as early as 850BC (Elisha in the Bible - Book of Kings). Paracelsus described a form using bellows in the 1500's - that's late medieval age/early renaissance, consistent with most D&D. From the same time periods there's also records of compression-like techniques used on individuals - especially drowning victims.

Why would you think a Heroic D&D Healer wouldn't know these things?

If magic is common enough, strictly-inferior mundane alternatives just might not be that developed. You can muck about with herbs and bellows and sewing kits and whatnot, or you can just pray to the god of healing and cast Cure Wounds, or head into town and pick up a six-pack of healing potions at the local apothecary.
Heck, a world of fantasy might just plain work differently down to a basic level, too, such that keeping wounds clean is no great help, but rubbing a toad on them, then burying it by moonlight, will speed the healing process and prevent the wound becoming 'poisoned.'

The Healer Feat is vague on this on purpose. D&D is used for too many genres and representations of far too wide of a range of pseudo-historical periods to do so, shouldn't require players to know the history of medicine, and the PHB shouldn't be Gray's Anatomy.

I agree, but, while D&D may get used for a range of genres, it's really presented in one - it's own self-referent 'D&D' genre. ;P

Reviving after a minute or more would almost always require defibrillation (the D&D equivalent being Magic), or long-term life-support with potential revival after a significant period of time and medicinal stimulation.

Again, waaaaaay outside the concept of a Warlord - and not to mention way outside the concept of D&D itself.

Defibrillators, and 'healer' schtick in gereral, yeah, not the concept of the Warlord. Outside the concept of D&D, though, I'm not so sure. D&D gets pretty weird.

While I fully agree that the time aspect in D&D is inconsistent, it's hardly reinforcement for the argument that a Warlord should be able to revive a dead character.

While it's fair to say that a mundane person couldn't just shout someone back to life, it's also fair to say that an heroic-fantasy character, even one without magical powers, is all that mundane. If a legendary leader has fallen men getting up to follow his orders, sages can debate whether they were really dead, really revived, or whether the leader was a closet cleric or necromancer for centuries after, if they like.


"Warlord Healing" is kinda an oxymoron, anyway. The Warlord had 1 utility (Aid the Injured) that maybe implied in the flavor text that it involved some kind of first aid. There were another 50 or so powers that restored hps, including the obligatory Inspiring Word, that didn't imply any such thing.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

No, in the rules there is no such thing as CPR. There is a state of dying that can last at most 30 seconds. 15% of people who fall into this state stand up again of their own accord if left alone. The remaining 85% die. If you intervene, there is a procedure you can do in 6 seconds that will stop them from dying, but won't help them regain consciousness.

I actually ran the numbers once using an iterative loop in F#, and if you go by RAW (natural 20 = regain 1 HP), then over the course of 5 rounds, a creature starting at zero failures has about an 18% chance of regaining 1 HP, about 38% chance of dying, and about 40% of stabilizing at zero HP. It's nowhere near an 85% chance of death.

 

[Aldarc]

The warlord may step on the battlemaster's toes, but the arcane trickster and bard already step on each others. The sorcerer steps on the wizards, and the barbarian steps on the fighters. We could go on with such comparisons until we are blue in the face.

I voted for #2, but I do think that the warlord should have some form of in-game healing. But having a variety of different forms of damage mitigation would also be helpful. I could even see the warlord providing what amounts to resistance by calling out defensive strategies to protect players from certain varieties of attacks.

 

[Uchawi]

I would probably implement warlord healing as touch, versus shouting, and maybe even use concentration while attending to a fallen comrade. Shouting can then be used for inspiration based mechanics, or even granting advantage or another save. Then you would have to decide what warlord healing does. I get the temporary hit point argument (as adrenaline), so maybe the warlord specialization can bypass the temporary hit points can not raise a character above zero. But if the warlord falls, then you could implement all temporary hit points granted are lost. The other route is to allow warlord access to rituals, without needing to be a caster. Basically the warlord uses any tool at their disposal to win the day. In that sense, you could also limit how often a warlord can restore hit points (through rituals), so it is not as fast or efficient as a cleric. You could probably implement a similar mechanic for kits, where the warlord has martial practices or similar methods available to be a field medic. So that would extend some ability to recover from poisons, etc.