Tony, you've dismissed characterizations like "shouting wounds closed" and "persuading an ally to not be damaged any more" as invalid, and as relics of an "edition war" of which you apparently bear scars. I'm trying to be open minded, but while these characterizations might be slightly pejorative, they don't strike me as entirely inaccurate.
They are both. The latter being the much more important point. "'Shouting wounds closed" is both pejorative from it's over-use in the edition war, /and absolutely false/. The power in question was "Inspiring Word" and nothing in it claimed to close wounds, let alone make them disappear. The only reason it does get repeated is because it was one of those 'lies repeated so often it becomes your truth" memes from the edition war.
You've also offered scenarios from popular movies like The Terminator of a character inspiring another character to soldier on after being seriously wounded. I think those scenarios depict characters who refuse to die, or who keep moving forward, despite the wounds that continue to threaten them.
With the help of another such character, yes. It's a common trope in heroic genres. 4e, intentionally or not, modeled it neatly with Healing Surges - which all PCs had and could use once/encounter via Second Wind, but which Monsters had at most one/tier (and non-heroic NPCs, very likely, none) and couldn't trigger at all - and Inspiring Word, which required the target have a surge. The Warlord could Inspire a seasoned fighter (allied monster, mechanically) or an heroic PC to 'refuse to die' and 'keep going' in spite of having been wounded, triggering and enhancing an ally's surge. If he was out of surges, though, no help, it'd take something like a Cure..Wounds utility or a Paladin laying on hands (since those prayers didn't requires surges of the subject).
In essence, 5e has two kinds of active hp-boosting. Healing and temp hps. 4e had 3: temp hps, surges, and non-surge healing.
Those scenes do not show characters who recover in an instant, they show characters who keep going regardless of the injuries that they still have. How is this dynamic not captured by (1) remaining conscious at zero, (2) recovering a small number of hit points like a
second wind, and (3) having temporary hit points to reflect the grit and determination to stay in the fight?
You've also described "enough" healing in loose terms, but stressing the need to stand up a fallen ally.
Yes.
If that ally doesn't fall at zero, gets enough HP restoration to remain conscious and active, and has temporary hit points enough to reasonably stay in the fight another round or two, then what more is required for your satisfaction?
Standing up a fallen ally, which that doesn't do.
How large is the gap between that and "enough?"
It's not a degree of difference, but a difference in kind. What's the gap between 11 eggs and a ham sandwich? No number of eggs makes a ham sandwich. I'm sorry.
You want an ally that can use an ability to restore a significant amount of hit points to an ally, even when that ally is unconscious, instantly and in combat, and that ability isn't magical. Help me understand why this should be a thing. Please don't just say "because it could do that the last time around."
It's a perfectly valid reason, by itself, and the reason behind many class-design decisions in 5e. For instance, there'd be no Vancian casting in D&D if 0D&D hadn't used Vancian casting. But, no, it's not the only reason. What you're describing, in spite of badly you're describing it, happens in heroic genres all the time. A character is hit, goes down, another holds the character and talks to him or shouts from across the room, and, nice and dramatically, his eyes open and he re-joins the battle. Heroes being beaten initially and then rallying to victory is downright a formula in all heroic genres, and particularly in fantasy - very rarely do they rally because some pious dude in armor chanted over them or they knocked back a round of Healing Potions. Much more often, it's heroic determination, often helped along be a leader or hero giving a rousing speech, or just being the first to his feat and moving. It's a trope, a cliche, even.
The more I look at discussions of 4e, the more I think these are two completely different games. I'm not bashing 4e,
You are, you're saying it's "not D&D," which was, yes, another edition-war 'pejorative,' and /false/.
but that game clearly already has a Warlord class, so we should be focussed on working out a class that works with 5e and its quite different game systems.
4e & 5e are both D&D. They're both d20 games, every class in 5e was present and well-done in 4e, both games use hps, had overnight healing, and HD & surges are analogous. There's no technical reason the 4e Warlord couldn't be /very/ closely ported to 5e. The biggest practical impediment to doing so is that it would be strictly inferior to 5e casters, having far fewer and probably less powerful rest-recharge resources (4e classes topped out at 3 dailies at 10th level, 5e casters start with 3 daily spell slots at first and go up from there).
Given that, and the different design philosophy and much more open design space of 5e, it'd make more sense to explore novel mechanics for the Warlord, that allow it to do everything it could in 4e, and enough more to make it competitive in 5e.
Hi, my name is Richard, and I like to argue. About anything, apparently.
I can empathize.
OK, so about that sidebar... technically, it isn't "describing damage," it is "describing the effects of damage."
Distinction without a difference, either way it's describing hp loss, and, thus, what hps represent.
It talks about what state a character is in when it has half of its hit points remaining, or none. That damage, and the hit points it erodes, are not characterized or typed.
There is a very clear distinction between damage up to half your hp total, and damage beyond that. The former involves "no signs of injury," while the latter involves actual, minor wounds, like cuts and bruises.
Thus, the first half your hps are no-meat, and the second half, very little meat. That flatly contradicts certain hp theories.
But, it doesn't matter, because it is, afterall, just a sidebar, and opens with: "Dungeon Masters describe hp loss in different ways," clearly leaving the whole issue that hp theories try to paint as universal entirely in the hands of the DM.
A character that takes psychic damage greater than half of its hit point total still "shows signs of wear," while a healthy character that takes trivial slashing damage "typically shows no signs of injury."
Sure, the guy taking psychic damage has a nose bleed or whatever. (And I just have to note that 'trivial slashing damage' could be 40 hps, if he happens to have more than 80 total. Nothing trivial about slashing damage that'd drop your warhorse.)
That suggests that damage is damage, hit points are hit points, and the description applies only to the character as a function of its ratio of current hit points to total hit points. The first half of your hit points are just hit points, and the second half of your hit points are just hit points, but based on how much gas you have in the tank you might look a little peaked.
So you're trying to say that there's 'no difference' between being 'hit' with an axe and having no injury of any kind, and being hit with an ax and suffering a bleeding gash a couple inches long. Clearly, there's a difference. In one case, maybe you're winded or not quite as sure you'll get through this fight. In the latter, you have sustained an actual, albeit minor & totally un-impairing, physical, injury.
Or is your point that taking the injury is a sign that you were low on hps before you were hit, and the injury
doesn't represent hp damage, in itself, at all? Because that'd actually make some sense.
I think this is reinforced by the fact that with 1 hp remaining, you retain your full movement speed and have no penalty to ability (skill) checks.
That is one of the elephant-in-the-room oddities of D&D that really effs up just about every theory about what hps supposedly represent, and, really, sets the bar for D&D 'realism' so low there's really no point in worrying about it.
It's certainly a risky move. But it keeps someone in the fight and gives people a chance to heal them before the enemy attacks again.
Nod. It's the kind of thing that might be one of a large set of commands or maneuvers or something, rather than a feature, for instance. If you have several healers in your party, for instance, you might choose more abilities in the tactical and buffing lines, and little or no healing, with something like this as a stopgap until the healers can do their job. If there aren't healers in the party, you'd opt for more hp-restoration of your own.
Of course, that just emphasizes how the class needs to be flexible/versatile both in terms of chargen/level-up choices, and in play.
Yup. And I stand by those statements.
Touching things that affect modularity should be limited and done very, very carefully.
That's softening your position enough, I guess.
Letting characters spend HD in combat, for instance, is the kind of thing that could be done in a limited way (obvious limitations, like once between rests, for instance, but also in the sense of being one of many choices, so losing that mechanic under a radically different-from-Standard campaign doesn't mean re-writing the class, just dropping one option it presents), and phrased carefully enough to work smoothly when HD are merely modified, rather than done away with.
I've been willing to compromise on the existence of a warlord
That's not compromise. 5e was meant to be an inclusive game. That precludes issuing existential threats and offering to 'compromise' on them. If you simply don't want a warlord, you have no reason to engage in discussions about it, and no position on it from which to 'compromise,' - if such an option is ever added to the game, you simply won't opt-into it. If you actively want to deny anyone from every getting the option of an official Warlord in D&D - and that's the position you stake out when you say you're "willing to compromise on existence" - then you not only have no business participating in discussions of the warlord, your participation sinks to the level of active sabotage.
And now I'm saying, "hey, this way of touching on Hit Dice healing is workable".
This is the only line in the post you replied to that mentioned HD:
[*]make a few hit dice available for healing if necessary;
And, this is the only thing epiphet had suggested, himself, that he might have been referring to:
Here's my thoughts on the matter: let the Warlord spend an action motivating an ally, at the end of which the ally could spend one of its total hit dice to restore hit points. If its total hit dice are 5 or greater, it can spend 2; 3 if 11 or greater; 4 if 17 or more. The ally can't regain hit points again from this feature until it completes a rest.
Which is an example, though, not a great one, of triggering HD, not of creating a separate pool of HD.
