Warlords Heal?

[Falling Icicle]

I'm not really against the idea of Warlords being healers, I'm just trying to figure out how they justify it. Healing has always been a magical ability. Are martial characters given magical powers? Does the Warlord have super bandaids that magically seal wounds before people's eyes? Does he "encourage" people causing their wounds to rapidly regenerate? No matter how I try to come up with a mundane explanation for combat healing, I just can't think of any way to rationally explain it other than the supernatural.

 

[Wolfspider]

Well, if you consider that hit points have traditionally represented more than just obvious, bleeding wounds, then it is possible that the warlord has an ability to inspire those in his army...errr...party...to continue fighting despite being exhausted and bruised up and just plain worn down. If this is the case with 4e, then hit points still will be an abstraction as they have been in previous editions (with all the strengths and weaknesses of such an approach).

Then again, we have seen the term "bloodied" (which seems to be the point at which a creature reaches 1/2 hit poins) used in the monster stats of the Spined Devil. A creature being bloodied has the denotation connotation that there are actual bleeding wounds, although of course there could be a less literal interpretation used in the rules.

I'm thinking the warlord uses inspiration to "heal." I don't think there is any regeneration or super-bandaids involved at all.

 

[rounser]

"He's a good healer, like any leader..."

Riiiiight. Keep saying that and maybe it'll be believable.

Suggests it's a class ability common to "leader classes", which seems to indicate that they've gone overboard with the "game needs this" stuff at the expense of archetypes. I really hope they're not that unwise. But then again, "warlord" as an archetype is DOA as a core class in a D&D game to me anyway, so meh.

If it's some sort of healing skill in the middle of combat, then that doesn't wash ("quick, I'll perform surgery on you this round in the middle of battle!"), so odds are it's a supernatural class ability. Weird. Even if I bought into the warlord thing (which I don't), that would be a challenge to suspension of disbelief.

 

[WayneLigon]

If it's some sort of healing skill in the middle of combat, then that doesn't wash ("quick, I'll perform surgery on you this round in the middle of battle!"), so odds are it's a supernatural class ability. Weird. Even if I bought into the warlord thing (which I don't), that would be a challenge to suspension of disbelief.

We don't really know how the ability works (Hey, maybe there are different kinds of 'healing' in 4E, such as dispelling Conditions), but I'm thinking Wolfspider has the right of it here. There is no 'surgery' involved since there is no actual wound he's healing; since you're not actually taking cuts and scrapes and stab wounds until the last few hit points anyway, what he's 'healing' is your ability to continue fighting via inspiration or command.

Maybe someday we'll have a less abstract system that deals with this sort of thing but I doubt it. Hitpoints are fairly simple to keep track of and most other systems I've seen for this sort of thing are either more abstract that this (The Savage Worlds 'Wounds' system for example) or are hopeless messes of 'did I strike him in the kidney'-type minutia. My hope is that they finally explain the specific type of abstract system we're dealing with here in the PHB and not in some web enhancement article (the best explanation of the hit point system I've ever seen is buried in a Star Wars RPG web article).

 

[Vigilance]

Given that hit points represent endurance more than sucking up physical punishment (since high level humans have more HP than elephants), a leader could restore HP by "rallying the troops".

Makes sense to me.

 

[Wormwood]

Leader inspires me to press on despite my wounds and fatigue?

*shrug*

Don't see the problem here.

 

[Henry]

Leader inspires me to press on despite my wounds and fatigue?

*shrug*

Don't see the problem here.

That's probably where it comes from. The Crusader in Tome of Battle has similar abilities, like the Martial Spirit stance, and his "healing" strikes. "This healing represents the vigor, drive, and toughness you inspire in others." Same thing with the Second Wind ability from Star Wars. Admittedly, they do need to rewrite some of that flavor text, because as it was written, the healing strikes are described with "divine energy", yet they're Extraordinary abilities.

 

[Aage]

Yeah, hp as an abstract measure for stamina and luck works fine, and it would make warlord healing "inspirational boost" rather than actual healing... I have my concerns with the Hp system (such as a rogue sticking his dagger in a totally unaware guard, who survives), but most of the time it works well...

 

[lukelightning]

It's like the cliche in movies when someone dies and the hero performs shoddy CPR and pounds on the dying person's chest and shouts "don't give up on me!" and miraculously revives the patient.

Or, for an evil warlord, it's like when you're a kid and you're at camp and hurt yourself and you go to the camp counselor for help and he says "stop being such a something something and quit your bitching!"

 

[WhatGravitas]

Or, for an evil warlord, it's like when you're a kid and you're at camp and hurt yourself and you go to the camp counselor for help and he says "stop being such a something something and quit your bitching!"

What I'd totally love would be a warlord, who can perform short-term healing (i.e. hp) at the cost of long-term damage (Con damage), meaning that the warlord can do a net heal during a combat, but will increase the recovery period afterwards.

The in-combat usefulness would be still there, but it would distinguish magical from mundane healing. Then add the fact, that a warlord has probably the Heal skill as class skill, so he can also help with that and we could get a warlord, which net effect on healing is very similar to a cleric, but implemented through different means and different mechanical flavour.

The clerics patches up during combat, the warlord drives them to over-exert themselves, then sits at the bed and patches them up there.

Cheers, LT.