D&D 5E [Warlords] Should D&D be tied to D&D Worlds?

[The Choice]

The wizard is really a D&D-ism as well. Perhaps we need a version of the fighter that can shoot balls of fire and animate the dead.

Why can't we? Seriously. What if I want to make an archer-type fighter with a quiver full of trick arrows (like one filled with alchemical fire that bursts into a ball of flame when it hits)? What if my fighter character, traumatized by his own constant brushes with death became fascinated with it, and taught himself rituals to raise the fallen combattants from the battlefield? These are just two exemples that can be traced back to the type of fiction D&D has always sought to emulate.

After all, you can't possibly play a D&D game without [insert magical ability here], so why are we forcing players into the archetype of [insert magical class here]? What we really need is a [insert made-up martial class here] that duplicates that essential function.

But what if healing wasn't magical? Like it already is. If we accept that hit points are an abstraction of a lot of factors (a bit of health, a bit of morale, a bit of luck, all mixed in a nice stew) like it has in every edition of D&D ever, it makes sense that non-magical ways to "heal" (or more correctly recover hp) be included in D&D. I'm just stunned it took 4 editions (+OD&D, +Basic D&D) to understand this.

This is, again, a symptom of a disease that has rotted this game to the core : magic-users are always special, and non-magical classes are just random everybodies who can't do crap because it's not "realistic", or because it's "immersion-breaking" ("now shut up while I kill this dragon who couldn't possibly fly by throwing bat guano in the air) or because "that's how it's been since I was 12".

 

[Neonchameleon]

And I recognize a stubborn endless argument when I see one. I empathize (albeit disagree) with your cause, but if you want to persuade others that warlords "should be" tied into D&D, well, I remain uninspired by all the red herrings.

Warlords, like it or not, are a part of D&D and have been for about five years now - they are even in a PHB. [MENTION=697]mearls[/MENTION] wants to remove them.

Read: warlords are the best healers once you take the feats, powers, and other options designed to make them not the worst healers.

Warlord are decent healers. Still can't touch Clerics who are trying just as hard.

And healing allies is part of their role, yes.

Healing allies is part of their impact on the metagame. Which was my whole point in the premise. So far, only Kamikaze Midget has tried to tackle that central thrust of my OP - and he's done it by hypothesising a D&D in which the Cleric did not exist.

4e was awesome for its fans, but we shouldn't feel obligated to follow its structure and limitations.

Apparently you don't want it to add things to the game and allow you to use parties and functions that were almost impossible either.

 

[Umbran]

These are just two exemples that can be traced back to the type of fiction D&D has always sought to emulate.

Perhaps. But note that the fiction D&D has sought to emulate is fiction, and not a game that has to worry about the balance between different players. Nobody minds if the solo main character of a novel has all the cool powerz. But, at the game table, there are other real people who also have to be able to have fun. If you try to build the "I'm good at fighting, and at magic, and at social skills, and I also knit a mean sweater..." character, you're going to be stepping on toes. Thus, nobody gets to be able to do *everything*.

 

[urLordy]

Warlords, like it or not, are a part of D&D and have been for about five years now - they are even in a PHB. @mearls wants to remove them.
<snip>
Healing allies is part of their impact on the metagame. Which was my whole point in the premise. So far, only Kamikaze Midget has tried to tackle that central thrust of my OP - and he's done it by hypothesising a D&D in which the Cleric did not exist.

For those of us who have seemingly missed the point, perhaps you could clarify what this thread is about again. You wrote that "4e fans want a Warlord resembling the 4e Warlord in D&D Next. So we can continue to play the vast range of settings and campaigns into which D&D Clerics simply don't fit." Because what I've read into the various arguments is that a 4E warlord should exist as is side-by-side with clerics in any D&D Next setting, and AFIACT, KM and others are saying (and I agree) that warlords doesn't have to exist in its 4e incarnation in order to effect non-magical healing, which contradicts the OP about ""4e fans want a Warlord resembling the 4e Warlord in D&D Next".

 

[Doug McCrae]

But what if healing wasn't magical? Like it already is. If we accept that hit points are an abstraction of a lot of factors (a bit of health, a bit of morale, a bit of luck, all mixed in a nice stew) like it has in every edition of D&D ever, it makes sense that non-magical ways to "heal" (or more correctly recover hp) be included in D&D. I'm just stunned it took 4 editions (+OD&D, +Basic D&D) to understand this.

You're absolutely right that the explanation of hit points in the game text, the most detailed being in 1e, has always been that hit points have both a physical and non-physical component. However this explanation didn't square well with the way hit points actually functioned in rules terms - their loss is irrelevant until a character is down to zero, which seems to indicate that they represent nothing important, either physical or non-physical; healing spells are named Cure X Wounds, which seems to indicate that they are purely physical; hit points take a long time to recover, which also seems to indicate that they are physical; there are game features which affect morale, luck, skill and so forth but these don't seem to have a bearing on hit points, for example the spell bless in 1e affects morale but not hit points.

So there's always been this contradiction, where the rules said one thing and the explanation of hit points said another. I think most D&Ders either, like me, never really bothered about it in actual play, or went with the rules over the explanation and thought that hit points were physical.

 

[The Choice]

If you try to build the "I'm good at fighting, and at magic, and at social skills, and I also knit a mean sweater..." character, you're going to be stepping on toes. Thus, nobody gets to be able to do *everything*.

Problem is, those already exist : they're called spellcasters from 3rd edition D&D (and, to a certain degree, previous D&D editions, and D&DNext).

 

[El Mahdi]

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[Obryn]

Read: warlords are the best healers once you take the feats, powers, and other options designed to make them not the worst healers.

Err, no... By and large, they're even with or better than most other leaders at healing (everyone is behind the cleric), but their feat support makes them among the best. Just like other leaders.

And healing allies is part of their role, yes. But roles are a 4e invention which classes are no longer forced to conform to.
Healing is no more a vital and essential part of the class than marking is to the paladin and fighter, or quarry for the ranger.

4e was awesome for its fans, but we shouldn't feel obligated to follow its structure and limitations.

You're taking "role" in the 4e sense. I'm not. Use "job" if you will. Or archetype, or narrative function, etc. Why is encouraging and enabling their allies to fight on despite fatigue and injuries "tacked on"? What's inappropriate about including that with a class that represents a (small "L") leader?

-O

 

[El Mahdi]

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[El Mahdi]

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