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

[Doug McCrae]

If hit points are purely a physical resource, why do they grow beyond a certain limit? Are characters just packing on more meat, more muscle, more fleshy tissue, more blood? The answer is, of course, no. They are becoming more resilient, more confident or determined, more aware of their physical, mental and emotional limits. When you accept that fact, when you realise how insane it would look if HPs were purely physical, you can see the use in effective non-magical healing as a way of accurately portraying the world of D&D.

Another possible explanation is that hit points are magic. High level characters really are superhumanly tough, which would explain why they can consistently survive 100-foot drops and so forth. But this is not a popular notion. D&Ders seem to like their PCs to be somewhat magic, but not completely magic.

 

[CM]

My litmus test for whether DDN successfully emulates the martial healer concept is whether the warlord (full class, fighter subclass, or whatever it ends up as) can serve as a drop-in replacement to the cleric. For that matter, same goes for the bard, and any other "healer" class. If groups can't function properly without a cleric, it the game will be a no-go for me.

 

[The Choice]

I tend to suspect that it happened the other way 'round. The definition came after they had established the mechanic (taking it from a naval wargame, IIRC) and healing. Later, after they realized there were some rough edges around treating heroes like self-improving battleships, they invented the definition to try and account for that, neglecting to rename or rework healing spells in a way that made narrative-physical sense of their names.

You're probably right about that. I made the assumption from a strict "left-to-right" reading of the rules, but it's very possible that there was a bit of back-and-forth going on with regards to HPs and healing.

Thanks for pointing it out.

 

[Ahnehnois]

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.

Those are also two examples that are clearly not class abilities for those characters. The archer simply has a powerful item, and the fighter has taken a feat or simply made a series of checks if you like the UA incantation rules (which are a nice concet). They are not part of the standard training and experience that those classes represent. If you're arguing that characters should be able to access those types of abilities, I agree. That doesn't mean we need a new class that makes an archer that duplicates the function of an evoker or a fighter that duplicates the function of a necromancer.

But what if healing wasn't magical?

There have always been rules for natural healing. There are also rules for improving it. There are variant rules for changing the rate of healing. Again, these are all fine, but the notion that clerical instant healing is required to play or that a nonmagical class must be not only able to do it but be largely built around it does not follow.

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"

Realism, as always, is overstating the issue. Logic and consistency are more apt goals. I'd say the rotten part is the people who have this opinion about magic. Magic isn't "special", simply different. D&D has pretty clear precedents on what makes magical abilities different from nomagical ones. They're accessed differently, and they have specific limitations and specific capabilities you don't see in the base game. There's nothing wrong with that. Plenty of people have played nonmagical characters in all editions of D&D with out developing an inferiority complex about it.

If magic didn't change the world by its very existence, if having it didn't allow characters to do things they couldn't do otherwise, it wouldn't be magic would it? After all, the "type of fiction D&D has always sought to emulate" certainly doesn't treat it that way.

 

[Cyberen]

"let the warlord kill the cleric and take his stuff" is certainly not a convincing solution, if you dislike the cleric.
I don't like clerical healing, and I have always considered HP as survival skill, not meat. But 4e roles reek of MMO silliness, with tanks and healers and DPRers. Having a panic button could be really interesting. Having a panic button hit again and again is just tiresome.
"Battle captain" sounds like a strong archetype. I don't know it it should be a class, a subclass, a feat, or "3 kinds of vampire", but I am quite sure it would be better served by mechanics favoring a more gritty tactical mindset (picking fights wisely, and when things go bad, trying to retreat and "revive" comrades through short rest healing, etc) rather than having healing fountains.
I don't think ad hominem attacks against Mearls are necessary, neither justified.

 

[Obryn]

Those are also two examples that are clearly not class abilities for those characters. The archer simply has a powerful item, and the fighter has taken a feat or simply made a series of checks if you like the UA incantation rules (which are a nice concet).

They could be, though. No reason you can't manifest a class ability as special gear or knowledge. Similar stuff happens in point buy games all the time, and it's just a small shift.

-O

 

[Jester David]

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

No, you're right, they can’t touch clerics. Or bards. Or artificers. Or ardents. Or shamans.

Healing allies is part of their impact on the metagame. Which was my whole point in the premise.
Their premise was the martial leader. The structure of 4e mandated that all leaders heal, so they did. Just like healing was added to the very leader artificer. This just means healing was a part of their role not part of the class. If leaders do not need to heal, then neither does the warlord.


Without a firm game-mandated leader role, there’s no healing mandate for the warlord or the bard or the druid or the ardent/psion.

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.

Replying to someone who does not want to play a cleric with “okay, here, play a warlord instead” is not any better. Neither is mandating a leader. Both fail at the intent of not making someone play what they don’t want to play.


As I proposed earlier, the best way to handle this is add healing to every class, or rather every character. Give everyone an Encounter power where they can heal allies or make a Charisma check to heal.
If healing is a matter of morale, there’s no reason only once class can heal via that method.

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.

No.
Read my posts.
I just want to add things as options. I want martial healing as an all-in module. As options DMs can add to their games.

 

[Jester David]

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.

Warlords heal a surge and a d6. Everyone else gets a suge+d6+another small kicker. Such as shifting with the bard, or spreading out the healing with the shaman. The warlord is plain.
The feat support might make them among the best, but that’s a reflection of the option creep not the actual class itself. More options = more power. If other classes had received that support they’d be better as well. So you have to evaluate the class on its own, removed from any options.

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

Because “encouraging and enabling allies to fight on despite fatigue and injuries” is only a part of the leader (small “L”) job because that’s the justification for the healing in 4e. Its circular logic. And it’s not something I’d think of a vital part of a leader. It *might* be something doable very rarely, but certainly not every day and definitely not every encounter.


Leaders outside of the game seldom encourage allies to fight on. Even inside the game but prior to 4e were not healers; the party’s “leader” might be the face or the strategist but they were not necessarily the healer. Two great examples of warlords in other iterations of the game are Tanis Half-elven and Roy Greenhilt. Both are warriors and leaders but neither are healers.


It’s also not a particularly poor mechanic expression of the story. Fighting on despite fatigue and injuries evokes being able to fight despite injuries not the injuries going away. It’s not healing, it’s ignoring damage, it’s continuing to fight despite being below 0hp.

 

[pemerton]

I think the 4E warlord pays lip service to its inspirations, and is only very loosely "based on the true story of" supposed warlords in literature and media. Once you translate a warlord-like character from a book or movie into a 4E warlord, there is so much lost in translation that one hardly resembles the other any more.

A 4e CHA warlord, or a 4e paladin, fill very much the same archetypical space: they are capable in combat, but their greater contribution is to defend and inspire their allies. (A CHA paladin is also more overtly magical, with a variety of ranged and AoE attacks - that's some D&Dism creeping into the archetype, as is to be expected.)

I feel that they resemble their archetype - Arthur, Aragorn, Faramir, Captain America - pretty well.

Why can't ANY charismatic leader do this if he is charismatic enough?

That's a fair question. But much the same question applies to clerical spells - why can't any devoted PC call upon the power of a deity? And to sorcerers - why can't I declare that my fighter is descended from dragons, and hence has innate magical abilities?

The answer isn't primarily an ingame one, it's a metagame one - D&D is a class-based game and it rations player resources by reference to classes. So warlords (and perhaps paladins) get to use their CHA in ways other PCs can't; clerics get to use their CHA in ways other PCs can't; etc.

I think for standard D&D, there's slightly different criteria. For them, from what they've said and what I can apprehend, the warlord as a distinct class seems to

1. Have a healing mechanic that works better as a table decision about the nature of hit points than as a specific class mechanic
2. Have an archetype that steps on the toes of the Fighter and the Bard
3. Have abilities that could easily be modeled with the fighter's bonus dice, spent on allies, or by the bard's buffing of the whole party with their voice.
4. Silo a set of non-magical ally-enhancing mechanics all within one class that no other classes can access.

I discussed the bard and the fighter upthread. Also my reasons for thinking that it has to be done at the class level - given the way D&Dnext is distributing abilities, and given the mechanical goal that this PC can take the functional place of a cleric - and my take on the existing fighter options.

As for your first comment, about a table decision as to the meaning of hit points:

The easiest way to make that a table decision is to make the class.

Agreed.

It seems like the specific mechanic you're looking for is "one character that enables allies to fight on despite their injuries, without obvious magical special effects."

That specific mechanic doesn't need to take the form of a panic button, or actual HP healing.

But in mechanical terms will largely suck unless it does - as [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] has pointed out upthread. And in story terms, unless it consists of hp restoration, it won't enable the PC in question to rouse another PC who has been knocked out of the combat. (To repeat: in RPGs which have separate player-side morale mechanics, like BW's Steel attribute, this would not be so. But D&D is not such an RPG. Hit points are the only consistently appicable player-side mechanic for representing ability to continue fighting.)

In fact, that's kind of not a great model of how those characters inspire others. It's not with a word or an action or a deed, it's simply by their presence.

This isn't true for Aragorn, Faramir or Gandalf, all of whom rouse by speaking words to urge on their comrades. As Neonchameleon has pointed out, Captain America and Cyclops similarly rouse their allies in their respective comic books.

It could be a bonus to saves (especially vs. fear or death).

As I've already noted, a bonus vs fear is not very significant in D&D because there is no routine invocation, in combat, of those mechanics. They apply only against a certain sort of magical mind control.

A bonus vs death is like a weaker version of hit point healing - it is highly conditional, and unless the bonus is very big is unlikely to bring the downed PC back into the fight.

That could be granting allies an "operate below 0 hp" ability a la 2e boars.

This is another option that is like a weaker version of healing, isn't it - conditional temp hp of short duration.

That could be something like the skald aura in 4e.

The skald aura is not meaningfully different, in this context, from the warlord's Inspiring Word, except that oddly enough the bard's presence let's a different PC restore hit points to a third PC by spending a minor action - the connection between metagame action economy and ingame fiction seems even more abstract in this case than in the case of Inspiring Word.

It could be creating healing salves.

If you want to play a herbalist, sure. This overlaps heavily with a caster's ability to create potions, of course. And doesn't seem to have much to do with playing a battle captain.

It could be an ability that cancels damage (negating attacks), or provides rewards for fighting on (temp HP for attacking a target).

Damage negation is generally not as strong as healing, for well-known reasons, and also does not play in story as rousing one's allies back into the struggle. But that's not to say that it's a bad mechanic. The same remarks apply to temp hp.

It could be bardic music (though that rides the line of magic, it doesn't need to) or something mechanically identical.

Ah, yes. I believe it's called Inspiring Word!

It's entirely possible to take a lightly armored paladin with a Forester background and call it Aragorn. Lay on hands might be all you need or want.

I've already commented, multiple times now, that the paladin and the warlord fill the same archetypical space. The reason for distinguishing them in D&D is that D&D draws a very sharp magic/non-magic divide (unlike romantic fantasy fiction of the Arthurian or LotR variety, which does not draw such a distinction). Also, a D&D paladin has a tendency to bring other mechanical baggage (alignment, falling mechanics) which are notorious for a whole range of reasons (and are in various ways connected to the diving magic branding of the paladin).

But if you really wanted a LotR feel, you should probably adopt a LotR-friendly healing module, like one that models long-term injuries and death spirals, but also allows for protagonists to be functionally immortal. Fate points + an injury mechanic sound great. And then your Aragorn works by taking a specialty that removes penalties for being injured or that spends Fate points on friends when they fall.

There is a litany of possible ways to do the healing and defense thing in D&D. Saying "who has the panic button?" misses the point that the game can be designed to not need a panic button

I could do all that, rebuilding the game from the ground up - or I could do something which requires fewer mechanical tweaks: namely, let my Aragorn PC use Inspiring Word to restore his allies' hp. I mean (and just picking up on one of your points), why do we need to introduce Fate Points when the game already has a perfectly good combat-related ablative metagame resource?

I'm on record as saying that I have no real problem with a warlord class personally, if only to appease the irrational fanbase that treats this one class as if it is the standard-bearer of an entire edition mindset (which is worth doing for 4e as much as it is worth doing for 1e or 2e or 3e or OD&D). I can't say I see a lot of other good reasons to have a warlord class

I don't really understand why you're going through all these options and contortions to tell me that a warlord isn't the best way to do what I want to do. You may not particularly care for it - that's fine. But I don't think I'm being irrational. I think I'm being very commonsensical. After all, unlike fate points, or damage reduction, or some of your other options, hit points and hit point healing have been with us since the game began. I know how, and that, hit point healing works. And 4e shows me that it can work even when the hit point restoration is non-magical. So why can't I just have that?

If you're unwilling to accept that there might be successful alternatives of meeting your needs, then you already have the edition that does that fits your narrow definition of what a fun game of make-believe elf-magic can be. Play it.

And this is where I ask once again the question: is D&Dnext the inclusive edition, or the "everyone but 4e" edition? What is so objectionable about non-magical spike healing (otherwise known as Inspiring Word) that a game which is meant to capture "the broad essence of D&D" doesn't have room for it?

 

[Neonchameleon]

From my perspective, the solution to running a no-healer campaign is- in 5ED's terminology- a module that shows you what things need to be excised (and/or added) to run such a game. So, for instance, getting rid of abilities that let foes regenerate, do continuing damage, adding possible caps (level related?) to damage dice on spells, or even adding a DR aspect to armor.

In which case I'd like to see this actually in the Next playtest. Implementation is everything.

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".

First, I do not consider KM to be a 4e fan. He might play it - but I do not believe I have ever seen him post anything positive on it on these boards. He's also at least twice posted lists of complaints about 4e that are simply, factually wrong. On one occasion he's been called on them and promptly blamed the game because he was getting it wrong, as was his local metagame.

Uhmmm...that's confusing...Warlord healing is non-magical healing; so what's the problem? And why can't it be used on someone who is down?

The problem is that it can't in Next. Or under KM's approaches. And it ought to be able to.

What?!?! Come on Man! When 4E opponents complained about how 4E mechanics ruined their verisimilitude, 4E proponents said it's all about how you envision it. That the mechanics can be described in many different ways; just use the one that makes sense for you. But now you're actually going to sit here and say that the above doesn't make sense?!?!

I'm not saying it doesn't make sense. I'm saying that it doesn't have the metagame and tactical utility. A healer who can only heal when you are winning and have scored a triumph is a hell of a lot less useful than one who heals when there is trouble. A very different issue.

Oh Come On!

Not only has Mearls never said any such thing, neither are you able to read Mearls mind. There is no evidence to support such a claim, and this is exactly what was mentioned in the thread about not doing as concerns 5E (No 5e bashing, please!). This is edition warring. Please Stop.

Let's look at Mearls record with respect to the Warlord.

1: Mearls has gone on record making jokes about shouting hands back on (never mind that it's not anything you can do with Cure X Wounds either).
2: When Mearls was in charge of 4e he produced the Essentials line. Which contained an analog of every 4e PHB class except the Warlord. And Essentials never produced a warlord - a not-inconspicuous gap.
3: He continually talks disparagingly about the way the Warlord operated and its so-called healing abilities. And claims that it should be under the Fighter and Bard aegis.

Thompson: William Wallace clearly went and inspired the guy who got his hand cut off to keep fighting. There's that--
Mearls: But his hand didn't grow back. (laughter) Now I'm being a little ridiculous.

And then justifies why the Warlord shouldn't inspire people to fight longer, just harder on Twitter.

Mearls: "Should a master strategist heal?"

How much more evidence do you want? It's not proof. But it's certainly evidence.

This assumption that seems to be part of the core of your argument -- that as long as spike healing exists spike healing must be required -- is false.

Go back and read my initial post. Spike healing is vastly tactically superior to any other form of tactical healing. You also asked what the Warlord should have that the current next Fighter doesn't. I have told you. Now you are trying to come up with reasons that one of the key aspects of the Warlord should not be. In short you are trying to tell me that the Warlord shouldn't be in Next. You asked a question. I have answered it.

Without a panic button and spike healing it is not a Warlord. This answers your initial question that lead to this thread. And spike healing is the only way small doses of healing are particularly useful - it's the equivalent of focus fire being a force multiplier.

Spike healing is a particular kind of defense, but it is not an essential or necessary kind of defense, and where it exists, other types of defense could exist, and compete favorably, mechanically, mathematically. There is distinct psychology and flow at work with spike healing, but it is simply one kind of pace. It is not the only way for an inspirational leader to help their allies cling to life despite the cold pull of the grave sans magic.

So your argument of why Warlords shouldn't get spike healing boils down to "There are other possibilities". Spike reactive healing is the one that should most be attached to morale and to tacticians.

WotC has shown clear interest in designing 5e with these other kinds of defense firmly in mind, and the existence of one spike healer isn't going to automatically mandate that everyone use spike healing.

Mind walking me through how WotC has shown this rather than merely floated it as an idea? I haven't noticed it in the playtest. Implementation matters. And spike healing, inspiration when things look blackest and reinforcements at their most desperate are the sort that should be the domain of the Warlord far more than e.g. the Cleric.

And regardless, even if you're designing 5e and what you ultimately want is someone who can spike heal without magic fluff attached, you probably don't want a specific character class to do that. It's not a great idea to include a character class that redefines what hit points are for the table -- it's not the best point for that decision. Much better to let the table decide what hit points mean via a module, and then let whoever spike heal (maybe a feat chain with high CHA as a prerequisite) when you've decided that such a thing is possible because HP's aren't meat.

Feat chains I'd argue are bad design. And a class is the single most removable way of putting such things in to the game.

Also why should the default for hit points be the one that is explicitely against the 1e and 4e rules and not actually supported by any other edition? This part has confused me if we're meant to be uniting editions. The default is the opposite to the only explicit way of handling hit points?

Sure, but if you want to solve the problem of needing divine vancian casting, why would you use a solution that still has a lot of the other problems of Clerics? Why not try to make something that has none of the problems of Clerics?

Because the problem I'm trying to solve is the one of needing godbotherers and healbots. And anything that has none of the problems of clerics is going to have problems of its own.

Their premise was the martial leader. The structure of 4e mandated that all leaders heal, so they did. Just like healing was added to the very leader artificer. This just means healing was a part of their role not part of the class. If leaders do not need to heal, then neither does the warlord.

That doesn't mean that hit point recovery is not a part of the emergent playstyle of the warlord. Without spike hit point recovery it will not be a warlord. And without Mearls going out of his way to mock the Warlord in an official podcast I'd have a lot more faith.

Replying to someone who does not want to play a cleric with “okay, here, play a warlord instead” is not any better. Neither is mandating a leader. Both fail at the intent of not making someone play what they don’t want to play.

Depends how you make the warlord. I know plenty of 4e players who haven't enjoyed clerics ever but happily play warlords. Hell, I'm one of them. Because the Bravura Warlord comes with an awesome playstyle. The warlord comes with only some of the cleric problems. And I will be amazed if removing clerics is on the cards.