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

[pemerton]

Hit points may represent an number of things, but they're pretty terrible and modeling the effects of fear, despair, hope, inspiration, or adrenaline. Primarily, this is because they have no effects until you hit 0 hit points.

In this respect, do they model physical injury any better?

I would probably go with an inspiration bonus or advantage to actions. Benefits to overcoming fear effects. Things like that.

<snip>

Inspiration should actually help you perform better.

Obviously in 4e "leaders" buff (or debuff enemies) as well as heal. But restoring hp is one of the main ways of helping a D&D PC perform better!

Leaders outside of the game seldom encourage allies to fight on.

Huh? That's not my reading of Tolkien, or 4-colour superheroes, or the romantic fantasy genre in general.

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

In 4e hit point loss does matter before you reach zero ("bloodied"); most healing is not Cure X Wounds (that is reserved for surgeless healing); hit points do not take a long time to recover; and morale effects (eg psychic damage, and skill challenges to inflict hit point loss via social skills) do burden hit points.

So at least in that edition the contradiction was signficantly reduced if not completely eleminated.

 

[Jester David]

I said:
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.

This is a little silly.
All the leaders healed. So there's nothing uniquely warlordy about healing. And even some non-leaders healed, so you can't even say that healing is especially leaderish. What is unique to the warlord is granting actions to allies, moving allies around the battlefield, granting attacks, and the like. As well as all the mechanics based around strategy, tactics, and similar flavour.

So it's silly to argue that if you take a class comprised of mechanics and flavour unique to it, that can only be found in that class, and then add one of the most generic of generic mechanics (healing) that it will somehow be more like that unique class. Especially as to add that generic mechanic and remain balanced, you will have to strip out a unique mechanic.

Think about it. Seriously.
The base warlord can: grant movement, grant bonus damage, or grant an attack. What ability would you take away to add healing? What should warlords no longer be able to do so they can instead heal?

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.

Which is still beside the point.

If someone wants to play a warlord great. All the power to them. There should be a class for them.

But the problem comes with mandating a healer be included in the game and then pushing someone to be a healer. If they don't want to play the healer then offering them the warlord instead of the cleric is not helping. If they're okay with playing the healer then you don't an alternative. And there are already three-odd core classes that can play the role of off-healer.
Reiterating: having a non-cleric alternate healer so people don't have to play the cleric does not help because it still means you're designing the game around having a healer. Quite simply, the solution to the problem of no one wanting to play a cleric is NOT adding more classes that do similar things. Instead, they should be designing the game so having a cleric is a perk and a healer is not required to play. Or options & modules should be provided to that same effect, so that parties without a healer have other healing options.

It's especially insulting when there are eight builds of the cleric right now and only three are focused on healing. More than half of the cleric options are not default healers. Why should warlords be cast into the role of healer when even the clerics are not?

 

[El Mahdi]

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[urLordy]

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

I think it's rather more problematic than that. When you assign Arthur and Aragorn and Faramir as warlord archetypes, what do you do when someone else argues that Arthur is a knight, Aragorn is a ranger, and Faramir is a fighter, or some other variation? Do you argue with each other forever, or just agree to disagree? If the latter, then discussing the incarnation of the warlord archetype as a D&D warlord class is about as useful as discussing a D&D version of Batman.

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 quite disagree. In general, classes ARE distinguished by in-game reasons, and I believe D&D Next touched upon this several times. It is primarily the warlord that is distinguished by metagame reasons IMO, which is why I've found it so controversial. (Mind you, this thread is why should warlords be tied into D&D Next, not why warlords shouldn't be tied into D&D Next.)

Note that I don't disagree that that metagame considerations are part of class design. I just think that the warlord is the only one that is primarily a metagame construct.

 

[Ahnehnois]

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.

Well, there is a good reason gear generally isn't suited to be a class ability, but special knowledge could be. But to be class abilities, they do have to actually fit the class.

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?

First off, being an inspirational leader and tapping into supernatural power are apples and oranges, particularly in these examples where the source of supernatural powers is external to the character, and given that they are not entirely understood.

Second, you can do those things anyway. In 3e at least, there are plenty of feats that let you be dragon descended or use spell-like abilities (and it wouldn't surprise me if similar abilities were buried in some 2e supplement). The cleric and sorcerer certainly get better magical abilities because they have invested more effort in training, as represented by their class levels, but their access is not 100% exclusive (because power sources weren't invented yet).

A better question would be why any sufficiently strong character can't use Power Attack or any sufficiently smart character can't use Combat Expertise, and to that there is no good answer (not until TB anyway).

 

[Jester David]

Huh? That's not my reading of Tolkien, or 4-colour superheroes, or the romantic fantasy genre in general.

I did use the word "seldom". Yeah, in the millions of pages of high fantasy and swords & sorcery fiction there are going to be examples of leaders who heal, or encourage people to "get back on your feet, soldier". But often the healing is unrelated to being a leader. Aaragon's healing is unrelated to his being a king and is all about his wilderness lore. Sam's speeches to Frodo doesn't make their wounds disappear nor does it mean Sam is somehow a master strategist.

But that's not the best representation of what a leader is. When you go through the short list of potential powers a master strategist and tactician should be able to do, healing is not there. At best, it's damage mitigation or ignoral; the character is still very injured and near death but can fight on for a few more seconds.

 

[Jester David]

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.

Wrong.
Bill Slavicsek was still in charge of 4e during Essentials. In fact, he was at the company until June 2011, which means all the books in 2011 and the first few months of 2012 were authorized by him. Slavicsek was not only in charge of the brand (the position Mearls currently occupies) but also recieved cover credit and promoted them very heavily during the 2010 conventions.

 

[El Mahdi]

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[Neonchameleon]

Wrong.
Bill Slavicsek was still in charge of 4e during Essentials. In fact, he was at the company until June 2011, which means all the books in 2011 and the first few months of 2012 were authorized by him. Slavicsek was not only in charge of the brand (the position Mearls currently occupies) but also recieved cover credit and promoted them very heavily during the 2010 conventions.

Mea culpa. I went by the first name on HoFL and HoFK. Which wasn't necessarily the lead. Slavicsek is the second name on the book.

 

[Jester David]

In my first post on the thread, I said this:

There are two very different aspects to the warlord.
The first is the idea of a tactical leader. The inspiring and strategic character that aids their allies, directing the battle and serving as a battlefield commander. He aids allies and directs the battle.
Then there is the idea of the non-magical healer who coaches people to shrug off wounds.
The two idea are very, well, different. They serve two very different purposes.

The tactical leader is an intelligent character but the inspiring healer is charismatic. They rely on entirely different primary stats. (And the latter overlaps with the bard.)

Thinking about it now, I think I was wrong. There are three aspects to the warlord.

First, you have the idea of the master strategist and tactician. This is where all the unique mechanics and powers rest: moving allies, exploiting openings for extra damage, granting attacks, spotting ambushes, boosting initiative, boosting defences, etc.

Second, you have the inspiring and motivational commander. This really overlaps with the bard. To build this character it feels like you should just multiclass a strategist-warlord with a bard.

Third, you have the leader. This is odd and causes the most problems because leadership isn't really a class, it's a personality. It's a party role, like the face or the skill monkey, but even more meta. You can have a paladin that's the leader (King Arthur), the ranger (Strider and Robin Hood), the fighter (Tanis Half-Elven), or even a barbarian (Conan). Really, Leadership is a speciality.


The warlord as a new class should really focus on the uniquely warlord bits, the stuff related to strategy and tactics, leaving out some of the Charisma stuff for the bard to better distinguish the two.
So you can choose not to dump stat Cha and play a leader warlord (especially with the speciality) or you can play an advisor warlord who isn't a leader. You can be as extroverted or introverted as you'd like, or even be a bossy ass.