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

[Neonchameleon]

"Virtually the same"? Regaining 1 hp per level engaging in normal activity, x2 for bed rest, x2 again for medical care vs 100% back with a 6 hour rest. That's not really the same for most PCs unless they have terrible luck rolling hit points and don't have a Con bonus.

We've had this discussion before.

For most PCs, recovering full hit points will take a couple of days at least. By shifting the party decision from "Shall we spend 6 hours" to "Shall we spend a few days", you open up a significant strategic difference. To make use of the x2 rate for bed rest, the PCs pretty much have to find a much better venue than holing up in a dungeon cul-de-sac, hoping they won't be found. And that's usually a big decision.

And to this degree of approximation I agree with you. I would point out two things.

1: I consider 4e to be vastly improved by making extended rests take a few days somewhere relatively safe and comfortable. I consider the default tying of extended rests to 8 hours to be a consequence of the wizard having done this historically and so that being why it was implemented this way. And in 4e as long as a character is down healing surges they are still wounded.

2: In 3.X Wands of Cure Light Wounds and Lesser Vigor meant that in practice most parties of level 5 or above simply didn't need to stop for hp.

And what is a pillar of fire but a hail of arrows?

Ten seconds, a can of gasoline, and a match. The arrows burn pretty well.

Wait, I'm confused. So you're saying that because a cleric has to pray for an hour to regain spells... our "warlord" would have to too (since to remove that rule for our "warlord" would be "house-ruling" and you don't want any house-ruling required in the process of playing 5E?) Is that the issue?

It's the single most obvious issue. The biggest issue is actually the "This is a spell" blinking lights that appear within the system of most versions of D&D. A spell is a thing and I do not want my warlord to cast spells. If there is some way to remove all the markers of a spell (the holy symbol, the meditation, the VSM components, the vulnerability to Dispel Magic, and the rest) from the Cleric in Next then refluffing might work. If the fact that something is magic has a direct impact in the game then this doesn't.

Then what about just reskinning that hour spent as the "warlord" going over his strategy guides, tactical plans, and inspiring monologues? Does that work?

For a resourceful Warlord, possibly.

To be honest... I don't think there is anything that a cleric can do (assuming you're smart about the choices you make on some of their spells) that can't be explained away mundanely.

Being countered by Dispel Magic is just the tip of the iceberg.

You just avoid selecting the majorly magical ones.

Cure Wounds is explicitely magical and thought by some to be majorly magical. This is part of the problem.

As @Neonchameleon and others' proposal to give reliable-instantaneous healing to the Warlord rubs me the wrong way, I think this empowerment (entitlement ?) plays a big part, and I would rather have both clerical preach/soothing and Bravelord inspiration working like skills than powers...

I'll drink to that. It's not what I expect to see in Next, however. And it's not anythingI have seen in Next.

The more I read, the more I believe (optional) Hero Points would be a great addition to the game.

Again, I'll drink to that. I do, however, believe that a lot of fans would hate this approach. And again I don't expect to see it in Next except as a very optional rule.

It would solve so many problems ! For instance, they could protect Heroes against certain death (SoD, lava pools, ...), enabling some effects to actually bypass HP, without being DM fiat or "I win" buttons

I'm afraid you've just created a dual currency between hit points and hero points - and we run into Gresham's Law here. That you focus on either whittling Hit Points or Hero Points.

To be clear, I don't personally think it's a good idea just to reskin.

I think @DEFCON 1 is basically right in that there's not really a problem with it if you accept martial encounter/daily powers

The problem with your statement here is that once again you aren't dealing so far as I can tell with D&D Next. Although martial daily powers were certainly in 3.X (see Barbarian Rage for details).

Because of the unified power structure which more or less says "Heroes can bring more and more impressive things when they absolutely have to" martial encounter and daily powers were not something you needed to deal with within the fiction. You could make up whatever justification you wanted. In a more simulationist system methods as opposed to outcomes are indicated. In 4e it's not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you.

but reskinning shouldn't be required to get the non-magical spike healing jazz.

Agreed.

But the problems with "bow fighters are just rangers!" crops up. I don't think THAT'S a good idea, either.

Part of the problem here is that the 4e PHB Ranger is incredibly bland. The only real ability they get that speaks to nature is training in either Nature or Dungeoneering. What they do is weild bows like a master or two weapons like a blender and know a bit about the outdoors. If I were to watch two people playing a tempest fighter who'd been trained in nature and a PHB two weapon ranger in 4e then until they drew their swords I couldn't tell which was which without looking at their character sheets. The sum total of the outdoorsy skills of the PHB Ranger is a single trained skill that anyone can take for a feat. So if you look at characters through a lens of "What you do on the outside is what defines you" then the problem isn't "Where's the bow or two weapon fighter?" but "Where's the woodsman and tracker? The class calling itself a Ranger is just a skirmishy fighter."

And this, I think, is where a lot of the incomprehension was coming from.

I'd say that's suck adventure design. "It's a team game" applies as much to the DM (or whoever wrote the adventure) as it does to the players. If the only thing you are doing in an adventure can be accomplished by one class, that's not a problem with the classes it's a problem with the adventure.

Who says it's adventure design? I run fairly sandboxy, fairly improvised, and how my players choose to handle any problems is up to them (and often not the way I expected). Also I don't think many adventures speak purely to one class (although we had a fun time when the party was two rangers, a thief, and a vampire - all trained in stealth and with dex as their highest stat).

So the Wizard, even if devoting all his power into a single capability, should always be sub-par in it? So then in a balanced party, why play the Wizard?

1: Flexibility. If you have a clue what is coming you can always be pretty good. Unlike the fighter.
2: Because you want to warp the laws of reality. Or just fly or teleport long distances. Things the rogue and the fighter can never match.

More to the point if a cleric can match a fighter at what a fighter does best and do other things why play the fighter?

Or, as the DCC rpg does you make magic less predictable and include an inherent chance for danger to when it's used.

That too

 

[Mike Eagling]

This is being discussed in the new "narrative space" thread. I think of it in terms of the players of non-magical PCs being able to have more-or-less the same amount of impact on the game.

Interesting. I'll swing by there when I get a chance

What this means in mechanical terms depends pretty heavily on what "the game" is, and on what counts as meaningful impact. Within the traditions of D&D, combat and exploration would be two key elements of the game. Despite being one of the "3 pillars", I'm less sure about how social fits into the D&D tradition as far as meaningful impact by players is concerned.

I agree. D&D (and games based on it) have got better at the social "pillar" but ultimately it has been added with retrospect as the hobby has developed over the years. I think this is part of D&D's problem--and it's charm. It's a simple fact that some game systems are better at doing things Gygax, etc. never even considered when they designed D&D. These things have been added over the years but they are necessarily constrained by the basic assumptions inherent to the system, which isn't always the best way to implement them.

So, for instance, if I choose to play a Thief, therefore upping my "exploration effectiveness" at some modest cost to my "combat effectiveness", it sucks a bit if the player of the wizard can match or better me in exploration and beat me in combat.

But can the wizard better your thief both in exploration and combat at the same time? And, more to the point, consistently? I'd argue a spell caster may be able to best a rogue in either exploration OR combat at any given time but not both; and the spell caster should not be able to maintain that superiority indefinitely. Obviously, if that isn't the case I'd agree there's a problem.

Is there a trade-off in the fact that I get to have the experience of playing a rogue-y type rather than a scholarly type? For some players that is a genuine trade-off - ie the "colour" of their PC and their PC's contribution may be more important thatn their actual impact on the play of the game. My own preference, though, is that getting the colour you want shouldn't require sacrificing meaningful effectiveness.

Well, there should be a difference in "colour" between different classes, otherwise what's the point? I think we agree here but I don't see a reduction in meaningful effectiveness whereas you do..?

My concern with this is that it seems that the cleric is basically a fighter-plus (ie they can fight like a fighter, but in their spare time do other stuff too) and the wizard a thief-plus.

No, the cleric is a "poor" fighter compared to the er... fighter (!) but has a certain amount of divine grace to channel into other tasks, some of which are improvements to martial ability (bless, Bull's Strength, etc.) but these enhancements must be selected ahead of time--the cleric must anticipate their need--and their effect is only temporary. After burning all their spells a cleric is back to being a sub-standard fighter--and that's assuming they didn't decide to plough that divine grace into other effects in the first place.

It's similar with the wizard and the thief. A rogue can rogue all day and all night. A wizard has to plan ahead to act like a rogue and this is a opportunity cost for acting like a fighter or a wizard.

And mine is that that would be fine if and only if a character tried to do one and only one thing. If in the course of an adventure you need to steal the Gem of Awesome on one day and fight on the next and you have any forewarning about either then the wizard can be as good as the thief on the gemstealing day while the fighter will almost be sitting out and as good at the fighter in the dragonslaying day when the thief will almost be sitting out. And you're saying this is fair?

No, I'd say that's poor adventure design By your rationale these encounters have been designed so that one character can complete them alone while the rest sit twiddling their thumbs; and because the wizard is able to use magic to out class the others he steals all the limelight. I highlight again that once a wizard has burned all his spells he's essentially useless.

Flexibility is a strength of its own and is one that Vancian casters get. If there is to be any shred of balance they must give up power in exchange for the ability to be able to prepare the type of power they are going to need.

Either that or you limit wizards to the number of spells they can cast in most fiction - Gandalf casts what? Six in the whole of Lord of the Rings? That's about the number that one of Jack Vance's greatest casters could memorise.

The flexibility of spell casters is indeed their greatest strength. Magic as described in D&D and games like it is a box-of-tricks that can be applied to lots of different circumstances. That makes them very powerful characters and there should--dare I say must--be checks made against them to stop them being all-powerful. The Vancian model is one such check: the number of spells available is limited and once they've been cast they can't be cast again until they're reset. Meanwhile, mundane classes carry on regardless because they don't run out of swords.

 

[pemerton]

And there were plenty of 3E people who didn't see the Ranger as just 'Fighter archer in all but name'. To them, there was as much of a differential between what a Fighter and Ranger were as you feel between a Cleric and a Warlord.

But mechanically there is no difference between a 4e fighter and a 4e archer ranger except that the latter wears lighter armour (but has DEX to keep up his/her AC). If anything (as Neonchameleon points out) 4e does not particularly easily reproduce the classic woodsy ranger.

I am not talking about differences of superficial colour between warlord and cleric. I am talking about mechanical differences. A warlord does not use spells. And in D&Dnext, spells stand out as pretty discrete and identifiable mechanical units. As Neonchameleon puts it:

The biggest issue is actually the "This is a spell" blinking lights that appear within the system of most versions of D&D. A spell is a thing and I do not want my warlord to cast spells. If there is some way to remove all the markers of a spell (the holy symbol, the meditation, the VSM components, the vulnerability to Dispel Magic, and the rest) from the Cleric in Next then refluffing might work. If the fact that something is magic has a direct impact in the game then this doesn't.

<snip>

Being countered by Dispel Magic is just the tip of the iceberg.

<snip>

The problem with your statement here is that once again you aren't dealing so far as I can tell with D&D Next.

<snip>

Because of the unified power structure which more or less says "Heroes can bring more and more impressive things when they absolutely have to" martial encounter and daily powers were not something you needed to deal with within the fiction. You could make up whatever justification you wanted. In a more simulationist system methods as opposed to outcomes are indicated.

What is spellcasting in D&DN from a purely mechanical point of view? It's that at 1st level you have 2 or more "things" you know, and twice per day you can do any of them. That's it. That's the extent of the mechanics of spellcasting at it's base form.

No. It's also memorisation from a list. And components. Including (in the current draft) material components. And its Detect Magic and Dispel Magic and Pearls of Power and saving throws rather than attack rolls.

If this game is meant to be inclusive of all players... there's no reason for them NOT to mention both ways. Maybe not in the same book or in the opening chapters of basic character creation... but in a "modular" game, I see absolutely no reason why you wouldn't or couldn't have a section on refluffing/reskinning/sub-class design.

They can say it (though I'm not at all sure that they will). It doesn't mean I have to believe them.

I mean, someone could point to Rolemaster and say "Let's refluff it's fireball attack table as a hail of arrows!" But that would completely defeat the point of RM, where each attack form has its own table that is meant to model the varying effectivenss of that attack vs a range of armour types, and also reflect the balance between mere bruising and exhaustion (concussion hit loss) and serious injury (critical inflicted, with a vast range of crit tables for different attack types).

In other words, and as I posted upthread, I don't think it makes sense at one-and-the-same time to present your new game design as a reaction to hostility to the non-simulationist tendencies of your previous edition, and at the same time assert that the new game can be treated in just the same non-simulationist fashion. Both these things can't be true at one-and-the-same time. If the cleric really is refluffable as a warlord, then the design team has failed in its goal of producing a game in which the mechanics bring their own process-within-the-fiction along with them.

 

[pemerton]

Meanwhile, mundane classes carry on regardless because they don't run out of swords.

Thanks for the reply above. I just wanted to pick up on this quickly: they don't run out of swords, but they do run out of hit points.

(Which brings us back to the warlord/cleric/healing discussion.)

 

[DMZ2112]

And if that was so, how is that a cleric can heal him/her back to full health with multiple applications of Cure Light Wounds? (8 * 9.5 per spell would restore 76 of the 77 missing hp.) Where are the light wounds that are being healed here?

All right, we're done. I'm trying to have a logical discussion, and you are just spinning on your axis and burrowing deeper and deeper into the metacanon.

"High-level spells must all cause only light wounds because they can all be rectified by multiple castings of 'Cure Light Wounds?'" Really? Spell name semantics -- that's the position you're taking?

I expected better.

 

[DEFCON 1]

No. It's also memorisation from a list.

Not if your warlord player decides that the only abilities he's taking are two specific ones each level (like Bless and Healing Word) that he will use to recreate a warlord. So there's no list to select from... those are it as far as he's concerned.

And components. Including (in the current draft) material components.

Bless, Healing Word, Aid, and Mass Healing Word do not require material components, and as far as verbal and somatic components... the warlord needs to use those himself (since he needs to direct and inspire his allies.)

And its Detect Magic and Dispel Magic and Pearls of Power and saving throws rather than attack rolls.

Saving throws are not required, and the DM handwaves away using Detect or Dispel Magic on a "warlord's" Bless or Aid, and in exchange, the warlord can't use a Pearl of Power.

My whole point is this: You can create a reasonable facsimile of a warlord if you need to. Manbearcat and others have done similar work elsewhere. Now yes... I know that what your point and Neonchameleon's point is that you shouldn't have to create a reasonable facsimile and that the game should just include it.

But in the end if it doesn't... then what are your options? Either not play the game at all (which you are well within your right), or yes, use a reasonable facsimile. And if you go that route... you and your DM handshaking on the social contract to gloss over or exchange bonuses/penalties on a few of the small bumps like Dispel Magic to eliminate any vestiges of "magic" from the couple of cleric levels you take on your fighter seems like an easy way to go about it.

I know you don't WANT to have to do that... and all of the threads here on ENWorld are all of your attempts to convince WotC that they SHOULDN'T have to have you do it... but if the chips fall a certain way, we're just pointing out that you CAN do it.

And it's the exact same sort of thing us 4E players were telling the 4E-haters about stuff like "feat taxes" or "refluffing rangers" or "healing surges" and the like. You CAN work around those issues. It's possible. And if we 4Eers expected the 3.5ers to do it... it behooves us to look upon it the same way as the D&DNers are asking the same of us.

Fair is fair.

 

[Neonchameleon]

But can the wizard better your thief both in exploration and combat at the same time? And, more to the point, consistently? I'd argue a spell caster may be able to best a rogue in either exploration OR combat at any given time but not both; and the spell caster should not be able to maintain that superiority indefinitely. Obviously, if that isn't the case I'd agree there's a problem.

The rogue should be

No, the cleric is a "poor" fighter compared to the er... fighter (!) but has a certain amount of divine grace to channel into other tasks, some of which are improvements to martial ability (bless, Bull's Strength, etc.) but these enhancements must be selected ahead of time--the cleric must anticipate their need--and their effect is only temporary. After burning all their spells a cleric is back to being a sub-standard fighter--and that's assuming they didn't decide to plough that divine grace into other effects in the first place.
...
The flexibility of spell casters is indeed their greatest strength. Magic as described in D&D and games like it is a box-of-tricks that can be applied to lots of different circumstances. That makes them very powerful characters and there should--dare I say must--be checks made against them to stop them being all-powerful. The Vancian model is one such check: the number of spells available is limited and once they've been cast they can't be cast again until they're reset. Meanwhile, mundane classes carry on regardless because they don't run out of swords.

Actually if endurance is what's called for, the cleric can keep fighting longer than the fighter can. The cleric can wear armour as heavy and has almost as many hit points. And the cleric also has a hit point reserve called spells. Fighters and clerics can both keep fighting until they run out of spells - but a single level 1 healing spell will push the cleric's hit points significantly beyond the fighter's. And the only reason that the fighter appears to be able to fight longer is that the fighter leaches the cleric's power in order to keep going; the ability actually belongs to the cleric.

And given how little healing it takes for the cleric to outlast the fighter, the cleric is both at least as good in the epic crunch fights and at least as good at grinding through speedbumps where skill doesn't really matter that much for the meatshield; the speedbump is going down under the combined weight of the party.

Unless you introduce cheap Wands of Cure Light Wounds or the like, the fighter can only keep going until the cleric runs out of spells.

And stealth is self-limiting. Fail at stealth and you have problems. If the wizard can beat the rogue's stealth on a single significant scouting mission then the rogue is pointless unless you expect to have two or more scouting missions. But you already have a wizard. Swapping your rogue for a second wizard means that each of them can manage one scouting mission and some other stuff, meaning that actually the break point is three significant scouting missions in a day. With three significant scouting missions the fighter is going to get very bored.

 

[Warbringer]

Is it time for Occam's Razor?

Either

a) major contortion and argument on meat/fatigue allocation of hit points and modes of recovery (all valid and wrong)
b) design a class in a game where literally thousands of classes have been designed and published across the 7 editions and where class design = publication= revenue

My money is on WOTC publishing a class eventually

 

[Mike Eagling]

The rogue should be

The rogue should be ... what? Is that missing words? It doesn't seem to make sense in the context

Actually if endurance is what's called for, the cleric can keep fighting longer than the fighter can. The cleric can wear armour as heavy and has almost as many hit points. And the cleric also has a hit point reserve called spells. Fighters and clerics can both keep fighting until they run out of spells - but a single level 1 healing spell will push the cleric's hit points significantly beyond the fighter's. And the only reason that the fighter appears to be able to fight longer is that the fighter leaches the cleric's power in order to keep going; the ability actually belongs to the cleric.

And given how little healing it takes for the cleric to outlast the fighter, the cleric is both at least as good in the epic crunch fights and at least as good at grinding through speedbumps where skill doesn't really matter that much for the meatshield; the speedbump is going down under the combined weight of the party.

Unless you introduce cheap Wands of Cure Light Wounds or the like, the fighter can only keep going until the cleric runs out of spells.

Ah! I think this is where our differences lie. In our hypothetical fight between a fighter and a cleric the cleric can't say to the fighter "Hang on a sec, I need to cast cure light wounds on myself" mid fight. Well, he can say this but the fighter is unlikely to let him do it. Maybe that's possible in some games RAW but it isn't how it would go down at my table.

And stealth is self-limiting. Fail at stealth and you have problems. If the wizard can beat the rogue's stealth on a single significant scouting mission then the rogue is pointless unless you expect to have two or more scouting missions. But you already have a wizard. Swapping your rogue for a second wizard means that each of them can manage one scouting mission and some other stuff, meaning that actually the break point is three significant scouting missions in a day. With three significant scouting missions the fighter is going to get very bored.

Yeah, I think we play this game in very different ways

 

[Neonchameleon]

The rogue should be ... what? Is that missing words? It doesn't seem to make sense in the context

I can't now remember. I think it ws something like "Limited by limbs rather than able to fly and teleport."

Ah! I think this is where our differences lie. In our hypothetical fight between a fighter and a cleric the cleric can't say to the fighter "Hang on a sec, I need to cast cure light wounds on myself" mid fight. Well, he can say this but the fighter is unlikely to let him do it. Maybe that's possible in some games RAW but it isn't how it would go down at my table.

The point is that our hypothetical fight between a fighter and a cleric is unlikely to happen at my table. The question is what both can contribute to the party.

And there are more or less two categories of fights. Big intense fights that take just about everything. In these under your model the fighter and buffed cleric will be equal. I have very seldom seen a buff spell run out in the middle of a fight.

And small fights which chip away at the hit points and you want to use as few resources for as possible. The sort of thing that the fighter not being restricted by spellcasting should put them at an advantage at. After all they can keep swinging their sword. But in these little fights (and there's time to rest between them) the fighter's hit points get chipped away. Every so often the orc will get a lucky shot in even on someone in plate armour. And with this sort of stream of minor fights the Cleric simply brings far more hit points to the party than the orc does. The fighter's ability to keep hitting things assumes that no one is hitting back.