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[Warlords] Should D&D be tied to D&D Worlds?
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6147370" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Are you talking about your own preferences here, or trying to offer a general solution?</p><p></p><p>I can tell you that my players have no problem with inspriational healing - PCs who revive when they get their second wind, or are urged on by a comrade - but would laugh at the idea of the healing houses that you mention being ubiquitous and inexpensive.</p><p></p><p>I must confess that I've mostly lost my grip over where Next is at as far as healing rules are concerned - I've been reading Mearls' L&L columns, but not following all the permutations in the rules documents.</p><p></p><p>But encounter-based healing (inspirational or otherwise) needn't be at odds with attrition, as you note with your reference to healing surges. If Next doesn't have healing surges, there are other ways of imposing a rationing requirement - eg the inspirational healing must happen with N rounds of the hit points being lost (or, to make the bookkeeping easier, you could say that it must happen within the temporal scope of the same encounter).</p><p></p><p>I don't quite get what "earning" is in this context. Nor do I quite follow your point about "nova-ing". Provided that nova-ing is properly rationed, the choice whether or not to nova is part of the tactical depth, and also part of the emotional experience (eg "That <em>really</em> ticked me off. Now I'm going to go all out!").</p><p></p><p>I don't understand why Fate Points or Iron Heroes-style token pools are radically different from rationing via encounter or daily limits. Obviously the technical details are different, and hence the play experience, but I'm missing why one involves tactical depth and the other doesn't.</p><p></p><p>AD&D had psionic attacks causing hit point loss. 4e has psychic damage. And AD&D and 3E all had the Phantasmal Killer spell, which causes hit point loss due to terror.</p><p></p><p>This is not true of the rules of Gygax's AD&D, nor of 4e. I don't know later AD&D or 3E well enough to comment.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Bot these posts are written making presuppositions (or series of them) that I (and perhaps other likers of warlords or of 4e more generally) do not share.</p><p></p><p>For instance, I see a purpose for warlords other than to "provide fuel to a fire" or force us to work out what hit points represent- namely, to explain what is occupying a space that the game should always have had, given its definition of hit points, but that it never did. </p><p></p><p>The suggestion that, until 4e, hit points never caused any issues is simply not correct. I am one of many D&D players who left the game for its late-70s and 80s rivals (in my case Rolemaster, for many others Runequest or HERO or other simulationinst system) precisely because of dissatisfaction with the D&D combat system, and in particular the oddities around hit points - they were at one and the same time physical (because required days of rest, or cure wounds spells, to restore) but not physical (because you could lose nearly all of them yet be not at all physically impaired). 4e brought me back to D&D because it presented a coherent picture of hit points, embracing the implications of them being a metagame device for tracking combat resilience. And the warlord is one element of that. (Another is the recognition in some adventures - eg the Cairn of the Frost King - that Intimidate checks can cause hit point loss.)</p><p></p><p>I think the Disintegrate spell is a telling example. I mean, if hit points are meat, and a PC loses all but 1 or 2 of them to a Disintegrate spell, then <em>how is that PC healing to full from resting</em>? Is s/he a lizard or salamander that can regrow limbs? Why does the Regeneration spell not have to be used?</p><p></p><p>Whereas in 4e none of these questions arise. If you take damage from a Disintegrate spell but haven't been reduced to a pile of ash, then we know what happened - you fought off the magic, but got worn down (emotionally, physically) in the process.</p><p></p><p>I have some views on how this can be handled - whether they are more widely workable solutions I don't know.</p><p></p><p>On "How well is he doing?", I use the 4e bloodied condition as a solution. You can tell when he's bloodied. (And this can be narrated pretty easily for most opponents - for stone golems and the like it gets a bit trickier, but they're not that common as enemies.)</p><p></p><p>On the description that is then invalidated by later events - the "long middle" - I find that this pushes narration away from "The orc hits you and your guts start spilling out", towards a more comic-book or "PG cinema" style of narration - more emphasis on the action, less on the actual injury. A post upthread mentioned greataxe criticals as an objection to warlords, but in AD&D or 3E if you narrate a greataxe critical against a PC in any graphically vivid way you're then going to have to confront the issue that anyone can stabilise that wound, and that the PC in question will be up and about even without medical attention in a time ranging from a few days (3E) to a few weeks (AD&D).</p><p></p><p>(Narrating vicious wounds against NPCs is a completely different matter. There is no need to treat their middle in such a long fashion - when they go down, they're DOWN!)</p><p></p><p>I think that what I described is not just gamist (at least in the sense of "step on up"). Feeling the desparation of your PC via a mechanically mediating device is key to combat in Burning Wheel, for instance, and that is a narrativist system by default (though no doubt hackable to a certain sort of gamism).</p><p></p><p>I also don't think that it's not fiction-oriented: part of the point of the mechanical mediation is to bring the fiction to life for the players via the sort of proxy experience I am pointing to. But I don't disagree that it is (or can become) limiting - there are stories and thematic material that 4e will never support, for instance (and likewise Burning Wheel).</p><p></p><p>I'm not 100% sure I know what you mean by "prioritising story". I think that in a certain sense of that phrase 4e prioritises story (eg by trying to ensure that its mechanical systems engender the relevant experience, so that your paladin plays as a stalwart ally, your fighter as a master of the battlefield, your warlord as an inspirational leader, etc) but I'm assuming that's not the sense that you have in mind. I don't know FATE well enough to just read your intentions off your reference to it, but are you envisaging a wider range of conflict situations than just combat as being viable? And/or a wider range of player narrative/metagame resources than 4e's power system?</p><p></p><p>Yes, I mentioned this point in that very thread. I think I'm on pretty much the same page as you, [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION] and [MENTION=79401]Grydan[/MENTION].</p><p></p><p>And at least perhaps in the same book as [MENTION=6688937]Ratskinner[/MENTION], though maybe in a different chapter.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6147370, member: 42582"] Are you talking about your own preferences here, or trying to offer a general solution? I can tell you that my players have no problem with inspriational healing - PCs who revive when they get their second wind, or are urged on by a comrade - but would laugh at the idea of the healing houses that you mention being ubiquitous and inexpensive. I must confess that I've mostly lost my grip over where Next is at as far as healing rules are concerned - I've been reading Mearls' L&L columns, but not following all the permutations in the rules documents. But encounter-based healing (inspirational or otherwise) needn't be at odds with attrition, as you note with your reference to healing surges. If Next doesn't have healing surges, there are other ways of imposing a rationing requirement - eg the inspirational healing must happen with N rounds of the hit points being lost (or, to make the bookkeeping easier, you could say that it must happen within the temporal scope of the same encounter). I don't quite get what "earning" is in this context. Nor do I quite follow your point about "nova-ing". Provided that nova-ing is properly rationed, the choice whether or not to nova is part of the tactical depth, and also part of the emotional experience (eg "That [I]really[/I] ticked me off. Now I'm going to go all out!"). I don't understand why Fate Points or Iron Heroes-style token pools are radically different from rationing via encounter or daily limits. Obviously the technical details are different, and hence the play experience, but I'm missing why one involves tactical depth and the other doesn't. AD&D had psionic attacks causing hit point loss. 4e has psychic damage. And AD&D and 3E all had the Phantasmal Killer spell, which causes hit point loss due to terror. This is not true of the rules of Gygax's AD&D, nor of 4e. I don't know later AD&D or 3E well enough to comment. Bot these posts are written making presuppositions (or series of them) that I (and perhaps other likers of warlords or of 4e more generally) do not share. For instance, I see a purpose for warlords other than to "provide fuel to a fire" or force us to work out what hit points represent- namely, to explain what is occupying a space that the game should always have had, given its definition of hit points, but that it never did. The suggestion that, until 4e, hit points never caused any issues is simply not correct. I am one of many D&D players who left the game for its late-70s and 80s rivals (in my case Rolemaster, for many others Runequest or HERO or other simulationinst system) precisely because of dissatisfaction with the D&D combat system, and in particular the oddities around hit points - they were at one and the same time physical (because required days of rest, or cure wounds spells, to restore) but not physical (because you could lose nearly all of them yet be not at all physically impaired). 4e brought me back to D&D because it presented a coherent picture of hit points, embracing the implications of them being a metagame device for tracking combat resilience. And the warlord is one element of that. (Another is the recognition in some adventures - eg the Cairn of the Frost King - that Intimidate checks can cause hit point loss.) I think the Disintegrate spell is a telling example. I mean, if hit points are meat, and a PC loses all but 1 or 2 of them to a Disintegrate spell, then [I]how is that PC healing to full from resting[/I]? Is s/he a lizard or salamander that can regrow limbs? Why does the Regeneration spell not have to be used? Whereas in 4e none of these questions arise. If you take damage from a Disintegrate spell but haven't been reduced to a pile of ash, then we know what happened - you fought off the magic, but got worn down (emotionally, physically) in the process. I have some views on how this can be handled - whether they are more widely workable solutions I don't know. On "How well is he doing?", I use the 4e bloodied condition as a solution. You can tell when he's bloodied. (And this can be narrated pretty easily for most opponents - for stone golems and the like it gets a bit trickier, but they're not that common as enemies.) On the description that is then invalidated by later events - the "long middle" - I find that this pushes narration away from "The orc hits you and your guts start spilling out", towards a more comic-book or "PG cinema" style of narration - more emphasis on the action, less on the actual injury. A post upthread mentioned greataxe criticals as an objection to warlords, but in AD&D or 3E if you narrate a greataxe critical against a PC in any graphically vivid way you're then going to have to confront the issue that anyone can stabilise that wound, and that the PC in question will be up and about even without medical attention in a time ranging from a few days (3E) to a few weeks (AD&D). (Narrating vicious wounds against NPCs is a completely different matter. There is no need to treat their middle in such a long fashion - when they go down, they're DOWN!) I think that what I described is not just gamist (at least in the sense of "step on up"). Feeling the desparation of your PC via a mechanically mediating device is key to combat in Burning Wheel, for instance, and that is a narrativist system by default (though no doubt hackable to a certain sort of gamism). I also don't think that it's not fiction-oriented: part of the point of the mechanical mediation is to bring the fiction to life for the players via the sort of proxy experience I am pointing to. But I don't disagree that it is (or can become) limiting - there are stories and thematic material that 4e will never support, for instance (and likewise Burning Wheel). I'm not 100% sure I know what you mean by "prioritising story". I think that in a certain sense of that phrase 4e prioritises story (eg by trying to ensure that its mechanical systems engender the relevant experience, so that your paladin plays as a stalwart ally, your fighter as a master of the battlefield, your warlord as an inspirational leader, etc) but I'm assuming that's not the sense that you have in mind. I don't know FATE well enough to just read your intentions off your reference to it, but are you envisaging a wider range of conflict situations than just combat as being viable? And/or a wider range of player narrative/metagame resources than 4e's power system? Yes, I mentioned this point in that very thread. I think I'm on pretty much the same page as you, [MENTION=11821]Obryn[/MENTION] and [MENTION=79401]Grydan[/MENTION]. And at least perhaps in the same book as [MENTION=6688937]Ratskinner[/MENTION], though maybe in a different chapter. [/QUOTE]
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