Why we need Warlords in D&DN

[Aldarc]

Well that's clearly not indicative of concerns beyond your personal sphere. If a new player wanted to create a halfling called Clint Eastwood wearing a cowboy hat and using a sling, then I don't see much point in complaining because if you don't like his character concept you don't have to play it. If 5E puts warlords in the core, and a warlord PC starts shouting at my PC from the back of the line, I might just roleplay "What?! I can't hear you!"

Bardic music must be rough on you.

 

[LurkAway]

Which raises another issue - how much metagame influence should there be on the distribution of class abilities?

IMO, only enough to fulfill WoTC's stated goal of unifying players from ALL editions. Which I hope means no warlords in the core. If 5E produces a martial expansion pack with Warlords and Come and Get It, that's fine -- I'll know not to join the group that plays with that tactical martial option. Another possibility is the fragmentation of class structure like the "Dear Monte" thread which is Class Role + Social Role + Professional Role or Class Role + Combat Role + Social Role or some sort of variation like that (I can't remember). Then you can have Fighter + Inspirational Leader or Cleric + Inspirational Leader and that might make warlords a little more palatable for most, but the devil is in the details I guess.

 

[LurkAway]

Bardic music must be rough on you.

Don't get me started on bards insulting skeletons to death

No, I mean, seriously, don't, that subthread went on for pages and pages

 

[pemerton]

I think people are largely uncomfortable with the healing aspect of warlords.

That does seem to be the case.

I think a reasonable solution would be what many have suggested: turn warlords into a class that, rather than healing, grant temporary hit points. The end result is the same, but it more easily lends itself to the idea that warlords are improving characters' morale rather than simply healing them through the power of friendship, leadership, etc.

That doesn't work for me, but I'm probably a minority.

If hit points are meat, then how does a warlord's Inspiring Word increase another PC's meat? If hit points are morale/willingness to keep going, then why is it any more problematic to restore them than to a grant temporary boost to them?

The first time I remember encountering temp hp in the game is the cleric's Aid spell in Unearthed Arcana. This is a precedent for the idea that if healing requires magic, then so does boosting a PC's ability to absorb damage.

A second reason why temp hp aren't the same as healing is that they play out quite differently as far as pacing is concerned. A general feature of 4e is to reduce buffing, and increase the need for players to work together to respond during a combat encounter to the challenges it throws up. Changing a warlord from healing to temp hp reverses this trend.

And this is not just an issue for the pacing of the tactical game. It is a story issue. Inspiring your friend at the start of the combat with a temp hp buff is less exciting and dramatic than inspiring your friend at the low point of the combat by restoring hp and thus letting your friend fight on.

Either that or you're going to have to do something about hit points that doesn't make them so implicitly linked to injury and death.

4e did this. Hit points aren't linked to injury at all (there are no injury rules), and once death is on the table hit points mostly become irrelevant (although there is the lurking bugbear of the negative bloodied rule).

But many find this treatment of hit points - as resolve rather than as meat - unsatisfactory.

 

[MichaelSomething]

If you need more warlord examples, there's White-Ra and his SPECIAL TACTICS!!!!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FklPiA9KG8c"]White-Ra special tactics - YouTube[/ame]

There's also Kamina, who's manliness knows no limits! He is the poster boy of the inspiring warlord. (does contain a bit of cursing) This clip video doesn't really capture his awesomeness though...

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrYTkWhOMaQ&feature=related"]Best of Kamina Part 1 (dubbed) - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Nivenus]

I think the difference between TP and HP is that TP are wholly temporary. They last no longer than a single encounter, so they're just a patch, rather than a treatment. That is much more easily rolled into a concept like morale or confidence.

4e did this. Hit points aren't linked to injury at all (there are no injury rules), and once death is on the table hit points mostly become irrelevant (although there is the lurking bugbear of the negative bloodied rule).

But many find this treatment of hit points - as resolve rather than as meat - unsatisfactory.

The rules say at one point that HP isn't tied to injury or health, but just about everything else about the game's mechanics imply HP are a resultant of one's physical durability. To name just a few of these implicit links between HP and health:

1. The base ability score for HP is Constitution, which explicitly is a measure of a character's physical durability, and not something like Wisdom, which more closely relates to resolve and willpower.
2. Restoring HP is called "healing," which implies the mending of injuries.
3. Feats that improve HP often have names like "Toughness" or mention increasing a character's vitality.
4. Most (though not all) attack powers describe physical harm done to a target upon hitting.

And so on. There's probably more, but the point is that while you are technically right about HP not representing physical health, just about everything besides the definition of HP implies otherwise.

 

[Tallifer]

I never enjoy action movies much, because the heroes are always able to call upon their strength of will and ignore injuries. Indeed their injuries always turn out to be much more superficial than the hail of bullets/bludgeoning/falling/groin kicking/torture/slashing should merit.

The Warlord's abilities reflect this kind of story-telling. What I am however unable to endure in a movie, I find perfectly acceptable in D&D (which has always been one the least realistic of all the roleplaying games, even compared to say Call of Cthulhu). In fact I enjoy the comic book feel: it is fun and exciting and good for a table full of gamers.

It is interesting to me that people question the Warlord but not he cleric. How many faith healers do you know that can put limbs back on people or stuff organs back into an opened belly? A faith healer or a shaman in the bush can only do what his tricks can get away with. Making people walk temporarily, "curing" invisible things like cancer or healing people who actually weren't sick. (At least the shaman has the benefit of maybe healing someone with some herbal remedy he found in the jungle.)

The cleric is modeled after a saint or a friar from a mediaeval hagiography. Would any of you put any stock in such a story? It is divine intervention. Likewise a Warlord calls upon the immense power of personal will and fortitude, the indomitable human spirit which enables Jean Claud van Damme to endure 90 minutes of pummeling and still beat the bad guys.

 

[pemerton]

I think the difference between TP and HP is that TP are wholly temporary. They last no longer than a single encounter, so they're just a patch, rather than a treatment.

I'm not sure about this.

In 3E, the extra hp a Barbarian gets when raging are a patch, because when the rage ends the Barbarian can fall unconscious or die from the lost hit points. But temp hp in both 3E and 4e aren't like that. As far as damage is concerned, they are an extra layer of ablative protection. Which is why I don't see how they are a better model for morale - why is it consistent with morale boosting to get more ablation in advance, but not to have ablated reserves restored?

Granted, if the combat ends with the temp hp untouched, they are lost. But this is almost never going to happen in play. The warlord PC is going to bestow temp hp on a PC who the players know is going to take damage (most often, probably, a front-line combatant). So the only difference from restoring hit points (= "healing") will be that it operates as an advance buff - which has implications for pacing and play, but doesn't seem to do very much for verisimilitude. If an inspiring speech can buff you, why can't it restore your vigour?

 

[Vayden]

Granted, if the combat ends with the temp hp untouched, they are lost. But this is almost never going to happen in play. The warlord PC is going to bestow temp hp on a PC who the players know is going to take damage (most often, probably, a front-line combatant). So the only difference from restoring hit points (= "healing") will be that it operates as an advance buff - which has implications for pacing and play, but doesn't seem to do very much for verisimilitude. If an inspiring speech can buff you, why can't it restore your vigour?

If for some reason the 5e designers decide that real hp healing is unacceptable for people who can't cast spells, I would accept a temp hp Warlord as long as it meant we were in PHB1. But I hope it doesn't come to that - hp are a pretty strange abstraction anyway, and the pacing of the game is much better if the Warlord can get you back on your feet instead of just delivering a St. Crispin's day speech before the battle (though they definitely need to do that too).

 

[Tehnai]

I loved the warlord. I mainly GM, and only stuck with 4e for the first year or so (then defected to OD&D and it's clones), but Warlord is one of the classes that I got to try first hand with much, much delight.

I have to say I agree with both sides of the argument :

- Warlords are thematically awesome (I love the image of the general rallying his men to keep on fighting);

- Healing someone by screaming at them is odd.

I, though, am curious as to why it wouldn't be somehow folded into fighter. I mean, you could have the fighter as a wild barbarian or angry mercenary, but also the fighter as the grizzled general, inspiring his men. The Marshal/Warlord fighter option could easily be added as a modular add-on, thus only making 4 basic class necessary, and sticking templates on top as necessary.

As such, in a game using class templates, themes, or whatever the word would be, a Fighter could be a Warlord (have some buffing abilities, temp HP, extra movement granting, and so forth), a Ranger (a fighter with survival and sneaking skills), a Barbarian (light armored damage monster) or a duelist (light armored fighter with trickstery combat options)