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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5777845" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think that's inevitable in talking about the warlord.It is very clear that, in 4e mechanics, "healing" means "restoring hit points", and it is equally clear that hit point gain and loss can correlate to any or all of (minor) physical injury, shaken morale, exhaustion, etc.I think that is is also tolerably clear in AD&D (per the descritions in the PHB an DMG), but their are oddities like Cure Light Wounds, which can actually cure very serious wounds on any low hit point character. (I've played a lot of AD&D, and I don't remember any narration of the sorts of injuries that make non-magical hit point resoration problematic. But others seem to have played, and narrated, differently.)In 3E it is not at all clear - 3E has the distinction, for example, between "real" and subdual damage. And in a game like RQ or Rolemaster hit points correspond entirely to physical injury (in Rolemaster, only minor injury and blood loss - serious injuries are represented by discrete wound penalties).You can't talk about how to handle non-magical "healing" without talking about what "healing" means. For much the same reason that a wizard doesn't start with heavy armour proficiency. Or for much the same reason that a fighter's prayers aren't generally as efficacious as a cleric's. Namely, distributing capabilities across the range of PCs.Which raises another issue - how much metagame influence should there be on the distribution of class abilities?HeroQuest revised has an interesting approach to this. In HQ, PC abilities consist of natural language descriptors that a player makes up him-/herself. Which creates a potential problem of broad vs narrow/specialised descriptors. The GM is advised to set the DC higher for more genral descriptors, where "more general" is determined by comparing the abilities of the PCs involved in the scene. So the utility of a given PC's "Mightily Thewed" descriptor varies depending on what sorts of descriptors of muscularity the other PCs have, and how general or narrow these are. So if another PC has a "Famous for lifting boulders" ability, than my "Mightily Thewed" ability will be less useful when it comes to moving rocks, than otherwise it would be.Depending on how one approaches these sorts of issues of niche creation, niche protection, etc, and how overt the metagaming of the design is, there may or may not be a place for a martial "healer".A further consideration is whether "healing" - ie hit point resotration - is an important element of play. In AD&D it is not (at least in my play experience). Recovering hit points is like replenishing rations - something that generally happens between the action, not as an element of it. In 4e, recovering hit points is one potentially key element of the action, as it is one facet of the mechanics that structure the pacing within combat.If 5e is going to be modular with respect to 4e hit points vs "meat" hit points, and AD&D healing vs 4e healing (and I gather that 3E is closer to 4e in this respect), then it will almost certainly have to be modular with respect to a 4e-style warlord class.I don't know whether there is a tendency of the sort you describe, but I'm pretty confident the mirroring is not total. I could easily imagine play a warlord from the first person perspective, although at some points I might need the collaboration of my fellow players (eg when I use Inspiring Word on an unconscious friend, the player of that other PC would have to narrate that other PC's inner experience).</blockquote>

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