Community

Feb 22, 2013 -- 9:13PM, captpike wrote:

the cleric has the exact same problem, balancing dwindling hitpoints with diminishing spells. Eventually the cleric runs out of spells and eventually the party becomes too hurt to risk another fight even with the warlord. 

the cleric would run into issues only when low on resources, the warlord could NOT use his resources to help.

doing the best he can the warlord would STILL have the players lose hp every fight, and would be unable to do anything after it because he lacks real healing.

If the baseline of the game without a cleric is two fights before the party is too injured to risk another fight and having a cleric adds the option for two extra fights then the warlord just needs to do the same. It doesn't matter if the warlord can restore hitpoints or not, what matters is the length of the adventuring day. The state of the party is identical at the end of that fourth fight: too injured to risk another fight. With the warlord the party has been wittled down and with the cleric he's blown all their healing.

It also depends on the fights.  Against a mob of low damaging opponents blocked by the fighter, a warlord might do better with their DR soaking up all the damage. Against a big solo monster dealing massive damage, the characters will take less damage with a warlord in the party and likely spend fewer rounds close to death before the cleric can drop a heal. 

Feb 22, 2013 -- 9:13PM, captpike wrote:

But being pre-healed means you're less likely to be dropped and lose your turn before the cleric can get you back on your feet. And you never waste an action having to stand. The party's damage-per-round his higher and the monsters die faster.

DR is good, but it cant replace healing, DR would only be usefull in overpowered amounts if your very low on hp. that is why the warlord needs a baseline of real healing (patiuarly if they are not gong to give PCs the ablity to heal themselves for some reason)
if the warlord is going to replace the cleric he must have the ablity to pick people up, even if he does not use it as often.

People should play a warlord to potentially replace a cleric yes, but it shouldn't replicate the cleric. Wrong "r" word. DR can replace healing by removing the need to be healed after every fight. Mandating healing for warlords replicates the cleric because the two classes are built around the same thing. 

Having a cleric in the party should always be a bonus. A benefit. There shouldn't be a bunch of sympetrical and identical options. People should play a warlord because they want to play a warlord not because the party lacks a cleric or needs a healer. And if the party has both a warlord and cleric in the party, they should compliment each other by doing different things not stepping on each other toes. 

If you want healing and a martial character play a warbringer cleric. It swings a weapon and deals damage and can heal.  Or a fighter/cleric multiclass. Just call it a warlord and you're done, right?

Feb 22, 2013 -- 9:13PM, captpike wrote:

This is a feature not a bug. The warlord has to play more tactically with their pre-heals. This fits the concept of the class. The class based flavoured as a  strategist requires more strategy. This is a good thing.

what the warlord would need is not stratagy, its precognition, he would have to KNOW with no doubt who is going to be attack, and for how much. not only would he have to know that joe and bob are going to be attacked, but he would have to know if joe will be hit for more so joe needs the best DR he has.

stratagy is about being able to guess the odds, knowing that ther is a 90% change bob is going to be attacked, you cant make a class that would require the player never be wrong and exspect it to be funtional. "sorry joe I though bob was going to be attacked, I hope you being at 1/2hp at the end of the first fight of the day is not fatal.."

It's precognition to know which player will be hit for how much, but looking at the battlefield and figuring out which PCs are in a position to be hit or targeted by multiple attacks, and which are likely to take damage. That's tactics. You don't give the wizard DR when he's miles in the back and no one is threatening him, nor do you give it to the fighter facing two guys who won't hit him. You give it to the rogue facing the same two guys because of the rogue's lower AC and inability to parry. But if the rogue is facing one guy and the fighter three or four then the fighter might need that extra bit of damage mititgation. 

It's not going to be 100% effective, no. But clerics can sometimes waste spells. "You're fairly hurt so I'll use a cure moderate. Oops. Rolled really well and overhealed." or "Just a cure light should manage. Oops, that's a '1' guess I need to spend another." Or picking the wrong place to stand in the battle and being unable to get to a character in the middle of the fight. 


At the end of the day, level 1 characters don't have a lot of options built into their class. Fighters and rogues know a couple maneuvers and so would warlords. Now, healing cannot be a maneuver since it should not be usable at-will, even if triggered by an attack action (or it becomes healing via a bag of rats). So to heal, warlords lose a maneuver and gain accesss to daily heals akin to the cleric. Which means they can do one maneuver. One. They can do a single warlordy thing and heal. Each round in combat they can either make a basic attack or do their one thing. 
That's lame.  
In 4e, the only reason warlords heals was because all leader classes were forced into the role of combat healer. They weren't particularly good at it, just offering 1d6+surge, while most of the other healing classes offered some variation or side benefit. Everything else about the class was much more interesting and unique. Halving the warlord options and making the class less of a warlord just to cram in healing so the class can be more like a cleric is, well, lame. And boring.