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4 months ago ::
Feb 23, 2013 - 9:10AM
#151
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Date Joined:
Jun 22, 2008
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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.
If the goal of the warlord is to allow 2 more fights per day, then any character which gives this same quality will do. It doesn't have to be a "healer" or a "leader" or whatever imaginary classification the tacticians like to ascribe to a character. Another hard-hitting striker could have the same effect. Or maybe another defender or another controller. Or maybe someone with great social skills or hiding skills could help you avoid the combat entirely.
Arguing over one class replacing another seems pretty trivial. At least to those who are not combat tacticians but roleplayers.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 23, 2013 - 10:48AM
#152
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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.
If the goal of the warlord is to allow 2 more fights per day, then any character which gives this same quality will do. It doesn't have to be a "healer" or a "leader" or whatever imaginary classification the tacticians like to ascribe to a character. Another hard-hitting striker could have the same effect. Or maybe another defender or another controller. Or maybe someone with great social skills or hiding skills could help you avoid the combat entirely.
Arguing over one class replacing another seems pretty trivial. At least to those who are not combat tacticians but roleplayers.
Quite possibly yes. At least in theory. Less healing but more damage means monsters die faster and the party as a whole takes less damage. In practice, a party can only adventure as long as its weakest member can adventure. Finishing off monsters faster means nothing if the enemy manages to focus fire for the few rounds they are in combat. There needs to be ways of mitigating one character getting pounded. Which is the role of the leader analogue in the party.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 23, 2013 - 4:56PM
#153
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And if they did the math right, it wouldn't be any more or less powerful than having two clerics, or two warlords, or two extra rogues in the party. The longevity granted by any sort of healer can be quantified, and it can be balanced.
let us say a character is at 5/50 hp, a cleric can heal him to full (or close enough so that a second big heal would not be needed), so a second cleric cant help much because you cant go above full hp. even if the cleric heals him 30 the second one only helps so much.
if you have a warlord he could give the target temps about the same as the healing a clieric could give, but the cleric could then heal him. the target would now have DR, almost full HP AND a large number of temps.
in short if the cleric and warlord can both get to the same goal by using effects that stack you will have issues when they are both in the party.
having two heals would give the party more longevity, and would allow the party to heal more people per round but you would not be able to make one person unkillable.
Hedge Wizard is less than a theme. In a low magic setting a wizard is someone with a feat path.
Just my opinion but if you were to eliminate much of the arbitrary 4e fluff from the Warlord you would be left with a decent set of universal characteristics that could be placed in a theme or prestige class. Note: I dont believe in dead levels so you would have a large easel to paint your mage Warlord. For the Cleric I should clarify that any role is not every role. A cleric's abilities would derive from deity, build, and multiclassing as would their inabilities.
if a classes only uniqeness is derivied from its fluff that it does not belong in the game at all. you can just put that fluff as suggesting fluff under a different class
the warlord had new and unique mechanics and nothing but a full class will satisfy those who like the warlord
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?
that is why the role is called leader, not healer. healing is part of what a cleric and warlord should do but it should not be all (if for no other reason then having something to do when the party has no damage done to them)
again the mechaichs of a warlord as such you CAN'T duplicate them in any other class, any more then having the cleric class means you should not have a wizard class because you can just refluff the cleric to be arcane.
when balancing the game the Dev's have to assume either A) there will be combat healing or B) there will not be combat healing. otherwise they cant know how much damage should be down, how to work out of combat healing ect.
if they assume there will not be combat healing, then give classes the ablity to heal in combat it would make any party with them overpowered because damage that should be lasting is going away. like for example if you are fighting creatures that do 1/10 of the PC's hp in damage and that was desgined to alot because you can't recover that untill the end of the fight (or day) then a healer heals 3 rounds of damage it messes up balance.
in order to keep balance they need to assume a certain amout of healing will take place if they provide ways to heal. not to say it would mean every party must have a healer, there should be ways around it (there were several in 4e)
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.
the problem the warlord has to be able to do something after the fact, not just give out DR. I would have no problem with the warlord being mostly proactive, but he cant be all proactive and be able to replace the cleric.
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.
the reason all leader classes had two (three at 16) encounter heals is that was what the dev's decided was the minium need to be a leader, any less would mean you could not be a healer. they need to deceide something similar with 5e, how much healing is needed per leader then give it out to each one. otherwise you would have leaders that can only be 5th men because the cant replace a real healer.
saying a warlord would be like a cleric because he can heal is like saying the wizard is too much like the fighter because they both do damage, there is no reason the healing has to work the same, nor would is there a reason to belive it would cost half the class to get it (you dont see anyone wanting to get rid of the cleric's healing because other stuff would be intersting do you?)
and yes the healing from the warlord was the most boring part of the 4e warlord, but it was nessisary just like having plate is not really intersting to a palidan but he would be screwed if told he had to wear cloth with no other bonus to AC
Insulting someones grammar on a forum is like losing to someone in a drag race and saying they were cheating by having racing stripes.
Not only do the two things not relate to each other (the logic behind the person's position, and their grammar) but you sound like an idiot for saying it (and you should, because its really stupid )
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