Can a warlord "heal" an unconscious character

[WalterKovacs]

Narrative systems often encourage you to not use dice and the DM... well narrates. Simulationist systems pretty much require dice as some form of random generation. Probably something like 95% of DnDs rules are combat focused and require players to be rolling dice. It is simulationist, heck, it's a couple rules away from being a Games Workshop miniatures tabletop game. This isn't even debateable.

But then I think when a rule says "unconcious" it's pretty much not debateable what that means either. The English language is pretty flexible, but get serious. If you choose to interperate "unconcious" to mean "out of breath" then go ahead and interprate "cold damage" to mean "instant death" because it makes just as much sense. Hey, "paralyze", thats just another way of saying "parapalegic for life." Yeah! Lets ignore the fact that there are rules for "paralyze" that spell out what it means, just like unconcious, because why not, we'll call it "being narrative."

True. However, unconsious has a lot of implications. There are a number of ways to be unconcious in 4e. You could be:

Sleeping
At less than 0HP [either "dying" or stabilized]
Under an effect like the Sleep spell or a similar monster power

To regain conciousness you need to:

"Wake up" or be awoken by some external force
Go above 0 HP, through any number of methods
Save ends

The problem is that some people feel that the second "type" of unconciousness is not a condition where the inspiring words of a warlord would reach you ... although in at least one other kind of unconciousness, there is obviously an implied ability to "hear" while unconcious. The other is a magical effect ... you likely can hear in that condition to but it won't do any good ... outside of effects that help you to save.

 

[Danceofmasks]

On the subject of magical unconsciousness:
You can still be healed with inspiring word (if you're not at max hp), it just doesn't wake you up.
Shake it off (warlord 2) will give you a save at range 10 ... so a warlord yelling at you to get up still works.

 

[Hypersmurf]

If you choose to interperate "unconcious" to mean "out of breath" then go ahead and interprate "cold damage" to mean "instant death" because it makes just as much sense.

If the cold damage drops someone to negative bloodied, sure. Otherwise, the mechanics of cold damage don't support instant death; on the other hand, the mechanics of 'unconscious' support any narrative description that results in: helpless, -5 penalty to all defenses, can't take actions, prone, and can't flank.

In the same way that in 3.5, the condition of 'nauseated' is used to represent "Only able to take a single move action each round", even if no nausea is actually involved in the narrative description, like when you're being distracted by a thousand bats.

Hey, "paralyze", thats just another way of saying "parapalegic for life." Yeah! Lets ignore the fact that there are rules for "paralyze" that spell out what it means, just like unconcious, because why not, we'll call it "being narrative."

In 4E, paralysis would be represented with the Stunned condition, even if you're not actually stunned in the English sense of the word, since when someone is paralyzed, they: grant combat advantage, can't take actions, and can't flank an enemy. It would be pointless having a "Paralyzed" condition that exactly replicates the Stunned condition; so when someone is paralyzed, we give them the Stunned condition, and the narrative description tells us that they are frozen in place by arcane paralysis, or whatever.

If, instead, we felt that the paralysis was more severe, and warranted someone being helpless and incurring a -5 penalty to all defenses? Why, then we can grant them the Unconscious condition. Even though they're conscious in the English sense of the word, the mechanics of the Unconscious condition give the mechanical effects we want to represent.

-Hyp.

 

[firesnakearies]

In my games, the Martial power source isn't just a way of saying "not magical", but is in fact another kind of magic, an actual POWER SOURCE as such.

It's just not an external one, like Arcane and Divine. It comes from within the user, from his or her own body, life force, and driving inner passion.

Given the eight power sources listed in the PHB, I use the following as my barometer for where each of the power sources comes from:

- Arcane power comes from the mystical energies of the Feywild.

- Divine power comes from the sacred energies of the Gods in the Astral Sea.

- Shadow power comes from the dark energies of the Shadowfell.

- Elemental power comes from the raw primordial energies of the Elemental Chaos.

- Primal power comes from the inherent magical forces of the living earth itself, of the actual physical world.

- Ki power comes from within the person, arising from the practitioner's Spirit or Soul.

- Psionic power comes from within the person, arising from the practitioner's Mind or Psyche.

- And finally, Martial power comes from within the person, arising from the practitioner's Body or Heart.

So it works out really well. Eight types of power, from eight sources. There are five major planes in the cosmology (Astral Sea, Elemental Chaos, Feywild, Shadowfell, and the Physical World), with five power sources linked thematically to them. And there are three archetypal divisions of a person's Self in a lot of classical thought and psychospiritual models (most typically stated as Mind/Body/Spirit or something similar), with three additional power sources linked thematically to each of those. Every base is covered, and every power source has a logical point of origin and flavored justification for its existence.

I kinda think it was intended to be seen that way, because it lines up so darn well.

So it's not that martial equals mundane, it's that it is another source of real magical POWER, just coming from within the core of physical strength, vitality, and passion in the wielder, rather than being drawn and molded from an outside source.

The wizards and clerics and illusionists and elementalists may all delve into studies of the other planes and call upon forces beyond the physical realm to form their magic and alter the material universe...

...and the druid may tap into the natural power of the earth for her magic to gain the ability to change reality...

...while the monk connects with his inner spirit to harness his ki magic to empower himself with supernatural capabilities...

...and the psion masters the depths of her mind to such a degree that she can magically transcend mundane limits...

...but the warlord or the fighter draw directly from the deep well of their own life force and physical potency, the pure strength of their bodies and their presence, to produce a personal form of magic that affects the world around them in ways which go far beyond "normal" or "non-magical" means.

In my opinion, the warlord isn't just shouting and "boy, is it impressive, so I guess I'd better be healed now". His words have actual, "magical" power, coming from that inner, bodily power source which is called martial, to distinguish it from the mind-based psionics or the spirit-based ki.

I see the martial characters as being, essentially, very very similar to monks and psionicists, just with a different flavor, and a different ultimate focus on which internal resource they are tapping into.

All eight power sources are MAGIC. Five external sources, from the five planes of existence, and three internal sources, from the three archetypal aspects of a whole person. But none are mundane, none are analogous to just the sort of normal, scientifically-explainable stuff that regular folks in our day-to-day modern experience can do.

Seeing the martial power source as being merely the same thing that soldiers in real life do is really doing a disservice to the concept, I think. Mundane onlookers in the D&D world shouldn't watch a martial hero in action and think, "Hey, that guy's really good at fighting. I wonder if our local pugilist champion could take him?" They should think, "Holy crap, how the hell did he do THAT? That's impossible! That had to be some kind of magic!"

The warlord isn't just some Joe Blow army NCO who knows how to yell at his men and get them motivated. He's a MARTIAL HERO, an iconic, mythic WARLORD destined to be named in bards' songs for years to come. He isn't just "inspiring" you to get up through the content of his spoken words, he's altering reality through the raw power of his own inner might, greatness, and glory, and his own confidence in that power.

You being awake to hear it is irrelevant.

 

[Obryn]

Narrative systems often encourage you to not use dice and the DM... well narrates. Simulationist systems pretty much require dice as some form of random generation. Probably something like 95% of DnDs rules are combat focused and require players to be rolling dice. It is simulationist, heck, it's a couple rules away from being a Games Workshop miniatures tabletop game. This isn't even debateable.

So lemme see if I get your logic here.

(1) You start from a flawed assumption that simulationist games use a lot of dice, and narrative games do not, in contrast to abundant evidence otherwise (i.e. Buffy RPG, SotC, etc.)

(2) You observe that 4e uses dice.

(3) Therefore, 4e is a simulationist system.

(4) Therefore, mechanical terms such as "death save" and "unconscious" have a 1:1 correspondence with narrative events, since a simulationist game accepts no narrative explanations of anything.

Am I missing something? Because apart from Step 2, I disagree with every point, in clear violation of your assertion that this isn't debatable. I think you have a misunderstanding of what it means to be a narrative game, by your description of it.

But then I think when a rule says "unconcious" it's pretty much not debateable what that means either. The English language is pretty flexible, but get serious. If you choose to interperate "unconcious" to mean "out of breath" then go ahead and interprate "cold damage" to mean "instant death" because it makes just as much sense. Hey, "paralyze", thats just another way of saying "parapalegic for life." Yeah! Lets ignore the fact that there are rules for "paralyze" that spell out what it means, just like unconcious, because why not, we'll call it "being narrative."

Hyp pretty much nailed this one. The game state of unconsciousness, like the game state of stunning, could subsume any number of narrative states that fit the mechanical description.

Neither "paraplegic for life" for "paralysis" nor "instant death" for "cold damage" respect the mechanical layer of the game. You're really stretching here.

And yes - in 4e, ghouls don't paralyze, they stun. Stunning is mechanically identical, in 4e, to paralysis - and there's no need for extra conditions to represent this. That's a major reason 4e has only a short list of conditions, while 3e had a two-page, small-print glossary.

-O

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

As someone pointed out sooner, warlords could heal unconscious character because they could heal and direct/command an army of deaf, blind, one-legged lepers.

That's because D&D Warlords, just like any other PC, are heroic characters with a compelling personality that allows them to do amazing deeds.

Just like firesnakearies said, just because a character's power source is "Martial" it doesn't mean it's "Mundane"

Think of Captain America, think of Aragorn, think of Miles Vorkosigan... Think of those heroes whose greatest asset was their ability to lead their group and inspire them to overcome their limitations.

Is it really so hard to understand?


Oh, and the difference between the Divine and Martial power source? Easy.

The Cleric make you feel better because its obvious that he believes in Pelor.

The Warlord makes you feel better because its obvious that he believes in you.

 

[Regicide]

Just like firesnakearies said, just because a character's power source is "Martial" it doesn't mean it's "Mundane"

Page 54 pretty much says it is. The word "magic" is used a lot in prayers and spells, but not in exploits. From the wording of the book, if there was an anti-magic field, it would be expected that arcane and divine powers wouldn't work, martial would. Dispel Magic might muddy things up, but I can't think of any "conjurations" or "zones" that martial exploits create, and even if they did, it's debatable if dispel would work on them.

4E tossed out "supernatural" as a "power source" which is what Book of Nine Swords used for it's version of powers. With that gone, exploits either had to be magic or mundane without the "both" middle ground to stand on, and to differentiate them from wizards and clerics it looks like they fell on the "mundane" side.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Dispel Magic might muddy things up, but I can't think of any "conjurations" or "zones" that martial exploits create, and even if they did, it's debatable if dispel would work on them.

There aren't any Martial conjurations or zones in the PHB, but if any are introduced in PHB2 or Martial Power, then (assuming no other rules are added to modify the behaviour of conjurations or zones):
a/ A conjuration created by a Martial exploit would be magical; Conjurations are specifically "of magical energy".
b/ A zone created by a Martial exploit wouldn't need to be magical, but
c/ A conjuration or zone created by a Martial exploit could be ended by Dispel Magic. The only references to 'magic' or 'magical' in the spell description are in the name, and the flavour text; the mechanics don't care if the conjuration or zone is magic or not.

On the other hand, it seems unlikely any conjurations or zones introduced will be considered non-magical, unless other supporting rules are added to distinguish them from the existing definitions; the Arcana skill makes the assumption that any conjuration or zone is magical.

So while I don't discount the possibility of a Martial conjuration or zone, the rules at present don't really cater well for a non-magical conjuration or zone... so they'd be a poor fit for the Martial power source, since "Martial powers are not magic in the traditional sense..."

-Hyp.

 

[Turtlejay]

Are we still fighting about this? It feels to me like it has gone from:

yes it works vs. no it doesn't

to

4e works vs. 4e doesn't

If you can't narratively explain this concept, then 4e is not for you.

Jay

 

[Regicide]

If you can't narratively explain this concept, then 4e is not for you.

Well see, the problem is that this GETS IN THE WAY of narrative. When narrative starts reminding you of Cleese talking about dead parrots, theres something wrong...

DM: "And the Orc lays a vicious swing for 12 points of damage on Bob."

Bob: "Oh man, I'm at -3 HP"

DM: "Okay, the rest of you see the orc give a blood curdling victory cry as Bob falls to the floor unconcious and dying, bleeding heavily from the last blow."

Tim: "I shout some words of encourgement at Bob and give him a healing surge."

Bob: "All right! I'm back at 5 HP and it's my go. I get up and attack the orc!"

Frank: "Woo, your shout closed the wound and stopped him bleeding and dying, alright! Great narrative!"

DM: "Um, did I say bleeding, no... it was a wineskin, yeah."

Frank: "And unconcious."

DM: "Um... only... temporary unconciousness."

Frank: "And the dying."

DM: "Only to casual inspection, he wasn't ACTUALLY making death saves, it only looked like it to your untrained eye. He was just out of breath is all, gasping for air."

Frank: "I'm the cleric... I have heal trained, I can tell the difference between gasping and unconcious. So what your saying is the warlord filled his lungs with his shout and had I used my cure spell on him, I'd have... fixed the wineskin, is that it?"

Bob: "Hey wait a minute, that wineskin cost me 10 gold! Frank, cure my wineskin please!"