Can a warlord "heal" an unconscious character

[Obryn]

If it was narrative, there wouldn't be dice involved. There are RPGs intended to be narrative, 4E isn't one of them. It is a very rules heavy simulationist system. What it simulates though is a cartoon, not your typical idea of a fantasy world.

NO WAI!

So, tell me, how did you come to this amazing conclusion that 4e is simulationist, despite all evidence to the contrary? And that dice aren't a narrative tool, even though heavily narrative systems (like Buffy) use them?

You should read pg 295 of the players handook entitled "death and dying" because that is exactly what the player's handbook says it is. "When your hit points drop to 0 or fewer, you fall unconcious and are dying." I can't be any more clear than that. Anything else people are bringing into this is their imagination and not 4E.

Hyp addressed this. I addressed this twice (or once depending on how you count).

Game conditions are not matched up 1:1 with narrative conditions. You're insisting that they are, without any basis for doing so.

-O

 

[Nail]

If it was narrative, there wouldn't be dice involved.

Errr....what?

You can't be serious.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

If it was narrative, there wouldn't be dice involved. There are RPGs intended to be narrative, 4E isn't one of them. It is a very rules heavy simulationist system. What it simulates though is a cartoon, not your typical idea of a fantasy world.

The fact that there is dice is completely unrelated. It is simply a narrative whose path is decided upon by a combination of the players, the DM, and the dice. Think of it as reading a book, but at every time there is a decision to be made, the players decide what their characters do...and whenever the situation is in doubt(Do the players defeat the monster, does someone die, do the enemies escape, and so on) the dice and the rules decide.

You are right that it is a rules heavy system. But it was kept vague on purpose. I can certainly tell that the designers were a mix of simulationists and narrativist. The language was kept simulationist to appease those who wanted it to be as simulationst as possible while the narrativists won a number of battles regarding how the rules would work.

The idea being that you can EITHER view being stabbed and at negative hitpoints as actually dying and close to death that the person miraculously recovered from OR you can view it as not a big deal and possibly haven taken no damage at all. The game supplies the rules, you provide the description to your taste.

D&D simulates nothing except the rules of D&D. They just received so many complaints about the rules being bad in every edition that they actually had a team dedicated to making rules. And not just any rules...but playable, fun, practical rules. And a number of decisions (fairly obvious ones) were made that favored playability over simulationism or narrativism. The idea being that it's more fun simply to be able to continually play without worrying that the world is going to end because you got stabbed with a sword and are out of healing magic. And it's more fun to be the one who saves the world than the one who let it be destroyed because you had only 2 hitpoints left.

So, the mechanics reflect that. The world they describe still simulates a reality of sorts. It creates better stories than older editions, however. But it concerns itself less about that and more about how much fun a bunch of friends who get together to save princesses and kill orcs will have.

You should read pg 295 of the players handook entitled "death and dying" because that is exactly what the player's handbook says it is. "When your hit points drop to 0 or fewer, you fall unconcious and are dying." I can't be any more clear than that. Anything else people are bringing into this is their imagination and not 4E.

As other people have said, they are simply names for rules mechanics. If you replaced them with other words that were less familiar the game would be 100% narrativist.

So, for instance, "When your characters LUCK points drop to 0 or fewer, you become EXHAUSTED and are IN DANGER."

EXHAUSTED: Your character becomes prone and cannot take any actions.

IN DANGER: When you are IN DANGER, you must make FATE saves on your turn. If you fail 3 FATE saves your character dies. If you receive any LUCK points while you are IN DANGER then you go to 0 LUCK points before gaining the LUCK points. You are also no longer EXHAUSTED or IN DANGER.

If it was truly simulationist, the definition of what is going on in the game shouldn't be able to be changed simply by changing the names of the things involved.

 

[Turtlejay]

So, for instance, "When your characters LUCK points drop to 0 or fewer, you become EXHAUSTED and are IN DANGER."

EXHAUSTED: Your character becomes prone and cannot take any actions.

IN DANGER: When you are IN DANGER, you must make FATE saves on your turn. If you fail 3 FATE saves your character dies. If you receive any LUCK points while you are IN DANGER then you go to 0 LUCK points before gaining the LUCK points. You are also no longer EXHAUSTED or IN DANGER.

If it was truly simulationist, the definition of what is going on in the game shouldn't be able to be changed simply by changing the names of the things involved.

Ha! I loved this! Healing Word actually came up in our game a few days before I found this thread. Reading the various responses helped me solidify my position that the word was a narrative tool used to describe an event, not necessarily a literal 'word'. This example, however, is (aside from being clever and hilarious) right on point.

Thank you sir!

Jay

 

[HeinorNY]

It's D&D 4th Edition, of course he can.

 

[HighTemplar]

So, for instance, "When your characters LUCK points drop to 0 or fewer, you become EXHAUSTED and are IN DANGER."

EXHAUSTED: Your character becomes prone and cannot take any actions.

IN DANGER: When you are IN DANGER, you must make FATE saves on your turn. If you fail 3 FATE saves your character dies. If you receive any LUCK points while you are IN DANGER then you go to 0 LUCK points before gaining the LUCK points. You are also no longer EXHAUSTED or IN DANGER.

If it was truly simulationist, the definition of what is going on in the game shouldn't be able to be changed simply by changing the names of the things involved.

Thats a cool idea, but I can see why they call it dying as opposed to exhausted.

If names were like that, being "exhausted" you would think of your character lying on the floor gasping for air not able to do anything. Now that the name is "dying", you picture him lying flat motionless starting to die. Names matter. Even if exhausted in this case would mean the exact same thing as dying.

The whole point of this thread is that when you are dying, you're unconscious. You don't react to stimuli. You don't notice an elephant running at you wearing a clown costume, or an airplane passing 2 feet over your head. You're unconscious, you are considered deaf, blind, and probably completely senseless. You have no memories of what could have possibly happened while you were out. This makes a huge difference with being exhausted, where you couldn't didge the trampling elephant, but you sure as hell would remember being tramples by one while you were exhausted, unable to react if you survived(specially that it wore a clown outfit).

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.

It makes no sense to me that a warlord could affect anyone deaf. I'm hoping in some other life, the Divine keyword of all cleric powers versus the Martial keyword of all warlord powers will mean something thats not just a technicality.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

So, for instance, "When your characters LUCK points drop to 0 or fewer, you become EXHAUSTED and are IN DANGER."

EXHAUSTED: Your character becomes prone and cannot take any actions.

IN DANGER: When you are IN DANGER, you must make FATE saves on your turn. If you fail 3 FATE saves your character dies. If you receive any LUCK points while you are IN DANGER then you go to 0 LUCK points before gaining the LUCK points. You are also no longer EXHAUSTED or IN DANGER.

In my opinion, you, sir, have just won teh internets. Marvellous stuff, and nicely notes the difference between an in-game condition (described in game mechanics) and what it represents (described in real-world terms).

 

[WalterKovacs]

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.

He could command them to get up. And that assumed they weren't deaf/blind for the othe 99% of the time they are under his direct command. The Warlord has a LIMITED number of ways to effect dying characters. Also, unconcious may mean unaware of your surroundings for the most but no matter how deeply unconcious one might be, there is little to know that nothing is getting through. It may be something that breaks through the fog and snaps them back likea bucket of cold water [metaphorically]. Something that pulls them back in.

It makes no sense to me that a warlord could affect anyone deaf. I'm hoping in some other life, the Divine keyword of all cleric powers versus the Martial keyword of all warlord powers will mean something thats not just a technicality.

Deaf and dying are different. You ASSUME that being unconcious makes one effectively deaf [I'll give you blind ... your eyes are probably closed and thus effectively]. There is no mechanical implication. It may be that you are not CONCIOUSLY able to hear and understand what is going on, but your subconcious is still receiving stimuli, and your warlord is able to inspire your struggle to survive. He tells you not to die, so you don't.

Ultimately, this is ONE power, which is the "generic leader power". How does quarry work by the way? Sneak attack makes sense, it's strategically hit spots on the anatomy that do more damage. Curse damage is magic, thus needs no explanation. Quarry is martial and is basically "favored enemy this guy, until I change my mind".

It's generic striker ability.

Most of the other powers of the warlord are strictly martial. He isn't firing about divine light. Unless the cleric has no wisdom, the cleric is doing MORE healing than the warlord with the "generic leader healing burst effect". The cleric and martial each have healing as a level 2 utility. The clerics is daily, but doesn't use up a surge, obviously magical. The warlords is encounter, but is almost indistiguishable from getting 10 on a heal check to give someone their second wind ... the only difference being it can be in addition to the second wind. In this case the warlord is just slightly more skilled at using the heal skill than other members in the party, very "mundane". His main surgeless healing involves spending action points ... which require you be concious and aware of the warlord.

So, it ultimately comes down to either you can nerf a power, because the way you choose to interpret the power, it doesn't make sense, or you could try to find a way to make the power make sense, and thus the class can work the way it's supposed to. It's probably the use of the word "word" that is the biggest problem. Just call it "being awesome" ... the warlord heals his allies through sheer awesomeness. As long as they are within 25 feet, than can feel, at their very core, how awesome the warlord is and thus regain conciousness.

Ultimately, until you are dead you are either concious or unconcious. "Dying" means that you are at risk of death, if you fail enough death saves. This is different than dying in the real world which can mean either that you need medical attention/first aid quickly, or it might mean that there is nothing that can be done. In D&D it means there is chance you MAY die. In the real world, you will most certainly die without intervention.

Considering it's possible to get up without any outside help [rolling a death save totaling 20+] you obviously are able to regain conciousness at any time. How is it different to roll a 20 than to have the warlord someone say something that "gets through" and you regain conciousness? Both are entirely "martial/non-magical" ways that someone goes from dying/unconcious to concious and back in the fight.

 

[Regicide]

NO WAI!

So, tell me, how did you come to this amazing conclusion that 4e is simulationist, despite all evidence to the contrary? And that dice aren't a narrative tool, even though heavily narrative systems (like Buffy) use them?

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."

 

[sukael]

Narrative systems often encourage you to not use dice and the DM... well narrates.

There are only a tiny handful of RPG systems that are diceless, whether narrative or not. It's not nearly enough to count as "often".