D&D 5E Clerics of Life: Broken, Bad Design, or Working as Intended?

[DMZ2112]

I'm forking this from the now-quiet Banishment thread because something the Jester said has stuck with me.

If removing [the Cleric of Life] from the field [with Banishment] is an "uncounterable win button", then there is a problem far worse than a single spell here.

Is this true? From my experience, at least, Clerics of Life are definitely worth more CR than your average damage-sponging murderhobo. I ran a "deadly" encounter for a balanced eight-man 5th-level party including a Cleric of Life, and it ended with everyone on their feet.

At some point during the encounter, nearly every PC was knocked unconscious, only to be brought back to consciousness by magical healing before the final blow was struck. Admittedly, the encounter was not optimized -- the enemies were mandated by the story and the map was provided and much too cramped to really allow the enemy forces to bring their strength to bear. But the heroes brought low more than 50 enemies over the course of a nine-round combat.

And throughout it all, the Cleric of Life just kept healing. He didn't run out of healing options until the bitter end. In general, the party's resources were depleted by the time the last echo of steel on steel faded away, but everyone was on their feet.

So my question is this: given that the Cleric of Life does seem to make the other members of the party effective beyond their actual level, providing a sort of CR multiplier, is this a problem? Is the class broken? Or is the inclusion of such a class bad design to begin with?

For my part I'm not sure it is. I know D&D4 moved away from this design, but I think clerical healing is enough of an ancient and storied D&D trope that I'm willing to say that the Cleric of Life is working as intended in D&D5, but I'm interested in other perspectives.

Another question I'd be interested to discuss is this: if the Cleric of Life is working as intended, and we agree that it provides the whole group with a CR multiplier, what is that multiplier?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

What does the Cleric of Life have that the other Clerics do not? Or some other healing class? Would the results have been much different if you'd had a Lore Bard playing that role for the fight?

 

[DMZ2112]

What does the Cleric of Life have that the other Clerics do not? Or some other healing class? Would the results have been much different if you'd had a Lore Bard playing that role for the fight?

We have a Lore Bard, too, actually, but I believe he was only called upon to heal once. The Cleric of Life did all the heavy lifting.

In answer to your question, I'm not sure. The Life domain does grant some additional healing capability but it does not seem overwhelming on paper. Having never seen a different cleric archetype in play, however, I can't speak to it.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm inclined to believe that any sort of dedicated healer will act as a force multiplier, in which case it's just working-as-intended for a role-playing game where healer is one of those roles.

I'm curious how that would extend to other roles, though. What would a party be like if it had no damage-dealers - all healers and defensive classes - or no melee types to keep the enemies at bay?

 

[Tormyr]

What does the Cleric of Life have that the other Clerics do not? Or some other healing class? Would the results have been much different if you'd had a Lore Bard playing that role for the fight?

The cleric in general is pretty awesome, and each domain for different reasons. We have a war cleric who at level 1 could nova with divine favor and his War Priest channel divinity to hit twice and rack up almost 30 damage without a crit. I used a life cleric to have a grimlock shaman keep the chief on his feet round after round as 6 PCs were pummeling him. Between the extra healing from any healing spell and the channel divinity, the Life cleric can keep people going.

As for the encounter, A deadly encounter that had almost everyone go unconscious and was only averted by the Life cleric burning through everything he had sounds about right.

The other thing the life cleric does is do a better job at extending the work day. With this encounter, was it their only encounter after a long rest? Will there be more encounters? How did this encounter stack up against how much xp each PC should have in the work day?

 

[Blackbrrd]

I'm curious how that would extend to other roles, though. What would a party be like if it had no damage-dealers - all healers and defensive classes - or no melee types to keep the enemies at bay?

No healer = volatile combat
No damage dealers = combat is slow as f....
No defensive classes = volatile combat

My current 4e party only has one good damage dealer, the rest are semi-tanky and we don't have a healer. It's a miserable combination that combines the two first options above into: slow, volatile combat.

 

[Zardnaar]

The life cleric roughly heals about triple the rate of any other cleric and clerics in general have the best healing spells. Healing has usually been a bit sub standard so they turbocharged the life cleric which in 3.5 terms gets a free feat and gets the Pathfinder channel energy ability as well.

Once they get to the 5 hp/level 2/short rest them party will more or less have unlimited healing. The only thing that can compete with them at low levels is the healer feat and a land Druid splashing a single level of life cleric.

And that healing is already on top of the generous amount of healing 5E already hands out.

A lore bard can come close but needs to pick up the level 3 p Paladin healing spell (aura of vitality?) and goodberry at level 6 and splash a single level of life cleric at level 7.THe 3 best healers in the game are all life cleric builds although 2 of them splash a single level.

 

[Blackbrrd]

The life cleric roughly heals about triple the rate of any other cleric

Triple? I would like to see the math on that if you could supply it?

 

[DMZ2112]

As for the encounter, A deadly encounter that had almost everyone go unconscious and was only averted by the Life cleric burning through everything he had sounds about right.

Possibly. It doesn't meet my definition of "deadly," but at least now I have a calibration. Regardless, the table loved every second of what took almost six hours to adjudicate. It was a great encounter.

The other thing the life cleric does is do a better job at extending the work day. With this encounter, was it their only encounter after a long rest? Will there be more encounters? How did this encounter stack up against how much xp each PC should have in the work day?

It was the only encounter that day. It would have come out to 1100 XP per PC.

I'll go into more detail in a future campaign report, but the short version is that we're talking about Lost Mine of Phandelver. The PCs freed the captive with a sizable bribe to the bugbear leader and immediately regretted it, realizing that they had dramatically affected the power balance in the region. They resolved to return and right the wrong, and did so at 5th level to find a partially rebuilt castle and a small personal army consisting not only of the bugbear's original forces but goblinoid reinforcements and what remained of the bandits from earlier in the adventure. They holed up in the Temple of Maglubiyet and held the doors for nine rounds against a brutal onslaught. It was something to see.

 

[DMZ2112]

The life cleric roughly heals about triple the rate of any other cleric and clerics in general have the best healing spells.

Triple? I would like to see the math on that if you could supply it?

Agreed!