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

[Sacrosanct]

Seems odd that a group would build a party around a life cleric when a simple cantrip (chill touch) would throw a huge wrench into the entire thing.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Seems odd that a group would build a party around a life cleric when a simple cantrip (chill touch) would throw a huge wrench into the entire thing.

Not as much as you might think. Chill Touch only prevents a single target from recovering for a round, and casting it means that you aren't using your action to do something much more impressive - like finishing off the wounded target.

And if you can't use your action to finish off the target, then it has enough HP left such that it can afford to not heal this turn, and just do it the following turn. What, are you just going to keep casting Chill Touch for the entire fight, essentially taking yourself out of the combat?

 

[Joe Liker]

Not as much as you might think. Chill Touch only prevents a single target from recovering for a round, and casting it means that you aren't using your action to do something much more impressive - like finishing off the wounded target.

And if you can't use your action to finish off the target, then it has enough HP left such that it can afford to not heal this turn, and just do it the following turn. What, are you just going to keep casting Chill Touch for the entire fight, essentially taking yourself out of the combat?

If a large-ish group of enemies focuses fire on one party member (ideally the cleric), only one of them has to use chill touch. That cleric will be down in short order, and the rest of the party is then screwed.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Not as much as you might think. Chill Touch only prevents a single target from recovering for a round, and casting it means that you aren't using your action to do something much more impressive - like finishing off the wounded target.

And if you can't use your action to finish off the target, then it has enough HP left such that it can afford to not heal this turn, and just do it the following turn. What, are you just going to keep casting Chill Touch for the entire fight, essentially taking yourself out of the combat?

You're looking at it from the perspective of a PC. You need to look at it from the perspective of opponents of PCs. One or two low level cultist minions using chill touch, while their bigger brawny companions tear into the party, could cause a ton of frustration for a party that built itself around a life cleric. And besides, chill touch does do significant damage on its own. Especially for higher level casters. It's a completely valid option, particularly if the enemy see the party using healing spells.

*edit* what Joe said

 

[Joe Liker]

Also druid1 life cleric 1 sorcerer 3 warlock 2 bard lore 6 for spamming quickened eldritch blast plus uber healing.

Yeah, go for it. The more classes you add, the more ability score increases and feats you subtract. Specifically, you've just created a level 13 character who has gained exactly one stat boost (or feat). You might have started with decent Wis and Cha, but your Dex and Con are going to suffer greatly without those increases.

The anti-multiclass crowd so easily forgets all the mitigating factors that are built in to 5e.

 

[Chocolategravy]

You're looking at it from the perspective of a PC. You need to look at it from the perspective of opponents of PCs.

Okay, lets do that...

"Hey Joe... these guys have murder-killed their way through all our friends in the rooms leading up to here and they don't even look tired."
"Yeah... and Natasha was on guard duty today and she could kick all our butts and I don't even think she slowed them down."
"It's like we're just here to get butchered for chuckles... how about we leave?"
"I'm with you on that!"

 

[The Crimson Binome]

If a large-ish group of enemies focuses fire on one party member (ideally the cleric), only one of them has to use chill touch. That cleric will be down in short order, and the rest of the party is then screwed.

If an entire party of characters focuses on just the cleric, they can probably bring it down in one round. The cleric will be out of the fight for an entire round, unable to recover. Unless you then spend additional actions to beat up the cleric, while it's bleeding on the ground, it will just get up a turn later.

Spending your turn to negate the turn of another character is only worthwhile if you have numerical superiority.

 

[DaveDash]

In this edition focus firing on the Cleric is a poor strategy. He can't do enough healing in combat to actually be efficient.

Focus fire the Wizard before he casts DC16-DC19 hold person on your group, or force cage, or bigbys hand your tank off the cliff. No amount of healing word is going to help you in those situations.

 

[sidonunspa]

wait you mean a class built arround being a super healer... keeps people from dieing?

:::mind blown::::

I thought that was the point of a specialized healer... shoukd the result of having a healer clearic in your party be the same as having a melee cleric?

I'm just looking for an expectation

 

[Zardnaar]

wait you mean a class built arround being a super healer... keeps people from dieing?

:::mind blown::::

I thought that was the point of a specialized healer... shoukd the result of having a healer clearic in your party be the same as having a melee cleric?

I'm just looking for an expectation

I think it is the scale of the healing as the cleric is 2-3 times better at it than the other clerics who are better at it than the other classes. THe life cleric makes the game a lot easier I have noticed and only the light cleric is probably comparable in power.