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

[Joe Liker]

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.

Please try to keep up before chiming in. This conversation is about a Life cleric, and how they are more efficient at healing than other clerics. Then someone brought up chill touch as a way to negate that efficiency, but of course there was dissent because this is the Internet. I honestly don't care what people think of clerics; I was just pointing out that chill touch could indeed be used to completely nullify a cleric's ability to heal, no matter how good at healing the cleric happens to be.

 

[Warunsun]

Ok, multi-classing shenanigans. I thought I was missing something in the spell description.

The coolest thing about multi-classing this time around is that it is completely optional. You must gain your DM's permission to use it each time. Plus, since it is optional, my group has tossed nearly the entire system from the PH out and replaced it with our own version that more closely emulates AD&D multi-classing. We happily used the third edition multi-class system and the fourth edition systems when we played those editions. We were never quite happy with 4E multi-classing but we also understood why it was the way it was: because 3E multi-classing was too free wheeling. When we read through the new 5E rulebooks and seen the 3E style of multi-classing back we knew right away it wasn't going to fly for us. So we adapted the Castles & Crusades rules for multi-classing to 5E. So far it has worked for us. You can create the archetypical multi-class characters of yesteryear without concerns over one level trick setups or detours.

 

[Umbran]

Please try to keep up before chiming in.

Dude, play nice. You don't get to tell people when, or under what conditions, they may post.

 

[sidonunspa]

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.

Oh course they are 2 times better then another cleric at healing.... they are specialized in it.

A war cleric is x2 times more effective in melee then the life cleric...

Specialization should make you a total bad ass at your specialization...

 

[Kaychsea]

As for RAI, obviously JC and I differ, and I'm sure others differ from us; who's is the "better" interpretation? Well, mine, of course...for my campaign. His, for his campaign. And yours for your campaign. I (and other DM's) shouldn't "deffer" to some other DM simply because of some sense of "guru'ism", no questions asked. Other DM's interpretations are ALWAYS a good thing to hear about...but the ultimate authority for what is the "correct" interpretation for a rule in any campaign is the DM of that campaign. Period. I'm betting that JC would agree with my 100% on that.

I have no problems with that, but if you want to know how the RAI works, I'd ask the guy that wrote the rule what that intention was. Whether that's how you want to use it is wholly at the DM's discretion.

 

[keterys]

I have no problems with that, but if you want to know how the RAI works, I'd ask the guy that wrote the rule what that intention was. Whether that's how you want to use it is wholly at the DM's discretion.

The sad thing is that such a person probably doesn't exist. The person who wrote the rule that a life cleric multiclassing with a druid casting goodberry works how? Yeah, I'm pretty sure if such a person existed they'd have spelled out how it works in one of those 3 rules areas. For a variety of reasons.

Anyhow, life cleric is overrated compared to just defeating the encounter faster. Healing during combat is only worthwhile when it suits the action and resource economy. Which means it needs to be more effective than
1) casting a non-cure spell of the same slot
2) casting a cure spell in combat instead of out of combat
3) using up your action or bonus action

So, a healing word to get an unconscious ally back up when you were just going to do a cantrip or melee? Great.

Using your action to cure wounds someone who _might_ fall down? Eh. Or you could be a tempest cleric and do a maximized thunderwave for 3 - 9 times as much as the life cleric's healing word was going to heal and end the encounter before the enemies do another 3 hits, each of which did more than a healing word's worth of damage? Boy oh boy that sounds better.

Or you could save the healing for out of combat where goodberries, the healer feat, prayer of healing all shine? Or at higher levels where negligible cost healing potions are the new "wand of cure light wounds"?

Offense wins over defense in most editions, and defense that results in less damage taken and fewer spell slots used wins over healing in almost every edition. Healing sure does _feel_ like it's awesome, when not even needing healing because the combat was over before the enemies got a chance to act feels a little strange. One of those is clearly more effective though.

 

[Zardnaar]

Clerics of life get the whole 5 hp/level twice per short rest though. That frees up more of their spell slots for stuff that is not healing. Tempest clerics also tend to run out of spells fast but life and light cleric channel divinity abilities reset after short rests.

 

[keterys]

The only below half takes your standard action limiter on the channel divinity is a serious limitation on Life clerics. It's fine, but proactive is still going to be my answer there.

Depending on the campaign, Turn Undead certainly trumps it.

 

[Zardnaar]

The only below half takes your standard action limiter on the channel divinity is a serious limitation on Life clerics. It's fine, but proactive is still going to be my answer there.

Depending on the campaign, Turn Undead certainly trumps it.

Combines with the healing feat on a Rogue very well. Semi unlimited healing get KOed rogue stabilizes you to 1 hp as a bonus action and then the life cleric can heal you. At higher level its like a free heal spell 2/short rest.

 

[keterys]

... can you be more specific about which combination of feats and spells you're using? I can't tell anymore.