D&D 5E 2/18/13 L&L column

[I'm A Banana]

I feel that a lot of people are still not getting what it is about Clerics that appeals to people who actually like playing Clerics. They need to have a noticeable impact on the group's stamina.

I think we're at least getting closer to the real bone of contention here, because this sounds pretty much like "I think clerics should be more powerful than other classes" to me. That a cleric -- and a cleric alone -- makes the game harder to die in, and thus easier to play. Without this feature of turning a risky adventuring day into something without as much risk, it's not fun to play a cleric. Unless a party with a cleric is outright better than (rather than just different from) a party without one, the cleric isn't worth playing.

Which means that the cleric carries more weight and importance than any other class in the game. Play a barbarian instead of a fighter, or a bard instead of a rogue? Sure. Play a druid instead of a cleric? NEVER. You play a druid AND a cleric. Because the cleric makes the party better.

I should note that I don't think this is wrong, per se. It's a fine way to play. I just question the wisdom of making that the assumed baseline mode of play.

I should also note that I may be misunderstanding your intent there. I'm certainly not trying to put words into your mouth. I'd just note that changing the duration of adventuring days almost by definition makes the party more powerful (they're able to have more encounters, fight more things, get more XP, gain levels faster, etc.).

If the player cannot help the others in combat through healing and buffs and support, then you won't get them to play the new edition.

Sure, but I think you may be misunderstanding the goal of this. The goal is not to deprive players of the fun of buffing and healing the party. The goal is to ensure that the buffs and heals that the cleric is capable of aren't considered necessary to get a "full adventuring day" in. If no one in the party chooses to play a cleric, that shouldn't be a problem. If someone WANTS to play the support unit, they should be able to, and get the fun of buffing and healing the party, but if nobody wants to do that, the game should run differently, but not worse.

 

[pemerton]

this was one of my observations with combat roles being baked into classes in 4e. Some classes could blend from their main role into others, from what I understand (the 4e Fighter can be a good Striker, for example), but some seemed much less able to blend. And so you have people saying what they think is the optimal party composition (1 Leader, 1 Controller, 1 Defender, and a couple Strikers, or something similar). So, while you get some options when going for your party composition, you still get kinda stifled. That's not to say you can't go a different route (pemerton's group has no Leader, but I think three PCs that can heal), but I still see a lot of people say "no, you shouldn't have 2 Leaders, 2 Defenders, and 1 Striker. The fights will drag on too much." And I think we can probably agree that a group without Leaders to PCs that can dip healing (like pemerton's group) might be in for a lot of a hurt.

This raises an interesting issue.

In 4e, too many defenders and leaders won't necessarily hurt you ingame - you'll take less damage, and heal up what you take - but it will hurt you in the real world, as your combats drag due to a lack of damage output.

So the desirability of avoiding too many of that role is not about ingame success but zippy play at the table.

Whereas when people are talking about the impact they want the cleric to have on play, and about whether or not the cleric is necessary, I don't think they're talking about speed and pleasure of play in the real world. I think they're talking about ingame success and the capacity of the PCs to achieve their ingame goals.

Which is an important thing, but different from the 4e issues that you correctly note.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I feel that a lot of people are still not getting what it is about Clerics that appeals to people who actually like playing Clerics. They need to have a noticeable impact on the group's stamina.

For every group of jerks who forces somebody to be a cleric when they don't want to, there's a group of not-jerks who don't force anybody to do anything, but give the person who does decide to be a cleric props and positive vibes. Cleric players like that.

The fact that there are groups of jerks about somebody has to play a cleric and be a healbot at least suggests issues with game design deficiencies. Yes? Saying that, "This isn't a problem because you can avoid the problem," doesn't stop it being a problem...

 

[pemerton]

changing the duration of adventuring days almost by definition makes the party more powerful (they're able to have more encounters, fight more things, get more XP, gain levels faster, etc.).

You are taking an igame perspective here. But is that the right perspective?

What does it matter to the players at the table if their party takes 5 ingame days to level, rather than 4 ingame days? It's not as if the passage of ingame time is, per se, a burden on or cost to anyone in the real world.

Of course there may be other things tied to the passage of ingame days - so perhaps a party with a cleric succeeds better at time-sensitive missions, just as it might handle undead better. But it's not clear to me why ingame time is, per se, a valuable resource which, if the cleric can conserve more of it, makes the cleric more powerful.

A concrete instance: suppose that the cleric lets you do 5 encounters per day rather than the "default" 4. But suppose the wizard has a Rope Trick or similar spell that lets you rest safely once every 4 days (thereby getting a fifth day in every four). Then in terms of capacity to deliver reliable adventuring output, the two PCs are equivalent, unless ingame time is a resource in an of itself. But I personally haven't seen any argument that this must be so.

 

[Garthanos]

You are taking an igame perspective here. But is that the right perspective?

What does it matter to the players at the table if their party takes 5 ingame days to level, rather than 4 ingame days? It's not as if the passage of ingame time is, per se, a burden on or cost to anyone in the real world.

Of course there may be other things tied to the passage of ingame days - so perhaps a party with a cleric succeeds better at time-sensitive missions, just as it might handle undead better. But it's not clear to me why ingame time is, per se, a valuable resource which, if the cleric can conserve more of it, makes the cleric more powerful.

Its not just the ...oh we have to rest issue getting more done faster is an increase in efficiency which I really cant see not being measured as being more powerful its more flexible than that its survivability Our party might choose to do the 4 encounters and be in effect more reliably defended... or doing more mighty and nasty encounters and all because of the CoDzilla you let in the game.

I am probably not understanding something but you seem to be staring at a narrow benefit and not seeing how its really a flexible everything goes better with C.

 

[JamesonCourage]

This raises an interesting issue.

In 4e, too many defenders and leaders won't necessarily hurt you ingame - you'll take less damage, and heal up what you take - but it will hurt you in the real world, as your combats drag due to a lack of damage output.

So the desirability of avoiding too many of that role is not about ingame success but zippy play at the table.

Whereas when people are talking about the impact they want the cleric to have on play, and about whether or not the cleric is necessary, I don't think they're talking about speed and pleasure of play in the real world. I think they're talking about ingame success and the capacity of the PCs to achieve their ingame goals.

Which is an important thing, but different from the 4e issues that you correctly note.

Different, yes, but both are player decisions about party composition that affect party survivability. I don't know if people have tried a more "balanced" party (1 Defender + 1 Leader + 1 Controller + 2 Strikers) against a more "passive" party (2 Defenders + 2 Leaders + 1 Controller), but I'm also interested as to whether or not that increased "the capacity of the PCs to achieve their ingame goals." That is, the more "passive" party, with a few high-damage defenders (Fighters?), might still be able to deal decent damage while increasing suvivability quite substantially. Any thoughts on that? As always, play what you like

I feel that a lot of people are still not getting what it is about Clerics that appeals to people who actually like playing Clerics. They need to have a noticeable impact on the group's stamina.

I think we're at least getting closer to the real bone of contention here, because this sounds pretty much like "I think clerics should be more powerful than other classes" to me.

That's not what it sounds like to me at all. As always, play what you like

 

[Balesir]

I feel that a lot of people are still not getting what it is about Clerics that appeals to people who actually like playing Clerics. They need to have a noticeable impact on the group's stamina.

For every group of jerks who forces somebody to be a cleric when they don't want to, there's a group of not-jerks who don't force anybody to do anything, but give the person who does decide to be a cleric props and positive vibes. Cleric players like that.

Having a cleric in the party increase your average adventuring day from 4 encounters to 5 sounds about right to me.

The problem is not clerics being 'cool' or whatever, with this - the problem is that, if a party with a cleric goes from having the power to deal with 4 encounters before recharging to being able to deal with 5 encounters before resting, then the cleric must be flat out more powerful. At that point it's optimal to have a party of clerics - and CoDzilla is back (albeit maybe in diluted form).

 

[Garthanos]

I think we're at least getting closer to the real bone of contention here, because this sounds pretty much like "I think clerics should be more powerful than other classes" to me. That a cleric -- and a cleric alone -- makes the game harder to die in, and thus easier to play. Without this feature of turning a risky adventuring day into something without as much risk, it's not fun to play a cleric. Unless a party with a cleric is outright better than (rather than just different from) a party without one, the cleric isn't worth playing.

I really really cant see the feature of making the whole thing less risky as anything but that.... perhaps he doesn't really realize being able to knock down more enemies faster results in the party able to survive and last for a longer ie it also reduces risk. And if the fellow defending his party is doing his job it directly reduces risk as well.

At the end of the day really everyone is in the same end goals.. if the Cleric only staved off death without actually bringing characters back in to the battle that might make things safer sort of without in effect equating to making Cleric the most MVP because he contributes to the win better than all others.

 

[FireLance]

You are taking an igame perspective here. But is that the right perspective?

There is an actual mechanical effect, though. Although I've been talking about the "length" of an adventuring day, the adventuring day in 5e is actually measured in terms of XP, not the number of encounters.

A party without a cleric being able to take on 400 XP worth of challenges in an adventuring day while a party with a cleric is able to take on 500 XP worth of challenges in an adventuring day is similar to the cleric-less party being able to take on a CR 4 challenge while the party with a cleric is able to take on a CR 5 challenge in 3e, or EL 4 vs. EL 5 in 4e. That approach would mean that a party with a cleric is mechanically more powerful, and assuming all else is equal, it must mean that the cleric is more powerful than any other class.

To attempt a crude quantification, if a standard character has 10 units of effectiveness, and a 4-person party without a cleric has 40 units of effectiveness. I am arguing that a 4-person party with a cleric should still have 40 units of effectiveness (maybe the cleric "gives up" 6 units of effectiveness to grant his three companions an extra 2 units of effectiveness each). It seems that others are of the view that a 4-person party with a cleric should have 50 units of effectiveness (maybe the cleric gives up 5 units of effectiveness to grant his three companions an extra 5 units each).

 

[pemerton]

The problem is not clerics being 'cool' or whatever, with this - the problem is that, if a party with a cleric goes from having the power to deal with 4 encounters before recharging to being able to deal with 5 encounters before resting, then the cleric must be flat out more powerful..

This is only true if resting is a cost. My example upthread of the hypothetical wizard's Rope Trick spell shows that this is not necessarily so.
[MENTION=3424]FireLance[/MENTION] gives a more interesting example, in terms of capacity to handle encounter budget - to my mind this just reinforces the absurdity of treating 5 x 100 XP encounters as equivalent to 1x 500 XP encounters. If the cleric can help disproportionately in the latter case, then I agree it is more powerful. But simply removing a rest period between the 4th and 5th 100 XP encounters is only a power-up if resting is a cost. And I'm not yet persuade that it is (in general; of course it can be in particular circumstances, and you can build in mechanics, say like AD&D's upkeep rules or Burning Wheel's cost-of-living rules that make resting a cost, but I haven't noticed any such rules in D&Dnext).