D&D 5E Healing, range and action economy

[DaveDash]

I didn't play a cleric in our first campaign. My buddy did. We were stuck in 3E combat healing mentality where cure light wounds was your only low level option.

After playing a cleric myself, I've changed to the healing word is superior camp. I've done this for reasons other than action economy. In 3E/Pathfinder the cleric (especially at low levels) was a fairly weak combatant, so focusing his slots on healing and removing debuffs from stronger combat classes like martials and arcane casters was an efficient use of spell resources given the difficulty of our combats. That isn't the case in 5E.

In 5E the cleric is as strong in combat as most other classes. So focusing spell slots and actions on healing alone is an inefficient use of spell resources. Healing Word allows the cleric to heal, while focusing potent combat actions on attacking, thus allowing your group to end the fight quicker. I was quite surprised when the party was down to two members out of five (the cleric and warlock/fighter) to see the cleric cast spiritual guardians, spiritual weapon, and start casting sacred flame while wearing +1 half-plate with a shield and decimate the room of enemies. I had picked her up Resilient Con and boosted her Con to 15. The cleric tore that room up at 7th level. It was illuminating. Now I understand why their spell list is limited. You have to be careful giving clerics any more than they have. In 5E the cleric is a power class and you have to be careful with it. You give it too much and C-zilla is back.

Better to build the cleric for combat and use healing word[/I in 5E than cure wounds. You can build a crazy tough cleric in this edition. You could build a pretty tough cleric in 3E/Pathfinder, but martials and arcane casters were still for the most part tougher for most levels. In 5E the cleric is one of the stronger classes from beginning.

Clerics can do a lot of damage when the sh*t hits the fan, it takes them a while to wind up though. I'm playing a War Cleric and when you have time to wind up all your spells (ie, a big fight) you can wade in and kill a lot of things. Most of the time though he is a attack magnet (high AC, bonus action attack, dodge action).

The Light Cleric is a serious damage dealer class with Potent cantrips, fireballs, and spiritual weapon bonus action attacks, without the same wind up period (Round 1 spiritual weapon + potent sacred flame, round 2 start dropping fireballs - spiritual weapon cleans up what survives). Just make sure you have Elemental Adept (Fire).

 

[aramis erak]

My players use Healing Word to rez downed characters who are too far or two dangerous to get to before they die. Cure is for those who are near the bard, cleric or druid.

 

[Celtavian]

Clerics can do a lot of damage when the sh*t hits the fan, it takes them a while to wind up though. I'm playing a War Cleric and when you have time to wind up all your spells (ie, a big fight) you can wade in and kill a lot of things. Most of the time though he is a attack magnet (high AC, bonus action attack, dodge action).

The Light Cleric is a serious damage dealer class with Potent cantrips, fireballs, and spiritual weapon bonus action attacks, without the same wind up period (Round 1 spiritual weapon + potent sacred flame, round 2 start dropping fireballs - spiritual weapon cleans up what survives). Just make sure you have Elemental Adept (Fire).

I used the Dodge Action with spiritual guardians a few times. Talk about a nightmare for melee enemies. I've been thinking of multiclassing the cleric with sorcerer at higher levels to get the shield spell and absorb elements to make her harder to kill. If I can get Quicken Spell, so I can quicken a full heal now and again, holy indestructible cleric.

 

[DaveDash]

I used the Dodge Action with spiritual guardians a few times. Talk about a nightmare for melee enemies. I've been thinking of multiclassing the cleric with sorcerer at higher levels to get the shield spell and absorb elements to make her harder to kill. If I can get Quicken Spell, so I can quicken a full heal now and again, holy indestructible cleric.

Heh for Princes of the Apoc I'm letting my player run a favoured soul life domain. No quickened heal but four attacks + spell silliness with a couple of levels of fighter.

 

[MerricB]

The problem is that Cure Wounds doesn't give double the healing of Healing Word, because your spellcasting modifier is likely to be a positive number, and because 1d8 is less than twice of 1d4. They even have the same minimum, where minimum healing is an extremely important variable to take into consideration.

Cure Wounds should heal 2d4 + twice your spellcasting modifier, and then it would be balanced because Healing Word would give half healing.

Having Cure Wounds heal 2d4 rather than 1d8 does not magically make it balanced.

Here's the thing: Neither Healing Word nor Cure Wounds is strictly better than the other. Each of them does things the other does not.

In combat, when actions are at a premium, Healing Word allows you to keep fighting while you heal your friend. (The best use is generally on a PC who is at 0 hit points).

Out of combat, Cure Wounds is far more effective at regaining hit points. It also scales far, far better. The versatility of Cure Wounds is something that makes it often worth taking even at high levels - being able to use it at multiple levels of spell slot is very useful. Sometimes you just need a little healing, sometimes you need a lot more. (The limited number of spells you can prepare is a significant limitation).

The spells work as designed: each fills different roles, and you need to choose the one that fits your situation better.

 

[Celtavian]

Having Cure Wounds heal 2d4 rather than 1d4 does not magically make it balanced.

Here's the thing: Neither Healing Word nor Cure Wounds is strictly better than the other. Each of them does things the other does not.

In combat, when actions are at a premium, Healing Word allows you to keep fighting while you heal your friend. (The best use is generally on a PC who is at 0 hit points).

Out of combat, Cure Wounds is far more effective at regaining hit points. It also scales far, far better. The versatility of Cure Wounds is something that makes it often worth taking even at high levels - being able to use it at multiple levels of spell slot is very useful. Sometimes you just need a little healing, sometimes you need a lot more. (The limited number of spells you can prepare is a significant limitation).

The spells work as designed: each fills different roles, and you need to choose the one that fits your situation better.

I can see a few situations where cure wounds could be superior such as only a single target requiring a heal in a situation where time is limited. Once you obtain prayer of healing, you usually use that for non-combat healing with multiple targets when you can't short rest. There are uses for cure wounds. I could even see it being better if your group is taking environmental damage dropping to zero can lead to situations where a player can be easily killed.

Not sure how you're DMing, but I've started to adjust monster thinking to the new healing paradigm of 5E with no negative hit points and a single heal allowing a PC to be a full strength for a round. I have the monster finish PCs by attacking them while they're down. It generally requires two hits while the PC is down to kill them causing three automatic death save fails.

I know you DM a ton. As a DM do you like the new "pop up" healing from zero fully effective PC paradigm?

 

[DaveDash]

I'm toying with the idea of +1 levels of exhaustion each time you go to 0.

 

[MerricB]

I can see a few situations where cure wounds could be superior such as only a single target requiring a heal in a situation where time is limited. Once you obtain prayer of healing, you usually use that for non-combat healing with multiple targets when you can't short rest. There are uses for cure wounds. I could even see it being better if your group is taking environmental damage dropping to zero can lead to situations where a player can be easily killed.

Not sure how you're DMing, but I've started to adjust monster thinking to the new healing paradigm of 5E with no negative hit points and a single heal allowing a PC to be a full strength for a round. I have the monster finish PCs by attacking them while they're down. It generally requires two hits while the PC is down to kill them causing three automatic death save fails.

I know you DM a ton. As a DM do you like the new "pop up" healing from zero fully effective PC paradigm?

It's not all that new! It worked that way all the way through 4E, and I'm fine with it. Really, it's not all that different from how things worked in 3E (when my radiant servant of Pelor was healing crazy amounts of damage). In the AD&D campaign I ran for 3 years recently, I used the rule that once you went down you couldn't fight again until you had a week's bed rest. It was not a better rule.

Note also that not all classes have access to healing word (Paladins get Cure Wounds and not Healing Word). Prayer of Healing is great. Cure Wounds is also interesting for a Cleric 1/Wizard 9 due to the higher level slots but not higher level spells.

I do occasionally have monsters spend their actions to strike downed PCs. It's not a common tactic - I want the PCs to win, after all - but I do sometimes use it to demonstrate a point.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

I'm toying with the idea of +1 levels of exhaustion each time you go to 0.

I think that's a very good way of doing it.

 

[DaveDash]

I think that's a very good way of doing it.

I probably got the idea from a thread posted here some time ago.