D&D 5E How is the Cleric in Actual Play?

[mortwatcher]

Do your players use their spell slots on nothing else but healing? How many encounters per day do you throw at them before you allow them time to recover. At 5th level, the spell slots shouldn't be so plentiful they can just toss them around during every encounter.

In my games, I usually do not actively kill PCs, but I also keep the diamond dust supplier scarce. I can see myself being way more kill aggressive if they had ton of money and access to indefinite supply for them to cast revivify on a daily basis.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Do your players use their spell slots on nothing else but healing?

No.

How many encounters per day do you throw at them before you allow them time to recover.

Varies widely, depending on the situation. Somewhere between one and nine.

At 5th level, the spell slots shouldn't be so plentiful they can just toss them around during every encounter.

Between 1st level spell slots, Paladin lay on hands, and ramming a 50gp potion of healing or Goodberry down someone's throat, there is plenty.

Yeah, Goodberry. Get yourself a first level druid and you can bring back ten people from the brink of death for one spell slot. And the druid doesn't even have to be around to administer it.

In my games, I usually do not actively kill PCs, but I also keep the diamond dust supplier scarce. I can see myself being way more kill aggressive if they had ton of money and access to indefinite supply for them to cast revivify on a daily basis.

In my games I don't actively try and keep PCs alive, but I have never seen Revivify cast.

 

[ashwanikuchhal]

Great in my opinion. The cleric is a healer, usually a priest and a holy warrior, originally modeled on or inspired by the Military Orders. ... Most clerics have powers to heal wounds, protect their allies and sometimes resurrect the dead, as well as summon, manipulate and banish undead.

 

[Zardnaar]

Again, how long do you guys leave PC's unconcious? IME, outside of 1st or 2nd level, a PC is unconcious for less than a round, most of the time. Between Healing Word or the bazillion other healing options groups have at, well, we'll say 5th level on up (where Revivify becomes an option), the odds of characters having to make a death save, let alone multiple ones is very remote.

Do your players just leave dying PC's on the ground? In our groups, at least half the party has access to healing magic of some sort - ranger, paladin, cleric, whatever. It's exceedingly rare that anyone hits the ground and almost never that anyone hits the ground for any length of time.

Healer feat is at will restore you to 1 hp and new archetypes like Celestial Warlock and the healer Druid have bonus action healing independent of spell slots.


Casting cure is sub optimal compared with healing word at zero. 5E reducing spellslots has lead to whack a mole and only the most efficient healing being used.

Hit point inflation and damage inflation have caused this.

Damage spells and healing spells also don't scale very well relative to say an upcast hold person.

Paladin lay on hands is inefficient except when doled out 1 hp at a time to prevent death.

 

[Hussar]

Do your players use their spell slots on nothing else but healing? How many encounters per day do you throw at them before you allow them time to recover. At 5th level, the spell slots shouldn't be so plentiful they can just toss them around during every encounter.

In my games, I usually do not actively kill PCs, but I also keep the diamond dust supplier scarce. I can see myself being way more kill aggressive if they had ton of money and access to indefinite supply for them to cast revivify on a daily basis.

By 5th level though, you have a LOT of healing options. The paladin is good for 25 hp, the cleric has, what, seven spell slots? The ranger has three or four. The bard's got another seven. And that's not counting potions of healing or goodberries or any number of other options.

It's not about casting revivify on a daily basis, it's that I've never seen it cast in play at all. I had it on my cleric from 5th to 10th level and then finally dropped it for Tongues. It was just taking up space.

I'd also point out that Revivify does not require diamond dust, simply diamonds. 300 gp worth of diamonds isn't exactly hard to find.

 

[mortwatcher]

By 5th level though, you have a LOT of healing options. The paladin is good for 25 hp, the cleric has, what, seven spell slots? The ranger has three or four. The bard's got another seven. And that's not counting potions of healing or goodberries or any number of other options.

It's not about casting revivify on a daily basis, it's that I've never seen it cast in play at all. I had it on my cleric from 5th to 10th level and then finally dropped it for Tongues. It was just taking up space.

I'd also point out that Revivify does not require diamond dust, simply diamonds. 300 gp worth of diamonds isn't exactly hard to find.

it's as hard to find as you make it, the worlds resources are DMs to manage

I have to admit that you have a lot of divine casters in your party, but most of their healing options are very action inefficient, as they are basically trading an action to bring someone back who can go down very fast again
healing word breaks that, as it only takes your bonus action - at least in case of cleric, there is still usually price to pay, as you will not be swinging with your spiritual weapon at least

 

[Hussar]

Meh. For one, the cleric is contributing so little to damage after 5th level, that spending a round healing isn't going to change damage output that much. A 5th level cleric, at best, is doing about 15 points of damage per round unless you've got Spirit Guardians up, and that's only 2/day at 5th level anyway at best. Meanwhile the fighter types are dealing about double that at least. And, heck, you can heal, and still use Spirit Guardians AND Spiritual Weapon all in the same round. Oh, noes, you're losing out on a mace attack or a 2d6 cantrip attack. Not really going to matter a whole lot compared to how much damage that fighter is going to do that you just stood up.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yep outside a couple of builds cleric damage is a bit meh and is mostly built around biva damage with 2 spells.

Boring class depending on domain. Guidance, bless, Spiritual weapon/guardians almost anything else is suboptimal.

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm going to disagree slightly, for two reasons. First, druids don't get revivify and remove curse spells. Second, a druid in beast form can't cast healing magic).

I'm not saying a druid is a bad healer, mind you, just that clerics are better. As are bards evil grin.

Best healer is Druid with Xanathars, PHB or Xanathars only MC life Cleric1/Druid. Life cleric is best for casual play.

That's in terms of hp regain. Clerics still have best list for dealing with conditions/death/disintegration.

 

[Blue]

By 5th level though, you have a LOT of healing options. The paladin is good for 25 hp, the cleric has, what, seven spell slots? The ranger has three or four. The bard's got another seven. And that's not counting potions of healing or goodberries or any number of other options.

Yes, but the majority of those take actions. A paladin or ranger eliminating enemies might be a much better investment of that action to prevent damage rather than healing and letting the foes get in more attacks. Actualy, that goes for a lot of classes when you include using your action to administer a healing potion or goodberry.

Not saying that it can't be worthwhile. Standing up your healer or your backup healer, for instance, is quite useful. On the other hand, if you have lots of area of effect attacks coming your way then standing someone up with your action might end up being pointless as even with a save they'll drop again.

Healing word is a gold standard for standing someone back up. Some subclasses that have bonus action heals also fit in that tier.