Cleric Won't Heal?

[Ashrym]

She's more likely to use prayer of healing than the cure spell. She's never really gonna have that many spare spellslots.

Prayer of Healing is a much better use of the slot and does not impact action economy in combat. It's usually more efficient to heal with spells outside of combat like that.

The issue comes with letting others PC's drop to 0hp for efficiency because that also costs concentration, for example. It doesn't save resources when the cleric (or whomever; doesn't need to be a cleric) just caused the crowd control to drop.

In combat healing has it's place too.

 

[Lanefan]

I'll heal if I've got the spellslits but the larger a group gets you probably want more than one potential healer.

Some people are directly expecting the cleric to heal in demand and then double down on it with the healer feat instead if taking that feat themselves.

Strategically and tactically that's poor. What happens if the cleric is KO'ed?

My take is you want one full-time healer and one or two backups (who mostly focus on other things), with the backups' only curative job being to keep the main healer upright.

 

[Blue]

If I had a choice, I would likely not adventure with a cleric like that.

And right there, you have the wrong answer.

Why wrong?

If you adventure with no healers, you have no healing. So you could not have "that cleric" and still be in the same place, so you answer that you are not travelling with "that cleric" does NOT in fact solve your issue. So what solves you issue? Traveling with healing.

Let's give this a try:

I want to adventure with a healer.

Now let's see. If there is "that cleric" - an effective force who is a boon to the party AND they can clutch heal when needed in addition to the healer. Do you have a problem anymore with "that cleric"? No. As a matter of fact, since they add in even more healing, including if the healer is the one to drop, you might welcome them with open arms.

So please, if you are being honest with yourself you should have no problem with "that cleric", you have a problem that none of the players, yourself included, are playing a healer.

 

[Redwizard007]

The game designed clerics to heal, but what makes you think no other class is pigeon holed? It's not like every rogue isn't expected to find traps even though anyone can learn to do it.

The game is designed so that clerics can heal. Not that they must. Clerics also make great blasters, buffers and front line combatants. With all the out of combat healing, not to mention the healing abilities of the paladin, ranger, bard, sorcerer, artificer, and druid, there is no reason that one class, or one character should become Mr. Band-aid.

Rogues can search for traps, but nothing in their class makes them particularly good at it unless they chose to use expertise for theives tools.

Nothing bothers me more than when one player tries to dictate to another what role their character should fill. I actually prefer to call characters by their background rather than their class. That way we avoid this type of shenanigans.

"Divine warrior" is just fancy words for "Paladin", right?

And all the basic classes have their basic things they do best, be it in or out of combat. Fighters give out (and take) damage. Clerics support and heal. Rogues sneak and scout. Wizards stand in the back and watch (according to the front-liners!).

A Fighter who won't fight or a Rogue that won't scout is about on a par with a Cleric who won't heal*: much less useful than it could be.

* - out of combat particularly.

A divine warrior is any warrior inspired by faith. Paladins are an example, but so are templars, knights on pilgrimage, crusader archers, even berserkers inspired by Woden. Class is just the package of mechanics you chose as a base. It isn't a character concept.

I've played, regularly, with a rogue who doesn't scout. She's a beast with DPS and a great party face. I've also seen fighters played as amazing bowmen. Almost never in the front lines. On the flip side, I've played with an evoker that got addicted to Magic Missle, and a heal bot cleric. The former two were much better teammates than the latter.

 

[Blue]

The game designed clerics to heal, but what makes you think no other class is pigeon holed? It's not like every rogue isn't expected to find traps even though anyone can learn to do it.

BZZZZT.

The game designed cleric so they could heal, among many different things they can do. So can druids, arguably better. Bards can heal fairly well, and are better at preventing damage via crowd control than either of them. Divine Sorcerers can heal very well, also potentially better than clerics between metamagic and using SP to make the right spell slot.

Cleric no more are designed TO heal then a fighter is designed TO be a front liner. They both can do it, but that's not the only way to play them.

 

[Blue]

So last night before I ran game I asked my group (witch has no healer right now except an artificer with a wand that has 3 charges)

they all agreed that if you prep healing spells it is not selfish for someone who is hurt to ask you to use the spell you preped.

so then I asked about the vetoing we do of characters and only 1 player said they MIGHT veto this one and it depended on talking to the person... if they were trying to make a fish that was better front line then a fighter and they already had a fighter they would consider it... that then side tracked us to telling horror stories of CODzilla for almost an hour to a young woman who started in 5e...

2 of the players also play in the saterday game I play and they both said “Matt would veto that real quick”. But I won’t talk to him till saterday.

Try asking them them the actual question. Here's some words so the way the question is asked doesn't introduce bias, just delivers the salient points.

"During session 0 when everyone is coming up with characters, one person has a concept that works well as a cleric, but they don't intend to spend much time healing - just some clutch healing if needed. Everyone knows this and can choose to play a more dedicated healer, or even someone else who will occasionally heal.

"Do you believe it is selfish to then turn around and during play always demand this player play their character as a primary healer?"

 

[Zardnaar]

BZZZZT.

The game designed cleric so they could heal, among many different things they can do. So can druids, arguably better. Bards can heal fairly well, and are better at preventing damage via crowd control than either of them. Divine Sorcerers can heal very well, also potentially better than clerics between metamagic and using SP to make the right spell slot.

Cleric no more are designed TO heal then a fighter is designed TO be a front liner. They both can do it, but that's not the only way to play them.

Maybe they shouldn't have cut the spell slots so much.
Even with life clerics their channel divinity should be something like 2d10+level healing.

 

[Blue]

And all the basic classes have their basic things they do best, be it in or out of combat. Fighters give out (and take) damage. Clerics support and heal. Rogues sneak and scout. Wizards stand in the back and watch (according to the front-liners!).

A Fighter who won't fight or a Rogue that won't scout is about on a par with a Cleric who won't heal*: much less useful than it could be.

* - out of combat particularly.

Yeah, casters in 5e aren't nearly that pigeonholed.

People could say "sorcerers are blasters", and then find that a twinning buff sorcerer is a huge force multiplier, and depending on party may easily out-perform the same party but with the blaster sorcerer.

Clerics can do a heck of a lot of things. It doesn't matter if it's "basic" or not - that's just your preconceived notions. Clerics don't have a single base class feature that makes them healers except access to spell lists - which contain a heck of a lot more than healing. As long as the player is playing an effective character, where do you get a say for "change your character concept and focus on this part"?

Any argument that starts with "clerics are healers" and doesn't include half a dozen other points that clerics also are in 5e is false out of the gate as it's omitting important information to narrow their definition in an incorrect way.

 

[Redwizard007]

Maybe they shouldn't have cut the spell slots so much.
Even with life clerics their channel divinity should be something like 2d10+level healing.

You are under valuing spending HD to heal at a short rest. If that isn't sufficient, and no one wants to be a more dedicated healer then there are optional rules your DM may want to look at.

 

[Zardnaar]

You are under valuing spending HD to heal at a short rest. If that isn't sufficient, and no one wants to be a more dedicated healer then there are optional rules your DM may want to look at.

I covered that earlier. Don't ask for magical healing until you have used your hit dice.