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

[MoonSong]

I don't disagree with the sentiment of satisfying fans of various classes/races, but why does that entail making them more powerful than other classes/races? We see this, too, with the wizard afficionadoes. If any putative future D&D is to provide cleric fans with "properly powerful" clerics, wizard fans with "properly powerful" wizards, fighter fans with "properly powerful" fighters and rogue fans with "properly powerful" rogues, what is going to be left as merely "average"? It reminds me of the latter day miners union leader, Joe Gormley, who once said it was his aim that "no-one should be paid below the national average, and miners should be paid above the national average" - thus demonstrating either breathtaking ambition to transcend the laws of reality, or a complete ignorance of the meaning of the word "average".

Not exactly advocating for uber powerful clerics, just meaningfull clerics, that a party with a cleric can do things a party without one doesn't necesarilly mean the cleric itself is more powerfull than other classes.

An example
A low level party on 3.5 with a Healer instead of a Cleric can take more fights than one with a Cleric instead of a Healer, as long as the Healer has enough Orisons, the party will remain at full health, yet nobody would think a Healer is overpowered and vastly superior to a Cleric. On a straight fight the cleric would trash the floor with the healer. Likewise on Basic a straight fighter will trash the floor with a cleric, but if they work together the fighter with the cleric backing will be able to do more than just two fighters. And if he also has a Thief on his side he will be able to out do three fighters, no member of the big four should be able to be removed without reducing the party capacity.

Now saying a cleric has to be menaingfull doesn't preclude the ability to replace it with an equivalent class, Replace Cleric with Druid/Bard/Paladin/Divine Sorcerer/Warlord and the party should be fine.

But a lot of this uproar is unjustiffied. The Basic game is obviously aimed at Old school groups and groups of new players/Casual people. The old school people haven't had any problem with the cleric before and have no reason to have it now (don't fix what ain't broke), and if groups of novce players or casual players start running simulations and making mathematical analyisis on what is the most optimal way of play, well they are already past casual/novice and ready to move on to standard where those concerns are answered.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The issue is that it's a false choice. They shouldn't have to choose between what they want and what is the most efficient. They should be able to play whatever they want without any drop in efficiency. .

Why? I think your class selection should matter. I want my decision not to have a cleric in the party to matter when we face vampires. I want the choice not to include a mage mean something when we we really could use that scry spell. I want the decision not to pick up a rogue to have an impact when we delve into the trap laden dungeon. None of these things are a requirement but they are meaningful. If you can just swap out classes with one another and get the same result, then ot me that just sint enough texture.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Why?

Fundamentally, because D&D is a game where a big chunk of the fun comes from pretending to be someone else. If you're coerced into pretending to be a certain kind of someone else, that chunk of fun is curtailed: even in my game of make-believe, I can't be who I want to be.

I think your class selection should matter. I want my decision not to have a cleric in the party to matter when we face vampires. I want the choice not to include a mage mean something when we we really could use that scry spell. I want the decision not to pick up a rogue to have an impact when we delve into the trap laden dungeon. None of these things are a requirement but they are meaningful. If you can just swap out classes with one another and get the same result, then ot me that just sint enough texture.

I'm mostly gonna repeat what I said to DEFCON 1: I feel like this part of your post is a very passionate point against something that no one is really arguing for.

Just because clerics aren't necessary doesn't mean that they don't matter. They could still be the only ones in the basic game capable of restoring hit points, even to other characters, outside of a rest. That's a potent niche. It's just not a necessary one, unless the designers make it so.

 

[D'karr]

Why? I think your class selection should matter. I want my decision not to have a cleric in the party to matter when we face vampires. I want the choice not to include a mage mean something when we we really could use that scry spell. I want the decision not to pick up a rogue to have an impact when we delve into the trap laden dungeon. None of these things are a requirement but they are meaningful. If you can just swap out classes with one another and get the same result, then ot me that just sint enough texture.

Sure, those scenarios you put forth are a few in a myriad of scenarios. Vampires will only be relevant when the scenario has vampires. Attrition of HP, however, occurs on the vast majority of scenarios; not only on those with vampires, scry spell use, or traps.

Healing is a "universal" scenario. Vampires are not.

 

[Li Shenron]

Apparently in 3e with an appropriate CLW wand there is no slope at all and we have every encounter at par hit points are an encounter based resource.

I'm fine with having an option for full refresh of HP after each encounter, like World of Warcraft. It's a totally legitimate playstyle.

But in the name of God the 5e core books should better make it clear that this should be always a gamestyle choice... the wands of CLW were a hypocritical and dangerous way of dealing with the problem because they were just thrown into the game "just in case you hate running out of HP" just like Light as a cantrip is there "just in case you hate keeping track of torches". The problem is that this stuff was available to everyone by default, meaning that just ONE player with a smart eye could bring this stuff to the table, and a DM could do nothing but see the chosen gamestyle go awry... or then jump up after a few sessions, acknowledge the problem, ban the CLW wands to reinstate the chosen gamestyle, and in the course of events piss off the smart player and show all other players that the DM has made a mistake.

If this sort of stuff in the book only carried a nice sidebar explaining WHEN you should or shouldn't allow it because the consequences on gamestyle are this and that, then the DM would know before the problem materializes.

 

[Iosue]

Just providing my own personal experience, I've never gotten the idea that some has to be a cleric, or has to be a "healbot". The first time I heard the phrase it kinda threw me for a loop, because it was so far out of my experience. In the groups I played, no body ever said to another player that they had to be "the Cleric". If a player choose to be a cleric, no one ever thought to say word one about what spells he should take. It's even like it was an etiquette thing; a character's spells were between that character and his player. If he wanted to play combat medic, that was his choice. If wanted to focus on buffs or utilities, no one cared. In our games (and this was Classic D&D, so maybe that was the reason), the cleric was an auxiliary melee guy/undead Turner. Any healing he provided was a bonus, and generally a between-encounter bonus at that. Combat healing was rare, usually in emergencies, and far from feeling put upon because he had to heal instead of attack, such situations were times for the cleric to shine.

A lotta folk complain about it, so I accept that it was a thing. But I gotta wonder how and why.

 

[Ratskinner]

Just providing my own personal experience, I've never gotten the idea that some has to be a cleric, or has to be a "healbot". The first time I heard the phrase it kinda threw me for a loop, because it was so far out of my experience. In the groups I played, no body ever said to another player that they had to be "the Cleric". If a player choose to be a cleric, no one ever thought to say word one about what spells he should take. It's even like it was an etiquette thing; a character's spells were between that character and his player. If he wanted to play combat medic, that was his choice. If wanted to focus on buffs or utilities, no one cared. In our games (and this was Classic D&D, so maybe that was the reason), the cleric was an auxiliary melee guy/undead Turner. Any healing he provided was a bonus, and generally a between-encounter bonus at that. Combat healing was rare, usually in emergencies, and far from feeling put upon because he had to heal instead of attack, such situations were times for the cleric to shine.

A lotta folk complain about it, so I accept that it was a thing. But I gotta wonder how and why.

I think its one of those things that varied a lot between groups, but has sorta become a predominant perception now that the internet lets us share out complaints. I've been playing in an OSR group recently, and we have often run without a Cleric. I saw several successful parties in 3e that didn't have clerics and one that had two characters with only a few levels of cleric. I saw it back in the day, too, but mostly with (what I would now call) gamist groups.

There's, I think, a lot of things about playstyle and adventure design that can make or break the compelling need for a cleric. I'm also quite confident, that like a lot of other "absolutely horrid and breaks my game" problems that various versions of D&D are supposed to have, that personality has a lot to do with it. Nonetheless, since 5e is trying to be the "all things to everyone" edition, it has to deal with it somehow.

 

[Ratskinner]

As it happens I agree that it can easily be designed this way, but I think the demand that "a party with a cleric should be able to face 5 encounters before resting, a party without a cleric only 4" is queering the pitch. I think if the difference is that marked, then something is awry; but I don't think it has to be so with the cleric still "special".

Right - so, it follows, the cleric can do some damage to monsters, too. It has less healing, but greater damage output. Healing is very useful - but so is damage output. Damage output means monsters die sooner, which means the party takes less damage. Get this balance right, and I think you're golden.

One issue with 3e, especially, is that, if s/he gets lucky, a cleric alone can take two fighters (using command, hold person and such - with good rolls). It seems to me that two fighters should, with luck, be able to take a cleric and a fighter. Whichever way the battle goes, the winners should be out of resources, all else being equal (i.e. cleric out of spells, fighters out of hit points, or near to).

In other words, the cleric should not be clearly superior to the fighter. Able to do different things - sure! One of healing's main benefits is to distribute damage around the party - i.e. the party with a reduced-damage-doer will take a bit more damage, but by healing selected parts of that the damage can be distributed more as they wish. Add to that clerical spells and turning undead and you have some very distinctive capabilities - but not a character that allows the party to hit harder and fight longer without any downsides.

Very much agree with all this. One thing I wanted to add, and you touch on it while talking about 3e; humans are very bad at assessing probability. So, even if were to run simulations of or model Cleric v. Fighter and set the odds even....people would still be upset and say you got it wrong. (Which direction would probably depend on their individual tastes, your opinion of an event affects your assessment of its likelihood.)

 

[Ratskinner]

Yep, if what they want is dials they need to build the basic game with the dials in mind. Not try to tack them ad-hoc in Standard and Advanced later. Even though Basic might not use all or any of the dials, its core design needs to be able to support all the dials.

I think that's part of what the playtesting is all about. I believe they've even told us so.

 

[Garthanos]

Sure, those scenarios you put forth are a few in a myriad of scenarios. Vampires will only be relevant when the scenario has vampires. Attrition of HP, however, occurs on the vast majority of scenarios; not only on those with vampires, scry spell use, or traps.

Healing is a "universal" scenario. Vampires are not.

This...
Situational flux is considerably different thing but really hit points are so universal this is not something you just write off. Healing vs Defending vs Attacking rather need to be balanced alternatives.

There is also the difference between accomplishing "ultimate goals" and how you get there phenomena... the class determines how something gets done not necessarily whether it gets done.

My rogue picks the lock, the fighter bashes the door down the difference in style may take the story different directions ... the bashed door leaves enemies a clue to follow but we get where we are going. My fighter hits the enemy in the face and its attacks are fairly obvious but the kind if you dont pay attention to them become nasty fast, the rogues are less obvious and deceptive yet when they work its a bad now... both are effective how the job gets done is different.