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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6090949" data-attributes="member: 2067">I reject the premise that the cleric needs to be "less powerful." Like I posted upthread, if every class has some way to avoid damage that would be vaguely equivalent to cleric healing, then the class distribution doesn't matter, since they all have about the same number of rounds between each full recharge. Cleric healing is different (and in some ways better -- you can use it on a wounded ally, for instance, instead of just using it on yourself like a fighter's parry or a rogue's dodge), but it's not necessary. As for adding more PC's, 4e's maths give us away to address that: add an extra "monster" per extra PC between the recharges. It's gonna eat up more table time, so it gets unwieldy at a certain point, but 5e's streamlined battles will make that point high. This is all largely ancillary to the maths. The party, total, has a total amount of HP, distributed amongst its members, unevenly, and puts out a certain amount of total damage, distributed unevenly among its members, too. Ranged might create a situation with slightly lower damage taken for slightly lower damage output. Different HP totals create a situation where when the party's damage output drops until an unconscious character can be brought back, so such a low-HP character need only be balanced on the idea that they will be putting out extra until they drop. This is largely a question of how much swing  you want. A game designed without much swing, like 4e, won't have major differences in HP totals between the characters, meaning that the differences in when one goes unconscious are minor, and so the differences in output is minor. A game designed with a lot of swing, like 1e, will have more dramatic HP discrepancies, and thus more dramatic effect discrepancies, but can still reasonably fit within the framework. Too much swing is probably not an ideal situation (you wanna trade being super effective half the time for having to sit out half the time?), but it's not "imbalanced." Again, this is ancillary. It's all being depleted from the party's total pool of resources. If someone spends less time taking action, their actions merely need to be made more effective. The action economy is how you distribute your actions. Fewer actions should create greater impact with each action. I feel like you may not be understanding me. The goal is not for there to be zero difference or perfect homogeneity. The goal is for clerics (or healers more generally) not to be necessary to perform "optimally." And it's not that hard in concept (though breaking down specific maths becomes more of a detailed exercise). Every bit of variation you included can still ultimately be reduced to a ballpark average of X points over Y rounds before you need to rest. Whatever X and Y are shouldn't change with the addition or removal of a single class, and whatever internal variation X and Y have is ultimately ancillary to their effect over an entire period between getting your own points back. Hope that's been elucidating.</blockquote>

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