3 player party and no cleric, need advise

[Targeteron]

Hello,

even though i have GMed several games, I had to take a brake for about 3 years. Now I am starting up a new group with my friends. It will be my first 3e group to run, one of my players plays regularly in another group so knows what he is doing, the other 2 have no real clue about 3e. Should be enough of a setup.

Now, I kind of face a problem, for me at least. Firstly only 3 players wich is not much, second the classes are Fighter(Archer), A Wizard/Rogue and a Barbarian. I think the party will be ok on the damage dealing departement, since their stats are quiet good. But I am worried about the lack of a cleric.

I humbly ask for your help and suggestions how to handle this. I dont want to simply give them a Cleric NPC to tag along, wich I find too "cheesy". And I dont want to "force" one of my players to play a cleric either. What would you suggest are alternative and interesting means of providing them healing opportunitys/abilities? Every Help is really appreciated.

 

[Crothian]

Don't worry about it. Design adventures how you want them to be, and let the players deal with lack of healing. Each party is different and they need to adjust to their strengths and weaknesses.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Don't worry about it. Design adventures how you want them to be, and let the players deal with lack of healing. Each party is different and they need to adjust to their strengths and weaknesses.

That's danged good advice. I would have you suggest to them that they at least stock up on some potions of cure light wounds, just in case. Those are fairly cheap, and in most campaigns fairly easy to come by, although I can't speak for everyone's.

 

[Patlin]

Other than making sure your stores carry a decent supply of healing potions, I'd leave it up to the players to handle it. If your especially nice, you might be more generous in allowing time for them to rest.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Wounds & Vitality.

 

[res]

I've played in a few parties that have not had a cleric, and they both had 3 people.

The DM was good about it. We were able to buy healing potions, and we frequently did. We also didn't have a lot of "hard" deadlines for getting things done, ie, we were able to take time to rest between adventures and had a lot of down time to recover. Sure we did a lot of running around, but once we were done, we had some free time before being thrown back into the fire.

If your game is going to be a dungeon crawl, they don't stand a chance. We stayed out of big dungeons, five or six rooms is ok, but beyone that, we would be in over our heads.

I think as a DM you always build the adventure around the players, so remember that they have no clerics so stay away from a high damage trap before the party was besieged by 100's of orcs.

If you are really concerned, then maybe someone the PCs are working for can have a cleric on staff so to speak. This isn't someone who will follow the players around helping them out every step of the way, but someone who can tend to the serious injuries when they check in with the boss and report on things.

Not having a cleric in the group can be a lot of fun. You come up with a lot of creative ways to avoid damage. As the DM, just remember that everyone wants to have fun so try to cut them a break.

 

[dontpunkme]

I DM for a very similar group a bbn, a rgr, and a sor. My way around it was to try to make potions available in more treasures than I normally would. Secondly the rgr has been maxing out his heal skill since first level. Because of this with long term care and a full nights rest a character heals a boatload of hitpoints a night. Also making a wand of cure light wounds or cure mod usable by arcane casters and putting them with 10-15 charges every few levels provides another source of healing. Be sure to give this wand out in lieu of other often more powerful treasure so it doesn't change the game balance significantly. Also limit the number of these wands that you give so that the players become stingy with said wands and hesitate to use them except for in emergencies where immediate healing is neccessary.
And if the above doesn't work then don't hesitate to execute a tpk and let them reroll characters that this time will include a cleric.

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

I play in a group of 7 that, until three levels ago, still had no PCs with cleric classes... finally, I multiclassed into Cleric from Paladin...

We managed to survive through the use of potions and a happy relationship with some near-by temples and a high level cleric NPC.

It wasn't easy... but, we got by (sort of ).

 

[Connorsrpg]

Gesalt

Not that I would use them, Unearthed Arcana has Gestalt Characters, where a PC advances in 2 levels at once. This is for low #'s of players which you have.

Check it out if you wish, it may help those beginners suvive too. I like the suggestions made so far myself. My group has often gone without a cleric, and magic (especially healing) is always harder to come by in my setting. Players soon realise they CAN'T WIN EVERY FIGHT, so hint at withdrawal tactics and other clever options.

Maxing Heal skill will help, another option is to give the Ranger and Barbarian (possibly wizard too) access to a Herbalist-like skill. Not a silly (waste of time IMHO) Profession skill, but more like a craft skill, sim ilar to alchemy if you like. I have craft Natural Medicines for such an occasion. Allow players to brew and mix up some healing remedies, using alchemy as a guideline.

Good Luck, it is VERY possible to run a campaign wthout the cleric...

Connors

 

[Ogre Mage]

I think the best way is to make potions and scrolls/wands (if someone has UMD) easily accessible. The party will, by necessity, be spending a lot more money on healing items than they would w/ a cleric around ... but that is realistic and the trade-off they chose.

The party of course will also need to learn to act cautiously and time-sensitive missions are probably out of the question, as are traditional dungeon crawls. Perhaps they could cutivate the good will of a nearby temple by doing a mission for the temple?