Cleric Won't Heal?

[EzekielRaiden]

Man, if only the classes with strong support capability were clearly labelled as such, so people who don't want to contribute primarily through supporting their allies wouldn't play them. And it would be a dream if doing those support things were set up in such a way that (a) doing them while doing some other cool thing was normal, and (b) they could include some other benefit along with the basic stuff, so it'd never be "wasteful" to do support things as a support-heavy character.

But seriously: what you are literally saying, Zardnaar, is that the person playing Cleric is supposed to have signed up for the "healer" role, but didn't want to be a "healer" and simply hoped without saying it that someone else would fill that role instead. Now that nobody is filling that role, you're left with a problem, because the game was specifically designed such that that role DOES need to be filled.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I find this discussion interesting in light of how powerful expectations can be.

my group is not into pvp at all but don’t always announce our class or classes, back to 1e.

We just play. In some cases you might not know who is a cleric depending on how they roleplay and the nature of their deity.

 

[Istbor]

The cleric yesterday said something like.

"I'm not healing you unless you fall over".

Translation I'll save your life with healing word.

Magical healing in 5E kinda sucks and generally it can't keep up with incoming damage. Well outside unnerfed spirit guardians and builds involving life clerics.

No one else took any healing magic or anything else that helps in that regard.

I'm a Goliath Fighter and I took it to reduce dependence on healing. There's another fighter joining. But that healing/damage mitigation doesn't scale well.

I don't mind as I'm a short rest class so encourages short rests to use hit dice.

They gave spread the healing load out but doesn't help when no one else takes this options.

Thoughts on her statement or expectations if getting healed?

Input from barbarian players be nice.

Currently playing a zealot barbarian in a campaign.
We have no dedicated healer (he died and got sucked into a portal to Heck. (Unfortunately that was a session I had to miss or I would have used my items to save him).

Even when we had the cleric (Tempest) I was fine with him not just being a healbot but doling out the damage as well. And given that as a barbarian, I can effectively double my HP while raging in most fights, it works out just fine. Simply means we had to adapt our tactics. If we roll up to a tough fight, and start rolling poorly (like last session) it might mean time to fall back, rest up, and rethink our approach.

Most fights we are counting on just killing everything faster than it can kill us. If someone does actually go down, our Ranger will spend a spell to pick them back up. That is about it. We understand that limitation.

Personally as a player and DM, I have no problem with a Cleric who makes that statement. I love that approach. Play the character how you want. She seems to also note that if push comes to shove she will save a life. That's great! That is 100% what I would count on from anyone who has at least one healing spell known. Trying to keep up with damage in a difficult or losing encounter is a waste of resources. Drag that downed character with you as you stabilize and secure a retreat I say.

 

[Richards]

Clerics are NOT "heal bots" that are just there to provide healing support as their "main objective".

About halfway through the campaign I just finished up, the party permanently lost their NPC dwarven cleric who had provided the majority of their healing. So I decided to replace her with a literal "heal bot" - MARCI, an automaton who had fallen through a breach between worlds from Gamma World. ("MARCI" is actually an acronym for "Medical Android - Red Cross International.") It took her a bit of time to learn the local Common tongue and initially she would only cure the wizard, as he was the only human in the party (and she'd been programmed not to "waste" her healing on mutants). But this was easily fixed by bestowing honorary "human" status to the other PCs in her databanks by direct order from the human wizard.

Johnathan

 

[Warpiglet-7]

...

Hiya!

The other Players Cleric character is not your personal magic item.

Sorry for the cold hard facts, but, uh, does she get to decide who you attack? I mean, what if she picks a fight with the corrupt town watchmen who are trying to shake down some old peddler in the street? Can she expect you to jump in and start hackin'n'slashin'? What about if she's down to 20hp, and you're only down to 40hp? Is she to expect you to jump in front of that thrown boulder from the stone giant? I mean, it's your "job" isn't it? To take damage and fight?

The point is this: She gets to decide if, when, and who she heals with her god/desses magic. Clerics are NOT "heal bots" that are just there to provide healing support as their "main objective". A Cleric is a class; the Player plays them the way they want, not the way anyone expects them to. Now, admittedly, each Class does have a "forte", and the Cleric's is to protect and heal/revive, but anyone playing in a group that has a Cleric should NEVER 'expect' to get healed whenever they want, need it, or think they need it. Doing that is a sure fire way to get everyone in the group to never ever ever want to play a Cleric. You think you have it bad now? Try it when everyone refuses to make a Cleric because "everyone is always begging for this spell or that spell and it's like I'm not even playing my own character...so why bother?".

...just sayin'...

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Yes. This is the old deal where someone lets their little brother join the game but only if he takes the cleric!

I have played clerics from1st edition and never felt others could define my style.

what edition are we playing? Weren’t clerics super offense capable in 3e? We would not tell them to shut up and heal!

Are we demanding all bards heal a lot? Or rangers?

healing is one thing a cleric can do and do well among a variety of things!

are we going to yell at the tempest cleric to skip the call lighting so he can heal a pal? Would Thor want his cleric running around as a medic who forgets their hammer?

there are many ways to play a cleric and many deities who want different things!

lastly healing sometimes is different than being a healbot. I play offensively geared clerics. A well placed heal can be clutch sometimes even if that as the main function...

players should not be beholden to other players assumptions. My group agreed to help one another and I often risk my character to do it but I can think of nothing less fun than someone else telling me how I must help.

those decisions belong to each player.

 

[NotAYakk]

I see a lot of people talking about the idea of roles and if a cleric should hear or a fighter should fight. I know that 5e has less dependence on class role, but I always looked at classes as having roles and players mostly needing to play those roles. If I have 4 friends and one wants to play a fighter that is an archer. That just means that someone else needs to front-line fight. A cleric that refuses to heal would be just as bad in the group. Saving the in combat heal is ok to a point, but at some point the front-line fighter may feel like he needs to pull back and shoot since he is low on HP, leaving the others in the party to now be in the front line.

I am saying you are wrong.

You can play 5e without a front-line fighter. A fighter is capable of being a front-line fighter. But, honestly, so is a rogue or a ranger or a wizard or a cleric or a bard.

Healing in combat is usually a bad plan. If enemies are so tough that you are at risk of dropping regularly, healing will slow down your death worse than helping drop the foe who is doing damage.

If enemies deal 18 damage per swing, on average you go to 0 with about 8 HP left. A 4 point heal brings you back up to 4; you can now take 1 more swing. This heal is far, far more effective after you are at 0 than it was when you where at 8; at 8, it would do next to nothing, at 4 it soaked a full blow.

There are some efficient heals, like a light cleric casting mass cure wounds or healing word. A mass healing word on a 20 cha cleric is 12 HP to 6 allies and 5 HP to themselves, 77 HP healed for a bonus action and a 3rd level slot. A mass cure wounds is 25.5 HP to 6 allies and 7 to themselves, 160 HP healed for a bonus action and a 5th level slot. Their channel divinity is also a huge amount of HP healed, Paladin LoH used as a massive heal is decent (using it in smaller amounts is action-inefficient, but you do need to save some for an action-stand-up), order cleric leaking out a healing word most rounds for a few HP plus a free attack is good.

But a 16 wisdom cleric casting mass healing word is 33 total HP, half that of the optimized healbot above. (and mass healing word is a good heal spell!) A mass cure wounds, similarly, is 99 HP for a 5th level slot and an action. A cure wounds on one creature at 3rd level? 16.5 HP at the cost of an action and a 3rd level slot.

Actions are currency, spending them on healing is expensive.

---

I understand that a greatweapon fighter is more effective with a cleric burning spell slots on heals to keep them up.

But that same fighter with a cleric laying the smackdown on things as well is even more effective in 5e D&D.

And for in-between fight healing, rangers rival clerics at downtime healing in this game.

 

[GMMichael]

Personally as a player and DM, I have no problem with a Cleric who makes that statement. I love that approach. Play the character how you want.

Agreed. Play the character how you want. My character would likely react with, "let me get this straight. You can use magic that will prevent me from being wounded, but you'd rather see me be wounded and almost die before you'll use it?"

And likely followed by, "excuse me while I find a less sadistic cleric. Morale is a thing, you know."

I am saying you are wrong.

"I disagree" is probably a better way to put that. Especially if you're going to back it up with opinions.

 

[Ashrym]

Cleric just doesn't get that many spells in 5E. And they're not that good at healing except life cleric, druid beats them unless DM knows about healing spirit errata.

Clerics get more spells than anyone because of domain spells and have the best selection of healing spells.

Errata is the default assumption. DM's not keeping up on official rules is no different than a house rules situation.

Clerics don't have to heal just because the class is clearly designed for it, but there's no denying what class sets the standard for "good" healing.

 

[Istbor]

Clerics get more spells than anyone because of domain spells and have the best selection of healing spells.

Errata is the default assumption. DM's not keeping up on official rules is no different than a house rules situation.

Clerics don't have to heal just because the class is clearly designed for it, but there's no denying what class sets the standard for "good" healing.

Oh I agree. Clerics are built to be one of the best healers in the game. I just don't expect a War or Tempest cleric (among other domains) to be slinging healing spells all combat long.

Agreed. Play the character how you want. My character would likely react with, "let me get this straight. You can use magic that will prevent me from being wounded, but you'd rather see me be wounded and almost die before you'll use it?"

And likely followed by, "excuse me while I find a less sadistic cleric. Morale is a thing, you know."

I think this ends up depending on whether you see HP as meat or not. Generally, at the tables I play, you are not really wounded until you hit low or hit that 0.

I see using healing spells as a triage, are we at the point this must be addressed now, or is this person still capable of standing for now? Is there a more valuable use of this spell that can help get us out of this situation or is the like... 1d8+4 additional HP going to keep things from falling apart?

 

[Campbell]

In 5e there are all sorts of ways to build Clerics. You cannot really pigeonhole most classes unless you know more about their builds. You should work together to make sure the group has enough overall healing. More importantly you need the right kind of healing. You need to be able to respond to different damage patterns. Often Cure Wounds delivered by a typical slow moving melee Cleric who needs to disengage and move around the battlefield in order to deliver a heal can be a pretty poor tactical choice.

In our game our healing comes from a Celestial Warlock, Bard/Paladin of Redemption, and Tempest Cleric / Order of Stars Druid. Our Battlesmith Artificer also gives some love taps. Who delivers the healing depends on the type of incoming damage and positioning.

That said if my current Eladrin Swashbuckler Rogue / Dragon Sorcerer kicks the bucket I might bring a more traditional healer in the form of a Favored Soul Sorcerer which gets around the major stumbling block for healing in 5e (having to be right next to someone to provide healing).