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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 6337697" data-attributes="member: 2011">Not always. The cleric's initiative might be immediately before the fighter's. If the cleric heals, then he has wasted an opportunity to damage a foe. If he does not heal, he tries to damage a foe. The fighter then tries to damage a foe. At some point, the foes attack. Some might attack the fighter simply because he is still up and still low on hit points (NPCs do not know the hit points, but probably do know that the fighter got hurt). That might be better for the party than attacking the wizard or rogue (due to their lower ACs and overall hit points). If the cleric heals the fighter, then sure, the fighter is better off. But, the wizard might be dropped that next round and the cleric can no longer heal him, etc.I have played in a lot of games where as a healer, I waited to heal downed PCs in many cases. It just depends. I was once in a 4E game with a hybrid leader/leader where one PC went down to 4 hit points. For several rounds, he wanted me to heal him but I didn't. Two other PCs ended up going unconscious and I healed them right away (because as a hybrid, I could cast my only 2 minor heals in a single turn). The 4 hit point PC never got hit again and it worked out that the party saved more resources the way I did it.It will not always turn out that way, but waiting until a PC drops to heal him is often (not always) a viable tactic in a game where PCs do not go to negative numbers and start healing at zero hit points and there are few penalties for going unconscious.</blockquote>

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