Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7898224" data-attributes="member: 996">The Cleric, in 5e, does damage & control because it's always done that kinda thing, and 5e is concept-first, not role-first.In 4e, the cleric did damage & secondary control - tightly integrated with support - for fear that /pure/ support would still be perceived as boring and undesirable, per the perennial "nobody wants to play the cleric" stereotype.  But, it still came out with a Pacifist Cleric, eventually.In 3e, the same desire to render the Cleric less stereotypically boring resulted in CoDzilla.So, no, the Cleric in 5e doesn't do those things because it has too much support ability (and it's worth noting that most of it's support resources are versatile, and can be used of to contribute in other ways, as well, because the party's need of support varies greatly...) Not s'much, really.  Support is vital when needed - in a hard battle, when luck abandons the party, etc - and superfluous when they overmatch their enemies, and, sometimes, control or other contributions would be more efficient than reactive or even pro-active support.Support classes need the infrequent/high-impact and versatility that D&D leaves design space for only in limited-use resources.</blockquote>