D&D 5E How is the Cleric in Actual Play?

[Paul Farquhar]

Second, a druid in beast form can't cast healing magic.

Not all druids belong to the Circle of the Moon.

 

[Hussar]

I'm going to disagree slightly, for two reasons. First, druids don't get revivify and remove curse spells. Second, a druid in beast form can't cast healing magic).

I'm not saying a druid is a bad healer, mind you, just that clerics are better. As are bards evil grin.

Do people actually see Revivify cast that often?

I'm just asking, because in 5 years, I've never seen it used. Every group has had it, but, no one has ever used it.

 

[mortwatcher]

it depends
optimally, you never want to see it used, it means your party members aren't dying and that is a GOOD thing, but it is a good backup to have
it also depends on DM, does he actively try to kill characters once they are down or leaves them be and moves to another character. I have seen a game where the DM was aware that the party had access to that spell and money to cast it and he actively went for murdering the characters once they were down, so it was used plenty

 

[Blue]

Do people actually see Revivify cast that often?

I'm just asking, because in 5 years, I've never seen it used. Every group has had it, but, no one has ever used it.

Depends on the DM. I've played with one DM where we only saw it twice the whole campaign. And with another where it was a semi-regular occurrence, once every couple of sessions. Really depends how hard the DM pushes.

Because it's so easy to keep characters up or bring them back right after a battle, between healing-from-zero, death saves, and revivify, as a personal preference I like more challenging encounters because there's greater sense of accomplishment.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Thing is though, even if the encounter is challenging and most of the party go down, they will still be revived before they run out of death saves. It's only if everyone goes down that a character could be lying around for the three rounds needed to fail all their death saves, and in that event there is no-one to cast Revivify anyway.

Most insta-kill effects also prevent Revivify.

 

[Blue]

Thing is though, even if the encounter is challenging and most of the party go down, they will still be revived before they run out of death saves. It's only if everyone goes down that a character could be lying around for the three rounds needed to fail all their death saves, and in that event there is no-one to cast Revivify anyway.

Once you're at the level where revivify is around, area of effect damage is also common. Remember that taking any damage is a failed death save.

Worse if you have creatures that will continue to attack those down, say some ravenous undead. Auto-crits for two failed death saves per attack really run them out.

There's also a long history in D&D of protecting your healer. Making sure the person who can stand others back up, be it from negatives or from death, happens a lot.

 

[Oofta]

Worse if you have creatures that will continue to attack those down, say some ravenous undead. Auto-crits for two failed death saves per attack really run them out.

Don't forget advantage on unconscious PCs. I find it more difficult to not kill a downed PC than the other way around. One way is to have the bad guys dragging the unconscious person off, presumably to be eaten later.

 

[5ekyu]

Thing is though, even if the encounter is challenging and most of the party go down, they will still be revived before they run out of death saves. It's only if everyone goes down that a character could be lying around for the three rounds needed to fail all their death saves, and in that event there is no-one to cast Revivify anyway.

Most insta-kill effects also prevent Revivify.

Chill touch.

Be it a sorcerer using wuivkdned fireball then chop ill touch or a sorc and an apprentice - tossing in chill touch on a follow-up to a big hit is a strong combo.

 

[Hussar]

Again, how long do you guys leave PC's unconcious? IME, outside of 1st or 2nd level, a PC is unconcious for less than a round, most of the time. Between Healing Word or the bazillion other healing options groups have at, well, we'll say 5th level on up (where Revivify becomes an option), the odds of characters having to make a death save, let alone multiple ones is very remote.

Do your players just leave dying PC's on the ground? In our groups, at least half the party has access to healing magic of some sort - ranger, paladin, cleric, whatever. It's exceedingly rare that anyone hits the ground and almost never that anyone hits the ground for any length of time.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

My experience is similar. Typically, a character who face-plants will make exactly one death save before someone zaps them up again.