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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aeric" data-source="post: 5862526" data-attributes="member: 17012">In my experience, clerics (healers) are the one core class that is essential to every party.You can run a game without a fighter; just throw weaker monsters at the party.You can run a game without a rogue; just minimize the number of locked doors and traps between the party and their goals.You can run a game without a wizard; cut out any problems that can only be solved by magic (scrying, levitation, etc.).However, unless you run a game with no combat, or load the party up with potions and wands of healing, you will always need a healer.What I would like to see in 5E is the removal of a need for a dedicated healer in the party.  Healing surges were a step in the right direction.  In my nearly 30 years of playing D&D, cleric has always been the least popular class.  I've often found myself playing a cleric because "someone has to."What is it about clerics that makes them so unpopular?  Is it the "servant of a god" fluff?  Or is it the support nature of the character?  In a lot of settings, paladins are considered servants of a god, and they are popular because they are proactive heroic types.  Clerics can't really charge forward and be heroic because, if the cleric falls, who's going to heal the party?  The cleric is the Designated Driver of the D&D party.  Everyone else gets to charge in and have fun, while the cleric waits in the back to pick up the pieces afterward.No one class should be essential to the group.  The presence of a cleric should be a bonus to the party, instead of its absence being a penalty.  I think the simplest way of doing this is to rig up a new mechanic for regaining HP like healing surges and second winds, possibly even remove Cure spells entirely.  The cleric becomes a caster of buffs, utility spells, and the occasional Remove Affliction (neutralize poison et al.) spells.  Still a support role, but if the cleric is feeling frisky and wants to swing his mace for a while, he can.  Nobody ever died from the lack of a Bull's Strength spell.</blockquote>

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