D&D General I'm a Fighter, not a Lover: Why the 1e Fighter was so Awesome

[James Gasik]

That was a 3e thing, but may have come in late in 2e.

What never made sense to me was the progression of curing spells: Cure Light at 1st, Cure Serious at 4th, Cure Critical at 5th, and Heal at 6th. Moving Cure Serious to 3rd makes it far more logical because the level gap between each tier of curing then becomes a much smoother 4-4-3.

Silence and Spiritual Hammer were also staples at 2nd. I honestly can't remember the last time I saw Aid cast and may only have seen it used a half dozen times total in the 43 years I've been doing this.

Well, Aid provides "healing" in a roundabout way with a single target Bless, so while I don't think it's a fantastic spell, it does add to the party's staying power. The other day I found myself having an old man moment with my players about how woeful the Cleric spell list used to be.

"Back in my day, when we got 3rd level spells, we were happy to cast Prayer, not this fancy pants point defense laser grid (Spirit Guardians)!"

 

[Voadam]

The other day I found myself having an old man moment with my players about how woeful the Cleric spell list used to be.

"Back in my day, when we got 3rd level spells, we were happy to cast Prayer, not this fancy pants point defense laser grid (Spirit Guardians)!"

You are not alone. My reaction to it becoming a standard of the party cleric’s was why did 5e give core clerics an ongoing high damage big area of effect that moves with them? Shouldn’t they be designed to generally buff and heal and divine? Now they have a low level more effective blade barrier spell that ignores fellow PCs?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'm actually not a huge fan of in-combat healing anyway. I really don't care for the "whack-a-mole" effect it often engenders.

It feels kinda dumb going from "almost death" to "almost uninjured" several times during combat.
On the other hand, if you don't have in-combat healing, hit points go only down during combat, and the tension is basically only at the end, because that's when you see whether you'll make it or not. You might need to have very short combats than, but then combats can get swingy, because a single hit or miss or good or bad damage roll can turn the game more than the decisions you made during the combat.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It feels kinda dumb going from "almost death" to "almost uninjured" several times during combat.
On the other hand, if you don't have in-combat healing, hit points go only down during combat, and the tension is basically only at the end, because that's when you see whether you'll make it or not. You might need to have very short combats than, but then combats can get swingy, because a single hit or miss or good or bad damage roll can turn the game more than the decisions you made during the combat.

I'm ok with all of that.

 

[James Gasik]

You are not alone. My reaction to it becoming a standard of the party cleric’s was why did 5e give core clerics an ongoing high damage big area of effect that moves with them? Shouldn’t they be designed to generally buff and heal and divine? Now they have a low level more effective spinning blades spell that ignores fellow PCs?

I mean, it's not like Clerics haven't had strong damaging spells in the past (Blade Barrier was always a favorite of mine), and some Priests have had access to powerful Wizard spells since 2e, but Spirit Guardians is kind of a standout, especially if you compare it to Spirit Shroud.

I guess if the intent was to make enemies want to stay away from the Cleric I can almost see it, but it's slowing effect actually makes the Cleric kind of "sticky" and the change to the 2024 version making it a directly offensive spell also feels a bit unusual.

My players kept telling me it "wasn't that bad" and that I was "kind of overreacting" until I had an NPC use it against them a few months back, where it nearly led to a TPK!

 

[Zardnaar]

I mean, it's not like Clerics haven't had strong damaging spells in the past (Blade Barrier was always a favorite of mine), and some Priests have had access to powerful Wizard spells since 2e, but Spirit Guardians is kind of a standout, especially if you compare it to Spirit Shroud.

I guess if the intent was to make enemies want to stay away from the Cleric I can almost see it, but it's slowing effect actually makes the Cleric kind of "sticky" and the change to the 2024 version making it a directly offensive spell also feels a bit unusual.

My players kept telling me it "wasn't that bad" and that I was "kind of overreacting" until I had an NPC use it against them a few months back, where it nearly led to a TPK!

My players cast it last week level 4.

Lasted for 2 combats probably woukd gave done 3 as we don't keep track of exact time that much.

I stopped counting at around 300 damage. Cleric wasn't even abusing it just walking around on their turn.

 

[James Gasik]

My players cast it last week level 4.

Lasted for 2 combats probably woukd gave done 3 as we don't keep track of exact time that much.

I stopped counting at around 300 damage. Cleric wasn't even abusing it just walking around on their turn.

What my group ran into was one of them would go down in range of Spirit Guardians, so if their turn came up before they could be healed, automatic failed death save. If it comes up after, you can't just light heal them back up, because you have to take into account the Spirit Guardians damage. And touch heals like Cure Wounds run the risk of putting the healer into range. The spell is a menace, lol, you need very specialized tactics to deal with it. It also rips large groups of weaker enemies to shreds.

It's worse used against players, because most PC's aren't built to deal more than 20 damage per hit, so getting a concentration DC above 10 is very hard. So you just have to focus fire or hope you land a stun or something.

I definitely have mixed feelings about the spell. Not to the point that I'd nerf or ban it, but I don't like dealing with it, lol.

And yeah, those times you can carry it from one fight to the next are especially brutal.

 

[Zardnaar]

What my group ran into was one of them would go down in range of Spirit Guardians, so if their turn came up before they could be healed, automatic failed death save. If it comes up after, you can't just light heal them back up, because you have to take into account the Spirit Guardians damage. And touch heals like Cure Wounds run the risk of putting the healer into range. The spell is a menace, lol, you need very specialized tactics to deal with it. It also rips large groups of weaker enemies to shreds.

It's worse used against players, because most PC's aren't built to deal more than 20 damage per hit, so getting a concentration DC above 10 is very hard. So you just have to focus fire or hope you land a stun or something.

I definitely have mixed feelings about the spell. Not to the point that I'd nerf or ban it, but I don't like dealing with it, lol.

And yeah, those times you can carry it from one fight to the next are especially brutal.

We have a light cleric. The player was very fireball focused.
Starts using spirit guardians. Fireballs now a occasional thing.

 

[ECMO3]

If you think Spirit Guardians is bad you should try Yolanda!

 

[ECMO3]

Man, I wish I could go back in time! I had DM's insist I must find all spells, which is why I exclusively played specialists in 2e (who do automatically get new spells)! I'd love to shove that text under their noses, lol.

It is not as good as you think. If I remember correctly it was randomly generated .... so you could get to level 5 and pick up Feign Death instead of Fireball.