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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9749897" data-attributes="member: 6877472">It is interesting that you can easily dispense with any character role in a party but the healer with ease. I've seen parties with nary a spell caster wiggling their fingers, and parties lacking pure warriors.  The way you tackle problems changes, but you can generally muddle along.  Right up until 4e, in fact, the Cleric remained the the best character at keeping the party going.  Oh sure, other classes might get access to healing spells, but these tended to be more limited (just look at the Druid).  But it's more than just healing- there's a host of horrible things that can befall D&D characters, and most of the ways to overcome those things are found on the Cleric spell list.  Diseases, curses, insanity- I think the only thing a Cleric can't cure is petrification (which if memory serves needed a Wizard spell).  Even in later years, when developers started to tinker with other classes that could heal, the game still heavily leaned on the Cleric.  In Pathfinder 1e, for example, they created the Oracle, a spontaneous-casting Cleric akin to the Sorcerer.  I kept hearing people talk about how the "Life Oracle" could kick out much larger numbers and keep the party HP up with ease.But I saw the problem right away- with limited spells known, it was inevitable that a party member would succumb to some wacky status penalty, and look to the Oracle for salvation in vain.Because on the average adventuring day, a Cleric might not have, say, Raise Dead prepared.  But the beauty of the class is, all he has to do is wait a day and beseech his deity (or more likely, a proxy, like a Solar or other high-ranking celestial servitor) for the precise spell required.-Whenever I play, say, a Wizard, the ability of a Cleric to just get any spell they want irks me, but I understand why it's vital that the healer role demands it.  It's when Clerics aren't really concerned with healing where the trouble begins.Being a Cleric can be a rather thankless job.  I've played more than my fair share of them, usually total support types, because my party really doesn't want or need me to do anything else- my first 3.0 Cleric was an Elf with the Magic Domain.  He wielded a long sword, could use Wizard wands and scrolls, and I used his precious few Feats on combat- basically, he was a Red Mage!  But as the game progressed, my party was annoyed whenever I would attempt non-Cleric tasks, lol.  "Stop wasting your time with that sword/wand and heal!", they'd cry.So any time I played a Cleric after that, I was a technical pacifist that didn't even carry a melee weapon!</blockquote>

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