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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Is the Cleric really one of the ‘core four’ anymore?
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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6503155" data-attributes="member: 6787650"><p>This sort of thing is heavily impacted by playstyle: whether it really is plausible for the druid to spend all of his spell slots casting goodberry every night (thus guaranteeing that he has no spells available at night), how big your party is, whether damage tends to spread evenly around the party or to concentrate on one or two melee guys and/or whoever got unlucky last combat, whether you have undead/constructs in the party (Aura of Vitality can heal undead/constructs but other Prayer of Healing cannot), how consistently you take damage. Aura of Vitality also has better combat usage in that you can use it to keep someone alive and fighting for up to ten rounds of combat <em>and also</em> heal them up to full afterwards. Additionally, it relies on a particular interpretation of <em>Disciple of Life</em> that I happen to disagree with: that it works with any HP-restoring effect including <em>Goodberry</em> (presumably also including Vampiric Touch?) as opposed to with spells that restore HP as a spell effect.</p><p></p><p>I can imagine a scenario where Prayer of Healing is better but it is a scenario that I hate playing: a party full of melee fighters focused on DPR instead of tactics, who just charge into melee and try to kill-or-be-killed. (It works great as long as you only ever experience "balanced" encounters by the book guidelines, but I don't like relying on that caveat.) In that case damage gets spread pretty evenly. If you have however e.g. a scout (Shadow Monk) who also acts as the hammer, and an anvil (polearm sentinel fighter + Necromancer with skeletons) who like to take on foes that are tougher than they are, damage is liable to be distributed disproportionately on those taking the most risk, and in that scenario Prayer of Healing becomes garbage compared to Aura of Vitality. So YMMV based on play style and group composition.</p><p></p><p>Mechanically, splashing life cleric as you suggest is great: it gets you heavy armor, possibly better save proficiencies, access to Bless and less pressure on your Bard spells known, and it makes Aura of Vitality (if you choose to take it) restore 120 HP per cast instead of 70. And it doesn't even cost you an ASR! For RP reasons I couldn't bring myself to do it that way but mechanically it's great.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6503155, member: 6787650"] This sort of thing is heavily impacted by playstyle: whether it really is plausible for the druid to spend all of his spell slots casting goodberry every night (thus guaranteeing that he has no spells available at night), how big your party is, whether damage tends to spread evenly around the party or to concentrate on one or two melee guys and/or whoever got unlucky last combat, whether you have undead/constructs in the party (Aura of Vitality can heal undead/constructs but other Prayer of Healing cannot), how consistently you take damage. Aura of Vitality also has better combat usage in that you can use it to keep someone alive and fighting for up to ten rounds of combat [I]and also[/I] heal them up to full afterwards. Additionally, it relies on a particular interpretation of [I]Disciple of Life[/I] that I happen to disagree with: that it works with any HP-restoring effect including [I]Goodberry[/I] (presumably also including Vampiric Touch?) as opposed to with spells that restore HP as a spell effect. I can imagine a scenario where Prayer of Healing is better but it is a scenario that I hate playing: a party full of melee fighters focused on DPR instead of tactics, who just charge into melee and try to kill-or-be-killed. (It works great as long as you only ever experience "balanced" encounters by the book guidelines, but I don't like relying on that caveat.) In that case damage gets spread pretty evenly. If you have however e.g. a scout (Shadow Monk) who also acts as the hammer, and an anvil (polearm sentinel fighter + Necromancer with skeletons) who like to take on foes that are tougher than they are, damage is liable to be distributed disproportionately on those taking the most risk, and in that scenario Prayer of Healing becomes garbage compared to Aura of Vitality. So YMMV based on play style and group composition. Mechanically, splashing life cleric as you suggest is great: it gets you heavy armor, possibly better save proficiencies, access to Bless and less pressure on your Bard spells known, and it makes Aura of Vitality (if you choose to take it) restore 120 HP per cast instead of 70. And it doesn't even cost you an ASR! For RP reasons I couldn't bring myself to do it that way but mechanically it's great. [/QUOTE]
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Is the Cleric really one of the ‘core four’ anymore?
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