D&D 5E Live Q&A with D&D R&D

[UngeheuerLich]

I would even go as far and say, there are currently only 4 classes that are no healers... The ranger and paladin are both quite respectable too (compared to older editions) In ADnD you couldn´t easily assume the cleric will heal you at all. Before 3rd edition it was not really given, that the cleric will heal anyone in the party at all, if they don´t pay his god due respect.

 

[MerricB]

Healing has been pretty interesting through the different editions of D&D. I wrote an article about it recently, but here's a few extra notes:

The cleric in AD&D begins pretty much equivalent to a fighter. They also have a few healing spells. As they gain levels, they become less effective fighters (compared to the fighter), but more effective spell-casters, though never to the offensive power of magic-users. Healing for the first six levels is actually an extremely minor component of the class. A sixth level cleric with a decent wisdom can, if he puts all his first level slots into cure light wounds, cure 5d8 hit points per day. Even once they gain 4th and 5th level spells, they don't have the spell slots to really do much healing.

Supplements to AD&D 2E made healing more effective, and 3E made it more effective yet. In 3E/PF, you didn't really need a cleric for basic healing, so many classes can do it.

The trouble is in 3E/PF is that there are forms of damage that only* clerics can heal. Ability drain and level loss, in particular. You need the full restoration spell, and there are a significant number of creatures that inflict that sort of damage, especially in certain adventure paths. Classes that look like they could replace the cleric, such as bards and druids, can't deal this. (* In the core 3E books, only the cleric gains restoration at a decent level; the paladin gains it very late. There are a very few classes in 3.5E supplements that can cast it. There are a few more in PF).

Do you actually need healing? Well, not if you're playing a campaign where you can go back to home base and avail yourselves of clerics (or just rest for a week or two). You'll be fine. However, if you're in the middle of a big adventure path or similar where there are (a) time constraints or (b) location constraints you're going to need a healer. Try Descent into the Depths of the Earth without a cleric. Go on...

Cheers!

 

[Lanefan]

I think this is the issue though. Why do we "almost always" go and recruit an NPC if we don't have a healer? I mean, a group can do without a ranger or a monk or a fighter even. If you had a group of 8 characters, 3 clerics, a thief, a magic user, a ranger and a paladin, that would be a perfectly viable AD&D group. No real problems.

Missing, then, a Fighter? Rangers and Paladins both fight pretty much as well as a Fighter, so that's a decent group with something vaguely resembling a front line...I've seen much worse.

Take out the Ranger and Paladin, however, and you've no front line; and they'd go and recruit some muscle. Ditto if they didn't have a Thief (or Assassin); they'd go and get one. Ditto if they didn't have some sort of arcane caster, be it MU, Illusionist, or (in my game) Necromancer. Most of the time they try to make sure there's at least one character from each of the four class groups, either by playing it themselves or by recruiting one or more NPCs. In this, Clerics are no different.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

3.x clerics are busted in half. Only the truly absurd Skills and Powers point-buy cleric can stand up.

I played one of them in my last serious foray into AD&D (quite a while ago now!). Definitely overpowered.

 

[Klaus]

From the September 2013 document, this is what I see:

Capable healers: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin.

Average healers: Ranger.

Classes capable of mitigating personal damage: Fighter (with Second Wind), Rogue (with Evasion)

Classes with builds that allow for mitigaton of personal damage: Barbarian (Totem Warrior), Monk (Open Hand), Wizard (with False Life)

Any Class: Healer feat.

That's a lot of resilience that can be achieved without needing a "healer" class.

 

[Bluenose]

Missing, then, a Fighter? Rangers and Paladins both fight pretty much as well as a Fighter, so that's a decent group with something vaguely resembling a front line...I've seen much worse.

Take out the Ranger and Paladin, however, and you've no front line; and they'd go and recruit some muscle. Ditto if they didn't have a Thief (or Assassin); they'd go and get one. Ditto if they didn't have some sort of arcane caster, be it MU, Illusionist, or (in my game) Necromancer. Most of the time they try to make sure there's at least one character from each of the four class groups, either by playing it themselves or by recruiting one or more NPCs. In this, Clerics are no different.

Lanefan

It's not hard to have a Cleric that can stand in the front line. They'll suffer in damage output in AD&D compared to a Fighter, but they're not significantly weaker defensively - 1hp/level on average, which is hardly decisive. The BECMI game I'm running only has one Fighter, with two clerics who can also stand in the front (though only one of them often does so, and he's actually got more hit points and better AC than the Fighter due to higher Con plus plate and shield instead of plate and halberd).

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Do you actually need healing? Well, not if you're playing a campaign where you can go back to home base and avail yourselves of clerics (or just rest for a week or two). You'll be fine. However, if you're in the middle of a big adventure path or similar where there are (a) time constraints or (b) location constraints you're going to need a healer. Try Descent into the Depths of the Earth without a cleric. Go on...

I met a group of people who played Living Greyhawk back in the day who regularly played a group without a cleric. They were an extremely powergamed group of sorcerers and wizards who specialized in locking down all enemies so they were enable to fight or move while doing overwhelming damage in round one.

However, they played a session with my cleric and they were suddenly surprised exactly how easy all the encounters got. When they took damage, it was immediately healed. And they didn't take much.

It WAS possible to make a no cleric group. Though, I admit that their combos were a little cheesy and I likely would have disallowed them in my home game. But in LG, I had to let it go since they were legal.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Just got the chance to listen to it, nothing more intelligent to say apart from I am really looking forward to getting these rules!

 

[Li Shenron]

I really dislike the "cultural" trend of wanting everybody to be more equal at combat (more precisely, at offense), then wanting everybody to be able to heal, then wanting healers to be able to heal without sacrificing offense, then wanting everybody to be equally useful out of combat etc.

This trend kills diversity, which decreases the importance of strategic/tactical choices and teamwork, and for my own tastes this means the game to become less interesting (I do understand that one reason for this trend is the proliferation in the last decade of "bedroom players" i.e. players who spend most their time thinking about their PC alone, want it good at everything, and even don't fully tolerate being part of a team).

I prefer the simplicity of: add a Fighter to your party to increase your offensive power, add a Cleric to your party to increase your healing power. A Fighter makes your "output damage" significantly increase (your party kills opponents faster) while a Cleric makes your "input damage" significantly increase (your party is slower to be killed) -> strategic choice.

It's ok that the Cleric traditionally isn't bad at output damage too. But for my tastes it sucks to hear people complain that "I have to waste my attack to heal a friend". It's a trade-off, either spend this round increasing your "output damage" or decreasing your "input damage" -> tactical choice.

If replacing one non-Cleric with a Cleric makes encounters clearly easier, then there is something wrong with the game design, which must be fixed. There really shouldn't be one strategic choice (having a Cleric) which dominates the alternatives, because this really means you have no choice.

 

[Nagol]

<snip everything I agree with>

If replacing one non-Cleric with a Cleric makes encounters clearly easier, then there is something wrong with the game design, which must be fixed. There really shouldn't be one strategic choice (having a Cleric) which dominates the alternatives, because this really means you have no choice.

I agree with the body of your post. I have just one quibble with the conclusion. Rather than "If replacing one non-Cleric with a Cleric makes encounters clearly easier, then there is something wrong with the game design" I'd say "If replacing one non-Cleric with a Cleric makes all encounters clearly easier, then there is something wrong with the game design".

Replacing one non-Cleric with a Cleric should make many encounter easier (and potentially the "average" encounter easier) otherwise the choice is a trap and you lose useful strategic choice.