My support for healer classes

It is not enough to make all healing/support classes options. If you want to enable styles of play where they are highly useful additions to the party and also support styles of play where they are not necessary--to do many of the traditional things that people do with D&D (whatever one may personally think of those things)--then you need some optional healing rules to go with that playstyle choice.

Otherwise, a dedicated healer that is either providing abilities that aren't really needed--and thus will feel even more useless than otherwise, or is absolutely necessary. If the latter, then a healer that isn't dedicated can't carry the load. You can't have both with a single set of healing mechanics.
 

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I'd like to see a spellcaster who can heal. A total support spell slinger who can bring on the magical artillery, either as damage or a healing AoE.
 

It is not enough to make all healing/support classes options. If you want to enable styles of play where they are highly useful additions to the party and also support styles of play where they are not necessary--to do many of the traditional things that people do with D&D (whatever one may personally think of those things)--then you need some optional healing rules to go with that playstyle choice.

Otherwise, a dedicated healer that is either providing abilities that aren't really needed--and thus will feel even more useless than otherwise, or is absolutely necessary. If the latter, then a healer that isn't dedicated can't carry the load. You can't have both with a single set of healing mechanics.

If you look at the big picture while trying to balance the issue, you're probably right: either healing is necessary and nobody will be able to go without it, or getting a healer is an option, but if it's not really necessary, why don't we go with another warrior type and increase our offensive power?

Personally, though, I prefer to analyze it using a case by case method. For example, let's take another feature that appears in some classes and not others, that is, the ability to thrive in wilderness environments. Barbarians, rangers and druids have a sweet spot here, but a group of fighter, paladin and cleric running through the same adventure would probably have an increased difficult, while they actually have the same types (two warriors, one priest).

I'd like healing to go from a feature that every party is supposed to have to one like the ability to survive in the wilderness: something that may be seen as crucial in a given party combination or adventure setup, but not so much in others.

In the game I'm currently developing, I'm having a hard time trying to make it this way, and I've come to the conclusion that it's ultimately related to adventure design. Going from that, I'm using a challenge system that takes into account not only the power level of the party, but also (and that's really important) their resourcefulness, through a number of tags like wilderness, healing power, diplomacy, investigation and combat.

That said, I'd prefer if the various "advantages" of D&D could be tracked and developed in a way that made each class well suit for some environments, not all of them. I'm not giving support to the idea that each class should be given some time in the spotlight while the others wait, but I believe that the designers should come from the assumption that the game cannot be defined by four roles only, and not all parties need all roles to be successful. A ranger is well-suited for an adventure that uses tags such as combat, stealth and wilderness, while my preferred cleric would be tagged to succeed in situations that require healing power, combat and diplomacy, probably.

That would make for better adventure design and the end of the "need a cleric" syndrome, without necessarily killing the role of healer as a viable one in fantasy gaming.

Cheers,
 

You would need a radical revisioning of HP, Giltonio_Santos, to accomplish what you are suggesting.

You would first have to state something like HP is the bruising and fatigue of a person going all out in a contest. Much like athletes competing that involves a mixture of fatigue and bruising on the body.

Give the person a chance to rest and the HP would recover by a certain amount towards the maximum naturally.

You would need to then say that when a person suffers a critical hit or runs out of HP then it is like a sports injury occurring on the field. It doesn't matter the amount of short term rest as only long term rest will, heal this type of injury.

Now, you change the cleric to focusing on healing these 'long term' injuries.

The cleric is now the fix for sprains and broken bones or internal bleeds.

A group could go through situations and possibly survive without the Cleric style healer as they will recover between stops most of their HP and all HP with a good night's rest (It is bruising and fatigue). The group would want the healer to speed up or repair the serious injuries like wanting to go see a doctor. You can wait a few hours or even days for a doctor but it is painful and occasionally fatal but not all the time.
 

WotC_GregB put up this post

'Wednesday, February 1 Time to Heal by Bruce Cordell
Bruce tackles the topic of clerics and healing this time around, and he follows up with a poll that allows you to provide us with feedback on what you think about this subject.'
Where is this supposed to appear?
 

As someone who's pursuing medicine and spent some time with military doctors, I wholeheartedly reject the notion that healing is not "fun" or that characters should use their actions for other things.

From experience, I also reject the notion that a healer was ever a required party component. Frankly I think from a straight tactical perspective, in-combat healing is less important than straght-up damage, area damage, damage soaking capacity, or disabling/debuffing. Out-of-combat healing is very style dependent; it only matters if you regularly fight more than one battle in a single day, which I find is moderately unusual.

In older editions, without a cleric or other source of healing, you take WEEKS to heal.

With one, you take seconds.

Even if you only fight one battle a day, unless you're free to take the rest of the week off you need that healer.
 

From experience, I also reject the notion that a healer was ever a required party component. Frankly I think from a straight tactical perspective, in-combat healing is less important than straght-up damage, area damage, damage soaking capacity, or disabling/debuffing. Out-of-combat healing is very style dependent; it only matters if you regularly fight more than one battle in a single day, which I find is moderately unusual.
I agree whole-heartedly.

I'm currently in a "discussion" with someone over on RPGNet about just this topic.

In my world, which I've GMed for about 30 years, only priests and paladins of Chrylisti, the Goddess of Light, Knowledge and Healing, CAN heal. Their temples are like a cross between a church/library/hospital. No other god can grant healing, because in my pantheon, each god has his/her own portfolio, and they don't step on each others toes.

Occasionally, the PC's can acquire a potion or salve that heals, but it only heals about 10-20% of what a priest or priestess of Chrylisti can.

The other guy argues that I'm having badwrongfun because, if no one wants to play a healer, the party is screwed. I told him that the PC's are adventurers in a world, not game pieces that MUST fill a role in a "party". But he just doesn't get it.

Here's one quote from him: "Sorry, that sounds awful. Not only does someone have to play a cleric, but now they have to play a cleric of a specific god you made up? Or else the party has no healing (which the game assumes they will)? Ugh."

And another, after I asked why should just ANY god grant healing: "Because it's an incredibly useful tool, both for direct followers and for recruiting? As for why they can do it at all--because they're a god?

The real answer, though, is "because the game mechanics expect it and work poorly without it, and this shoehorns the players into making not just a specific class but a specific class that worships a specific deity."

I mean, I'm guessing that the overwhelming majority of your PC parties have ended up with a cleric of Chrylisti. Because of how the ruleset works."

What do you all think?
 

I don't think that a healing surge option/module for 5e would be all that difficult, as long as the whole group is using the same rules.

For lack of a better term, let's call it the "Cinematic Action" module. Base HP are the same as in the core game. Assign a number of healing surges to each character based on their class, race, feats, constitution and so on like in 4e. Everybody gets a second wind-type ability and out-of-combat wound binding/surge-spending type healing. You then give a supply of alternate spells, powers, feats, and other abilities (or alternate effects of existing spells and items such as cure light wounds, potion of healing and so on) that trigger the expenditure of those surges. Add in rules for surge recovery, death and dying, and possibly an optional method of tracking long-term injuries to satisfy those who want it, and you're good to go.

In this way the core Vancian cleric can memorize his cure spells like he did in the olden days and be the sole source of the party's healing for those who desire it. The "Cinematic Action" leader-type character can pick the spells|powers he wants that trigger healing surges, and go about his business the same as in 4e.

Obviously the cinematic action group will be more durable and able to tackle many more encounters in a day than the core group, but that's the whole point.

I could see the 5e character builder having a simple toggle that switches the character between modes, swapping the default text of healing powers out with the cinematic action version of the same.
 

In older editions, without a cleric or other source of healing, you take WEEKS to heal.

With one, you take seconds.

Even if you only fight one battle a day, unless you're free to take the rest of the week off you need that healer.

In 3e it is quite common in our group for some PCs to have non-full HP going into fights. There are some fights where no-one is hurt, maybe one in ten fights is one of these, more commonly no-one is seriously hurt. Even without healers there are potions for when you can't wait.

We have had parties without healers, and they were payable. At least no more difficult for the DM to handle than those without rogues.
 


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