no cleric? (my players stay out)

[redknight]

Although clerics are the main healers in most games, they are not the only ones who can heal. Paladins, rangers, bards and druids all have access to healing spells and can use wands of healing even at first level. Even rogues have the use magic device skill that would let them use a wand of cure light wounds.

In a campaign I recently ran I had the same situation. I came up with 2 answers. The first was to have the party find a wand that cured light wounds 3/day. The second was have a npc cleric with the party. The cleric was a lower level than the rest of the party. So even though they could rely on the clerical skills for healing they had to protect the clearic from untimely harm. Most importantly with the npc cleric was to have them accept the npc as a person and not just a healing machine. This was done by tying some of the characters personal plots to the npc and giving them even more motive for keeping the cleric alive.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

IMC

My party has no cleric, they survive by using a wand of cure serious wounds (the Bard, the rouge and the ranger each have one).

 

[Zappo]

I've had that situation, too. I made sure potions and spells of healing were readily available for their listed price, and I also arranged adventures so that big fights were often followed by long periods of politics (and resting). The players were extra prudent as well. It worked well.

 

[Jeph]

In the games that I play in, and the DnD that I sometimes run, the party very rarely has a cleric. As mentioned before, the Paladin, Ranger, Druid, Rogue, or Bard usualy has a wand or three of some Cure spell.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Simply put: give them time. Anyone heals, given time. The only point where not having a cleric seriously hinders a party is when the entire party are heavily injured, and the DM throws another encounter at them (or the party are forced into another encounter). If your campaign has much in the way of verisimilitude, then going somewhere comfortable to rest and heal won't be a problem.

Alternately you could take a leaf out of the d20 mini-game omega world. It gave every character a 'pool' of additional hitpoints equal to their original hitpoints. Outside of combat, characters could move the points in this pool to their main hitpoints. Any healing would recharge both the pool and normal hitpoints. It basically meant that, while the game didn't get any less lethal, a party could go through more encounters without having to heal up. Similar methods would be to automatically heal 50% of the damage taken in a fight when the fight finishes, or alternately changing 50% of all damage to subdual damage (based on the idea that some hitpoint damage is just combat fatigue).

Finally, you could take a peek at d20 modern's treat injury rules. Basically, standard heal checks can give back 1d4 damage, once per day. A significantly more difficult heal check can give back (targets level * d6) hitpoints, but leaves the target character fatigued for up to 24 hours.

 

[krunchyfrogg]

Why not just throw them a bone and give them a wand of CLW early on.

There must be a paladin/ranger/druid in there!

 

[ForceUser]

so, i am running a tuesday night online game. i have recruited players form these boards and i have been impressed by their character creation and backstories. except....

i specifically sent out a cultural history explaining that this state is run by a theocracy, AND pointed out that they would be headed into the wilds, far from home, where only bad guys roam. and none of them chose to play a cleric.

in review- theocracy, leaving hoem and healing behind, no cleric.

now, i firmly believe that it is the d.m.'s job to make the campaign fit the characters (or at least, in this scenario i am trying to handle ot that way) and am wondering if anyone has any great suggestions for dealing wiht making healing available to the brave men and women leaving for the frontier.

They will soon discover religion. One or two will die, and someone will reroll a cleric. Others may take levels in cleric. That's what happened in my weekly group. The party started out bard, rogue, fighter, druid, and fighter at 1st level. After the rogue died and we barely survived a few encounters, everyone found religion. The bard has heal spells and both fighters took a level of cleric. What's more, one of the fighters took a cleric cohort. Now there is plenty of healing in the group.

I like to call it Tabletop Darwinism

 

[Thresher]

Sometimes its just better to let natural selection work its way and inevitably someone will die, then they'll be wondering why no one made up a cleric.

What you should encourage is to get the PC's to make up a 'Party' which is balanced rather than throw the work back onto you the GM to worry about their healing. It really isnt your priority to make them work as a team or have to waste game time days with PC's moaning about how it hurts and they cant go back in just yet because their all busted up.
If they dont make up a team, then theyre just going to have to live with that choice.

Harsh? Sure, but theyre supposed to be big kids now and are crazy enough to go adventuring. Looking at the cleric and druid in 3E having come from 1E-2E I dont see why anyone wouldnt want to play one, they are a much better classes overall on paper.

 

[rounser]

I like the subdual damage solution. If hit points partially represents mojo, then heroes should recover theirs at a rate of knots.

Problem arises in that the PCs can whittle at a single big opponent, retreat, rest an hour or two, and then come back and attack again....so monsters should recover at the same rate. The game balance downside is that the side with the most critters recovers the most hit points during the downtime.

 

[mmu1]

Eh... Reminds me of my current campaign.

We're running CotSQ, I do everything but hire a marching band carrying a banner spelling out: "We're playing a traditional combat heavy adventure, balanced party a must, lots of utility spells reccommened, versatility encouraged... and by the way, it's going to be DARK in there."

So of course I end up having to make an NPC rogue (Why would we need one of those in a dungeon crawl? We'll just have the guys with high Fort saves open the doors with Slay Living traps on them...), and while we have both a Druid and a Cleric in the party, the only arcane caster is a Sorcerer with a fire fetish. His plan is to fly around while invisible a run into cave walls, because he didn't take Darkvision...

Anyway, as I think is apparent now, I generally end up making NPCs to fill in critical slots... They're a pain in the butt to control, on top of everything else, but less so than having to turn the way the world works on its head to accomodate bone-hea... ahem, creative players.