D&D 5E On the healing options in the 5e DMG

[The Crimson Binome]

Two hits from a troll would do about ten points of damage. Sure, if the troll is focusing on a single PC he might drop him in two rounds.

I was just looking at this yesterday, but I seem to recall that the claws dealt 5-8 (each), and the bite was even more than that. I think their THAC0 was around 13 or so, giving them ~40% accuracy against a plate-fighter and ~70% accuracy against someone squishy.

I've also never seen a level-5 fighter with negative AC, aside from one lucky elf who happened to have great Dex (and nothing special for either Strength or Con), but I can see how it's well within the range of variation depending on your stat-gen method and availability of magic items.

 

[Hussar]

There was the Healer class, which came out at the tail end of 3.0 and was designed to be 3.5 compatible. In case you've blocked it out, it was like a Cleric with an extremely limited spell list and bad BAB and light armor. These were balanced with 1) All of the status cure spells as 1/day spell-like abilities, to free up your slots; 2) +CHA modifier to healing done, so you could actually get 4-5 HP out of your Cure Minor Wounds; 3) A unicorn companion, with its own set of cure spells and a Magic Circle Against Evil, and wielding its own horn as a +3 lance.

Aside from that, I've never seen a class that had enough meaningful spell slots that using one every round would be an efficient use of resources. The Healer squeaks by as a passable pure-healer at low levels, because Cure Minor Wounds is capable of off-setting 1-2 hits from a kobold, where a PC can only withstand 2-3 hits before dropping. Beyond that, you only have enough slots to active-heal some of the time, and are mostly dead weight in less-challenging encounters.

Of course, you might also find yourself in situations where you need to throw everything into healing, just to keep the party alive. An action spent with your highest-level Cure spell could completely negate the attacks of an enemy for a round, and is often a better use of action than trying to possibly hit an enemy with strong defenses for a meager amount of damage. Two Fireballs from an at-level enemy spellcaster could lead to a TPK, so it's entirely probable that throwing out a Mass Cure Wounds would be the difference between everyone living and everyone dying.

But, you've ignored the fact the Kaiilurker has limited us to core. He rejected expansions in 4e for solving the problem, so, why should expansions in 3e or 3.5 count?

Additionally, you're talking about a pretty extreme corner case. How often is a party getting hit by two fireballs in a row? Certainly not something that's going to happen every combat or even every session. And meager damage was a 3e thing, not an AD&D thing where the cleric was second to the fighter types in terms of damage output.

 

[Hussar]

I was just looking at this yesterday, but I seem to recall that the claws dealt 5-8 (each), and the bite was even more than that. I think their THAC0 was around 13 or so, giving them ~40% accuracy against a plate-fighter and ~70% accuracy against someone squishy.

I've also never seen a level-5 fighter with negative AC, aside from one lucky elf who happened to have great Dex (and nothing special for either Strength or Con), but I can see how it's well within the range of variation depending on your stat-gen method and availability of magic items.

5th level fighter with +1 plate and +1 shield (certainly reasonable for a 5th level AD&D fighter) has a 0 AC. Any Dex bonus (and IIRC, that starts at 14) gives you a negative AC. I find it extremely unlikely you've only seen one 5th level AD&D fighter with a negative AC. Unless, of course, you didn't play that much AD&D, which is quite possible I think.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

That's why in 3.x I prefer the Favored Soul/Oracle and the aptly named Healer class. More creed and more believable. But even then, I could always project the image of not being that kind of ugly cleric.

/snip.

Earlier in this thread you rejected 4e splats and expansions as not suiting your needs. But, it's perfectly acceptable to wait years for acceptable 3e replacements? At least you admit that core clerics are not pure healers. That's a start if nothing else.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

But, you've ignored the fact the Kaiilurker has limited us to core. He rejected expansions in 4e for solving the problem, so, why should expansions in 3e or 3.5 count?

One of the greatest problems with any edition break is that you go from a fully-realized system with all of the expansions, down to just two or three books with none of the expansions. There was no dedicated healing class out, upon launch of 4E, where the Healer class was available immediately upon the 3.5 launch due to cross-edition compatibility.

And even if you're counting the fully-realized system in either case, there was never even a dedicated 4E healer build, let alone an entire class. Because of the way the AEDU structure was designed, you couldn't start a fight by buffing your allies, and then transition into healing when things got rough. There was no at-will healing/buff spell, and you didn't get enough Daily abilities in a day to fulfill that role. The expectation was that you would attack the enemies in order to buff your allies. Even the pacifists were expected to attack (with the only caveat being that they couldn't attack someone who was already bloodied).

Additionally, you're talking about a pretty extreme corner case. How often is a party getting hit by two fireballs in a row? Certainly not something that's going to happen every combat or even every session. And meager damage was a 3e thing, not an AD&D thing where the cleric was second to the fighter types in terms of damage output.

I'll grant that two Fireballs in a row was more of a 3.x thing than an AD&D thing, because 3E had the sorcerer, which had more spells per day and less spells known. If you're going against a sorcerer with a good Dex, who wins surprise, then you could easily take two Fireballs before getting a chance to react. Taking two Fireballs with only one round to recover would be a much more common occurrence, and would show up just about any time you faced such a spellcaster.

Fireballs have always been a big deal, though, regardless of edition. Fireball meant that the priest was, at best, a third-rate damage dealer (a second-rate fighter, where fighters had great at-will and lousy burst damage). When the going gets tough, and it's time to break out the big guns, it's not entirely unreasonable to expect the priest to do what she can do best, rather than relying on the old standby.

Your experience with AD&D is going to vary a lot though, much as in 5E, depending on which rules you want to use. When I played, fighters did a lot more damage than priests, on account of Weapon Specialization. That single class feature would triple the minimum damage for most weapons. I seem to recall that there were other supplements which allowed other classes to specialize, so that could have made a difference. If you tended toward higher stats, or more magic items, then that also would have brought them closer together.

 

[Hussar]

Oh, I'll totally agree that healing in combat in 3e was a thing. I think I've said as much earlier. In 3e, healing in combat was pretty much a given, and you didn't even need fireballs to do it. When creatures are generally capable of doing about 10*CR per round in damage, and most PC's are not getting 10 hp/level, it was either heal in combat or lose PC's. Which meant that cleric players started getting pressured, pretty heavily, to give up their action to keep the other characters in the fight.

If you like that sort of thing, great. I do, so, it never bothered me too much. But, I can totally see why someone wouldn't want to do that. Especially considering how long it could take to resolve rounds in 3e. I've seen 20 minute rounds in 3e and 10 minute rounds were not uncommon. If I'm only going to act three times in an hour, spending two of those actions healing the fighter could be seen as pretty darn boring.

Thus, the 4e cleric was born - you could still heal, but, you didn't have to have that be the only thing you did, and, by and large, individual rounds are much faster in 4e than in 3e. The combats might take longer, because you're playing out eight to ten rounds instead of three or four, but, you did get to do stuff a lot more often in 4e. Particularly with classes like the Warlord or the Cleric which had a lot of off turn reactions (which, unfortunately, probably slowed the game down even more - they really overdid that kind of thing with some of the later classes ).

And, sure, fighters were out damaging clerics in AD&D. By a fair bit. I did say that clerics were second best. There's a pretty big jump between second and first, mostly due to percentile strength and multiple attacks. To balance that out, clerics got some absolutely devastating spells - Hold Person, a second level Save or Die (at -4 if you only targeted one person), Know Alignment (brutal for resolving any sort of mystery), Blindness (the reverse of Cure Blindness) was permanent, Spiritual Hammer is also nasty. All perfectly core, open to clerics right out of the box.

 

[MoonSong]

Earlier in this thread you rejected 4e splats and expansions as not suiting your needs. But, it's perfectly acceptable to wait years for acceptable 3e replacements? At least you admit that core clerics are not pure healers. That's a start if nothing else.

I never rejected splats out of principle, I just said they don't give me what I need. If you can be nice enough and direct me to the book with the class or build that lets me heal and buff without attacking please tell me which one it is.

Edit: This petition is genuine, not sarcastic or ironic in any way. I truly want to know if it is there. I don't have the 4e fu to know. Beyond some simple sorcerer, bard, cleric and warlord PCs (and some hybrids that defy description) I have barely scratched the surface.

 

[pemerton]

I never rejected splats out of principle, I just said they don't give me what I need. If you can be nice enough and direct me to the book with the class or build that lets me heal and buff without attacking please tell me which one it is.

Edit: This petition is genuine, not sarcastic or ironic in any way. I truly want to know if it is there. I don't have the 4e fu to know. Beyond some simple sorcerer, bard, cleric and warlord PCs (and some hybrids that defy description) I have barely scratched the surface.

The cleric at-will Astral Seal is an at-will heal/buff:

* Ranged 5 vs 1 creature, WIS +2 vs Ref: til the end of your next turn, the target takes a -2 penalty to all defences, and the next ally to hit it before the end of your next turn regains 2 + your CHA mod hp.

A hybrid warlord/cleric using WIS and CHA as key stats, and using the warlord attack-enablers like Commander's Strike or Direct the Strike, could play as a healer/buffer.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The cleric at-will Astral Seal is an at-will heal/buff:
* Ranged 5 vs 1 creature, WIS +2 vs Ref: til the end of your next turn, the target takes a -2 penalty to all defences, and the next ally to hit it before the end of your next turn regains 2 + your CHA mod hp.

That's a good example of how there is no at-will healing or buffing power. What you have just listed is a debuff power, which requires you to attack an enemy for it to work.

Conceptually, debuffing is very different from buffing. It feels way different. Mechanically, you've introduced a huge point-of-failure with the attack roll, which is not something that healers are supposed to worry about (but which is a cornerstone of 4E design).

 

[Joe Liker]

Mechanically, you've introduced a huge point-of-failure with the attack roll, which is not something that healers are supposed to worry about (but which is a cornerstone of 4E design).

The more of this conversation I read, the more exacting the specifications of the so-called "healer" become.

It's sounding more and more like a role we're better off without, and one I'm glad did not make it into the core of 5e -- at least not in the extreme incarnation certain players seem to be looking for.