D&D 5E (2014) On the healing options in the 5e DMG

[Ahrimon]

You could create it in 2E, though you'd spend a lot of your time just standing around in the back and waiting for people to get hurt. Priests did gain bonus spells for high Wisdom, after all, and it's as likely (or moreso) that you'd have a high-Wisdom priest as a high-Strength one.

Does it really seem weird that we'd make a distinction between giving an ally +2 to hit, or giving an enemy -2 AC? Do you not get how it feels way different?

You can create it in 5e just the same as 2e. Take nothing but healing and buffing spells and stand around waiting to be useful. If your not useful enough, talk to the DM about upping the challenges so that you are more useful.

 

[Ahrimon]

Final Fantasy was kind of a big deal. There was also Dragon Quest, of course, and Phantasy Star. Most console RPGs throughout the 80s and 90s, really.

Of course, it did all start with D&D, which more-or-less single-handedly popularized the concept of healing spells in the first place. The archetype has been around since, at the very latest, whenever Legends & Lore came out - as soon as there were variant priests, such that some could be depicted as more healer-y and others were more fighter-y.

I disagree. D&D had healers, but the stand around and heal/buff only really came into play with MMORPGs. There may have been a few people here and there, but the concept was never a widely recognized thing until video games. And even then I can't tell you how many people I heard complain about having to play a healer.

 

[Hussar]

Hang on though. We're not talking about having healers. That I'll totally buy as being a thing. We're talking about pure healers who have little to no offensive capability. That wasn't a thing in most of the CRPG's that I played.

 

[Hussar]

Ahh. Having never played MMO's, I'll leave that to others.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You can create it in 5e just the same as 2e. Take nothing but healing and buffing spells and stand around waiting to be useful.

I agree. You can totally play a dedicated healer-type in 5E. You quickly gain enough spell slots to use a buff in every fight, and the Help action is still useful the rest of the time. (Contrast with 4E, where the Aid action was generally not that useful.)

 

[Celtavian]

I disagree. D&D had healers, but the stand around and heal/buff only really came into play with MMORPGs. There may have been a few people here and there, but the concept was never a widely recognized thing until video games. And even then I can't tell you how many people I heard complain about having to play a healer.

Truth.

 

[Celtavian]

What is happening in your mind when you use your hit dice to recover? You can use them any short rest you feel like. The healing can be substantial. No magic is going on?

Also in response to the other response to your post....who said anything about the feasibility of fixing it? What does that have to do with anything I said? My question is why they would force the default rules to require non-magical healing if at the same time the game still requires a cleric (or equivalent healer) by default. To me the whole point of including all this extra non-magical healing was to eliminate the dependency upon healing classes and healing magic items. If that goal is not met then why even do it?

That's not rapid in my estimation. I assumed by rapid you meant "in combat." You can only use that on a short rest. It does definitely help reduce the healers role as well as less reliance on consumables. In 3rd edition we used wands during downtime. I was very tired of always having to purchase cure wands.

I was hoping for less reliance on healing. But spike damage in 5E is still quite high. Spike damage is generally what forces someone to play the healer roll.

 

[aramis erak]

Outside of Final Fantasy, is that really true? Sure, you had the White Mage (although, to be honest, I've only played a tiny little bit of Final Fantasy a VERY long time ago). Healer archetype from the mid 80's? What would that be? The Gold Box D&D games didn't have that. AD&D certainly didn't have the archetype. So, where is the archetype coming from?

In tabletop gaming...
The Arcanum's Priest class has a bunch of healing & curing spells. It's not a pure healer, but neither is the Final Fantasy White Mage. (1983)
Palladium Fantasy's Healer OCC is focused on healing. (1983)
Rolemaster had a few healer classes, with varying sources of magic. (1982 or so)
Traveller had the Doctor Career (in Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium) (1979)
Starships & Spacemen (1978) had Medical Officers and also Psionic Healing.
FASA Trek also had Medical Officers. (1983)

ALL of these predate the first of the Final Fantasy games. And I'm certain there are more; I'm just not willing to go digging. These are just the ones that come to mind immediately and are close to hand.

Some people did go all heal-bot even in AD&D 1E; they'd fill their slots with CLW. Looking at the tables in Unearthed Arcana...

1st: Cure Light Wounds
2nd: Slow Poison
3rd: Cure Blindness and Cure Disease
4th: Cure Serious Wounds and Neutralize Poison
5th: Cure Critical Wounds and Raise Dead
7th: Regenerate, Restoration and Resurrection.​

So, it's really possible to play the healbot cleric in AD&D1E. The only slots that don't have spells to match are 6th level...

 

[Emerikol]

That's not rapid in my estimation. I assumed by rapid you meant "in combat." You can only use that on a short rest. It does definitely help reduce the healers role as well as less reliance on consumables. In 3rd edition we used wands during downtime. I was very tired of always having to purchase cure wands.

I was hoping for less reliance on healing. But spike damage in 5E is still quite high. Spike damage is generally what forces someone to play the healer roll.

When I use the term rapid, I mean turning wounds into something other than injuries so that you can recover them after a short rest.

I don't want non-magical healing to go beyond what was normal prior to 4e for narrative / versimilitude reasons. Nothing to do with functionality.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Hang on though. We're not talking about having healers. That I'll totally buy as being a thing. We're talking about pure healers who have little to no offensive capability. That wasn't a thing in most of the CRPG's that I played.

I don't know how common it was, but my current DM tells stories of "the good old days" where they had a pure-healer NPC because nobody wanted to play the priest. With two fighters, two mages, and a rogue in the party, it would just stand back and heal as needed.

I seem to recall hearing similar stories around the boards.