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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MoonSong" data-source="post: 6455155" data-attributes="member: 6689464">I'm not discussing my game, I'm discussing the game in general. In principle whatever happens on your table doesn't particularly affect me. However this is a case when it can, and very likely will, I know I sound extremely selfish right now, but please bear with me just a few paragraphs and I will explain myself.  The reason for the resistance to help with this, is that, well, actually helping tables where the widespread attitude towards the healer role is one of contempt, of thinking of it as a load and a punishment will encourage those attitudes more and more and produce a self perpetuating problem. More so with an official module that gives more to the PCs when nobody plays a cleric, if it is any good, and gets popular enough, it will discourage players of healbots from playing healers for fear of harming the party. The less needed you make healers, the more disruptive they become. The more you cater to players who want to "do something fun instead of having to heal", the more you alienate players who actually enjoy it and view it as a personal challenge to keep the party on their feet, resulting in less players you will find who want to play a healer, and it will only get worse if in order to play a satisfactory healer a player needs everybody else to give up power, that is a lost battle. A system that requires a cooperative player who cares about others and helping them being better -qualities needed to enjoy being the one buffing and healing without seeing it as a burden- to actively demand to take away the party's toys in order to have room to be a healer has effectively removed the healer as a viable choice.    You don't really need optional rules, there are some simple solutions: 1) Recruit a player with the express purpose of playing healers. Nobody wants to be the cleric? bring in someone friendly who enjoys doing it, preferably someone who can make it seem as fun as it can be. -the cheap version, create a healer NPC and distribute control over the players.2) Have players drown on healing potions. Make them cheaper, reduce their cost by 50%-90&. Make them available in treassure hoards by the dozens. Dial with the amount until you find the number that works for you and your table. 3) As an actual house rule, give all PCs for free 1 cure light wounds per short rest, and let it scale with level. I pretty much agree with most of your points, except the last one part. Derogative expressions like "getting saddled with the healer role" and "being punished with playing the cleric" are symptoms to a bigger problem, that the playerbase thinks of playing the healer as below them, If we really want a long term solution to the healers shortage, we need to stop taking them for granted, we need to start viewing playing the healer as a valid heroic option, as valuable as any other role and not as a load or a systemic problem that has to be eradicated at all costs. If you reduce short rests to be pretty short, they will be easier and more common, and that will change the balance.It depends, in general, people don't complain about things they don't care about, personally I find I like many things about 5e, and am very excited by it. It doesn't fulfill all of my preferences, but I plan to keep on being very vocal. If 5e is going to be a living game, voicing the dissatisfaction with certain features will help them being noticed and eventually corrected or taken into account by the design team.</blockquote>

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