PCs using their abilities - a favor to the party?

[Desdichado]

If you have to tweak the game to make not having a cleric work, then yes, having a cleric (or healer, at least) is required.

Tweaking is always required. What's your point?

To make this perfectly clear and not foster further confusion: I'm not talking about a basic minimum to run a game. I'm talking about the difference between what I consider a competent DM and a merely adequate DM. One who provides an "out of the box" experience and fails to optimize the game for the fun of his players is not a good GM. One who essentially says, although not in so many words, that you have to have this kind of character played this kind of way in this group regardless of whether or not you want to, is not a good GM.

 

[pallen]

In my experience, this kind of attitude happens most often when a player is forced to play a cleric when he doesn't want to. Or when he plays with groups that don't pay attention to basic tactics, and can't get through a simple combat without someone constantly healing them. When the party goes down, it's never the fault of the fighter that charged into a mass of bad guys, or the rogue who overextended himself to get a sneak attack in. It's the cleric, because he didn't charge in after them with the heal spells.

I find it poignant that at least one person in this thread has mentioned that they have NPC clerics in the party for healing. Doesn't that highlight how much fun it is to be a "heal-bot" for most people? I can't say that I've ever heard anyone claim that they had an NPC wizard to blast the monsters so that they can hang back and heal because it's so much more fun.

 

[cougent]

I find it poignant that at least one person in this thread has mentioned that they have NPC clerics in the party for healing. Doesn't that highlight how much fun it is to be a "heal-bot" for most people? I can't say that I've ever heard anyone claim that they had an NPC wizard to blast the monsters so that they can hang back and heal because it's so much more fun.

Guilty.
Maybe I should try that Wizard blasting bot and see how well it works

It seems like there are two schools of thought:

Players who play clerics and like to do so and how they think clerics should be played.

AND

Everyone else who thinks they know how clerics should be played.

Yet apply this same thinking process to any other class and almost everyone gets universally cranky about it.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

As so often when humans are involved, the answer is nowhere near the extremes:

A player can' expect to play the party cleric without ever healing someone any more than the other players can expect him to do nothing but heal. Acting like berserkers is as stupid as playing completely save. And so on.


Sure, no one should expect that one of the actual players plays a character that does nothing but heal. I know that if someone complained to me because my cleric "wastes" magic for non-healing purposes and meant it, he'd be asking to have his next healing mysteriously confused with an inflict or harm spell. But on the other side, one of the rules a cleric has is healing. If you play a cleric, expect that the others will want to be healed. Expect to spend actions healing them. Even during combat. Even using actual spell slots. Even using some of the highest spell slots. You have to find a middle ground everyone's comfortable with.


And sure, acting without any tactical consideration, going all on offense, actively provoking punishment - and then expecting the cleric to follow you (probably getting into harm's way himself) and patch you up all the time isn't something you should expect anyone to put up with. But during combat, people will get hurt. Some will get hurt badly. Chances must be taken. You can't expect them to spend all their gold on defensive items and always be on full defense (or using expertise with numbers that will make hitting unlikely). Expect to do some battlefield healing work. Expect to go into danger for your collegues. Just expect that they don't take it for granted and throw all caution to the wind.


In the end it boils down to people acting reasonable, taking each other's enjoyment of the game into consideration, and it always goes both ways.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

If you have to tweak the game to make not having a cleric work, then yes, having a cleric (or healer, at least) is required.

I have been running this game for a number of years, and have never seen the 'heal-bot' approach in play.. no tweaking required, simply a different style of play that does not focus on CR +4 or higher encounters

There are a couple sides to this issue:
Side #1, the roleplaying aspect.
- Some people expect Clerics to have ties to a religion and diety, and those ties should be reflected by IC obligations and actions.
- Some people expectt Clerics not have IC obligations and actions tied to a diety/religion.

I am of the former crowd, and have banned from playing a Cleric in at least two groups for being too energetic about communicating my characters faith {despite the fact that I 'defeated' a couple of encounters single-handed through preaching the attackers into submission }

I have also refused healing on the grounds that the characters actions and lifestyle were counter to my characters diety's goals.... which brings up a half of an issue that has yet to be raised here. Many posts above say the player of the Cleric has to align the character to fit into the party, but what about the Barbarian who has chosen to band up with a Cleric? That player also has a responsiblity to align thier characters actions as well.

Side #2: Healing and Hitpoints
The schizm here revolves around the 'I need to be at Max health or I will die' attitude. IMC, players expect to face a number of encounters while worn out and depleted on resources {like hit points, spells, etc..} To me its more heroic to struggle forward while injured than to hide until 'topped up'. YMMV

Side note, one of the best played Druid's I ever had the pleasure of running a game would ensure that his companions were sufficiently healed before the party was... perfectly IC for him, and his actions drew complaints from other characters {IC}.. the players {OOC} accepted his representation of the Druid's devotion to those animals called to him.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Many posts above say the player of the Cleric has to align the character to fit into the party, but what about the Barbarian who has chosen to band up with a Cleric? That player also has a responsiblity to align thier characters actions as well.

Unless it's a two player game the cleric's in a minority.

 

[Hussar]

Elf Witch - potions are fantastic. But, what do you do after 10th level? A 3d8+3 potion isn't going to keep your barbarian alive when he's getting whacked by that giant for 100 points of damage every round. And, if he pulls back out of combat, the giant steps up and tees up on the next PC, who can't take that kind of punishment and dies.

All this so the cleric doesn't have to do what he's designed to do, ie heal people?

It's not like cleric as healer is something new. It's been around for a while. If you played clerics in earlier editions, what were your first four 1st level spells? Since there was no healing in levels 2 and 3, your 4th level spells were all healing spells as well.

I remember, as an experiment, in 2e I allowed clerics to be spontaneous casters. Anything that was in their spheres they could cast so long as they had slots left. 99% of the time, they cast EXACTLY the same spells as if they had had to memorize. There's just no real way around it.

Only the cleric can heal. Potions and healing sticks are fine after combat, but, again, that's a bandaid, not a solution. A party whose cleric never heals in combat is likely going to have a pretty high casualty rate.

Hobo - what did you do to get around having no healer?

 

[Creamsteak]

If something is doing hundreds of damage per round a cleric is still a bandaid because essentially any one burst from a spare crit or lucky dice is going to kill someone anyway. A cleric can only heal like that a couple times.

 

[Jin_Kataki]

I find myself lately becoming very disillusioned with players who enjoy making characters that, while well thought out and entertaining, are a direct hinderance to the party. I recently lost my character thanks to a player who was playing his "scoundrel" type character as a very selfish person. Does this make sense for a rouge? Sure, but when you have a character that could if he wanted to teleport the entire party across a lake of lava would you let your parties only tank attempt to climb and then fall to his death just cause "Your Character" does not want "Our Characters" to know that he can teleport anyone but himself? I play with two people who are very entertaining with their characters, but both take their characters so far to the extreme that I find myself having a hard time coming up with reasons why my character would travel with them.

 

[Zurai]

I have been running this game for a number of years, and have never seen the 'heal-bot' approach in play.. no tweaking required, simply a different style of play that does not focus on CR +4 or higher encounters

Not using CR+4 IS tweaking. The DMG calls for 5% of all encounters to be CR+4 or higher.

Note that I'm not saying you're doing anything wrong. My point is solely that the game as written pretty much requires a character that is devoted to healing for a 4 person (or fewer) party. I fully support altering the game such that it doesn't require a dedicated full-time healer - but that's because I realize that, baseline, it does