PCs using their abilities - a favor to the party?

[Doug McCrae]

My PC portrayal in-game is very much the same as my personal attitude in life: I share my gifts when it's the right thing to do or if I want to do it -- they're mine to give. But the moment someone expresses *expectation* that I must do something is when I shut down or start talking about a job contract.

Your PCs seem to be acting rather petulantly. Adventuring is a dangerous job. Lives are on the line. I would expect a party member to do his job even if someone yells at him.

 

[cougent]

The issue is not a cleric (or anyone else) who doesn't heal, or doesn't heal in combat.

OK, that was not clear originally, so now we are on the same page.

(Though if a party member is bleeding out and any character with the ability to heal simply decides not to because they are going for the glory, that could be an issue for everyone.)

Agreed. However this is also true of other players and other actions, but that never seems to get mentioned or debated, just the actions of clerics. A clear double standard.

The issue is exactly what I stated it as, a player who decides that they are going to try to get the rest of the group to kowtow to their PC, or acts in a non cooperative fashion but still expects their "place" in the party to be uncontested.

Refusing to heal when he has healing resources to heal would clearly fall within this statement. Dropping any and all prepared spells to heal someone at the moment could potentially cost the whole party more problems later on, so that would be situation dependent.

I am glad you said "player" because that is the crux of my only dissagreement with your assertion, 1,000's of other actions fit your statement also, the tank who rushes into battle when diplomacy might have avoided a fight for instance, yet these go totally unchallenged as just status quo (eh, he's a tank, what do you expect him to do? Besides he gets to play his character as he wants) yet this same neutrality goes out the window for clerics who even before 4E have a "role to fill" decided by other players and even some DM's. No one enjoys being told or dictated how to play their character, not even clerics.

 

[atom crash]

But that doesn't have anything to do with refusing to heal other PCs unless they make nicey to your god.

On one hand you have making nice with the cleric's deity, and on the other you have actively opposing (either intentionally or not) the cleric's deity. I'd seriously consider penalizing a PC who healed up an enemy of his church/deity (say, a priest of Heironeous healing up the rogue who worships Hextor) if there wasn't good reason, but then again I always stress party cohesion above inter-party conflict, so I'd not expect such a case to come up.

[As an aside, I encourage the PCs to worship the same deity by making healing spells for members of the same faith be automatically maximized.]

I remember a group I gamed with years ago who all played chaotic characters. I played a LN cleric. After several near-disasters resulting from the lack of any battle plan -- hey, let's just rush headlong into battle and not help each other out -- I decided my cleric's logical response would be to try using threat of withholding healing to get the party to act in a more orderly and unified manner. I even went so far as to suggest making a game plan for combat and establishing standard tactics. I also made the other players profess the greatness of my god before receiving healing. They all started using their cut of the loot for healing potions after that.

I also recall actually withholding healing from one player on one occasion. His PC had set a building on fire while we were in it -- he had the ability to summon and bind elementals and demon spirits, and had bound a spirit of fire to his sword -- and we spent several minutes running around a burning building looking for treasure and/or the way out. He was burned as a result, and I refused to heal his burn damage.

I consider all the above perfectly reasonable, given the situation. YMMV.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I am glad you said "player" because that is the crux of my only dissagreement with your assertion, 1,000's of other actions fit your statement also, the tank who rushes into battle when diplomacy might have avoided a fight for instance, yet these go totally unchallenged as just status quo (eh, he's a tank, what do you expect him to do? Besides he gets to play his character as he wants) yet this same neutrality goes out the window for clerics who even before 4E have a "role to fill" decided by other players and even some DM's. No one enjoys being told or dictated how to play their character, not even clerics.

Let me just say that my base rules that I brought to bear on the cleric example were not made for clerics but for numerous of those 1000s of other examples. Part of the problem I think is that I'm just looking at a theoretical cleric behavior (never seen it myself) and judging it by my basic rules for characters, but things are being intepreted against the backdrop of a totally different argument about whether clerics should spend every in combat action healing. (A subject that I've seen amicably worked out in numerous ways, so I don't have a visceral understanding of the anger involved.)

For a more general idea of my position, my ranting post "In praise of Metagaming" from a while back might be more useful, but I'm too lazy this morning to look for and link it.

The cleric specific part of this thread was the idea of aiding another party member as if it was a personal favor to that party member. The whole "if they ask nicely" thing was not one of the 101 ways of screwing with the group in the name of "playing my character" I am familiar with, so I was curious if it was a cleric thing or had been seen elsewhere.

 

[howandwhy99]

So I'm curious if this is a cleric thing, (possibly relating to the feeling that the player is doing the group a favor by being a cleric, so they should get some in character fawning out of it) or if some people play in groups where the PCs are stuck together but only help each other when convinced?

AFAIK, there is no reason a group of people have to work together. No one is forcing them to play their character one way or another.

Heck, if someone tried, they'd rightly be called out for it.

But D&D is a teambuilding exercise. It is very hard to survive alone. By relying on each others' expertise, the team survives. It's part of the learning experience.

But no one is here is being forced to learn how teamwork succeeds better than a pack of lone wolfs. Players figuring out how to survive together just tends to happen in most cases.

 

[gunderval]

goes back to party formation

The cleric really shouldn't be adventuring with folks they won't heal.

This is an issue in creating believable party groups. God of peace cleric shouldn't be adventuring with "merciless athiest".

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I think the only time I have run into a refusal by the player of a cleric to heal party members came when the other players were treating him and his PC as a servant. They didn't just have an expectation of healing, they pretty much demanded it. If the player attempted to cast spells other than healing spells, they got upset about him "wasting his spells." Basically the player wasn't allowed to play his character the way he wanted to, but the way others expected him to.

Ultimately the player stopped running a cleric and let someone else reluctantly take over the role of party medic.

 

[cougent]

The cleric specific part of this thread was the idea of aiding another party member as if it was a personal favor to that party member. The whole "if they ask nicely" thing was not one of the 101 ways of screwing with the group in the name of "playing my character" I am familiar with, so I was curious if it was a cleric thing or had been seen elsewhere.

Just for the record, I would frown on that as well.
However I have seen it in similar ways from others as well. Rogue "OK, I will defuse the trap on this chest, but I get 90% of whatever is inside". Tank Fighter with best magic sword in group "OK I will charge in, but when this is over I get any new magic swords we find". Wizard "I spend all my gold on components and books while you guys are at the tavern, either I get more gold from now on or maybe I don't prepare fireball next time". It is easily not a cleric only thing is all I am saying, yet many of these other instances are often perceived as "normal" or "their right to play their character as they want". The *role* scenario seems to be unequally applied to clerics, IMO.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Just for the record, I would frown on that as well.
However I have seen it in similar ways from others as well. Rogue "OK, I will defuse the trap on this chest, but I get 90% of whatever is inside". Tank Fighter with best magic sword in group "OK I will charge in, but when this is over I get any new magic swords we find". Wizard "I spend all my gold on components and books while you guys are at the tavern, either I get more gold from now on or maybe I don't prepare fireball next time". It is easily not a cleric only thing is all I am saying, yet many of these other instances are often perceived as "normal" or "their right to play their character as they want". The *role* scenario seems to be unequally applied to clerics, IMO.

Heh, I would frown on all of those as well. (Though the poor wizard does kinda get hosed on having to spend money to get the full benefits of leveling up. In my group expensive components for spells like Identify come out of the "party" share of treasure, as do cure wands to let the cleric spend more spells on non healing.)

 

[roguerouge]

You know, the fighter gets the worst gig of them all. Can you imagine being beat on by monsters--virtually all alone--while the rogue "manuevers" and the cleric in his shiny armor is too important to risk? It's a wonder to me that it's supposed to be the wizard and the fighter that don't get along. One would imagine that infantrymen get along rather well with artillery men.