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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Satori" data-source="post: 3886011" data-attributes="member: 37233">Why is that so difficult?"Alright, team!  What kind of characters are we rolling up tonight?""I wanna play a Frenzied Berzerker!""Ooh! Oooh! I want to try a Shadow Mage!""I've had this Warlock character in my mind for a while...""You know, would you mind if I tried a Shadow Dancer?""Hey Steve, what are you going to play?"::Silence as everyone stares at Steve expectantly::"Alright, FINE!  I'll play the frickin' Cleric.""Thanks, Steve!  We really appreciate it!  We know how much of a drag it can be to play the Healer, and we appreciate it!""It's no big deal.  However, would you guys mind if I spiced up his personality a bit so I'm not jaw-droppingly bored acting as a walking heal potion?"---Was that so difficult?---Now, I don't think ALL Clerics/Priests are boring.  In fact, I've had great fun playing funky, alternative Clerics/Priests before.One of my favorite characters was a Lawful Evil Monk/Cleric/Sacred Fist...and I was ok serving as a combat medic because his background/personality/group dynamic were so darn fun.I also find that playing a heal-bot Cleric is a GREAT way to warm up to a new gaming group...especially a group that isn't entirely friendly or trusting at first.  The new guy plays the healer, let's the standard Cleric play something they really want to, and everyone loves the new guy because he repeatedly saves their arse.---I haven't ran a game in a long time, but I have a few concepts floating around in my dense skull...and one of them deals exclusively with the lack of enthusiasm for playing healers.Let me know what you think of this idea (kind of long, so bear with me):-In a world with real deities (Greyhawk, FR, etc...), an epic struggle not 10 years prior resulted in a group of brave adventurers nearly destroying an apocalyptic threat to the world.  When the dust settled and the threat seemingly vanquished, the adventures retired to their former lives, and peace was restored to the land.Or so they thought.  This enormous creature of destruction was not destroyed, only forced into a form of regenerative hibernation, where its remaining cultist followers slaved day in and day out to regenerate its form.  To make matters worse, this being was independent of all gods, morality, and deistic motives.  In fact, this creature was created with the sole purpose of devouring the gods.  When faced with this new threat, the formerly uninvolved gods realized they had to act.  For several minutes all the gods (Good, Neutral, Evil) set aside their differences, gathered in a council, and worked in concert to destroy this creature's ability to regenerate.  It would have worked, if not for the treachery of the immoral deities.  In attempting to modify the ritual to weaken their heavenly opponents, they instead caused the ritual to strip the entire world of regenerative magic.This left the Devourer in a half-regenerated state...but also all mortal sources of divine healing were obliterated entirely.---The idea here is that no one is forced to play a Healer because healing doesn't exist."But Satori...how will this work?!?!"Keep following me, because it makes sense.-Healing Magic "From Above" is gone.  There is NO free divine healing anymore (no Bardic healing either).-In your standard world with Healing, the universal "quota" of life force (HP) is constantly fluctuating.  There is no balance, as healing magic can offset and overcame any destructive magic entirely.-Without Healing Magic, though, the universal "quota" of life force is stuck.  There is no "Free Healing".  Instead, the balance must be maintained.  -Therefore, since there is no "Free Basin of HP" to draw from, you must instead draw from existing "HP"."STOP WITH THE RIDDLES AND TELL ME YOUR DARN PLAN!!"-Cure Spells are gone.  Poof.-Inflict Spells are still around.  Yay.-Inflict Spells now serve a dual purpose.  Instead of "Stamping Out Life", like they typically do, they instead "Siphon Life".  -Whenever an Inflict Spell is cast, the Cleric must, as a free action, transfer that damage to a target of their choice.  -This, in turn, heals the chosen target for the amount of damage inflicted to an enemy.  -In order to heal, a Cleric must essentially drain life force from someone and transfer it to the person to be healed.---"What have you done!?!  Clerics are forever changed!"GOOD!  Cleric Heal Bots are gone! Now, a Good Cleric must come to grips with the fact that in order to heal, someone must suffer...and even if they cast Inflict Spells on themselves to give HP to their companions, they MUST drain life force to heal themselves at some point.I have, in essence, turned the boring, vanilla, heal-bot Cleric into a tragic, life draining, morally complicated "Life Force Vampire". In addition, Clerics now have the ability to basically heal and damage as a free action.  They aren't forced to kill their rounds healing their companions.  Instead, they get to join in the front-line action and fling their Inflict Spells while keep their companions alive.---That took a while, and is a bit of a tangent...but since it addresses my thoughts on disgruntled Cleric players, what do you think?</blockquote>

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