D&D 5E Refusing To Heal Party Members?

[Herobizkit]

"First we crack the shell, then we crack the nuts inside!" - Rumble

I'm sure that this has already been mentioned, but a War or Tempest Cleric with a decent Strength could easily go toe-to-toe as a front-liner and might also fit in better with the group as is. Slap on some Sentinel or perhaps Shield Expertise (? I forget the name atm) and have some delicious battlefield management - THAT'S what the party needs.

Also, I'd suggest to your rogue to switch up to throwing weapons, daggers if she can, and go the Dual Weapon route. While daggers might do slightly less damage, she'll be able to throw two a round and stay in comfortable range to get out of Dodge if she needs to... or hop into Melee to take some sweat off your front-liners.

(In that aspect, it's actually a shame that a Rogue can get Sneak Attack via fighting an engaged opponent - it disincentives her to get into Melee.)

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

There is a sidebar in the PHB about paladins willfully violating their oaths and failing to repent. The DM can require the player take a new class or take the Oathbreaker option in the DMG.

Not to mention that penalties don't have to be mechanical to be real. A Lawful Evil cleric of a Chaotic Good deity might keep spells and class features, but they could still be defrocked and excommunicated, denied the resources of their church and viewed with scorn by former parishioners.

Which is much more interesting to me than "your character loses their class features and becomes mechanically unplayable."

 

[MarkB]

In any event, your Paladin is scarcely less in conflict with a CN than they would be with a CE character. It's ok to bring that up in play, provided you are willing to take outs to prevent party dissolution and play off of the other players cues. Of course, that assumes everyone is going to be mature about it. Instead of making it a table issue, make it an issue in character. If the Barbarian is like, "I'm all bloody again, bro. Heal me.", it's alright to go, "Our Glorious Lady Showna is not running your personal blood bank. If I expend the power she has delegated to me, to heal you of your recklessly earned wounds, then I'm risking the death of someone else who has greater needs. My purpose in this life is not to validate your wrathfulness and disregard of personal safety." And if the Barbarian's player is any good, he'll respond with something like, "Oh. How do you know that?" And so forth.

There is nothing in the 5e Oath of Vengeange paladin that precludes them associating with evil characters, or even being evil themselves.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

No because I did my share of the adventuring too. My character was an adventurer not a walking band aid dispenser for the rest of the party. I fought along side the fighter, I explored along side the rogue, and I casted support and damage spells with the wizard.

And did none of them nearly as well. So while they were carrying you in the fighting, damage, and exploration department, you should be expected to provide your support to them as well. Again, its a silly in-character reason, like a fighter sitting a battle out because he felt he made his attacks quota. Better pay up if you want him to fight overtime.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Did they charge you for spells they cast to further the party, finding traps, or taking hits? Sorry man, that's an jerk reason in the context of interparty dynamics. RP wise, they should have kicked you out unless they were all weirdo LN types, rogue modrons, or the Takers in planescape.

I would love to play a wizard in that game... "what you want me to fireball, dispel, or haste... I would, but only if the cleric pays me 3gp per spell level"

The rogue would be better. "I'm not attacking anyone without hazard pay..."

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Perhaps I should just retire the Paladin and play something like a fighter. Then I don't have to be judged for not healing people since no one else seemed interested.

here is the thing in a nutshell... people who can't do X aren't going to be expected to use X to advance the party as a whole... people who do have X should expect to at least be asked to use X to advance the party goals...

"Well I have X why don't you?" is not very much in the spirit of the game at all...

"Dude, you have the healing, can you use it" isn't being a jerk... if you don't want to use healing resources don't play a character with healing resources...

Imagine a fighter saying "I don't like combat so I sit it out..." could it be an RP thing, sure. COu0ld it be his character concept yup... will it lead to problems at the table I bet 9 out of 10 times it will

 

[Celebrim]

I would love to play a wizard in that game... "what you want me to fireball, dispel, or haste... I would, but only if the cleric pays me 3gp per spell level"

The rogue would be better. "I'm not attacking anyone without hazard pay..."

At the beginning of The Hobbit, when Thorin is trying to recruit (what he has been told is) a professional Burglar into the party, he takes great care to make sure that the duties expected of and remuneration owed to the prospective adventurer is clearly spelled out in a written contract.

The sort of very reasonable intra-party conflict your describe and the very reasonable role play you describe is very reasonably handled by the creation of such a contract. If your party or mercenaries and sell-swords doesn't have a contract, why not? I mean its one thing to assume that everyone in the party has been bosom buddies since childhood, but if you have a party member whose been hired on for mercenary reasons you really can't expect him to rely on his goodwill and kindness to be keeping your sorry butt alive. The rogue isn't really stealing from the party if you don't' have a contract that says all treasure should go into a common pool and be divided equally. I'm pretty sure Gygax even explicitly calls out that the party should have some sort of agreement in place about how treasure is to be divided before they find any.

And it's utterly reasonable that if a party member asks another party member for a favor, that the party member says, "Ok, fine. But I'm not doing this pro bono."

 

[Valetudo]

I can't believe this thread is this long. So anyways, the whole party sounds like a bunch of selfish 12 yr Olds playing did back in the 80s. I think it's funny you suggest switching to a fighter so you don't have to heal instead of playing a cleric or bard or some other healer.

 

[Ahrimon]

And did none of them nearly as well. So while they were carrying you in the fighting, damage, and exploration department, you should be expected to provide your support to them as well. Again, its a silly in-character reason, like a fighter sitting a battle out because he felt he made his attacks quota. Better pay up if you want him to fight overtime.

Carrying me? Righhhttt... Because we all know that clerics have always been completely pointless in melee. They can't hold their own so they're better off standing in the back ready to run to the aid of any character who gets hurt...

I never said that I didn't support them. I would cast support spells like bless, etc all of the time. I simply asked for a small tithe for the church for a healing spell. An amount that works out to less than 1% of the money they would take in on an adventure and 1/10th of what a player would happily erase from their sheet to have their character perform some hand-waved drinking and debauchery.

I would love to play a wizard in that game... "what you want me to fireball, dispel, or haste... I would, but only if the cleric pays me 3gp per spell level"

The rogue would be better. "I'm not attacking anyone without hazard pay..."

When has the wizard ever been expected to spend all of his spells casting haste and dispel for the party? The wizard (or mage) has always been free to decide on how to spend his spells for the benefit of all. When has the fighter ever been expected to always drop everything and run over to try and fight off any monster that threatens any other PC. But the cleric. Whew. He'd better be saving every one of those spells to heal you because that's his one and only job. And heaven forbid we add a little bit of role-playing that is barely a blip on the radar of inconvenient.

Perhaps you're better off with an NPC to tag along and heal you. That's not the clerics job in my games.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Carrying me? Righhhttt... Because we all know that clerics have always been completely pointless in melee. They can't hold their own so they're better off standing in the back ready to run to the aid of any character who gets hurt...

By and large in most editions? Yeah, you're pretty weak in melee. 1st/2nd you got one attack with a crummy THACO for d8 damage. It was unlikely you had a damage bonus (a mighty +1 at 16 str). 3rd screwed up by letting casters wreck the game with CODZilla right out of the PHB, but without a lot of self buffing (most of which is better spent on other characters), clerics were pretty meh in physical combat. 4th had the Str side, which was largely unsupported and weaker than other options (and poor compared to other strikers and many non-strikers). 5th edition you have 1 attack base in the class with little scaling, and self-buffs mostly use your concentration slot which is better spent on bless, spirit guardians or a host of other options. In a non-garbage balanced system, the fighting types are doing significantly more "at will" damage.

I never said that I didn't support them. I would cast support spells like bless, etc all of the time. I simply asked for a small tithe for the church for a healing spell. An amount that works out to less than 1% of the money they would take in on an adventure and 1/10th of what a player would happily erase from their sheet to have their character perform some hand-waved drinking and debauchery.

Hey, there's a sucker born every minute I guess.