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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6737192" data-attributes="member: 996">Seen that dynamic a lot over the years.  One of D&D's little long-standing quirks is the way it used hps & saves to model the common 'plot armor' trope, but used healing magic to model the 'come back'  trope (in genre confrontations, the bad guys tend to beat down the hero, at first, to show how dangerous they are, then the hero stages a come back, and wins, to show how heroic he is - cliche, I know).  Because a lot of healing came from the Cleric and consumed his valuable spells, it created this conflict, the Cleric's power essentially flowing to other character's to let them keep playing while using up his own 'agency' as represented by all the other potential uses for those slots.  Sometimes, that conflict played out OOC - no one wanted to play the cleric, so it fell to the last player to join (yeah, you can play, if you roll up a cleric) or the group doormat, or the rare, blesséd (pi), player who actually liked both the cleric concept and the 'healer' role.  Sometimes, IC, as above, with a cleric expecting something in return.  Each new ed has tried to deal with it.  2e made Priests a little more interesting.  3e gave them spontaneous casting and Domains and WoCLW, and created CoDzilla.  4e pushed most healing resources to the individual character via surges and 'promoted' the erstwhile 'healers' to 'leaders,' made most of their in-combat healing a minor action and made out-of-combat healing and overnight healing quick and effective even without one.   5e, in keeping with it's something-from-every-ed mandate, has HD that represent less healing resource than surges, overnight healing, common healing potions, and a feat or two to lessen the healing burden, and multiple classes with Cure Wounds to distribute that healing burden, and the bonus action Healing Word to retain a little active participation in combat.So it really shouldn't be the problem it was in the olden days.</blockquote>

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