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Message: <blockquote data-quote="steeldragons" data-source="post: 5733479" data-attributes="member: 92511">They gave me defined abilities and skills for my class. They did not tell me how my class was supposed to act. We know the archetypes of the class. We know the strengths and weaknesses of our abilities. And we played with them, sometimesfor the better sometimes, against "type" for theworse...not because the rules said I was a striker or controller or whatever, so I should be doing X. But because, "This is what I want my character to do!" This speaks entirely contrary to my idea of developing a character concept that I wish to play....unless, of course,I have no concept at all and am starting with a blank slate. But even then, I don't need the game to tell me how to play my character in combat.This is really neither here nor there for the discussion at hand, but that statement strikes me as entirely false. (it is one we've all heard many many times, and somehow that seems to have made it fact in the communal memory. However...)Yes, the cleric has the reputation of the "heal-bot". Have I played healer-clerics/clerics of gods of healing? Sure I have. But the idea that that was what a cleric was supposed to do is something the game community has created.A look at the pre-3e spell list shows this to be entirely untrue. You had ONE, count 'em, one curative spell to choose at first level, "Cure Light Wounds."Second level spells, you could "Slow Poison". Third level spells, you could Cure Disease and Cure Blindness...not hit point damage. Cure Serious Wounds was a 4th level spell!...as was Neutralize Poison.So you had to be 7th level before you could really do any useful healing beyond stocking up/filling your first level slots with Cure Lights. And, I wager to guess that by 7th level, you were taking more damage than a single Cure Lights could really help with. Some maybe you had to hit one PC with two or three of  the things and then what about everyone else in the party...or the next encounter you had?The rest of the spell list, for all levels, was chock full o' useful protective/resistance spells, spells to boost attacks, bolster saving throws, divinations and even a few damage dealing combat-related spells.The fact that any cleric, not specfically being role-played as a "healer", became known/expected to heal all of the time is not only narrow thinking, but practically impossible to do with the spells permitted.The cleric was a "supporter" character, yes. An element of that support was to heal as he/she could. Yes. But he could help you survive against this or that Evil effect or magic, or fear or fire or cold, find the item or exit you were looking for, tell the party if someone was lying...and be handy in a melee when he wasn't invoking his deity. So, no, if I was playing a cleric, I was not told, by the rules, that I was to be a healer. It was just something (albeit perhaps the most notable, aside from Turning Undead) the cleric COULD do...not a definition of the class.The codification is something new (considering 4e to be "new").Before that you were not told what/where/how your character had to be in combat. The class was not defined that way. It just made sense that the guy with the heavy armor and the most hit points would get up front. The guy who's going to be KO'd by a house cat should probably stay away from the orcs with the sharp n' pointies. And the guy who could move around the battlefield unseen and do lots of damage from behind would want to do that...but noone said this is the structure of how you must be in your battles. Agreed. I get that. Makes sense. But it does seem to be how the codification was designed to make/push people to think...and then the entirety of the game being designed around combat encounters much moreso than exploration, problem solving and NPC interactions only served to fuel that conception/enforce that way of thinking.Yes, yes. D&D has always had combat. Killin' things and takin' their stuff has always been fun and a large part of every game I've ever been in. We like action and adventure. Note "and adventure". The action (iow, "combat") was never the only part...and the game was not, by design, set up to be about combat...or one's Role in them. So...yeah...Guess that's all on that. Mostly just wanted to respond the "cleric/healer" thing...Not looking or interested in debating anything else.As I said previously, for me, no roles are necessary, please and thank you. Everyone play what/how they like...and the game developers will, no doubt, design the next edition however they perceive we will like.Happy Friday all.--Steel Dragons</blockquote>

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