D&D 5E Should Cure and Inflict Wounds should be touch spells?

[steeldragons]

Should Cure and Inflict Wounds be Touch spells?

Yes. No question.

Casting "Mass/Area of Effect" or individually "Ranged" versions should be special abilities [metamagics?] gained at increasing levels. I'd say "AoE" version at 7th and "Ranged [directed at an individual]" at 10th or vice versa or something like that.

 

[Sage Genesis]

It would be really weird if I thought she was!

Yes. Sorry, I was unclear there.

What I meant to say is that some players will always be predisposed to being perhaps overly cautious. The Cure Wounds spell in 5e is clearly designed around a melee-capable Cleric, with class features to back this up. The entire context just screams "melee Cleric is encouraged". And with this context in place, it's unreasonable to make Cure Wounds a touch spell, but because you'd end up punishing the Cleric for doing what you earlier encouraged him to do. If a melee Cleric has to run across the battlefield to heal someone he has to eat up opportunity attacks and face obstacle/mobility problems. If the Cleric was more clearly designed as a "back row" spellcaster like the Wizard, then it would be far more reasonable to make it a touch spell.

Should Cure and Inflict Wounds be Touch spells?

Yes. No question.

Do you perhaps have any arguments to back that up? I mean, if it's just your opinion it's fine and all, but I think the debate could benefit from hearing pros and cons rather than being a string of "yes" and "no".

 

[DEFCON 1]

Should Cure and Inflict Wounds be Touch spells?

Yes. No question.

Casting "Mass/Area of Effect" or individually "Ranged" versions should be special abilities [metamagics?] gained at increasing levels. I'd say "AoE" version at 7th and "Ranged [directed at an individual]" at 10th or vice versa or something like that.

Why would you want to force The Arcanist cleric to have to wade into melee? You're basically asking every single worshiper of the god of magic to buff themselves for hand-to-hand combat in order to actually get up to where the melee combatants are dropping like flies (which is pretty much the antithesis to how most of the pliers of arcane magic actually behave.)

That seems to fly into the face of allowing every cleric to choose how they want to play.

 

[Li Shenron]

Well, the question is at the title, should Cure Wounds and Inflict Wounds should require touching the recipent?

Currently, both spells got range of 25 feet and when used to attack the recipient can roll a Con save for half damage.
To me it feels wrong, what do you guys think?

Warder

I would prefer Cure Wounds to be touch and take a normal action to cast, but it's not going to happen.

For Inflict Wounds, it would depend on how much they hurt.

 

[Sammael]

In my own d20 revision, I switched the cure spells to short range instead of touch, and they require a simple (move) action (rather than a standard action) to cast. This grants the cleric more flexibility, since he can do other stuff in the same round and heal, and doesn't have to behave like a healbot who runs around the battlefield just to touch his wounded party members. OTOH, this also avoids the 4e silliness with clerics who auto-heal when they hit an opponent and so on.

I tried the same thing with inflict spells but ended switching them back to touch/standard action since playtest proved them to be too powerful.

 

[mlund]

I'd like to see them be Touch when used to do damage, and Ranged when used to heal.

So if you use Inflict on an Undead creature you can do it at range, but if you want to zap something for a bunch of Negative (or Positive) energy damage you're going to have to use the shock-paddles on them.

- Marty Lund

 

[steeldragons]

Do you perhaps have any arguments to back that up? I mean, if it's just your opinion it's fine and all, but I think the debate could benefit from hearing pros and cons rather than being a string of "yes" and "no".

I hadn't come up with any "back up." I don't need it for my tastes/preference. It is my immediate response/opinion. Nor would I call any of this an "argument."

However, since you ask, I suppose my reasoning would include: 1) D&D game tradition. Curative spells (at least up until 3e) are by touch. Recapturing the "feel" of older editions seems to demand they be touch spells.
2) Literary/Mythological tradition. Even though magical healing is scant, even in fantasy stories, if one even only looks to Goldmoon in Dragonlance (which is debatable as the story is derived from D&D so guess it shouldn't really be used to define it, but just go with it), Leetah from ElfQuest, Aragorn in LotR and Biblical and folkloric references to various persons healing various afflictions, they have to touch/are in contact with the person.
3) It just plain makes/uses common sense to me that if you're going to heal someone (yes, even with magic) you have to "lay [your magic/healing] hands on" them.

Why would you want to force The Arcanist cleric to have to wade into melee?

*facepalm* This again.

No. I am not "forcing" anyone to do anything. The game is not "forcing" anyone to do anything. Nor would such a rule. It is there to present a framework with which your characters interact with the game world. If you don't like it 1) [Get you DM to] Change it to have whatever range you want or 2) React, as your character would, and decide/act appropriately with the knowledge that to cast your healing magic, you need to somehow touch the person...a.k.a. "role-play it out."

You're basically asking every single worshiper of the god of magic to buff themselves for hand-to-hand combat in order to actually get up to where the melee combatants are dropping like flies (which is pretty much the antithesis to how most of the pliers of arcane magic actually behave.)

And thus, with some corner case of a single particular character type, we are brought to the conclusions that the game must say "Anything goes!"

I am really getting sick of these types of comments/"arguments." Taken to their logical conclusion, we end up with a game that is not only classless, so people can make any kind of character they want, but entirely rule-less.

Cuz 5e simply MUST accommodate Player1 with their crunchy-granola touchy-feely non-combatant healer cleric. Player2 wants a healing-lasers but still non-combatant cleric who needn't get their hands dirty. While Player3 is arguing with Player4 that their heavily armored hammer-slingin' "Healer" cleric of the god of smiths (whose doctrine includes a great deal of emphasis on fixing/mending/crafting) who's slappin' Healing Touch on the front lines is too similar to their sword-swingin' "War" cleric of the goddess of Life (whose doctrine dictates that Life must be endlessly fought for to be protected and maintained). Player6 shows up with a broad smile on her face to exclaim her joy of the "awesome 'White Mage' type Healer" she rolled up before coming over. [At which point, DM Steel Dragons calmly closes his books, places his dice back in the pouch and jumps out the window.]

D&D becomes nothing more than sitting around for story time...hell, don't even need to role-play! "My character can do whatever I want, however I want. I win! Monsters die! Gimme my treasure." Dice?! We don't need no stinnnnkin' dice! Why should there be a chance I might not succeed or my character could sustain damage?! Stupid rules n' dice n' role-playing interfering with my role-...playing...um..game...Wait a sec

This is where these "5e can't do this cuz I can come up with a type of character that it won't work the way I want it! So 5e can't/shouldn't/better not do it that way!" type comments lead.

Defcon, if someone has such a character and they want to heal someone up in the front lines in the midst of battle, and the game says "Cure Wounds- Range: Touch", then they can:
A: Charge out into the battle, maybe even without tons of "buffing", because their faith and calling demands it or is strong enough to face the danger or the PC is simply pragmatic about the needs for the party or their mission, the relationship of the two PCs or a hundred other reasons.
OR
B: If they are not so inclined. Then WAIT til after the battle and heal when it's "safe." You made a character who, by your own choice/defining is a non-combatant. So, cast your buffs, stand back, try to stay safe/out of combat and heal after. That is the natural way things should go/how you were trained according to your order/temple/divine patron of [again, your] choice.
OR
C: Call out to other companions to drag the fallen comrade the the fringe and cover you where/while you can do your magical healing work.
OR D: Anything else I'm not immediately thinking up right now.

IF the game says you need to touch someone to cure them, then those are the choices/options to make...and where one person's Arcanist cleric of the god of magic might be of a mind that they'll wait, someone else's might have a PC that's spent their life being all jung-ho to get out of the library and into the action (even if they aren't "optimally" the best "build" to do so)...That's up to the player, as they define the personality of their PC, not on the game that "the rules have to let me play how I want my character to be." YOU make your character how you want them...not the rules/parameters of whether a spell is touch or ranged.

If you choose to have a "back row magey-type cleric", you deal with the limitations and restrictions of that choice. You can't, then, justifiably say "but I want what they're having too!" when the clerics of the goddess of healing are throwing heal-zaps and conjuring globes of healing across the battlefield (as a domain power, let's say, for the sake of example) and/or imply "5e's not being fair/sukkors cuz I can't do everything the way I want/envision."

Any of the above options create very high drama/intensity situations: Will the cleric make it through the enemy forces to the fallen fighter's side and be able to cast without being struck/killed herself? Will the fighter survive til the battle is over so the cleric can safely tend their wounds? Will any of the companions agree/try to drag the warrior's body to the cleric? Will the companions dragging the body to the cleric make it safely, themselves?! Will they be able to cover the cleric while she casts without falling? All are perfectly suited to the game...or rather the type of game I want to be playing.

That seems to fly into the face of allowing every cleric to choose how they want to play.

1) The "cleric" doesn't choose how they want to play. The cleric is not playing. You, the player, do that.
2) Just because the spell description says "Range: Touch" should not decide for you, the player, what your character would do. It might contribute to a decision. But it shouldn't make it for you. And if it does...then I don't know what to tell you.
3) See above re: "Anything goes." A game cannot be written in which every possible character that can be conceived by every possible person who ever might play the game is not only not realistic, but a completely impossible task.

Parameters (a.k.a. "rules") must be set. Personally, I prefer parameters that "make sense" or some might say/seen the term used in game design, "intuitive." Things should work [as much as possible] the way they would be expected by the majority of potential players with a minimum of system/"meta" understanding.

Does it make sense that the most minor prayer of protection that every acolyte learns is going to (at least at low levels) effect only themselves or a small radius/area of effect? Yes. Does it make sense that to fill the unconscious fighter with the rejuvenating energies (since we don't want to fluff the HP loss as purely meat/wounds) and/or close actual wounds, the cleric has to touch the fighter to let the divine energies flow through/from them into the "patient"? Yes. It clearly does.

Does it makes sense that my cleric (even an "Arcanist cleric"), with their [even light] armor, possible shield, with a decent weapon of some type and decent HP, be able to fire out a beam of light that heals someone on the other side of the room? Not really to me, no. Alternately, does it make sense that the cleric can invoke a ball of healing radiance shining off their person that heals everyone within a 20' radius? It might/could at higher levels, like I said. Default for the spell, I think, should be touch.

AND, for those who want to insist on ranged cure spells, do keep in mind that means that EVERY evil cleric, demon cultist, devil-worshiping priest, goblin witch-doctor and orcish shaman you ever encounter is gonna be able to 'pew-pew' you or RADIATE a X-radius field of Inflict Wounds on your whole party! Even the most optimizing powergaming munchkin, adamant rules-lawyer and RAW-monger has to ask themselves, "Is THAT really something I want possible in the RAW?"

So...well didn't that end up a bit longer than expected? heh. sorry...bottom line, the answer to the OP's question is still, to me, a clear, "Yes. They should be Touch spells."

--SD

 

[DEFCON 1]

Does it makes sense that my cleric (even an "Arcanist cleric"), with their [even light] armor, possible shield, with a decent weapon of some type and decent HP, be able to fire out a beam of light that heals someone on the other side of the room? Not really to me, no. Alternately, does it make sense that the cleric can invoke a ball of healing radiance shining off their person that heals everyone within a 20' radius? It might/could at higher levels, like I said. Default for the spell, I think, should be touch.

Long story short... you don't want the rule because YOU don't like it. Which is fine. You don't have to like it. But your feelings don't come into play here. What does come into play is what works best for most people.

If you make a Cleric and want your Cure spells to be passed on only via touch... that is exactly how you can play it. Even if the rules say you can be up to 25 feet away. You can ignore that part of the spell and go over and touch every single unconscious player you want, if that's how you think your Cleric would do things.

But my guess is that very few people would ever play that way... voluntarily nerf themselves in the name of roleplaying. Because I suspect that some people have a difficult time not taking what is granted to them, even if they don't really want it. I imagine because they are afraid of looking like an idiot to the others in the group, or can't deal with the pressure the other players might exert when they could do something, but are choosing not to. So as a result, those players would rather the rule just be stricken entirely from the game so that they don't ever have to make that choice. But that is a horrible way to make design decisions, especially when trying to present options for lots of differing playstyles.

 

[steeldragons]

Long story short... you don't want the rule because YOU don't like it. Which is fine. You don't have to like it. But your feelings don't come into play here. What does come into play is what works best for most people.

If you make a Cleric and want your Cure spells to be passed on only via touch... that is exactly how you can play it. Even if the rules say you can be up to 25 feet away. You can ignore that part of the spell and go over and touch every single unconscious player you want, if that's how you think your Cleric would do things.

But my guess is that very few people would ever play that way... voluntarily nerf themselves in the name of roleplaying. Because I suspect that some people have a difficult time not taking what is granted to them, even if they don't really want it. I imagine because they are afraid of looking like an idiot to the others in the group, or can't deal with the pressure the other players might exert when they could do something, but are choosing not to. So as a result, those players would rather the rule just be stricken entirely from the game so that they don't ever have to make that choice. But that is a horrible way to make design decisions, especially when trying to present options for lots of differing playstyles.

And, basically, you are saying what your "feelings" are going to be "what works best for most people." So I don't think your position is as strong as you think.

If the game says "Cure Wounds=range: Touch", then I, as the DM, get to say to my player who wants a cleric character with healing at a 25' range, "Yes you can!" Make a lil' side note that Golly Gee the Cleric of Whocares can cast healing spells at a 25' range...and I get to let any NPC clerics I eem fit to do the same.

If the game says "Cure Wounds=range: 25'", but for my game world fluff, flavor and playstyle desire it be touch...Yes, I can [and would] just say "Regardless of what your book says, I'm making all curative spells [or all healing spells accept Heal or special channeling/domain powers or however I decide to define it] have a range of Touch." That makes me, the DM, the d#*! who, effectively, "said No."

I believe, among the other things...and yes, I suppose you could say this is a "feeling"...but I believe it is better for the game to be written/designed to allow the DM to say "Yes" to his/her players more often than "No." I have noooo problem, saying "No", believe me. Done it plenty. But from a design perspective, for a new game that is wanting to be welcoming and inclusive as possible, the default decisions should promote a DM that can say "Yes" easily. Which means....in most things...less is more and "adding to" is always preferable to "taking away."

This other business about people nerfing themselves for roleplay (fine, I guess, but I am not advocating that) or succumbing to pressure of other players or whatever else or avoiding conflict by ignoring rules...that's PERSONAL stuff/problems. That's issues (personality, communication, interactive, etc...) of people at the table. And you're right, that is NOT something the game design decision should EVER taken into consideration, let alone, base a decision on! I don't understand the point you're trying to make with all of that/how that supports a ranged healing spell.

--SD

 

[Blackwarder]

Considering the number of opinions I've created a new thread with a poll!
head over here to continue the discussion.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...s-should-be-touch-spells-*Now-with-a-Survey!*

Warder