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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 3483651" data-attributes="member: 7006">I don't even consider a character like this as a PC.  He's an NPC all the way.  I see him as a walking medical station... there in the background to do the one specific job that the D&D game system mechanics require, but which no one wants to make their PC about.  Because if James thinks Janis is left out in the cold during the adventure's many combats... the "band-aid cleric" is even worse.  Because all their spells are needed to be used for removing debuff effects... and thus this cleric has to fight in combat just as-is, with no spell enhancements for themselves.D&D is very much like World of Warcraft, in that characters receive positive buff abilities and negative debuff abilities virtually every combat, and they are a major component of game play.  The only difference is... WoW has debuffs wear off after a few minutes... whereas D&D debuffs usually never go away without major divine casting intervention (or at the very least, without several days of bed rest).  Thus PCs get stuck walking around suffering from Sickness, from negative levels, from ability reductions etc. for many encounters repeatedly, with no chance for them to ever go away unless there is someone around specifically there to do nothing but remove them.  And it's obvious to all of us that nobody ever wants to play that kind of character... one whose spell list is nothing but Remove Disease, Remove Poison, Lesser Restoration, the Cure spells etc.  That's part of the reason I specifically mentioned in Jarrith's bio that he wasn't a band-aid cleric.  Because I wanted my spell selection to be geared towards his own personal melee ability, not towards fixing everybody after melee ended.So a medic NPC in my mind is actually the best solution... there to provide the medical services that no player who has a cleric wants to do.  Using Mateusz would accomplish this... where he's back at the barricade with the rest of the caravan (for example), we have these drawn out fights in the streets and at the church... we get the crap kicked out of us... then when we get the chance we go back to the barricade and have Mateusz heal us of most of our debuffs.  Then the party goes off again to do the next part of the adventure and the cycle continues.  Say what you will about Baldur's Gate, but there was always a temple every four or five encounters along the adventure path where your PCs could pay to have Heals, Restorations, and Remove Poisons cast on them as needed.  But that kind of thing tends to be in short supply in tabletop D&D.</blockquote>

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