The party's cleric *won't* heal your character?!

[Greg K]

I got tired of the whole cleric as medic a long time ago. My solution was to build the diversity into the setting to ensure that players don't assume all clerics to be medics. In my campaign:

1. All clerics have their own deity specific lists and, therefore, share a much more limited set of spells than in RAW. Examples of the spells that all clerics share are:
a) divination spells (e.g. augury and commune) that allow one to commune with his or her deity
b) spells like aid, bless, etc. to bestow the favor of their deity
3) spells like bane, bestow curse, mark of justice, etc. to punish those who offend their deity
4) atonement
5) various planar ally (creature set by deity)
6) Miracle (the miracle must be related to the deity's domains)

2. With respect to cure/healing spells
a) Healing spells are not the product of channeling positive energy, but bestowed upon from the deities of healing, life, and the dead.

b)Access to healing spells is determined by the the deity they worship and that deity's relation with those deities that cast spells.

-Clerics of the Healing deity can cast healing spells of any level and are the only clerics that can spontaneously convert healing spells. (Note: These cleric also have no starting proficiency in armor and have a poor BAB).

- Clerics of the deities of life or the dead can cast up to fifth level spells that heal damage, they do not grant spells such as cure blindness/deafness nor can they convert healing spells.

- Clerics of good deities other than the goddess of healing can cast any cure spell of third level or less.

- Clerics of neutral deities can cast cure spells of second level or less (note: there are two neutral deities in my campaign whose clerics that can cast up to fifth level)

- Clerics of evil deities can only cast 1st level cure spells. This ensures that evil clerics will pay some acknowledgment to those deities capable of granting healing spells. The one exception is the clerics of the god of murder and undead. They have no access to any heal spells as they directly oppose those deities capable of giving granting healing.

 

[Ipissimus]

Even friends can get shirty with each other, sometimes with disastrous results.

There's a big difference between playing an interesting character and being anti-social. Clerics who refuse to heal when they can, abuse their power to lord it over the other players (such as the extortion racket scam) and blatently ignore the fact that DnD is based around certain principles of gameplay are being anti-social, much like the thief that steals from other PCs (yet another character type I dump into vats of acid) or the guy that plays evil characters then runs around raping NPCs (had one of those, kicked him out of the gaming group after about 5 minutes).

I've played many clerics, 1st, 2nd and 3e. Back in 1st and 2nd, there was something to be said for the 'clerics are boreing' camp. In 3e, there's just no excuse, a cleric can be built around any concept you please, heal everyone and still kick loads of ass for the entire day all at once. If you don't want to be a healer, DON'T. If you don't like the whole Cleric as band-aid thing TALK TO YOUR GROUP ABOUT IT BEFORE HAND so the absence can be compensated for. If you do that, then there's no problems.

I'm not against non-standard party composition, I'm not against non-healing style Clerics. If the rogue slits a ton of throats and you refuse to heal him, that's your perogative. I've dumped rogues over cliffs for similar transgressions while playing Paladins. What I'm against are Clerics that refuse to heal at all for no good reason when they can easily, or extort their 'friends' for anything of value. I've had it happen at my table and it is not fun at all and it can ruin friendships. And is it any wonder when your character's acting like a jerk?

Clerics can heal at any time without losing their ability to do other things in 3.Xe. Everyone has a much better chance of surviving if the Cleric heals them, it's one of the principles that DnD is built on. Players get attached to their characters, that's been true since day 1, having your character die is no fun at all. As a DM, I LOATHE it when a PC dies. It slows down the game, the player gets upset (particularly if they died due to the action or inaction of another PC), it creates migranes because you have to go through that whole character creation process yet again. Do I still kill PCs? Sure I do, but only if they deserve it.

If your party doesn't have a Cleric, EVERYONE, including the DM, has to do a boat load of work to make up for it. And the DM's already got a boat load of work to do. But it can be done, it just takes planning. Even if the party has an NPC Cleric with Vow of Poverty, Vow of Nonviolence and such who does nothing but heal. Or if the party has some sort of artefact that can heal commesurate to their level.

Yet another option for your group is the elegant idea of PLAYING ANOTHER RPG. There are tons of other RPGs that are just as good, if not better, than DnD that don't require anyone to be a healer.

 

[Numion]

The problem is, all clerics are good at healing (admittedly assuming postive energy channelling cleric). If someone dies and the cleric could have saved him with a well placed cure spell, but opted not to because he doesn't like healing, then that cleric is putting his own fun ahead of the others.

IMHO, no. A non-healing cleric can be much more advantageous to the groups well-being than a healing one. In 3E offense trumps defense.

My existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.

I would rather that you just said "thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand the post. Either way, I don't give a DAMN what you think you're entitled to!

 

[PallidPatience]

A Few Good Men

 

[Numion]

A Few Good Men

Yeah, it was on TV a couple of days a go. It's worth watching for just that one speech by Nicholson

 

[ThirdWizard]

IMHO, no. A non-healing cleric can be much more advantageous to the groups well-being than a healing one. In 3E offense trumps defense.

Tell that to the front line fighter with 71 hp when the enemy can do 2d8+10 damage per round and gets 2 attacks per round. (7th level fighter with 18 con vs. a CR 7 hill giant). If your buddy isn't at full hp, he might be going down next round. And, this kind of damage isn't such a rare occurance that you can make that kind of generality.

Sure, don't heal unless you have to. That's cool. Watch the fighter die because "offense is better than defense?" Not cool.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Tell that to the front line fighter with 71 hp when the enemy can do 2d8+10 damage per round and gets 2 attacks per round. (7th level fighter with 18 con vs. a CR 7 hill giant).

Is this a type-o or am I misreading it? Because at best the hill giant can do 26 points per attack (non-crit assumed I realize). So even if they hit with both attacks and roll brilliantly on their damage roll 71-56 is still not dead in a round. Again, I realize that this assumes no crits.

Yet, a buffed cleric at level 7 who is rock solid for fighting could easily spend a round healing the guy and that is viable and I wound never criticize a cleric for doing that. But there are other options. The cleric could flank the hill giant addin +2 to the attack roles of the fighter and cleric. That means that the fighter's itteratives (assuming +7/+2) just became a +9/+4. [Not counting STR and magic weapon, of course] That's not too shabby. Now they've got 3 attacks against the hill giant (2 from the fighter and one from the cleric) and if the cleric is buffed and built for fighting (decent STR) they may well have as good or better chance of hitting that hill giant. Sure, they might not be able to make the hill giant's +16/+11 melee (although it's certainly possible) But I bet their AC is better than 20! Furthermore, since we are talking about an encounter that is appropriate for the CR of the players, there likely isn't another enemy and there are still two other players who have yet to even be considered. Given a hill giant's saves, I'd bet the party arcanist (assuming there is one) can do anything they want to the giant so that's a likely successful round for the arcanist. And if the other player is a spellcaster that's a likely success ... if it is an archer as long as they have Precise shot it's a likely success against an AC 20 (although not as likely as the arcanist) ... and if it another melee expert that's another one to add to the party against the giant. Additionally, there is no guaranteeing that the giant will even strike at the fighter next round, he might swing at the cleric. And if the cleric takes the blow for the fighter, that's even better than a cure spell!

I'm not asserting one better than another. There is nothing wrong with healing. I am saying that there are many ways to play the game. I love D&D because while I have my ideas that I think work best - other people see solutions differently. SOmetimes I am right, often other people's ideas work as well or better than my own. A cleric can be very useful as another combatant (especially a high AC melee monkey!) and in many cases take and avoid blows in a round whose results are actually better than healing the fighter.

 

[Aaron L]

A way to help alleviate this is to allow wizards to cast healing spells

 

[Fishbone]

Or Archivists. I think its just arrogant and rude for a healing character to deny healing to you if you don't behave just as they do. This is why I prefer clerics of causes rather than gods. The thieving, backstabbing rogue shouldn't be penalized because he isn't Joe Holy. Why would a cleric ever travel in a group of people he or she detests that much that they won't even heal them?
Further Thoughts: A wand of Lesser Vigor heals 11 hitpoints out of combat for 750 GP. A few wands of those and cure light wounds and the group can take the burden off the Cleric to be a combat medic. But there is the rub, if you don't like the idea of being expected to heal in combat tell the group about it so the expectations don't tweak them. "What?!?! You're not healing me! I'm nearly in the single digits, effing cast a Cure spell!" Because buffing is nice, dealing damage in combat is nice, but when it comes right down to it Cleric=Healing to a lot of people and if you are stingy with it you are going to tick off the front line. And a lot of time what you gave out is given back to you. The Fighter might not cover your backside the next time you need him or the rogue might charge for sneaking and recon or disarming a trap.

 

[PallidPatience]

Of course it's arrogant and rude. He's a cleric. Why should the cleric of Pelor heal the necromancer? And there are plenty of reasons to travel with people you "detest". They were friends before they became adventurers, maybe. Or perhaps the cleric is attempting to redeem the necromancer.

Being angry at the cleric's player for role-playing in a role-playing game is a lot like getting mad at a chess-player for moving his piece on his turn. It's silly.

I do agree that a cleric refusing to heal the partymembers for a reason that doesn't make sense (and I think that valid, accurate role-playing always makes sense) is definitely insane. Reasons I'd think don't make sense include not liking the player, "just because", "I don't want to heal", etc... However, I have no problem with a cleric not wanting to use spells on non-emergency healing. Like others have mentioned... give him whatever strength wand of cure you want. It should be a party expense thing, since the party benefits from it as a whole.

Edit: Also, the thieving, backstabbing rogue shouldn't be healed for wounds that he picks up from thieving and/or backstabbing (which is different from sneak attacking), unless the cleric is a follower of Olidammara or some other god who would encourage that behaviour. I highly doubt that any god of justice is going to be pleased that his agents are coddling someone who evades it at every turn.