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

[amethal]

For me, part of the fun of D&D is filling party roles with improbable characters.

For instance, there's nothing wrong with having a party where the paladin does the healing and the diplomacy, the cleric does the fighting, the druid does the blasting and the barbarian does the tracking and the trap finding.

If the party doesn't have a healer, its a problem for the whole party and the solution must more or less suit all the members.

If the party does have a healer, who cares whether or not its the cleric who is filling that role.

 

[the Jester]

The paragraph also suggests making an effort to stay in their good graces, which brings me to the question of this thread: Have you ever been part of an adventure in which the party's designated healer expressed reluctance or otherwise tried to avoid taking care of his injured peers?

Oh, yeah. Heck, there's even an example of play in the ol' red box set that had the cleric stating that his god "wouldn't want him to heal" to someone who tortured or executed prisoners.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I have also seen rogues who refuse to be designated the party trapfinder/trap-springer, wizards who decline to be the party magic-item-crafter

I wouldn't have a problem with the latter. There are lots of places to get items, and you don't expect items to be crafted in combat.

The former is kind of odd. It's either the rogue searches (he's the only person who can find traps), or no one searches. If the rogue has no ranks in Search, then there's no point of asking him to search for traps, now is there?

and fighters who express reluctance to be the "meat-shield."

I'd love to know just what that ability means. Really. It's not like fighters have a "bodyguard" ability.

Characters should have actual personalities, IMO, and not simply be expected to fill a job slot.

They should have personalities... and they should still be able to do their job.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I want to play a martial cleric in your game. I make a cleric that acts mostly like a fighter, kicking ass, and also blasts the enemy with his spells. He uses spells for that, and not healing. So you boot that character. Okay, now I make a fighter instead and kick ass just as with the cleric. That should be ok, right, I'm just playing a fighter?

You're still out of healing spells. How's that make sense?

I gotta say, stuff like this is why I enjoy Living ENWorld a lot more than some traditional games. If you need a healer in the party, you recruit at the Inn for a healer. If you need a meatsheild, your recruit for a meatsheild. If you want to play your martial cleric, wait for a group that needs a martial cleric. But you aren't joining the party who's looking specificly for a cleric to heal and turn undead as a cleric or a fighter, and they will find some way to fill the niche with or without you.

I have nothing against non-traditional roles for classes - I am currently playing a bard who acts like a cleric in an Eberron campaign. But the "I'll play what I want and the party will take it and smile" attitude is a problem for me.

 

[lukelightning]

Sure. Unless they worship a deity of healing or protection, I don't see any reason a cleric should be compelled to heal their comrades unless their personal ethos dictates so.

Dear Reverend Won't Heal:

When first you joined our party we took your reluctance in healing us to be a minor quirk that would not truly prevent you from keeping us alive in our joint endeavor. However it has become quite clear that either your own personal faults or those of your religion are a severe obstacle: You say that it is not your job to heal us because we don't worship your deity, and that we should all rely on our own abilities.

Remember that fiendish ogre that was hitting you? Choppy the Fighter killed it before it bashed your head to pulp. You healed yourself...but didn't heal the man who saved your life.

Remember that door that was locked? Sneaky MacThief picked the lock and risked his life by attempting to disarm the trap attached to it. Despite the fact that he was struck by a glyph of warding you did not heal him. Yet you freely passed through this door, taking benefits of Sneaky's efforts and risk without any effort or risk on your own part.

And then there was that wall of fire spell, remember that? We were fighting the sorcerer and his bugbear minions, and the sorcerer surrounded you with blazing wall that was cooking you. Despite the fact that the wizard was half dead from bugbear arrows, he cast a dispel magic to free you from the blazing ring. What did you do then? You healed yourself, while the wizard was shot by another volley of arrows and fell bleeding to death on the ground.

So, after a brief discussion with my companions, we have decided it is time we parted ways with you. You evidently worship a deity of selfishness and we feel it is foolish to waste our efforts and abilities helping you while you are of no benefit to us.

Goodbye and farewell, and if you are ever in the need of a strong arm in combat, a sneaky scout, or arcane assistance, feel free to fornicate yourself in your selfish ear.

Signed,
Your Ex-Party

 

[Nonlethal Force]

I don't think roleplaying reasons, using the paladin and the thief as an example, are a valid excuse most of the time.
<snip>
as the player with the healing monopoly
<snip>

But see, that's exaqctly it! There is no reason a cleric is by definition a healer. In fact, I think the fact that most clerics are healers is a gross metagaming problem! I like the dialogue above that hand the cleric claim to be a wizard for a bit. That begins to demonstrate my point. A guy who casts spells is a guy who casts spells. Be them a wizard, cleric, sorcerer, favored soul, etc. For any character to assume that because I have cleric written on my character sheet means that their character knows I can heal is simply metagaming!

Furthermore, I've seen many parties survive without a cleric. In fact, it has been my experience that the only gaming groups that have clerics are those that are top-notch gamers or those with at least one person that always bends under peer pressure. My experience (and this is only my experience) has shown that while the cleric is a powerful class, it is not often chosen like the others. My point in all of this is that parties without clerics can get along just fine. I saw a party with fighter, rogue, sorcerer, wizard simply maul their way through several dungeons in a row. Sure, they got injured. But they survived on wands for outside of battle and potions for inside battle. It can be done.

The cleric need not be the "healer." The cleric could be the "divine fighter" whose god loves it when he defeats the enemies in his/her name. The cleric could be the undead expert a la van Helsing who lives to take out vampires (or pick your favorite undead here). The cleric could be a person who loves to make other people better and become a buffing expert. The cleric might even be a social cleric and be an expert talker/diplomacist. But every cleric need not be a healer.

If people enjoy the healer role, that's cool. It is certainly one of the possible roles a cleric can fill. But to assume that a cleric will fill that role is no better than to assume a spellcaster will be a blaster. Let your party's cleric find a little freedom. By a few wands and potions!

 

[Numion]

Remember that fiendish ogre that was hitting you? Choppy the Fighter killed it before it bashed your head to pulp. You healed yourself...but didn't heal the man who saved your life.

At least in 3.0 a cleric can do the fighters duties at least as well (sometimes much better) than a straight fighter (spells used to buff instead of heal). That's for example what my cleric does. So you're kicking one person out for doing a fighters job, but not another?

 

[Nomad4life]

Man, oh man. I once had an evil NPC rogue posing as a good cleric of healing- the perfect setup for her to make off with the loot of badly wounded adventurers. All through the adventure, she kept giving made-up ultra religious reasons for not healing certain characters, or not casting certain spells, when actually she couldn’t cast at all. The PCs were far too trusting of people they hardly knew at the time, and just figured she was quirky, since I otherwise played her as exceedingly nice and nurturing (all an act, of course.)

As you might guess, she made off with half of the loot and magic items, and left half the party for dead after a tough battle. She became the single most hated, despised NPC I ever created. Really, I couldn’t get the players to focus on the rest of the adventure after that. All they wanted to do was track her down and extract merciless revenge. Heck, they hated her even more than the Big Bad Evil Guy they were supposed to be after.

So the problem is, if a cleric ever withholds healing from them again, they may just torture them to death on the spot out of sheer hate and paranoia!

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Dear Reverend Won't Heal:

<snip>

This kind of letter is cute, but really unnecessary. I could write the same letter about "Dear Social Bard who cant fight worth a darn," "Dear Puny Spellcaster who won't blast," "Dear Muscle-bound Oaf who always gets into combat before any of us can try diplomacy," "Dear Holy Warrior who refuses to buff us," "Dear wizard who could cast fly if they ever learned it but doesn't ever cast it because it isn't part of their character concept," and I really could go on for a long time.

I don't force other people into role-playing their characters. Rather, I do enjoy seeing how that cleric was up there fighting the ogre just as well as the fighter because he buffed himself. That prevented the fighter from having to take it on alone. Or some other role. I find that a cleric who doesn't heal as their schtick is often still quite a valuable member of the team. Especially if they are armed with wands and are willing to heal ad nauseum with the wand.

But really it simply boils down to forcing other characters into rolls. I don't expect every rogue to take disarm device. I expect dungeon delving rogues to take it, but not social rogues! I don't expect every fighter to fight with a greatsword. I don't expect every spellcaster to know fireball or fly. Part of the main reason I don't is because there are so many cool schticks that characters can have - and so many cool magical ways around them such as a wand of knock or a wand of healing or a necklace of fireballs - that I enjoy respecting other player's choices! I don't get any enjoyment out of assuming things are true about other peolpe's characters.

 

[Henry]

But see, that's exaqctly it! There is no reason a cleric is by definition a healer. In fact, I think the fact that most clerics are healers is a gross metagaming problem!

Here's a part where I agree, and have made this point in threads long past. In D&D 3E, there is no need for a cleric to have to fill the "healer" job niche of the party. He may be the best at it, but there are many equally viable choices. In fact, a D&D party can function without a healer whatsoever, in the default rules!

--roughly half of the available base classes have access to cure spells. (Druids, clerics, paladins, rangers, and bards.)

--all of the above can use cure light wounds wands, which set a party back cumulatively only 750 gp per full wand. A character taking JUST ONE LEVEL in any of the above classes is eligible to use cure light wound wands.

-- cure light and cure moderate wounds potions cost 50 and 300 gp, respectively.

--even in the absence of healing magics, characters get back their level in hit points every day of rest. An average 10th level fighter, with 18 CON, who is wounded to half his hit points, can be completely healed in 4 days. 4 DAYS! With complete rest and a person with the heal skill looking after them, it's 1 to 2 DAYS! That's all! (Compare with ye olden days when you healed your full hit points in a MONTH of complete bed rest...)

For special cases, such as ability drains, level drains, etc. Finding a cleric and paying his church to cure you is not an extremely difficult thing, and just happens to generate plot hooks on the side...

So, I state that a cleric who isn't a "healer" is in no way anathema to anyone's adventuring party, in your average D&D game. Now, if you're playing a very low-magic game, where the cleric is the ONLY healing you've got, and the DM has limited magic item creation as well, then all players need to go into that game with eyes wide open, and realize their limitations in pressing forward into dangerous territory, and pace themselves. And that's with or without the cleric acting as a mobile DocWagon Gold Contract... (Shadowrun reference)