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

[Driddle]

((Responding to earlier comment by Nonlethal Force: "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....

Wizards of the Coast helps to promote this problem by their silly little tactical class overview columns.

 

[lukelightning]

Right. Because all non-healing clerics adventure with jerks. This is a strawman.

Heh, I thought is was more of a joke. But it does hightlight an important fact: Compromise is important. If your are roleplaying a concept at odds with the other players and refuse to change, then you should gracefully adapt or change your character.

Player 1: My character is Sir Baldan the Tough. He's proud and a bit haughty but a reliable armsman and seeks to bring goodness and justice to the land. He likes to fight and is overconfident in his abilities, but I'll try not to get us all killed.

Player 2: I play Orly Yarly the gnome rogue. He's a bit of a soundrel but a true friend to his companions. He likes to steal "extra" treasure but we can just pretend that's how he gets his share of the treasure. Plus he likes to treat everyone to inn rooms and the finest meals.

Player 2: My character is Seelee the Devout. She worships the God of Fire and Protection. She sermonizes a lot and ehorts everyone to become a Flame devotee, but don't worry, she believes that persuasion through example is best. Just to warn you she gets worked up in combat so don't expect her to rush to heal you in a fight.

Player 3: Zees the Unwholesome is a necromancer dedicated to bringing death to all beings. He likes to make undead and has no qualms about traipsing around with a bevy of zombies. He will let nothing stand in his way to achieve ultimate power.

Guess who should get the axe?

 

[Driddle]

I still think every PC should usually contribute *something* to the group. Why would a group keep a total wimp around? It's bad from in-game POV - the other characters wouldn't usually tolerate a useless character.

Who are you to determine what the PC (and his or her player) is contributing and its value?

And, honestly, take a look around your real world -- you'll find any number of "useless characters" being tolerated as tag-alongs in just about every aspect of life. And yet the adventure rolls merrily along anyway...

 

[Kafkonia]

Clerics who don't heal, or who charge party members for healing, do not understand the niche they're filling and have no business holding all the healing cards.

As someone who plays clerics all the time, it's not like playing a cleric forbids anyone else from being able to heal. Bards, druids, (and later paladins and rangers) and wands and potions can all heal, as can favoured souls and a few other non-core classes.

One of my favourite clerics was Xylophon, a cleric of death and suffering, follower of a God who tought that this world was merely a training ground for the battles that would take place after your death. You think he channeled positive energy? Uh-uh. We had a running gag about how he would accidentally jab people with his wand of healing because he had no idea how it was supposed to work.

 

[Stormborn]

Its reading threads like this that make me realize what a different experiance it is to only play with friends. We always talk about what kind of characters we want to play and how to handle that. We almost never have a cleric, unless its a one shot with pregens. Instead we have bards, rangers, druids, and paladins who do the healing - or a rogue with lots of UMD and a wand.

Overall, however, I think that people go into a group with certain assumptions about how things are going to work. And a common one is Cleric = Healer (I played with a friend who hated clerics cause he played computer games like Baldur's Gate and only ever used them as healing/buffing machines - even though i explained to him how easy it was to make a martial cleric.) If they don't work like that people are unhappy. The solution? Before characters are even created the group needs to be clear about what the expectations for different party roles and how regularly occuring events, like the need for healing or trap finding or anything else, are going to be handled.

 

[lukelightning]

As someone who plays clerics all the time, it's not like playing a cleric forbids anyone else from being able to heal.

But if you are the only one who can heal, then you have the responsibility to do it. A rogue, is often the only one who can deal with traps, so it is his responsibility to deal with them.

I'm playing in a game in which wands of cure light wounds don't exactly grow on trees, and thank goodness the cleric is a super healer; if he wasn't we'd be screwed.

 

[Hjorimir]

Heh, I thought is was more of a joke. But it does hightlight an important fact: Compromise is important. If your are roleplaying a concept at odds with the other players and refuse to change, then you should gracefully adapt or change your character.

Player 1: My character is Sir Baldan the Tough. He's proud and a bit haughty but a reliable armsman and seeks to bring goodness and justice to the land. He likes to fight and is overconfident in his abilities, but I'll try not to get us all killed.

Player 2: I play Orly Yarly the gnome rogue. He's a bit of a soundrel but a true friend to his companions. He likes to steal "extra" treasure but we can just pretend that's how he gets his share of the treasure. Plus he likes to treat everyone to inn rooms and the finest meals.

Player 2: My character is Seelee the Devout. She worships the God of Fire and Protection. She sermonizes a lot and ehorts everyone to become a Flame devotee, but don't worry, she believes that persuasion through example is best. Just to warn you she gets worked up in combat so don't expect her to rush to heal you in a fight.

Player 3: Zees the Unwholesome is a necromancer dedicated to bringing death to all beings. He likes to make undead and has no qualms about traipsing around with a bevy of zombies. He will let nothing stand in his way to achieve ultimate power.

Guess who should get the axe?

Sure, compromise amongst players is important. But what if the player who was originally going to play the cleric is no longer interested in the role because of the characterization limits placed on him by the other players? Okay, I will play Grog the Half-Orc barbarian. Sure we can all say fine and well, play what you want to. But with no healing in the group we all know this is going to force one of the other players to switch character types or just accept the inevitable character deaths until somebody makes a healer.

Healing is necessary as a construct of the game. So where is it better to have the issue? Amongst the players deciding who has to fill the role of healer or amongst the characters deciding if and when other characters will receive said healing? Personally, I prefer to keep contention amongst the characters instead of players if it has to exist at all.

For me (and this is an issue of taste and not an issue of the right or wrong way to play) I love the role-playing aspect of the game. The metagame constructs don't interest me as a player or a DM. If you want healing from the cleric you have to understand where his faith places him. You cannot ask one who receives all of their power based on their faith to turn their back on that same faith when you want that power to support actions that their deity would find contrary to their portfolio.

As for who should leave the group you presented? If it were me the necro and the gnome gotta go. Well, I'm going to destroy the necromancer for his evil practice and report the thief to the local sheriff.

 

[MarkB]

Heh, I thought is was more of a joke. But it does hightlight an important fact: Compromise is important. If your are roleplaying a concept at odds with the other players and refuse to change, then you should gracefully adapt or change your character.

Sure, but some people in this thread seem to be assuming that the only valid concept for a cleric is "primary party healer". If other party members are willing to compromise by taking up some (or even most) of the healing burden, that too is a valid compromise.

But if you are the only one who can heal, then you have the responsibility to do it. A rogue, is often the only one who can deal with traps, so it is his responsibility to deal with them.

I'm playing in a game in which wands of cure light wounds don't exactly grow on trees, and thank goodness the cleric is a super healer; if he wasn't we'd be screwed.

Sure, but not all games will have those restrictions, and not all parties will include only one character who can provide effective healing. It's perfectly okay to assume that, by default, the typical good-aligned cleric will be doing a lot of healing. It's not okay to extend that assumption to the point where any player who wants to play a cleric who does hardly any healing gets labelled as being selfish and acting against the party's interests.

 

[Kestrel]

I've played with all types...a war-priest of Corellon who refused to heal, but used his spells for fighting, a neg energy priest of WeeJas that only healed, and with a Greenbond (AU) that was totally specced for only healing.

As long as the player tells the group beforehand his plans, I don't see any issues with it. That leaves the option for someone else to switch to a healer if they feel that its a need. If not, they should prepare with wands etc. 3.5 offers a ton of non-cleric healing.

That said, Clerics make a poor-man's substitute fighter or wizard. I mean, if you just want to fight or blast, why don't you just make what you really want to play and say he's a devout worshipper of the god your cleric would have followed?

The one group I played with the super dedicated healing greenbond kicked total butt. We took on things way past our CRs because we had the "traditional" roles filled. Knowing we had a healer there dedicated to save our lives kept us focused on our specialty instead of hanging on to life round by round with some second stringer using a pathetic CLW wand. As a side note, the Greenbond very rarely used his Infuse with Life ability, mostly using his spells. He saved the Infuse with life for the especially dire situations.

 

[Lanefan]

Erm...can I raise a practical suggestion at this point:

If the party needs a healer, then why not just hire a Cleric as a healer. Make it a "hench" to the party as a whole instead of one individual PC, and tell it that its job is, simply put, to keep the rest of the party in one piece as far as reasonably possible. For a larger party, hire two. That way, there's no problem if the party's full Cleric spends every spell available on offense, buffs, whatever...and if nobody wants to play a Cleric, you're still covered. Settle up payment details etc., and you're on your way.

Lanefan