Time to Heal

Actually, I'm one of the few who enjoyed playing a 1E Cleric, for two reasons:

From a story outlook, just KNOWING that your character is one who places faith in a higher power, and that higher power responds in obvious ways, is attractive.

For another, any group of adventurers in 1E with even a clue of self-preservation secrets treat you like you're the star point guard on a basketball team. :)

"Oh CRAP! THE CLERIC WENT DOWN! We're so SCREWED!!!"
 

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Two things I would like to mention:

1) One of the playtest reports actually mentioned having to go back to town to heal for a few weeks after a character was nearly stirged to death then fought with a minotaur. I wonder if this means something about wounds in general, or whether it was just do to a lot of Con damage that heals only slowly.

2) Why do people play clerics and healers in MMO when everyone, in theory, has the opportunity to create what they want and look for a group after?
 

admittedly my playing experiance is limited despite my DMing for 35 years but I had a 'fighter/healing' cleric in 3.5 that I loved and was a very good fighter AND healer.Just because healing is a primary function of clerics ,doesnt mean its the ONLY function.

I also would in 5th add warlords,bard,druids and paladins to the mix so no body has to plat a cleric
 

Two things I would like to mention:

1) One of the playtest reports actually mentioned having to go back to town to heal for a few weeks after a character was nearly stirged to death then fought with a minotaur. I wonder if this means something about wounds in general, or whether it was just do to a lot of Con damage that heals only slowly.

2) Why do people play clerics and healers in MMO when everyone, in theory, has the opportunity to create what they want and look for a group after?

1) That'd be interesting to know why they had to go back for weeks (I hope healing won't actually be that slow on a normal basis)

2) The reason is supply and demand. Parties demand healers and tanks (and there are few options for these), and they only need one. Almost any class can be a damage dealer, and usually there are 2-3 slots in a party for these. I usually can't stand healing, but I've played one because I can find parties quickly.

Rogue: Wait Time - 30 minutes
Tank: Wait Time - 5 minutes
Healer: WE GO NOW!!!!

2 add) Responsibility... DPS blame the tank, tank blames the healer, healer just has to deal.
 
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JRRNeiklot said:
"If you ask a random D&D player what a cleric does, five out of six of them probably say, “A cleric heals.”

Wow. That's so far removed from what a cleric is it's not even funny. It's like saying a car's purpose is to play loud music. Sure, it can do that, but that's not why you buy one. A cleric is a warrior of god first, a healer 2nd.

This doesn't strike me as a very constructive critique. The next four paragraphs don't talk about what it means to be a cleric, they talk about the role of healing in D&D (the cleric being only the most relevant launching-off point, given that they were the exclusive character class who had access to healing magic throughout most of D&D, and the iconic one even when there were others).

In fact, the next paragraph seems the most relevant:

WotC_Bruce said:
A simple enough statement, but the cleric’s ability to cast cure light wounds and similar spells injects a bit of tension into the game, which essentially boils down to how much of her own resources the cleric should expend to heal a friend at the expense of doing something else (such as attacking the monster with her mace or casting a searing light spell).

In 1e, healing was expensive, and risky. In 4e, healing is cheap and expected. Bruce's question isn't about the story vs. the mechanics of clerics, it's about the nuts and bolts of how combat healing should work in your ideal D&D: where on the chart would you prefer it, risky and rare and expensive, or easy and expected and constant, or somewhere in between?

I personally like the idea of a continuum, where healing is easy for minor problems, and takes more for more significant heals. A few HP might only take not-even-a-turn. A big chunk of HP might take your standard action. A disease, or a curse, or a raise? That's probably going to take a ritual -- a long period of time.

If your primary idea of clerics is as warriors-for-your-deity, I'd guess you'd be closer to the 4e side of things: Healing is something they can do, but not something that they are very defined by, not something that takes away from their role as divine warriors anyway. That way, you could spend your normal actions being all warrior-esque, and if you healed, it would be as a side-effect, not a major purpose.
 

To me and everyone I know, a class is defined by: what it does best and more importantly what it can do that other classes can't. So clerics were the "healer" until other classes got heals. As the party is created, players/PCs decide what they need for the adventure and if you had something that the party demanded and you were the only one with it, you needed to have as much of it as they wanted. Again, for clerics this was heals and condition removal.

In the old days, I was in a lot of "solve the problem now, heal up later," darwinist parties. It meant 1/2 your spell slots of a level with healing spells... were healing spells. 3e freed up your slots unless you were evil. My dark cleric ran 1/3 healing in a wandless game.

I have a soft spot for 4e style 2-3 free easy though. I appreciate the ability to negate 1 or 2 screw ups or fits of bad luck, But my preferred style is heal up after battle.

This is from a guy who plays healers in MMOs too. But that is because wait time partially.
 

In 1e, healing was expensive, and risky. In 4e, healing is cheap and expected. Bruce's question isn't about the story vs. the mechanics of clerics, it's about the nuts and bolts of how combat healing should work in your ideal D&D: where on the chart would you prefer it, risky and rare and expensive, or easy and expected and constant, or somewhere in between?


That seems a fair summary of the blog post.

How does everyone feel about the idea of long term injuries? Something that can't be shrugged off with a quick spell or a skill check? I think the need to avoid them in game lends a bit more risk/reward to the gameplay, particularly the narrative that evolves, and that is further benefitted by what that does to the nature of campaigns, time off between battles and/or adventures, characters aging, etc.
 

I'm probably in the minority on this, but I don't really like in-combat healing. I prefer healing to be something that is done after battle, rather than during it. Maybe there's the occasional very high level spell that can revive fallen comrades mid battle, but I think that should be high level magic, not common.

The problem with this in practice is that healing is one of the main advantages that PCs have over NPCs with regard to Action Economy.

Take away in combat healing and the game becomes more swingy. The only way to make it less swingy at that point is to make the monsters so lame that they aren't a threat.

Plus, quite frankly, not having in combat healing wouldn't be D&D. It would be one more sacred cow thrown on the fire and would result in MORE people not wanting to play 5E. WotC designers are not that stupid.
 

To me a cleric is a healer in the same sense that a rogue is a sneaker.

A rogue isn't the only character who can sneak, just the iconic sneaker. Most of the time, both in and out of combat, a rogue does something else. Some rogues break the stereotype and actually do no sneaking.

The same is true about clerics and healing.
 

To me a cleric is a healer in the same sense that a rogue is a sneaker.

A rogue isn't the only character who can sneak, just the iconic sneaker. Most of the time, both in and out of combat, a rogue does something else. Some rogues break the stereotype and actually do no sneaking.

The same is true about clerics and healing.

A better definition is: The cleric is a healer, in the same sense that a rogue backstabs...

A rogue is the only character that can backstab, and thus expected to. Most of the time, in combat a rogue should be stabbing backs, outside of combat he does something else. Some rogues break the stereotype and try to do something else in combat, usually the party thinks they are worthless when they do.
 

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