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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6761956" data-attributes="member: 996">Sure.  The de-facto role was always 'healer' for the Cleric (and anyone else who could heal, prettymuch), but there was a lot more they could do in theory or even, if there was a surfeit of healing in the party from other sources, in practice.  In 3e that 'in practice' became CoDzilla.  In 2e, the healer role was still very much front and center as a matter of practicality.  All clerics could heal in all early editions, all they had to do was memorize one or more cure..wound spells, even evil clerics could take the cure version (you just couldn't memorize both cure & inflict).  Specialty priests in 2e might not have gotten the right sphere to heal, but the Cleric & Druid in the 2e PH both could as a matter of course, and it was expected.  Ironically, when 3.0 gave clerics the ability to cast cure spells spontaneously, they actually ended up healing less than in prior editions, resulting in CoDzillas, and, in 4e/5e where healing word was/is a minor/bonus action along side at-wills/cantrips, clerics rarely have to confine themselves to /just/ healing.  As the game evolved over the decades Clerics got more flexibility and greater availability of healing, which in practice, made them /less/ exclusively tied to the healer/band-aid function.  In 3.x, there was too much additional healing available and the Cleric had too many/too powerful alternate uses for healing resources (spells) making the class notoriously broken in that edition.  4e put a higher priority on balance, reigning in caster power a great deal and silo'd healing resources so they couldn't just be traded in for greater spell power.  5e lies between the two, with some silo'd healing resources but spell slots also a major healing resource.At release, the PH1 included and showcased secondary roles.  The most dramatic examples were the fighter, which, was very clearly a secondary striker, the WIS Cleric, a very obvious and quite effective secondary controller (and the STR Cleric a secondary defender, illustrating that secondary roles could be different within the same class), and the Paladin, a secondary leader, but all the classes had some secondary role.</blockquote>

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