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Why does 5E SUCK?
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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6655099" data-attributes="member: 6787650"><p>Are you speaking from experience with 5E, or analysis of 5E rules, or are you just assuming? Where do you get this idea that a cleric is "expected" in 5E and that a party is dysfunctional without it?</p><p></p><p>I don't see it anywhere in the rules structure. On the contrary, I see healing or self-healing built into a number of classes including the Fighter, Bard, Paladin, Fiend Warlock, Abjuror Wizard, and anyone who takes the Healer and/or Inspirating Leader feats, in a way which makes it clear that "playing without a cleric should work" is a design consideration. I also see that clerical healing is pretty inefficient.</p><p></p><p>I don't see it anywhere in play. You baldly assert that a group without a cleric will be underpowered, but since I habitually let my players tackle challenges which weigh as between Deadly and Deadly x10 on the DMG scale, it seems quite odd for you to be telling me that they're dysfunctional and under-powered by that lack, with drastically reduced survivability. In short, you're wrong about clerics being mandatory. They're one way to survive but not the only and best way, and they have an opportunity cost. I'm not one of those idiots who trumpets "actual game experience" over analysis, because they're actually complementary--but having run lots of extremely deadly fights against unoptimized PCs run by non-powergaming players with only moderately brilliant tactics, and having seen the players win most of these fights (due partly to luck--we've come one die roll away from disaster more times than I can easily enumerate, and as a DM I'm often flabberghasted how improbably few deaths have occurred), I am quite sanguine that cleric-less parties are perfectly viable and fun in 5E, even for non-brilliant players.</p><p></p><p>But you're not entirely wrong:</p><p></p><p>It's good to have a healer in the party, and when I build my own parties I like to have a paladin and a bard so they can heal each other if necessary, but you haven't yet elucidated the utility of the healer in 5E so I'll do it for you: a healer is for reversing high single-target damage so you can either win the fight or continue adventuring, depending on the situation, without bottlenecking on a single character's HP. Without a healer, you can't afford to lose 60 HP to a bunch of fire trolls before taking on an Adult Blue Dragon, because you don't want to take on that dragon when any PC is only 30 HP away from death. If <em>everybody</em> is down 30 HP each the presence of a healer becomes a non-issue since you can't continue anyway without resting first, but a healer lets you smooth out spikes. But there's an opportunity cost. During combat with the dragon, a healer can (but doesn't have to) spend his action to reverse some of that 70 HP of damage that the dragon just inflicted on you, and that may or may not be better than having another Sharpshooter dealing 50 HP right back to the dragon. Healing you lets the other party members have more time to kill the dragon; so does Polymorphing you into a tyrannosaur instead of healing you. If you can arrange to have a healer in the party without giving up anything else important (e.g. a paladin/sorc can cover tank/summoner/melee/counterspeller/healer roles easily, or a Lore bardlock could do healer/ranged damage/defense/summoner/skill monkey) it is certainly worth adding that capability to your repertoire. But everything has an opportunity cost, and playing without a cleric or even a healer is valid and can be fun and effective.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6655099, member: 6787650"] Are you speaking from experience with 5E, or analysis of 5E rules, or are you just assuming? Where do you get this idea that a cleric is "expected" in 5E and that a party is dysfunctional without it? I don't see it anywhere in the rules structure. On the contrary, I see healing or self-healing built into a number of classes including the Fighter, Bard, Paladin, Fiend Warlock, Abjuror Wizard, and anyone who takes the Healer and/or Inspirating Leader feats, in a way which makes it clear that "playing without a cleric should work" is a design consideration. I also see that clerical healing is pretty inefficient. I don't see it anywhere in play. You baldly assert that a group without a cleric will be underpowered, but since I habitually let my players tackle challenges which weigh as between Deadly and Deadly x10 on the DMG scale, it seems quite odd for you to be telling me that they're dysfunctional and under-powered by that lack, with drastically reduced survivability. In short, you're wrong about clerics being mandatory. They're one way to survive but not the only and best way, and they have an opportunity cost. I'm not one of those idiots who trumpets "actual game experience" over analysis, because they're actually complementary--but having run lots of extremely deadly fights against unoptimized PCs run by non-powergaming players with only moderately brilliant tactics, and having seen the players win most of these fights (due partly to luck--we've come one die roll away from disaster more times than I can easily enumerate, and as a DM I'm often flabberghasted how improbably few deaths have occurred), I am quite sanguine that cleric-less parties are perfectly viable and fun in 5E, even for non-brilliant players. But you're not entirely wrong: It's good to have a healer in the party, and when I build my own parties I like to have a paladin and a bard so they can heal each other if necessary, but you haven't yet elucidated the utility of the healer in 5E so I'll do it for you: a healer is for reversing high single-target damage so you can either win the fight or continue adventuring, depending on the situation, without bottlenecking on a single character's HP. Without a healer, you can't afford to lose 60 HP to a bunch of fire trolls before taking on an Adult Blue Dragon, because you don't want to take on that dragon when any PC is only 30 HP away from death. If [I]everybody[/I] is down 30 HP each the presence of a healer becomes a non-issue since you can't continue anyway without resting first, but a healer lets you smooth out spikes. But there's an opportunity cost. During combat with the dragon, a healer can (but doesn't have to) spend his action to reverse some of that 70 HP of damage that the dragon just inflicted on you, and that may or may not be better than having another Sharpshooter dealing 50 HP right back to the dragon. Healing you lets the other party members have more time to kill the dragon; so does Polymorphing you into a tyrannosaur instead of healing you. If you can arrange to have a healer in the party without giving up anything else important (e.g. a paladin/sorc can cover tank/summoner/melee/counterspeller/healer roles easily, or a Lore bardlock could do healer/ranged damage/defense/summoner/skill monkey) it is certainly worth adding that capability to your repertoire. But everything has an opportunity cost, and playing without a cleric or even a healer is valid and can be fun and effective. [/QUOTE]
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