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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6655368" data-attributes="member: 82106">I'm speaking from playing. I've been playing since the PHB was released, and I played in various iterations of the playtest. I don't claim to be the greatest 5e guru, but I know the system perfectly well in terms of the player side certainly.I have no idea why you would call clerical healing 'inefficient'. Quite the contrary it is quite efficient, especially if you pick the correct domain, which gives you a significant extra bonus to heals and a CD-based heal. Yes, paladins can heal somewhat, and various classes have some very limited ability to do some self healing, but a cleric offers a much larger hit point reserve that can be deployed to whomever needs it and is pretty easy to use.Well, I would just point out that it is tautological that a challenge which is passed without any failure by a group isn't the most deadly possible challenge! Either that or your description of your group is drastically underestimating their tactical acumen and game knowledge.No need to explain tactical concepts to me, I've written wargames, and am pretty adept. Try challenging me to a Star Fleet Battles game some day, just don't bet on winning <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> I understand what you're trying to say. However self-healing doesn't help with the focusing healing where it is needed, when it is needed. A cleric, again particularly a healing build, can focus quite a LOT of healing on a character when its needed. Beyond that he can bring people back up, which self-healing cannot do, and that is the most critically useful function of all. Yes, you can construct some bard builds that can dedicate their most valuable spell slots to healing spells. A paladin can act as somewhat of a sub for a cleric too. However, none of them competes with the real thing, not by a long shot. An 18 WIS level 1 healing cleric will heal more than 2x the HP per slot used than any bard, and close to that much more than a paladin.You also seem to feel that a cleric is good for NOTHING ELSE, yet they have tricks like Bless and Guidance which are really large party boosters. In fact Guidance is almost broken good. Which is why I say that a party without a cleric is neigh dysfunctional. It will fall below the expected curve. Maybe in the hands of a really superior tactical group with advanced build expertise they'll still be in good shape, but working a cleric into the party will always, always, amplify that. 5e isn't 'cleric dependent' to the degree that AD&D was, where adventuring without one was so hopeless that it was a constant joke in Fineous Fingers, but it is still true that adventuring without one is taking great unnecessary risk, and can easily put success out of reach for many ordinary groups in adventures that would be quite doable with one.</blockquote>

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