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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6655891" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Ah, I understand the disconnect. You think I'm one of those people who cares about winning arguments, so when I say something you view it in terms of whatever previous disagreements have come up instead of as an independent item. I on the other hand saw someone who said their druid hadn't been able to do much damage mitigation, but he's a new guy and still struggling to get the hang of things, so I chipped in with a word of advice on his behalf for two of the things that druids can do to mitigate damage. Yes, Spike Growth is situational--it won't work when you're fighting missile mobs, and I believe I said that originally; and it won't work against flying creatures; but it might very well have worked against the Fire Elemental mentioned in your post, depending on terrain and what its motivation was for attacking you. In my experience anyone who sees the spikes is going to be quite reluctant to spend a full turn of movement dashing across them, taking 30 or 40 points of damage in the process (depends on geometry), in order to kill the PCs. I agree that the tactic is situational and not something for every combat, but it's a non-obvious tactic when you first read through the PHB so I thought it worth mentioning.Precisely. Neither does the cleric displace the druid, or the lore bard, or anyone else. The cleric is non-mandatory precisely because of opportunity cost. If you could always add a cleric without losing anyone else, obviously you'd take him and be glad. Either of us can name lots of useful things that a cleric can bring to the party.Ah, so you just didn't know about Aura of Vitality? I will explain.At 6th level, the Lore Bard gets Magical Secrets: two spells off any class's list. He can steal the 3rd level Paladin spell Aura of Healing. It heals 2d6 hit points with a bonus action every round for a minute, or 70 points of damage on average. This is two and a half times more efficient than Cure Wounds with 20 Wisdom. That's why I say clerical healing is inefficient.There are other combos that are similarly attractive when done proactively as damage mitigation (e.g. druid's Wildshape into a meat shield, or Polymorph) but Aura of Vitality bards are as good as it gets when it comes to healing damage after the fact. I would not trade my healing bardlock for a cleric, especially since he'll eventually get all the best parts of being a cleric (Bless, Death Ward) through Magical Secrets without giving up the best parts of being a bardlock (crazy good Stealth, Repelling Blast combos to blast enemies off cliffs/into walls of fire/etc., Conjured Animals, improved Counterspelling, lots of bardic inspiration dice, eventual Wish spell) and without the icky RP downsides (to me) of being a PC whom I-the-player can't intellectually respect. (That's a flaw in me BTW, not in other people, but it's one I haven't overcome yet. I am unable to relate to anyone who would worship a D&D godling any more than I can relate to people worshipping Egyptian pharaohs in real life. It just makes no sense to me why you would do that, and yet they did.)</blockquote>

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