Why Is the Cleric Unfun?

[carmachu]

To address the thread topic, I think most in this era find the cleric "unfun" because they don't view the game as primarily co-operative and team-based.

I disagree.

There is a difference between co-operative and team-based and being forced to be a healing bot.

It means not being to use the characters full potential. Healing all the time means no chance to explore the other domain spells. Or other spells. Like at low level say shield of faith to maybe prevent the frenzying barbarian from being HIT as opposed to healing the damage later on. And other stuff.

 

[Gort]

I also have had tank players who were 40 points down from an 80 point max who refused offered healing because they did not want to waste the spells, "Save it for when I really need it". After a few occurrences of this, I stop asking until he "really needs it"

This seems like a pretty low-level game - about 8th level right? The problem really surfaces at higher levels, when - thanks to scrolls - the cleric can cast heal once a round almost indefinitely - certainly longer than most monsters can last.

At this point, the monster has to be able to do in the region of 150 HP of damage a round, or he's not really challenging the party at all. And if he's capable of doing that, the cleric is stuck healing people for 150 every round. So, say your fighter has 200 HP, and the monster rolls badly and only does 75 HP of damage to him in a round, half what he usually does. You STILL have to heal him up, because the next attack might do the usual 150 and kill him outright.

I put the blame firmly at the door of the heal spell to be honest. A cure critical wounds is what, 4D8+20, maximum? Average of 38 HP. Not a great deal to your 200 HP fighter. Compare it to heal which maxes out at 150, for one measly spell level higher?

To conclude, if healing hits stupid levels, damage has to hit stupid levels, and then the cleric is stuck healing all the time because there's practically zero buffer between alive and dead. Perhaps a removal of the heal spell would help change this?

 

[KoshPWNZYou]

To conclude, if healing hits stupid levels, damage has to hit stupid levels, and then the cleric is stuck healing all the time because there's practically zero buffer between alive and dead. Perhaps a removal of the heal spell would help change this?

I've always thought that just adding another die made the most sense -- a Cure Devastating Wounds for 5d8+whatever. With the Vancian system out, that's probably what we're going to get -- one healing power that scales up evenly as the Cleric gains levels.

 

[carmachu]

I put the blame firmly at the door of the heal spell to be honest. A cure critical wounds is what, 4D8+20, maximum? Average of 38 HP. Not a great deal to your 200 HP fighter. Compare it to heal which maxes out at 150, for one measly spell level higher?

uhm....heal is 2 levels higher, not one.

 

[Gort]

uhm....heal is 2 levels higher, not one.

My mistake. Still, it's a ridiculous escalation. Compare heal to another healing spell of the same level - mass cure moderate wounds. 2D8+caster level. You have to heal about five guys before that even approaches being as cost effective as heal and from experience I know that life-threatening damage tends to be all on one guy, or it's so overwhelming (AOE spells like horrid wilting that a piddly 29 hitpoints healing isn't going to cut it.

I agree with Kosh, it would be nice if healing scaled smoothly like the cure x wounds line does, then I wouldn't need to dump hundreds of hitpoints of damage on a guy for him to be in danger.

 

[Hussar]

To conclude, if healing hits stupid levels, damage has to hit stupid levels, and then the cleric is stuck healing all the time because there's practically zero buffer between alive and dead. Perhaps a removal of the heal spell would help change this?

Thank you Gort, this is the point I've been trying to make all thread. At high levels, there really is very little buffer between alive and dead. The baddies can just do too much damage. This wasn't a problem in earlier editions where creatures were generally very weak damagewise. A giant couldn't do a hundred points of damage in a round. Ever. Now, a Fire Giant can pump out 75 points of damage ON AVERAGE before Power Attack or any magical assistance. And that's at CR 10 (although, to be fair, giants are generally under CR'd).

 

[cougent]

OK, I will give you that, and my personal solution to that some many posts back is the DM should run an NPC heal-bot to handle that, but even putting that aside. Are you saying that 1 cleric in a party can handle this load? I would still say no because the demands would be just too great. In this scenario you would need a cleric per fighter / tank / barbarian to perform as you have suggested if he must heal every round in order to avoid these potential massive damage blows. If you have only one of these roles then yes one cleric will suffice, until something breaks through or uses a ranged attack against the rogue or wizard who are not at the front lines and definitely cannot take multiple hits from such opponents, maybe not even one. The simple logistics break down and even with the cleric heal-bot someone is still pretty much guaranteed to die.

Honestly I may just be confused by the initial concept, maybe that is the problem. I *play* to have fun; if I am not having fun, I do not play. So the idea that playing a cleric and being forced to play it a certain way by others determinations is so alien to me that I just cannot get my mind around it. The idea of being "forced" to play something I do not want to play (for me this would be a wizard) is also something I cannot fathom, as I would simply go elsewhere to play. So when I see people repeatedly posting about "having to play a cleric, and it's unfun" or a DM saying "I pick someone and make them play the unfun cleric" or anything even remotely like that; my brain just cannot grasp that concept, because my response would be "NO, I do not". I have RL things that I have to do that are very unfun, my leisure hobby game time IS definitely going to be fun, or it will not be. Others may feel differently.

 

[Ahglock]

I've always thought that just adding another die made the most sense -- a Cure Devastating Wounds for 5d8+whatever. With the Vancian system out, that's probably what we're going to get -- one healing power that scales up evenly as the Cleric gains levels.

Heal might still be in but hopefully as a once a day power if its there. And monster damage can be scaled under the assumption that high level characters aren't throwing the heal spell around in the fight.

 

[JDJblatherings]

Did you ever see Aragorn, Conan, Prince Valiant, Elric, Hercules or any other fantasy hero yell "I'm down 1/3 of my HP, where's the Cleric?" when they fail their tasks? I haven't.

No but I did see "oh no Frodo is almost dead, let's get him healed".

 

[Hussar]

I would still say no because the demands would be just too great. In this scenario you would need a cleric per fighter / tank / barbarian to perform as you have suggested if he must heal every round in order to avoid these potential massive damage blows.

Again, I didn't say that.

It's not EVERY round. It's just that it's often enough to be annoying. It doesn't even have to be the majority of rounds to be annoying. If I'm spending 1 round in 3 healing, I could see players being annoyed about this.

Me, I don't really care, because I like playing support characters. Doesn't bug me at all. But, I've seen enough cleric players to know that it does bug some people. And, if playing support characters was very popular, why is bard about the least liked class in the game. Clerics usually aren't too high on the list either. There's a reason they made clerics the strongest class in the game and we still don't see them taking any popularity prizes.