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3 months ago ::
Mar 10, 2013 - 5:56PM
#51
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Date Joined:
Sep 25, 2009
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I completely agree that no one should be forced to play a character that they don't like. The opposite is true as well. No one should be forced not to play a character that they would like to play (unless there is a very good reason).
I still don't feel that clerics were ever a necessary part of an adventuring party so I guess I don't see the problem. I have been fine in parties without clerics and I have been fine in parties with all clerics. I guess I fail to see the problem that people are giving that clerics are either necessary as a healer or they are only a healer and cannot function in other roles.
I know that many groups feel that they have to have a cleric in the group. Have they ever tried to run a game without clerics? It works fine.
D&D Next has feats that can provide the same benefit as a healer although it would require one person in the party to take the feat. Even without the feat, healing kits can provide healing.
A party of fighters, a party of monks, or a party of rogues would do just fine in D&D Next. What is the problem?
I would take a party of 4 5th level monks against a 5th level rogue, a 5th level cleric, a 5th level fighter, and a 5th level wizard any day (and twice on Tuesdays). Do you really think the cleric is so invaluable that a party can't survive without one?
I don't.
Who's trying to make someone unable to play a character they want to play?
As to whether a cleric is necessary in a D&D party, I think if you've gotten away without using one it's only because your DM was kind. Can 4 Monks take on a core 4 party? Sure, unless the wizard is high enough level, but that's a tad beside the point. Can 4 monks take on a core 4 party after 2 other tough encounters (on each side)? Not a chance. Even less of a chance once they strip out HD, as they plan to for basic. In every edition except 4e, having a cleric on hand who sacrificed every one of his spell slots for heals was absolutely essential on days of any reasonably long duration, unless the DM handed out potions/wands in which case he created a whole slew of other problems (and we're back to your DM was kind). In 4e, having a cleric or other healer on hand was absolutely essential if you wanted to take on the kinds of threats you could take on with a healer, although again a kind DM could just lowball the encounters and let you get away with it (and by low-ball, I mean level +1-3 instead of the +4-8 you could handle with an optimized party). In Next, there seems to be near-universal agreement that the modules are massively low-balled so it's even less of an issue. But I don't think the system should force DMs to either low-ball encounters or hand out WCLWs to parties without a cleric. That's not supporting cleric-less parties, and it sure as heck isn't supporting clerics to say "congratulations, the party would have an easier time of things if you played a fighter with a never-ending bag of healing potions."
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3 months ago ::
Mar 10, 2013 - 6:14PM
#52
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Date Joined:
Sep 25, 2009
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Unless I missed it, why not just let everyone heal to full between encounters? If nobody wants to play a healer, and if you don't want to play the game in such a way where getting hit can reasonably be avoided by intelligent players, then why not just declare HP to be purely morale and skill such that it regenerates after five minutes?
I think that this is a better solution than having people carry around healing wands and healing potions or have healing available to everyone.
So do I. That doesn't mean it's a good solution.
Saelorn is absolutely right that there needs to be a consequence to getting hit. 4e still had a consequence, but it was so small and delayed that it still caused problems. The problem is that persistent HP damage is a terrible, terrible way of modeling that cost, for some very important reasons, and almost everyone knows it at least subconsciously. That's why they think a healer or WCLW is necessary, even though most people don't like WCLW (because they also recognize that it's going back to no meaningful cost) and a lot of people don't like playing clerics especially when clerics are reduced to being healbots (and yet they feel obligated to play a cleric who is a healbot). When you take away the persistent-HP-loss cost of taking damage, you need to replace it with something. So far, the best the devs have come up with is "the cleric loses spell slots" or "the party buys more potions/wands." These are not good options either. Do not mistake claims that the available costs are crap with claims that there should be no costs. If we thought there shouldn't be costs, we'd just give out healing potions (and not have reason to complain about doing so).
Personally, I'd love it if they declared HP to be purely morale/endurance. So long as another mechanic sprang up to deal with physical damage and persistent costs, and did it better than the half-a$$ed, quarter-brained way HP does it. But I can't have that, HP are far too sacred a cow, it's much better to let it mutate it into a two headed monster that feasts on the blood of virgins than to slaughter it and buy a tractor. Tractors are new, and evil, and who cares that they produce less methane and burn fewer fossil fuels than shipping in the virgins to feed it.
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3 months ago ::
Mar 10, 2013 - 6:53PM
#53
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
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Every class can justify damage mitigation mechanics.
Healing could be something reserved as a strictly out of combat option, and healing bots as old disagreeable memories.
I like this idea. So far, parry, protect, shield bash, and other abililites like this have given players options "off" turn, which has increased the active participation in my groups tremendously. I'd love to see some PCs given the ability to dodge blows, and even give magic users the chance to use magic to parry/protect in a limited fashion. With these mechanics healing will be less important and players will be able to make more decisions throughout a round rather than during their turn. Big win.
A proper/cool shield spell and a proper mirror image one (which use an action to restore after they collapse when penetrated). Eat up some of that wizards action economy ;p.... give him slightly more spells in recompense.
Excellent examples of a spell like this is 3e's Presence of Mind and Wings of Cover (races of the dragon). Both go a long way to eliminate the need for a healer. DDN's parry mechanic is great for this as well.
Could you clarify your examples? (not familiar with 3e only played 1 short game in it)
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3 months ago ::
Mar 10, 2013 - 7:39PM
#54
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Date Joined:
Mar 25, 2007
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From my memory of 2e, healing was very rare. Natural healing was really slow, magic healing came in small bursts, and you had occasional potions. Wand of cure wounds etc - almost no chance of finding one of these, at least in our game. When the party had their big rest, you didnt get all your hp back. You got hardly any back, and the cleric would top you up a bit. It was cool, damage meant something, the game worked.
I vastly prefer slow and rare healing to second winds, everyone having healing wands, etc, all of which trivialise (most) encounters. I hope they stick to offering various healing rules as options, like in the current packet.
PS - when is the next packet out? how often are these things released?
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3 months ago ::
Mar 10, 2013 - 7:51PM
#55
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2001
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From my memory of 2e, healing was very rare. Natural healing was really slow, magic healing came in small bursts, and you had occasional potions. Wand of cure wounds etc - almost no chance of finding one of these, at least in our game. When the party had their big rest, you didnt get all your hp back. You got hardly any back, and the cleric would top you up a bit. It was cool, damage meant something, the game worked.
Yes, healing was slow, natural healing /very/ slow. So you spent a few minutes in the dungeon until you'd blown through all the clerics CLW spells, and then went back to town and 'rested,' for days, as the cleric healed you all up and then got all his spell backs so you could spend a few more minutes fighting in the dungeon. Of coure, you couldn't always do that - sometimes you just died.
Damage meant something? True, it meant some bookkeeping, it meant cycling through spells more often. The game worked? Not so sure, it seemed pretty dysfunctional at times. Cool? NIMHO.
Love 4e? Concerned about its future? Join the Old Guard of 4e"You want The Tooth? You can't handle The Tooth!" - Dahlver-Nar. "If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D&D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly" - E. Gary Gygax
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3 months ago ::
Mar 10, 2013 - 8:00PM
#56
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2005
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I don't think that replacing "we need a member from a class that specializes in healing" with "we need a member with a specialty that specializes in healing" or "we need to throw money at it" is really the way to go here. It's a minor improvement, but it's really just a trim while the root problem remains. What we need is a system that allows a party with no ability to heal, magical or otherwise, to be viable for at least a minimum number of encounters per day.
This. Especially if you can do it while reducing hp.
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3 months ago ::
Mar 10, 2013 - 8:10PM
#57
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Date Joined:
Mar 25, 2007
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From my memory of 2e, healing was very rare. Natural healing was really slow, magic healing came in small bursts, and you had occasional potions. Wand of cure wounds etc - almost no chance of finding one of these, at least in our game. When the party had their big rest, you didnt get all your hp back. You got hardly any back, and the cleric would top you up a bit. It was cool, damage meant something, the game worked.
Yes, healing was slow, natural healing /very/ slow. So you spent a few minutes in the dungeon until you'd blown through all the clerics CLW spells, and then went back to town and 'rested,' for days, as the cleric healed you all up and then got all his spell backs so you could spend a few more minutes fighting in the dungeon. Of coure, you couldn't always do that - sometimes you just died.
Damage meant something? True, it meant some bookkeeping, it meant cycling through spells more often. The game worked? Not so sure, it seemed pretty dysfunctional at times. Cool? NIMHO.
Sometimes characters died, yes. And it was awesome. Danger is where the fun is. When you lived through a few levels you felt like you earned it. I would vastly prefer very low healing to very high healing. I have played both (broadly speaking 2e v 4e), and low healing is heaps more fun, at least imo: more tension, quicker fights, lasting consequences, more time for OOC stuff.
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3 months ago ::
Mar 10, 2013 - 8:12PM
#58
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Date Joined:
May 27, 2012
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So you spent a few minutes in the dungeon until you'd blown through all the clerics CLW spells, and then went back to town and 'rested,' for days, as the cleric healed you all up and then got all his spell backs so you could spend a few more minutes fighting in the dungeon.
More reasonably, you just played in such a way as to avoid taking damage in any way possible. Of course, it is also worth mentioning that there was nothing stopping the DM from handing out healing potions like they were candy. Individual experiences in AD&D could vary significantly between DMs (even moreso than in 3E or 4E).
The metagame is not the game.
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3 months ago ::
Mar 10, 2013 - 8:16PM
#59
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2001
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From my memory of 2e, healing was very rare. Natural healing was really slow, magic healing came in small bursts, and you had occasional potions. Wand of cure wounds etc - almost no chance of finding one of these, at least in our game. When the party had their big rest, you didnt get all your hp back. You got hardly any back, and the cleric would top you up a bit. It was cool, damage meant something, the game worked.
Yes, healing was slow, natural healing /very/ slow. So you spent a few minutes in the dungeon until you'd blown through all the clerics CLW spells, and then went back to town and 'rested,' for days, as the cleric healed you all up and then got all his spell backs so you could spend a few more minutes fighting in the dungeon. Of coure, you couldn't always do that - sometimes you just died.
Damage meant something? True, it meant some bookkeeping, it meant cycling through spells more often. The game worked? Not so sure, it seemed pretty dysfunctional at times. Cool? NIMHO.
Sometimes characters died, yes. And it was awesome. Danger is where the fun is.
Yeah. One first level character after another killed by rats, goblins, skeleton, 10' falls. Awesome.
When you lived through a few levels you felt like you earned it.
1st level certainly did have that 'paying your dues' feel to it. A lot of groups I knew in the 1e days gave maximum hps at 1st, or max + 1d6 ("peasant points") or 'breveted' you to second level (start at 2nd, but with 0 exp), rather than going through all that Awesome again. There's only so much awesome you can take before you just want to do something boring, like heroically slaying a dragon or saving the world or something.
Love 4e? Concerned about its future? Join the Old Guard of 4e"You want The Tooth? You can't handle The Tooth!" - Dahlver-Nar. "If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D&D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly" - E. Gary Gygax
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3 months ago ::
Mar 10, 2013 - 8:34PM
#60
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2005
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Agreeing w/Mssr Mustache. I drew the short straw in one of my 4E games & had to play healer. Warlord offered me the opportunity to not be tied down to religion or nature and still participate in combat. Not just participate but really shine. Party needed a healer, warlord offered me, as a player, a way to do that while maximizing fun. I was even happy to choose powers that maximized my ability to heal because they were combined with decent attacks or add-ons or buffs.
If you cant find someone who enjoys ranting about a deity and proselytizing to fictional characters then you just lack that individual that enjoys roleplaying clerics. They do exist and some of the best are atheist. That said I agree, free them from cure and hold person spam please. They are customed poorly for deities. The deity or and spirits are the best part of the class. If that is your second reason why people don’t want to play the class it’s a weak indictment. Its more of an example of RPG gamers that need to get over their anxiety about playing a character that isnt like them.
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