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In most rulebooks or in the introductory of modules is the statement "A well rounded group is recommended” but what does that really mean. When I think of about it, I envision someone to fight, someone sneaky, someone to heal and someone who can do the arcane stuff. Basically, a fighter, a thief, a cleric and the magic-user by old 1st edition standards come to mind. But what classes are truly essential, what classes can you have a successful game and do without?
As GM, I want my players to play the race/class combinations they want. I have noticed in my local gaming groups of late, the healer is the only class the groups will not go without. The one class no one wants to play. All of the other classes, though helpful are not thought of as essential to the game in their eyes. My groups gravitate to classes that are aggressive and it is more engaging to fight than to heal. The role of healer is played like hot potato, with someone having to have to play it out of guilt.
The game now in its 3.75 edition has come a long way. Paladins fight and are not too shabby in the healing department. Druids and bards can also heal and are formidable allies (and no, bards do not suck, just misunderstood). Still though, why are players hesitant to play without a true cleric?
In my current game, we started with no cleric. They did have a bard (Russ, for those of you who know and love him). The rest were rogue, monk and ranger. Kyle later would decide to drop Valeros the iconic fighter for a cleric of Cayden Cailean, but for the most part, the group played the D0 module without one and was successful.
Having to bounce back from a tiring fight is important and if the GM doesn’t want the party resting often, he must make some concessions to party healing. Below are some of the ways I deal with it.
1. Make healing potions, divine scrolls and wands available for purchase before the adventurers run off to the dungeon.
2. If magic shops are not available in your game world, herbs, salves and ointments may be a good alternative. In the Hollow’s last hope, Laurel owns a herb shop. You can even dial down the amount of healing a salve (1d4pts per use) or herb gives to make it less effective than having a cleric. The use of such items may be governed by a heal skill, or you make use it like a potion if no one has the heal skill.
3. Create an item to function as the clerics role. For instance, an amulet with a chain of gold holding the body of a fairy caught in amber ( think there is an item card in the GameMastery Wonderous Treasure Item cards) is functional and neat to play with. The fairy within is a soulbound fey , cleric of Desna level 4 and functions like a genie to be summoned once a day to heal the group with her spells before being banished back into the amulet.
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Options;
1) The various Cure X and Inflict X spells become arcane (necromancy) spells (like those of a bard), so that the party sorcerer or wizard can do some healing, in extremis.
2) DMG2 introduces the idea of a Companion Spirit that a party can gain, and a DM of a cleric-less party could arrange for them to have a healing spirit companion that each party member can invoke once / day for a 1d8+1 cure light wounds effect (increasing as the party increases in power).
3) The Heal skill could be buffed up, to allow a skilled user to blow a 'use' from a Healer's Kit to either fully restore a certain amount of hit point damage (limited to the characters daily healing rate? daily healing rate + Con mod?), or to just convert an equal amount of lethal damage to nonlethal damage. Using this latter example, a 1st level Fighter with Con 14 could receive up to 3 hit points of healing (or just damage conversion to nonlethal) per day from the mundane Heal skill, while a 5th level Barbarian with Con 16 could get up to 8 hit points of 'mundane' Heal-ing, above and apart from any restored overnight.
4) The alchemical healing salves from the Arms & Equipment Guide could be re-introduced, perhaps at a lower level of efficacy...
5) A totally different hit point system could be used, with each party member getting Con 'health points' to start, and then all level-derived hit dice being treated as 'vitality points.' All damage comes from vitality points first, which restore as nonlethal damage at an hourly rate. Once out of vitality points, further damage is taken off of health points, which must be restored magically or overnight. A critical hit that does x2 to x4 damage does half vitality damage and half health point damage, making a critical hit against even someone of moderate level with plenty of vitality a dangerous thing! Anyone who has taken any health damage that remains unhealed is penalized by a condition similar to Sickened, called Bloodied, until they have no remaining health damage.
6) Various types of Herbalism could be introduced, with teas and tinctures and salves and poultices that restore a couple of hit points here and there, making Craft (apothecary / herbalist) suddenly a popular choice for the Wizard / Bard / etc. Various supplements from 3rd party sources (or 1st, 2nd or 3.0 core sources) can be pillaged for this sort of thing, which would represent a far more complex variation on the 'mundane Heal skill' concept above.
7) Play a bunch of Bards, Rangers, Paladins, Druids, etc. and carry Wands of Cure Light Wounds (or have the Sorcerer / Warlock / Artificer / whatever crank up his Use Magic Device). Not for nothing is the CLW (or Lesser Vigor) wand called a priest in a poke!
8) Go one step further and allow the creation of double-cost Cure Light Wounds wands that can be used by anyone.
9) Create a non-standard magic item called a Bloodstone that allows characters holding it to swap health between themselves. If the Fighter got beat up and won't recover his damage overnight, the Rogue, Wizard and Warlock can each donate a few hit points to send his way, effectively 'spreading out the damage' so that they can all heal overnight, instead of three of them waking up fully healed, and the Fighter still being at half strength.
10) Encourage alternative classes with healing potential, such as Psions, Dragon Shamen, Illusionists of Sivanah (able to mimic Conjuration healing spells with Shadow magic), Celestial Sorcerers / Warlocks or Psychometabolic-focused Psychics from Green Ronin's Complete Psychic's Handbook. The Psychic can Drain Vitality from others as an attack, and heal his allies with his own life-force. He depletes himself on healing, and then 'fuels up' during combat! (Some restrictions apply, see book for details.)
11) Encourage Alternate Class Features, such as the Complete Champion options Healing Hymn (healing song for Bards) or Divine Companion (replaces Sorcerer's familiar with a spiritual entity that can heal) that allow some healing options for non-Clerics.
12) Create an Affiliation based on a society of healers, such as the Hospitallers of St. Ivan or whatever, and have the party go on mission for this order devoted to healing. As agents of the 'hospital,' they get sent on missions to plague-ridden areas, to find and combat sources of contagion, to lead parties of healers into combat-zones, to gather rare herbs and reagents for medicines, etc. As their affiliation score increases, they can request greater healing benefits in between sessions, and, at a certain score, can benefit from a Healing Companion-like benefit (from DMG2) that allows them to have curative spells cast upon themselves via a form of contingency, to be called upon later with a word. Perhaps they get special tokens, in which a single charge of Cure Light Wounds is cast, and can get it re-filled in between adventures. Perhaps instead it's a tattoo made with special inks (that require some powdered gold, and aren't free!) that fades as the curing magic is invoked. All that matters is that they end up with a source of NPC healing, both in between sessions, and, in vary limited amount, during sessions.
13) Encourage the players to accept that they have limited options for healing, and to *play smart.* Just as a party with no Rogues must accept that they are going to suffer from trap-based encounters, so must the healing-light party accept that retreat *is* an option when they are over-matched. Try to make sure that retreat is an option, obviously. Shoving them into the World's Largest Dungeon when they've got no healing options better than 'spend a week resting to recover' is a very, very slow and tedious option, when you could just rip up their characters and laugh at them instead, saving everyone much frustration. :)
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Unearthed Arcana features a variant rule called reserve points. Essentially, every day your character had a number of hit points in the reserve which refilled your current hit points throughout the day. Once your character was out of reserve points for the day he could refill them by resting.
The rules are Open Content, so they can be found in the System Reference Document.
This is what 4E is good at, giving the cleric the power to smash and heal, at the same time. However it really grates on some people that you blast some enemy and as a result your allies are healed! But other 'leaders' are good enough at healing, not as good as a cleric, but good enough.
So you could take a leaf out of 4Es book and basically give all spellcasting classes access to healing (although then do they just become clerics by another name having to choose helaing spells?) or go for 4Es HP system: use surges (although that'd take a bit f work) or just let them heal with rests at a much faster rate than core.
The UA system I really like, with a bit of modification and used it in my last 3E campaign, not a new idea (I remember a dragon mag article with the title 'how to lose hit points and survive' back in the day) but it is a good mix of gamism (vitality points are just that and come back quick) and simulationism (wound points really hurt!) Can be made very dangerous, as we did once, that any time you were unable to react to the attack the damage goes straight to wound points, and everyone got wound points based on size.. 6 for small and 8 for medium (thus a coup de grace dagger would always kill) IIRC.
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This is what 4E is good at, giving the cleric the power to smash and heal, at the same time. However it really grates on some people that you blast some enemy and as a result your allies are healed! But other 'leaders' are good enough at healing, not as good as a cleric, but good enough.
Stealing from Monte Cook's ideas in the Book of Experimental Might, a Cleric who doesn't like wasting his actions to heal could have a 'healing aura' active that allows other characters to spend their actions to brush against him and receive a healing effect. For a character to be healed by the Cleric, he has to expend his own action, and the Cleric can just fight on.
Alternately, the Spontaneous curing thing could be swapped out for uses of close wounds (from the Spell Compendium), allowing a Cleric to, mid-combat, toss off Swift Action cure spells, without sacrificing his other actions. (Instead of close wounds, which isn't open content, perhaps the Cleric is able to Spontaneously convert any spell to a cure spell one level lower, castable as a move action, or two levels lower, as a free action. Burning a 2nd level spell slot, a Cleric could take a 5' step over a fallen ally, smiting his attacker with his mace as a Standard Action, while channeling a cure light wounds into the fallen ally at his feet with his Move Action.)
There's a plethora of options.
Yeah I like the idea of spontaneous conversion to lower level 'cure' spells with quicker casting times, nice one. Not heard that one before.
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Yeah I like the idea of spontaneous conversion to lower level 'cure' spells with quicker casting times, nice one. Not heard that one before.
Just sort of popped into my head as an alternative to the spontaneous cure wounds concept. Using the +1 level for a move action option is a great choice for Clerics whose BAB is +5 or less and still only have a single attack anyway (making a Full Round action unimportant). And then +2 levels for the free action allows the full attack + small cure option. Of course, it does nothing for the touch range limitation, so the Cleric would still need to be within 5' of his intended patient.
I beefed up treat deadly wounds.
This system makes the Heal skill (called Medicine at my table) well worth having, but it still doesn't even scratch the glory of the miracle of healing in the middle of combat without a roll.
The way I see it, HP are abstract and gamist to begin with. It is a number that represents health. Why preserve the artificial distinction between magic and skilled healing? A heal skill that can't give a meaningful amount of HP back is a waste of skill points.
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Actually you know what I'm going to take this in a whole other direction. There is more then enough healing in the game as it is, so why should whole mechanics of the game have to shift just because your party refused to take along someone whose decent at healing?
For that matter, why in the world are they getting hurt in the first place?
This isn't 4th edition where you spend most of your time in combat in the game. You have every option to completely avoid combats, especially with a party consisting of a rogue, monk, bard and ranger.
Puzzles, diplomacy, social interactions, party conflict, traps, there are sooo many options open for you that those classes your players do have that should excel at and shouldn't encounter a large amount of hit point damage! How about exploration for explorations sake? Dealing with a mystery where you need to collect clues and testimonies, where violence isn't the answer?
And let's not forget about NPCs, the Leadership feat and all kinds of other options that exist as well! I'm not saying you should DMPC a Cleric, but it isn't like there aren't clerics out there willing to accept donations for healing at the local temples.
As a DM you should be willing to customize your games to the players at and and their abilities. That's not to say you shouldn't punish them for busting down doors without checking them first, but at the same time if they had to defeat a series of opponents there are plenty of ways to do it without drawing a weapon.
This is a perfect opportunity to stop giving up and start getting creative in your games! :D
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Without a healer, your players will have to think smarter, and will be less likely to engage in conflict.
This can be a good thing, as they may try out new and interesting ways to solve a difficult challenge. You should not accomodate them at all with any new rules for this very reason.
Let them stretch their wings, and see what happens. If they all get killed, then they all get killed.
The game becomes more difficult, but the stakes are higher. Emphasize the danger by describing wounds taken in combat in graphic detail. Heh. I'm getting my blood up just thinking about it.
I would just make things like potions, wands, scrolls etc become more common. That's what they're there for, letting characters cast more spells even if they normally can't.
But I wouldn't worry to much about a lack of a healer. Think of it this way, if your 4th party member is a hard-hitting arcane blaster, the characters aren't going to take as many wounds since the enemies will go down quicker. If it's a trapfinding rogue, then the party isn't going to be hit by traps as often, so less damage. Remember that if your 4th player decides to do somthing other than a healer, you're not simply "losing a healer", you're gaining somthing else in it's place. If the players work well together and play smart they won't even notice a lack of healing.
Though if that still doesn't work I'd try somthing similer to the Reserve Points idea.
Interesting ... I'm in three compaigns right now, one of which I'm the GM for (Crimson Throne). In each one, I've always had a player that wanted the Healer Role, had a specific idea for one, and is having a blast playing one.
Our actual problem has been the poor Rogue ... I've been the predominant rogue or rogue multiclass player for the past *cough* 25 years (love my rogues!) and so when I became the GM, one of my players had to take on the mantel and rogue up :) Both of the rogues in CT and SD are doing an awesome job, though they do ask for advice once in a while :)
Just goe to show that every group is different!
Having to bounce back from a tiring fight is important and if the GM doesn’t want the party resting often, he must make some concessions to party healing. Below are some of the ways I deal with it.
1. Make healing potions, divine scrolls and wands available for purchase before the adventurers run off to the dungeon.
This works for a one-shot game, or a short campaign. This type of play certainly accounts for a portion of what happens at some gaming tables.
This also works in a well-organized campaign that is drawn up from the start with useful magic items at all levels for all characters. This type of play is extremely rare - how many DMs really map out a long-term campaign from start to finish that is completely geared to the characters who will play it?
But try to run a generic campaign with non-generic treasure using this approach and you run into trouble - and I believe this is what happens at almost every gaming table that isn't doing one-shot adventures or very short campaigns.
The problem stems from the fact that monster progression expects certain kinds of matching character progression. To defeat a CR 18 monster, you need powerful armor, weapons, and other magical items - especially if it is a boss you face while you're still 14th or 15th level.
Part of this advancement in a long-term generic campaign comes from buying upgrades with the treasure that is gained. You have 30,000 GP floating around? Upgrade to a better sword, or buy a new staff, or whatever neat new toy will make your character grow in power.
But, if you have been buying potions and scrolls of healing magic since level 1, spending a significant, maybe even all or nearly all of your income on staying alive, this avenue of item procurement is unavailable or marginalized.
So before a DM grabs an Adventure Path off the shelf and throws his no-healer part into the generic campaign, he needs to think long and hard about how much party treasure should go towards healing, and how he will offset the loss of damage this does to expected character magic item acquisition.
One easy solution is to drop lots of extra potions into monsters' hoards and NPCs' belt pouches. Another is to have local temples reward the PC Heroes by giving up free healing, even handing them free potions for on-the-road healing. Another is to make the PCs buy their healing, but make sure that their requisite "Big-5" items are found abundantly in treasure caches so that they never, or almost never, feel a need to buy magic items to improve their gear.
2. If magic shops are not available in your game world, herbs, salves and ointments may be a good alternative. In the Hollow’s last hope, Laurel owns a herb shop. You can even dial down the amount of healing a salve (1d4pts per use) or herb gives to make it less effective than having a cleric. The use of such items may be governed by a heal skill, or you make use it like a potion if no one has the heal skill.
Same deal.
It's great if they find this stuff, but it's eventually very limiting if they have to buy all of it, unless the DM makes sure they don't have to buy very much of their other magical gear.
3. Create an item to function as the clerics role. For instance, an amulet with a chain of gold holding the body of a fairy caught in amber ( think there is an item card in the GameMastery Wonderous Treasure Item cards) is functional and neat to play with. The fairy within is a soulbound fey , cleric of Desna level 4 and functions like a genie to be summoned once a day to heal the group with her spells before being banished back into the amulet.
Now this is a great idea - at low levels. But when the group is 10th level, and dying of poisons, riddled with disease, cursed, drained of abilities, and needing literally hundreds of HP healed between all their severely wounded members, that little 4th level cleric won't be of much help.
When they're 15th level with dead party members, some with missing arms or gouged-out eyes, who's going to cast their resurrections and regenerations?
Hopefully the level 4 fae cleric comes with some upgrades along the line, or the DM finds replacement alternative healing sources along the way.
Two sides notes:
1. Who saves the disabled fighter lying in a pool of his own blood and innards, at -12 HP, making his last stabilization check (10% chance he lives, 90% chance he dies) when the poor little fae has been used already today? (yes, I know there are lots of other answers, just make sure the players are aware of them too).
2. What if the party druid (or paladin) takes pity on the enslaved fae (cleric of Desna no doubt!) and decides the only way he can look his god in the eye is to set that fairy free? What if other Desna clerics learn that the party is willingly participating in the enslavement of a member of their order?
Still though, why are players hesitant to play without a true cleric?
Mainly because D&D in all its incarnations has been about hacking, slashing, and killing. Both committing the mayhem and preventing others from committing it upon you.
Even the most RP-heavy games have to concede the fact that 90% of the PHB, 80% of the DMG, and 99% of the Monster Manual (rough estimates invented on the spur of the moment) are about combat and combat related stuff (traps, poisons, treasure you use to win your next combat, etc.). The other 10%, 20%, and 1% is non-combat stuff there for the RP.
This means our PCs will be in constant danger. They will live lives of pain, bloodshed, and suffering, and will most likely spend more of their adventuring careers bleeding from one or many wounds than they will spend not bleeding. Monsters will try to kill them. Villains will try to kill them. Traps will try to kill them. Even the environment will occasionally try to kill them.
With all this stuff trying to kill them, a smart PC would run to a very deep dark (and safe) hole and hide there, never to emerge again. But we don't. We keep looking for the most heinously dangerous places on the world and charging into them, willy-nilly, challenging death at every turn, our lives haning on (quite literally) the roll of the dice.
To have any chace to survive this self-inflicted nightmare, we need healers. Without them, our fate is a dreadful one. More pain, more suffering, more risk, more chances to die and fewer chances to survive. More time and money and resources consumed just trying to ready ourselves for our next fight means less time and money and resources we can use at the bars, bazaars, and brothels.
In short, in can be done without a healer, but it can be done much better with a healer.
Much much better.
You know the nice thing about new pathfinder skill system is that anyone can get UMD to the point of being useful, even a fighter.
We ended the runelords without a cleric. We had 2 wizards and a druid as our casters. The Druid generally took a heal and a couple of 1st and 2nd level cures, while my wizard had a wand of cure light, a wand of cure moderate, and a wand of lesser restoration.
If I had been allowed to by the DM I would have probably Called up a trumpet archon or something and bargained for it to only heal us (no fighting). However I did use summon monster spells (and the druid used summon nature's ally) to get monsters with spell like abilities (or spells) to help make the most of our healing resources.
The rest of our healing was handled by the Arcane Trickster with a wand of cure light and potions.
I would like to see the cleric able to attack/defend better.
In the campaign setting, look under the cleric entry.
Holy Warrior - Fighter BAB, D10, looses both domains
-- david
Papa.DRB
I would like to see the cleric able to attack/defend better.
You um...you have heard of Clericzilla right? I don't think offense/defense is really a problem for clerics.
Holy Warrior - Fighter BAB, D10, looses both domains
Not a personal fan of that varient I'm afraid. It sacrifices the cleric's least powerful (argubly at least) class feature in exchange for a HD boost and better attack bonus. Which, in turn, makes the class a D10 Hit Dice, Full BAB, two good save, 9th level Spellcaster.
It may just be my opinion, but loosing a few domain spells (or in the case of the Beta, a few spell-like abilities which mostly emulate spells anyway) seems like too good a trade off, after all, would you give medium BAB and D8 hit dice to a specialist wizard who just happens to give up the extra spell per day? (Or again, in the case of the Beta, a specialist wizard who gives up their School Powers?)
The battle sorcerer in Unearthed Arcana gives up one spell of each level for a medium BAB, d8 HD, and the ability to cast in light armor. And having played a played a battle sorcerer for an extended period of time, I can say the class is very well balanced. It didn't lag behind, but it wasn't powerful enough to steal the spotlight from other characters.
The Battle Sorcerer does not gain heavy armour proficency or two good saving throw progressions on top of it all however. In fact, since only a handful of wizard/sorcerer spells provide good combat buffs for the sorcerer a varient which encourages one to go into combat can argubly weaken the class. The cleric has spells specifically designed for close combat, of which having a higher BAB becomes a much bigger plus.
Besides, a cleric using this varient still gains access to higher level spells faster than a standard sorcerer. And as someone whos played spellcasters with slower spell progressions (Sorcerers, Beguilers etc) I can say it matters. I really don't like that despite playing a class wholey devoted to spells (to the point that designers feel it should have no armour, poor BAB and poor hit dice to compensate) gets spells at a slower rate than Mr D10 + Full Bab + Heavy Armour + 2 Good saves. In fact, I have a bit of a reputation in my group for having pretty powerful characters, yet even players not too familier with the game seem to have little issue keeping up (or even supassing) my spontainious casters as long as they stick to clerics.
You also do not take somthing into account. Just because one class is balanced doesn't mean another is. There will be alot of contributing factors to the game with which you played your battle sorcerer. If the others in the group play strong classes, then you don't really show that the varient is balanced, likewise for if your party was playing weaker classes. Try playing one alongside a cleric with this varient, see if the cleric comes out on top. What's more, make sure the cleric's level of optimization isn't as high as the sorcerer, I still think he'll come out on top.
Some links that I think you will find very useful:
A Player's Guide to (3.5) Healing (And, why you don't need a cleric to heal)
The reality is that a group is responsible for healing, not the cleric. In fact I think it is fair to say a group that relegates the cleric (one of the most powerful classes in the game) is short changing themselves and especially the player of the cleric ("you should have less fun because we can't be bothered").
Sean Mahoney
[W]ould you give medium BAB and D8 hit dice to a specialist wizard who just happens to give up the extra spell per day?The battle sorcerer in Unearthed Arcana gives up one spell of each level for a medium BAB, d8 HD, and the ability to cast in light armor. And having played a played a battle sorcerer for an extended period of time, I can say the class is very well balanced. It didn't lag behind, but it wasn't powerful enough to steal the spotlight from other characters.
Not quite right, you give up one spell per day of each level and a spell known of each level. The spell per day not really a big deal, that spell known however is.
Not quite right, you give up one spell per day of each level and a spell known of each level. The spell per day not really a big deal, that spell known however is.
Using the spells known isn't really an applicable comparison with regards to the cleric varient, since with the varient or not the cleric automatically knows all spells on his/her spell lsit. I guess it only shows even more so how powerful this varient can be when other versions not only forced spell slots to be sacrificed, but spells known as well.
Agreed, I just wanted it pointed out that the sorcerer lost an extra spell known.
However it could be argued that the cleric loses some spells known depending on the domain he would have taken. If it should be argued I don't know.
Over all the clerics get it the best, but hey, that's what you get for kissing up to a GOD.
Jumping in on this one with both feet.
I agree wholeheartedly that it's the group dynamic that decides party makeup. I ALWAYS play a wizard/cleric/druid while my buddy always plays a halfing/other short race rouge. The thing we are short on is fighters which isnt a problem since my mages/clerics take the combat role(firbolg or dragon anybody)and do it quit well.
In another group we solved the healing problem with double cost, double charge belts of healing and everybody had use magic device. I never understood why this wasnt a class feature for mages or other arcane casters. Anyway with UMD wands,staffs and whatever else we stole or bought was avaiable to everyone. The cleric didnt have to convert his slay living to healing or his flamestrike to save a buddy.
The cleric is an important class. My cleric of mystra was the party hero when we knew we were going up against lvl draining wraiths and specters(tearing of the weave modules/anarouch)It took every 4th lvl spell I had to protect us all with death ward but we only suffered hp lose not con lose and death from 3 hits. The rest of the party used wands and belts to heal themselves and left me to consecrate and deific vengance the undead. They were to high a lvl to destroy and turning would not have solved the problem.
I will sum up by agreeing that healing is a "Party" issue and not a cleric only problem. Paladins arnt allowed in our games so they arnt an option(players rules not DM's)
Yeah I like the idea of spontaneous conversion to lower level 'cure' spells with quicker casting times, nice one. Not heard that one before.
It occurs to me that since Quicken Spell is now the exception to the use of metamagic with spontaneous spell-casting taking additional time, a Cleric can now quicken their cures (from 9th level on). Not as nice as the option you present, but still interesting. I'm not sure who would burn a Heal for a Quickened Cure Moderate Wounds, but ...