Is it me, or are dedicated healers downright worthless in most RPGs...

> Is it me, or are dedicated healers downright worthless in most RPGs?
Is it me, or are dedicated rogues worthless in most RPGs?
Is it me, or are dedicated crafters worthless in most RPGs?
Is it me, or are dedicated fighters worthless in most RPGs?

The answer is "DEPENDING ON THE FOCUS OF YOUR CAMPAIGN".

If you are running a Kingsmaker campaign, then a charismatic manipulative diplomat will be a lot more important than a dumb sword-and-board fighter, no?

Healers aren't any different from any other craftsmen - they provide vital services, and the importance of these services depends on the challenges presented by the DM, i.e. focus of your campaign.

3.5's dedicated healer from core is one of the most broken classes of the game that heals as an after thought.

At least educate yourself before you meme, fuckwit.

>3.5's dedicated healer from core is
not a dedicated healer. Look at all the non-healing related spells they get. THOSE are what make them so broken. Without them, they'd be like the healer from miniatures handbook: useless.

Have you even played a TTRPG before?

You're wrong, though. The best defense is a good offense. The second-best defense is a good defense. The worst defense is patching people up after they've failed at the first two.

You're wrong too.
The best defense is never getting in a fight in the first place. Capiche?

>spontaneously cast heal spells in 90% of parties
>would still have regenration, heals, spells to stop status effects and bring people back from the dead.

So, even gimped clerics still shit all over martial fags while still fighting at monk level and above rogues.

I cannot think of a single system, video game or table top, where the ability to regenerate health faster than it's lost wasn't easier to achieve than the ability to not take damage at all. Offense > Healing > Defense.

So, what got you so booty flustered, janny? Would this happen to be your thread?

> video game
Guild Wars 2.

Healing requires you to spend actions and spell slots, avoiding damage doesn't necessarily.

You know, this is a very common paradigm among D&D players, especially in 3.PF. In what different ways you could plan for an encounter that challenges this thinking?

I wouldn't, fuck having MMO mechanics in tabletop RPGs.

>In what different ways you could plan for an encounter that challenges this thinking?
That's not a flaw of encounter, that's a flaw of systems.
As long as you are using "meatpoints" instead of separating it properly into two different tracks - namely, Wounds and Fatigue - it will be almost impossible to make a healer relevant.
Wounds shouldn't be easy to heal.

It depends on the power of the healer. You can construct a system where the healer is absolutely necessary to keep the other party members on the offensive for the next round. In this instance your choice is between three members on offensive and a TPK. The reason this kind of game design is used more rarely is because it is less likely to be fun for everyone: the healer needs to apply the correct amount of bandages to each party member every turn with little choice in how to do it, while everyone else is absolutely dependent on the healer which makes them feel weak.

broadly speaking, cost and availability.

Potions simply aren't that common in older editions of D&D, and there's no guarantee that found potions will be healing potions, and the cost of relying on healing potions can be crippling (see Baldurs Gate for example)

A potion of stoneskin has value, but it won't do you much good at 1hp

Why don't more games use 4e's paradigm of support classes, where they only use minor actions to heal, they heal BIG amounts (always AT LEAST 25% of the target's HP), and they can attack and heal at the same time?

Probably because it slows combat down substantially and it necessitates a playstyle that isn't interesting or thematically compelling.

>4e warlords
>slow down combat substantially
Sweet summer child.

I honestly can't think of a single TTRPG with a dedicated healer option.

The closest I've seen is 4e's Pacifist Cleric, but even then they still have plenty of ways to mess with the enemy as well as a variety of buffs and options inherent in the Leader role.

It's not the Warlord's healing that speeds things up. In general, making in-combat healing an inevitability rather than an emergency option is just hp bloat by another name.

>ITT: people who only play 3.PF.

>not going mace swinging Clerk

Like the pope with a gutentag instead of a fucking toiletbrush, I hate that muslim footlicking faggot so much

Seriously, try 5e without trying to house-rule it back to 3.5 The healing model is based on the idea that heals are a rare thing usually used as a bonus action to keep someone from needing to roll death saves mid-combat and that people should mostly be doing other things turn-to-turn. Good healing isn't about keeping everyone topped-off MMO style but mitigating burst damage and making it possible to push farther in between long rests.

Traveller. The only "health regeneration" puts you in a coma for about a day, and ages you two months. I haven't checked the rules, or had it come up in my own games, but if anyone on anagathics used it without taking two months of those too, they'd go into withdrawl.

>Three of them are on the offensive in the broadest sense of the word (which means attacking, but also buffing themselves or debuffing the enemy and anything that puts the party in an advantageous position against the enemy).
>but also buffing themselves or debuffing the enemy
You do realize that damn near every tabletop game lumps that in with healing, right?

Or do you not actually play tabletop RPGs?

Fixing HP damage is seldom as effective as removing Hp.

With that said, in games where you can be hit by effects that just remove you from combat (say: a paralysis spells), having a party member that can deal with these sorts of incidents in very valuable (hopefully, but not likely, stops you from getting raped by ghasts).

Healing is just more proactive and complicated in trpgs and usually focuses on being actively preventing damage rather than reactively fixing damage.

>not playing a Clericzilla with War domain

I played a half-elf cleric of Corellon in a friend's 3.5 FR game and loved it. Before a big fight, I'd buff the party, buff myself at the start of combat, wade into combat, and drop spells to spontaneously cure myself or others as needed.

Drethas is still my 2nd-favorite character to play.

Are you the same animeposter who made all the other threads that do nothing but further examplify the fact you've never played a ttrpg before in your life?

3.5 isn't "most RPGs," retard.

Dedicated healer does not mean "is only ever capable of healing and nothing else."

ITT: issues that were already solved by 4e, and people shit-talking games they didn't read.

Educate yourselves before posting, faggots.

Honestly, if you encounter this problem, it sounds like your DM just isn't giving you encounters that actively threaten your life, and will kill you if you don't have a means of healing in combat. At first I agreed with your point, but after reading the reasons you've presented for healers being useless, it sounds like more of a DM problem that a system problem. In the campaign I'm currently in, all boss fights are life-or-death struggles that will almost certainly result in TPK if we don't heal during the fight.

Can we stop pretending 4e did something interesting or fun?

4e had the beginnings of a system for players creating magical items, at least.

But it was both of those things. The only flaw was that they changed the system to the point the hardcore fanbase rebelled. It was a great system in and of itself.

4e was great, but they made the mistake of marketing it under the D&D brand name and thus attracted the raging fury of a thousand manchildren like you.

If they only heal and refuse to actually attack they're a bad player, if they're a pacifist in a battle-focused campaign then the character was a bad decision unless the group's okay with it and you can make it work with the roleplay aspect.

Our healbot cleric in one campaign was also an archer, when he actually hit something he was damn useful. The healy witch I made but didn't get to use also had summons and a shit ton of cc.

4e is interesting and fun. Whenever I played it I had a blast with my friends, even if it wasn't an immersive roleplaying experience. It shines in other areas.

When the other systems are not worth talking about, what else do you expect?

Is /xivg/ leaking?

Nah, shit posting has hit an all time low because the "new" janitor is aware of the existence of Australians.

What do threads and repost took a hit so they have to hide the threads in walls of texts now.

>heal outside of combat. You don't need a healer for that: potions and magical items will often do the trick. Even if these are somehow unavailable (which would be arbitrary bullshit), "secondary" healers like the paladin can pick up the slack.
Nice, assuming it's dnd.

In short, healing works in combat when one can heal more effectively than the enemies can damage. There we go, you can delete your thread now.

It's not though. It's an option one can play, not an option one *must* play.

>its instead of it's or it is

>The second situation is an MMORPG or comparable circumstances, where fighting is so fast-paced that a heal spell here or there makes an actual difference.
I'm more annoyed by this than I should be.
Any fucking MMO where the healing class only heals is utter fucking shit and people should stop trying to say that it's all they do most of the time.

Any half decent healer in MMOs will be supplementing with damage between heals because you basically never need constant 24/7 heals. If a healer can't also pull their weight with damage then they're trash and should be thrown out because a pure healer isn't worth shit.

Dedicated is shit in TTRPGs because unlike MMOs you are not hemmed into a single set of actions, nor is the opponent. The more focused you are on one specific thing the less useful you are.

>dedicated Mage!
Magic is a massive, broad category and it's the versatility that is its true strength. In D&D terms, Blasters suck because they do this one thing when they could be doing lots and lots of things with less work.

>In D&D fighters suck
In the edition that forced them into only being able to do one thing OK - deal HP damage. They suffer from the same thing Blasters do, but without any better option. Even being great at combat makes a fighter useful because there will be combat in differing conditions and if they can address the conditions to do some HP damage they will be useful.

Healers suck because they do only one thing and when they are not doing that one thing they don't have anything productive to do. If you can be a healer and support and be decent at combat - why would just a healer be better?

>I have no legitimate response so I'll point out minor grammatical errors

Simply eric

Since when is "OP is a faggot" an argument, let alone one that warrants a rebuttal?

Healers are a benefit more to the GM than they are to the party.

Without healers, the party is susceptible to attrition which would otherwise force the campaign to constantly stop and catch a breather. This serves the function of helping the party to drive deeper into content, to be more adventurous when facing risks.

In all, it helps to level out the difficulty spikes, random catastrophes, and player uncertainty. These are all symptoms of a mismanaged campaign.

A lot of players like to play dedicated specialist characters or goofballs. These characters often dance on the edge of a knife. A good GM will be able to tailor a campaign to their particular strengths, while ramping up challenges that play on their particular weaknesses. The players are never really in danger, but only a well prepared GM will be able to make players feel that danger without ever making them rely on a crutch like a dedicated healer.

Non-dedicated healers are not so bad. They serve all the same purpose as a dedicated hero (softening challenges), but they can do so in a way that makes them feel like an asset to the team. A dedicated hero rarely gets game input unless there's a need to heal, and that's often done as an after-battle action report. The non dedicated hero can fight or employ skill, all while acting as a guardian angel whenever the situation calls for it.

Except TRPGs never let healing out heal the damage it would be imbalanced then.