Do people actually like playing healers? Every DnD style game has them practically as an necessity. But they also seemed like a chore to play. You're actively dissentived from doing things in the game like fighting in combat or using your spells.
I'm seriously tempted to just have a NPC cleric attached to the party.
It's often a great role to fill with an npc.
As a player, I enjoy being a healer. I feel it gives me a lot to do during this gs like stays in town, etc. It's a reason to get involved with people. This ofrers lots of opportunity for info gahering. So I tend to mix healer with face when I can.
Setting aside that of the 6-ish editions of D&D, MOST have either not had a healer role entirely (AD&D and prior) or have made healing as a role worthless (3e) or have made healing an active, aggressive part of the game (4e), all three of those are perfectly serviceable solutions to the problem.
Only shittily-made games treat healing as a "preserve the status quo" button by having it create anti-damage with their equivalent of standard actions and nothing else.
It's all about giving the healer more to do than just heal.
4e is a great example of this. The Leader role covers healing, but is also a very active and interesting support role with a lot of options for enhancing allies in different ways.
Just like every role, it's a different game with difference nuances. Some folk like playing the defensive tactics, and when the party's in trouble is when it really becomes fun.
And most of the time, healers are healing outside of combat, and using support buffs and stuff.
You know if you have a good DM there is more to a game than just combat, healers are insanely useful in social situations where people will be more inclined to help them out or they might have certain connections (ie. Church, guild, order) that other pc's may lack
In DnD and the like healers usually have other options besides healing to the point that you are essentially a hybrid caster with healing being one option, hell, in 3.5 clerics could compete with the fighter in melee fighting, sling spells on part with the wizard, AND dish out heals.
If you have a player playing a character that exclusively heals then yeah that sounds boring as hell, but to my knowledge there isn't any systems that restricts the healing class like that
Healers also tend to be buffers. Even if there are better buffers (bards), there's still value added as both tend to stack.
Here's the thing, though: there's nothing stopping that from being the case AND from the healer having fun while initiative is rolled.
"You can have fun during this part of the game while everyone else pounds sand, and then they get to have fun while you pound sand" is lazy game-building.
TN/CN is the best cleric option, do you know how much loot I've gotten from blackmailing my party with my heals/ressurections?
I enjoy playing healers in vidya, but since for TTRPGs I played 3.5e before moving to PF healing centric characters haven't been a viable role. In those healing is something you do after combat or as an emergency measure to keep some one alive.
This has never been the case in my experience. It might be a staple of MMOs and jrpgs, but with tabletop games healing tends to be either something that happens once the fight is over (like for instance D&D 3.5, where healing wands are cheap but heal so little with one charge that it's never a good use of an action to patch wounds in the middle of a fight) or more rarely, something that healers can do at the same time as doing something more exciting (like in 4e, where attacking with your main action and healing as a minor is standard).
Saying clerics in D&D are disincentivised from fighting in combat is... out of touch, I'd say.
And that's if the game even expects you to have a healing specialist in the party, which many don't require or necessarily allow.
Cunt.
Maybe not direct healer but I have always enjoyed playing bards and support characters.
My favorite time on a bard was when the GM let me enchant my wooden flute to be indestructible because he didn't want my character to be without a instrument. He sure regretted that when used it to go around stabbing people with it.
I like playing healers MMO style.
Bitter and sarcastic assholes who feel like they're trying to keep a horde of myopic lemmings alive and treat the rest of the party as such.
How is healing more of a chore than hurting?
The problem with healing mainly only exists in games where HP/wounds is a vague, abstract figure like D&D and most Vidja Gaymes.
Playing basically any system where bodily harm can occur, and suddenly healers become useful.
>I got shot in the arm and will lose the limb in three days unless I see a doctor
>oh wait, we have one right here.
>now my arm won't need amputation, although I still can't use it for 2d6 days
Unfortunately, the meme-response of "Have you tried not playing D&D" is correct here. The system actually turns party healers into a Prisoner's Dilemma, because a party with a healer tends to win against a party without a healer. This assumes the party doesn't bump into anyone the GM specifically designed to target and destroy the healer.
Trust me it'll be the last time they use the term "heal bitch" in my presence lad.
>healer becomes useful
Let me correct that: becomes interesting.
>make a medicine check
>alright, it looks like x bone is broken and there's some minor lacerations
>set a splint on it and bandage the lacerations, check on it daily and wash and change the bandages depending on the severity of the fluid release
As opposed to
>you heal 1d4 damage
Even with good adjudication, there's no way to make that interesting because HP is an abstract figure.
>I got cut by a sword for 7 damage
>so I bandage the wound...?
Only in 4e.
And "dissentived" is not a word. You're looking for "disincentivized".
Or "disincentivised", if you're a fan of the Queen.
>6-ish editions of D&D
r u high
Are you new?
There's been more than 5 versions of dungeons and dragons, user.
>he thinks 3.5 and 3e are the same game
>Literally everyone in the current group I'm in can cast healing magic
Fighting and healing aren't mutually exclusive. It's why Clerics in D&D get armor and spells like Healing Word that you can cast alongside your attack exist.
It's actually 7
How does healing work in WFRP?
All you've done is add some descriptive text. Which is nice and all, but I'm not seeing where this makes healing into engaging gameplay.
Even with the most punitive and gruesomely detailed injuries, the healing process tends to be a checklist, and often a tedious one ("ok roll first aid now, and then chirurgy for each day of treatment. give me 7 rolls and we'll see where we stand, but stop if you botch")
To make it worth spending a lot of time on the healing process you need to give the medic risks to assess and meaningful decisions to make beyond just treat/don't treat. I've yet to see a game system that attempts this.
I only like to play the healer when I get bullied by the buff lady knight/barbarian
Magic, Draughts but they only work on lightly wounded victims, and then your standard heal/surgery check and weeks of bed rest.
>he thinks healers have no incentive to fight in 4e
are YOU high??
>Every DnD style game has them practically as an necessity.
Not when Wand of CLW exists.
That's because medicine is actually a checklist.
In 2e you restore wound points by using the heal skill, with limited frequency of use, or by casting a healing spell, which has no limit or real cost. It's kind of shitty imo.
Serious injuries from critical hits (in WFRP terms a near-death experience) are often permanent.
Right, it might be realistic, but if it's a routine procedure with no variation then there's no reason to spend significant game time on it.
I've seen a ton of "fixes" for this "problem," but I've never actually seen the problem occur.
In DnD, it's not a problem. In 3 and 3.5, healers' other spells were so god-awful powerful that if they wasted any turns in combat actually healing, they were playing wrong. Oh, do I want to heal 2d8+4 damage, or do I want to end the fight with a single spell? In 4th and 5th editions, dedicated healers are unnecessary due to short rests and hit dice. Divine casters' spells remain versatile and powerful; it's still almost always better to finish the fight faster than waste turns healing.
In vidya, healing is more complex and challenging than most other roles. I find it more interesting than damage.
Does anyone have an example of a game where a dedicated healer is necessary and boring?
>Every DnD style game has them practically as an necessity.
Not really.
It was a necessity in the old days because it was the only way to heal quickly, with dm-fiat workarounds as usual, but the game was a mess anyway.
3-to-3.pf, there were wands of cure light wounds, and healing in combat was considered a bad use of your action. For all the suck of those editions, that's a good mechanic - no in combat healing, easy full heals out of combat, and there can be no grind. Keep the grind to the crpgs.
4e and 5e are more grind-friendly, you can avoid it with some system mastery, easily in 4e (just go with an aggressive leader, and keep healing for emergencies), with a bit more effort in 5e.
Question:
>Do people actually like playing healers?
Answer:
>Only in 4e.
Do you even read?
when they find someone else to play with, yeah.
>people only like playing healers in 4e
That's hilariously wrong.
In 3.5, Clerics and Druids were the most powerful. Ever heard the term CoDzilla? They were nuts, just completely bonkers, which admittedly made them a lot of fun to play.
In 5e, the classes that can fill the group's healing needs are bards, paladins, druids, and clerics. They are all very solid, excellent in a fight, and have some of the best out-of-combat utility options. They're a blast.
What people like to play will necessarily vary from group to group, but my groups never have trouble filling the healer role. Current group has a cleric AND a druid, just because they're fun to play.
Nah they won't we're all good friends and family and been playing for over 10 years we just treat the blackmail like catan
Yeah, healing classes have always been an interesting option.
Personally, I like how 5e did bards, since they're the best buffers in the game, make fairly competent healers, can blast enemies with fire almost as well as a wizard, can be fairly decent at combat if you want them to and are half-decent skillmonkeys, especially with social skills.
It's just a shame the other classes aren't quite as good, although all of them are fairly fun, except the ranger. Elemental monks are pretty bad too, but a well-built monk using another subclass is brilliant (especially at low levels) and even fighters/barbarians can be fun without being using weeaboo fightan magic.
>Join a party
>Everyone can heal.
>The GM makes the enemy Boss monster can an anti healing area spell, what do you do?
>anti healing
He casts Inflict Wounds or paralyses ability to heal?
I've tried being the healer twice. In one game, I was the sole healer in the party and I kept trying to come up with clever uses of my spells to avoid needing to heal in the first place (turns out Stone Shape is a very good spell if you're playing in a cave).
In another game, I was a Bard in a party consisting of me, a Fighter, and a Paladin, and so far I've been running out of spells trying to find clever solutions to our problems (ironically, I'm the only one who's needed major healing so far specifically because of my attempted trickery).
I like being support, as a general thing, and in tabletop RPGs it's rarely very hard to get a character that can both heal and do other cool shit.
>an necessity.
Please a hero
>sling spells on part with the wizard
Not quite... they couldn't blast as well as an arcane caster, since most of their blasting spells were alignment locked, low damage, or low area.
So the one thing the Cleric couldn't do as well as another class was the arguably least effective option in the game.
I always play a Healer if the option is there (usually it's either not or someone already got Cleric).
this guy gets it.
What I hate about having a few ways of healing is that my group gets mad if I "waste" spell slots on Bane, Bless, or guiding bolt. Like all I'm doing with cure wounds is heal 1d8 of damage, so basically the last attack you just took. Like fuck dude we can just take a short rest after the fight instead.
>People play characters that can't do anything except heal
>Wonder why their playstyle is so one dimensional and boring
I've never had this problem, mostly because I like my martial/healer hybrids.
Those niggas need to buy themselves some potions.
I enjoy playing a healer. Of course, I never just heal.
My most recent character is a Sorcerer/Oracle/Mystic Theurge. Spell progression is a bit stunted, sure, but I can cast a ridiculous number of spells per day and the only stat I need to pump up is charisma.
It's fun. Party face in town, cult leader in our base, healer when people are injured, buffer before fights, debuffer during fights. I always have something to do.
>martial/healer hybrids
Healing meatshields are the best meatshields. Better hope at least one other person can cast at least a simple cure though.
...What? Using healing in combat is already a poor use of a caster's time. That's like asking "this encounter doesn't allow grappling, WHAT WILL THE FIGHTER DO???"
The druid calls lightning and turns into a bear, the cleric summons angry ghosts and a flying sword, the bard uses crowd control abilities, and the paladin smites shit. Exactly as if the boss had no anti-healing ability.
In the setting I play in there is no magical healing, but potions are readily available.
It means the clerics and druids of the world focus on handing out buffs etc.
The exception being a paladin who's from another dimension or someshit who can still lay on hands.
Yes, Been playing one recently and it's been fun
I mostly play healer in both MMORPGs and TTRPGs, it's kind of like a hate/love relationship. I like playing healer because it's usually the most demanded party role which means it's easy to find people to play with, but dislike getting yelled at, trying to meet impossible demands, etc. If you're good you can even get decent offensive stats.
Basically, yes I like playing healer and actually don't mind helping the DM out by managing players' inventories and money. It makes me feel like I'm needed.
>that spoiler
DELET THIS
>lewd healer gets really shy about their wanton nature
That's adorable.
I will delete it when you stop being tsundere, deal?
I like playing a healer, because they're basically jesus.
Like, nobody gets a cult stronger than the healer.
>Do people actually like playing healers?
Out of frustration after a previous TPK, I played a "healbot" cleric (life cleric, healer feat) in 5e. Much to my surprise, I really enjoyed it.
My party members were grateful and thanked me when I healed them or removed their conditions. Even the DM felt like we were next to invincible, partly because of huge sustainable damage output from other PCs (significantly helped by my bless spells), and partly because my cleric kept them standing even when they took several times their max hp in damage.
Before we had a healer, our party was running on fumes around the third or fourth fight in a day, and we routinely got stomped on by major villains because we simply did not have the health or spells to fight them. After I made a healer, we could last through the recommended 6-8 encounters and actually defeat the boss-monsters for once.
Also I got really into the roleplaying. Like with any character idea, it's what you make of it.
warlord, psion, thrallherd, arguably sorceror
War leaders and finite mind control.
I've got a WHOLE RELIGION
>chainmail addon
>od&d
>3 or so versions of basic
>ad&d 1 and 2
>3 and 3.5
>4
>5
>That picture
The caduceus is not a symbol of medicine. It is a symbol of messengers and commerce. The asklepion is the symbol of medicince.
Yes I mad.
Define "playing a healer". 3.x edition Clerics had a metric fuckton of utility to go along with their healing spells, for example.
>I've got a WHOLE RELIGION
But user, religion with most numerous following (to date) was founded by a warlord.
>recommended 6-8 encounters per day
Hang on, what? How quickly are fights over in 5e? Even if it's half an hour per entire combat, that's an entire session doing nothing but fights.
Well, duh, it's D&D after all.
>How quickly are fights over in 5e?
I don't time them, but they go pretty fast. Most sessions, we do something like
>do lore stuff in town, talk to people
>go out to do a quest
>encounter on the way to the quest
>several small fights
>boss fight
>maybe a fight on the way back
But yeah, people like having fantasy dungeon murder in their RP, so that's what they get.
That's so my fetish
Are you by any chance cute grill GMT +1 ?
Sorry It's just a fetish.
I don't mind it, the trick is to have an actual character behind the healbot who's fun to roleplay.
My healers include:
>Father Roland O'laurel "The Good Father", Cleric of Pelor
>Thaddeus Caine, Plague doctor wizard and alchemist extraordinaire.
>Prancing Priscilla, the crazed old witch, talk behind your back and she'll turn you into a weasel.
>Amaranth, elven druidess, actually a polymorphed adder, loves riddles.
>Even the DM felt like we were next to invincible
It's because it's true. 5e PCs can max out their AC pretty early (the ones that can't are meat-tanks), and Cleric with a healing-word can pick anyone up if they somehow, against the odds, get taken down. Having anyone with healing word is fucking cheat mode in 5e.
>Having anyone with healing word is fucking cheat mode in 5e.
[user you're replying to here]
I just started GMing an OSR game after playing 5e for years. I'm so glad that being beaten in combat actually has a consequence or two instead of just
>Oh no the bad guys spent 5 turn cycles slowly wearing through my extremely generous AC and hit points
>I'm down, time to make 7 more rolls over the course of further turn cycles to determine if I actually die
>Oh wait no I don't, I'm up again before those are rolled.
>Everything's OK, I'm at full power, the cleric didn't even have to stop attacking to get me back up
>those repeated concussions don't really sting that much
Like you have to fuck up so badly to die in 5e it's amazing
I mean, 4e at least limited your heal/combat to 1/person + two for te entire fucking combat. And THAT was called "padded sumo". 5e character are so fucking padded after level 5 that it's like katamari's rolling at each other.
Just be Good/Neutral and remember that you have Channel energy to spend on that healing. Assuming PF rather than 3.5
Even if it's 3.5 you still have the option to spontaneously cast all "Cure" spells and should never prepare them as they are in a sense always prepared
It's almost like 5e was intended to be a game about roleplaying heroic daring-do and saving the day, and not storming the Orc infested beaches of Normandy or something.
Seriously, they make TTRPGs or even TT miniatures games for that grisly shit.
You can do that even with Good aligned characters as long as the setting is well detailed and believable. Not many gods would appreciate using heavy grade magic for free to heretics and non-believers. Even the good ones should require obeisances and sacrifices to represent their gratitude to both the cleric and god in question.
Just good gods may allow credit lines to be extended. Easier to get the big ticket items then requiring funds on hand. :D.
This is a list of people who think healing surges in 4e are retarded.
>People who (by RAW) made a wand of infinite cure light wounds
>People who made rings that granted permanent fast healing 1
>People who bought 6128 healing potions
>People who exploited healing in general
>People who don't play 4e (after the math fix)
Honestly, there should be an upper limit to how much healing a living thing can handle before it starts to suffer adverse effects.
What games are you playing? Are you sure you actually play tabletop roleplaying games and aren't just talking about your MMO experiences?
"DnD style games" don't have that except maybe 4e. Clerics will always be at least somewhat fighty or able to cast other spells because you can only cast so many Cure Wounds and Channel Energy. Nothing "dissentives" you from using other options, it's very rare you'll be forced to heal every round like an MMO healer.
Attaching an NPC healer to the party is a good idea /if nobody wants to be a Cleric or Bard or a Druid at all/ for some reason, but it's definitely not mandatory in any game I know of.
the caduceus is what america uses for medicine, it's plastered over all the medical shit in the military and everything. rest assured that most medical professionals realize that it's wrong.
Of course. I main Mercy, and she's a blast.
Mei is bae?
More like Mercy is ... uh... bae.
I liked healing surges and 4e. They really expanded on the "hp are luck, morale and endurance, not meat points" idea and they limited healing.
Only have 5 surges? looks like you can only heal 5 times today, for a max possible amount of (whatever your surge value is).
My players went through a few sessions of CR appropriate encounters and always had a few surges left over even after spending them at any opportunity.
Then they got lost in the wilderness and failed check after check. Can't sleep tonight because hounded by wolves? lose a healing surge. Misidentified those berries and puked your guts out? lost a healing surge. Fucked up crossing the river and got swept down stream? buddy, your bruised and exhausted from trying not to drown.
Then at the end of the day when the direbears attack and you have no way of healing, that boring "you're lost, roll a nature check" has actually transformed into an engaging event with palpable results, and that typically easy direbears encounter has the weight of a boss battle.
>the caduceus is what america uses for medicine
But it's not wrong, in the states, medicine is the biggest commerce.
>OP is a /v/tard who has never played a trpg and is just talking off his ass
>90 posts
Look, i'm a tank.
I have to post in healer threads no matter how shitty because it's my job to keep them alive.
People being bored is mostly the result of poorly balanced healing resources and monster damage outputs that make healing feel like a useless action.
Healing in combat in 3.X is pretty much useless due to how poorly each spell scales vs incoming damage.
At first level, a Cleric (20 Wis) can cast at the most 3 Cure Minor Wounds (heal 1 hp) and 4 Cure Light Wounds (1d8+1; 4.5 hp ave) spells. A common Goblin deals 1-6 (1d6; 3.5 hp ave) damage with its morningstar and 3 Goblins are considered a CR 1 combat. This means that after about 6 hits the Cleric is out of healing resources for the day and has consumed 7 actions in order to negate the damage taken.
At 10th level, a Cleric (22 Wis) can cast at the most 6 Cure Minor Wounds (1 hp), 7 Cure Light Wounds (1d8+5; 9.5 ave hp), 7 Cure Moderate Wounds (2d8+9; 18 hp ave), 5 Cure Serious Wounds (3d8+9; 22.5 hp ave), 5 Cure Critical Wounds (4d8+9; 27 hp ave) and 4 Mass Cure Light Wounds (1d8+9 to up to 9 targets; 13.5 hp ave per target). In comparison a juvenile Red Dragon can Full Attack for up to 65.5 damage ave (Bite: 2d6+9, Claws x2: (1d8+4)x2, Wing Slap x2: (1d6+4)x2, Tail Slap: 1d8+13) or uses its Breath Weapon to inflict a 44 ave (8d10) damage per target if they fail their saves. A Cleric needs to spend 3 actions and their highest level resources on average to negate the average damage dealt by one of the dragons actions.
it is wrong, and it was adopted because retards couldn't tell the difference between the rod of asclepius and the caduceus
D&D isn't the only TTRPG out there you fucking retard
there is an obscure homebrew game I found scribbled in a notebook I looted off a dead hobo on a train station where healer classes work exactly the same way as in MMOs
this means that the healer bullying meme is Veeky Forums and that's it
I think it's mostly because the caduceus is symmetrical, while the actual staff is not, it looks better on logos.
I'll bite, what are you referring to?
>there is an obscure homebrew game I found scribbled in a notebook I looted off a dead hobo on a train station where healer classes work exactly the same way as in MMOs
Shit, I think I knew that guy.
RIP, Ed. Your PCP-fueled raving anger was the best.
not him but obviously Islam
R.I.P, Tony Jay.