If you’re playing a cleric like a walking bandage dispenser, you’ve already failed. Cleric is one of the most stacked classes in the game and you’re out here casting Cure Wounds like it’s your full-time job. Stop it. Ideal cleric starts with domain choice, and no, not just “what heals good.” You pick a domain that actually does something. Tempest? You’re a thunder god with anger issues. Light? Walking war crime. Grave? You bully death itself. Even Life domain isn’t boring if you lean into being an unkillable frontline anchor instead of a potion with legs. Next: mindset. You’re not a medic, you’re a problem solver with divine backing. Your spell list is absurd. If you’re not wading into enemies like a holy lawnmower at least once per session, what are you even doing? Play your cleric like a champion of a god, not a nurse with a spell slot problem.
>yaay he posted it again yeah
>>97927967If you're still playing D&Dogshit in 2026, you've already failed.
>>97927967What if I WANT to be the team nurse?
>>97927967Isn't it life domain that bullies Death? Isn't being a bandage dispenser bullying Death?Clerics are radically overpowered in every version of Dildos & Dogshit I've ever seen, but that's why I nerf them until the only thing they can do and the only thing they are allowed to do is heal people. After fixing the problem, I stopped seeing people playing Clerics at my table, and that's how I like it.Religions are boring, and players never depict an actual priest anyway. They just see the insane package of overpowered mechanics and completely ignore the setting and mythos and tenets of whatever religion they claim their character belongs to.Neutering them is the best thing that has happened to my table since I banned the paladin and druid. My games are so much healthier for it, the players are happier without the constant bullshit and drama and class balance jealousy, and the stories are more meaningful when players can't just assume that someone will spend two actions to undo everything. There's real consequence and risk finally.And the ultimate irony? All it took was forcing clerics to only heal. They still can do all the healing... but now no one wants to do it.I invite readers of this shitshow puckee thread to ponder what that means.
Here's the thing about in-combat healing (assuming you're talking about D&D 5e; if I'm wrong SPECIFY THE GAME), it's a waste of resources.Let's say your healing character brings a front-line combatant (like a barbarian) up from near 0. Next up is a goblin, scores a crit that not only deals more damage than what was healed, but takes the barbarian to 0. The cleric wasted his spell slot & his turn, now nobody else can help the barbarian because there's 3 other party members & 10 goblins.Healing can be so easily worked around, it's a fucking trap (and not the good kind). Even when every heal brings its target back to full health, the cleric isn't contributing to ending the encounter.I think a good solution to this issue (ignoring D&D 5e's excess of other issues) is to consolidate the cleric's healing spells into free hit dice they can spread around during short and long rests, or enabling them to cast healing as a bonus action.I think in-combat healing works better for games that allow taunting and forcing movement. There are some class features and spells that cause forced movemen in D&D, but this isn't a prominent tactic. Imagine if all unarmed strikes had the side effect of moving their targets in some way? The team could actively get enemies away from someone desperately in need of a heal.What if, instead of some specific kind of fighter (or paladin?) needing a shield while being at a specific level while gargling chocolate pudding on a Wednesday, every character had a reaction skill that gave them a chance to impede the movement of an enemy? There would be a much better way to keep enemies away while the cleric waited for his turn.What if there was a way to draw the ire of enemies, without needing to beg the DM for a persuasion or performance check or whatever?Oh, no, but taunts, zoning, and halting? THAT'S VIDEO GAMES. PLAY A VIDEO GAME. YOU JUST WANT A VIDEO GAME.Fuck off.Not that you give a shit, you just wanted to post that image.
>>97927967Wow, thanks puckee. What a great and totally not artificial thread you've created here, I hope the advertisers think of this as normal and organic!
Fuck off.
>>97928125Yes, you failed at having a brain roll, nogames.
>>97928125Second post best post/thread
>>97927967>Playing any class except Wizard in Dumbshit & Dumpster-FiresYou have already failed.
>>97929134More like /tard.
>>97928138Then run celestial warlock
>>97927967>look guys I referenced actual D&D mechanics for once!Stop posting, puckee. You cannot salvage your reputation by pretending to actually care about RPGs now.
>>97928163Imagine not knowing how to play death-tag
>>97927967Awesome gpt-post puckster
>>97928163So I'm gonna just refer you to the old cliche that you should stop using D&D, but in full fairness to you, the problem you're describing is not specific to any system.Your problem, dear anon, is that you're treating roleplaying games as if they were video games.Stop doing that.I can lecture you at length on this particular topic if you actually want / need to listen and learn. But regardless, suffice to say that there's several alternative ways of seeing the same scenario you described without having the gamist reaction you had.
>>97930220>Anon wants to play a healer>Recommend the worst fucking "healer" in the game.DnD 5e really does cause brain-rot.
>>97929166
>>97931052Tell me you have never played a D&D campaign past level 4 without telling me you have never played a D&D campaign past level 4.
>>97931052Next time just say you're a retard.
>>97931119You just told us you've never played D&D.As it happens, I don't use D&D anymore, and I haven't bothered with any kind of WotC product for twenty years. But I began playing before you did, and I have literally tens of thousands of hours more experience playing than you do. I got paid for this, I studied, I literally wrote multiple textbooks on the subject of RPG game design.A word of advice: when someone gently mocks a silly thing you said, don't get upset and double down on it.
>>97931128That's adorable. Now show a diagram about the opportunity cost and ammunition systems involved in doing those things.
>>97931143It's funny because the opportunity cost involved in martial options is much much steeper and there are limited ways to bail yourself out of a bad choice. Could have just told us you're bad at playing casters and bad at preparing spell lists.
>>97931143The opportunity cost in 3.5 and Pathfinder especially is pretty much negative.This is especially true if you actually remember that spellcasters other than wizard exist, because you can simply play a Druid.And compared to a Fighter, a Druid has a slightly smaller hit die, slightly worse armor, and slightly worse weapons. And in exchange, they get a second character which is also a slightly worse fighter, on top of the ability to heal for more HP than the Fighter has total.And that's at level 1, where they have the least possible 'ammo' using a spell that's better suited for just buying a wand.Meanwhile the opportunity cost of choosing to play a Fighter is that you get to be marginally better at combat than the Druid's animal companion at the cost of the dozens upon dozens of spells that you'd be able to cast throughout your entire career. Having a gun with limited ammo and a shitty knife is much better than having a better knife and no gun.
>>97930879All games are defined by their rules, retard.
>>97931143Wow yeah you're right, casters can be relevant to the game three times a day, and fighters can be relevant never! True real balance, you've opened my eyes, shit for brains!
>>97931900Martialsissy persecution complex is reaching levels of hysteria previously thought impossible.
>>97931909I don't play martials, and you don't have a counterargument, because I'm right.
>>97931143I have never ever seen a caster actually worry about spell slots after level 5. 99% of DMs only run 1-3 combats in a day, not the the 6-8 they're supposed to run to actually make the casters sweat.
>>97930879>video games reeeYou were already predicted. You may go now.
>>97932318And if they did, the casters wouldn't "sweat", the party would just wipe. Fighters do not have any ability to meaningfully interact with expected opposition past like level 3 without the casters wasting all their spell slots allowing them to be relevant.
>>97931900Yeah, no one's ever used a sword in sword-and-sorcery fantasy. Why would you even bother. It's not like swords are useful for anything. Just make the wizard do it. That's all wizards are good for anyway, sparing the warrior the tedium of needing to lift a finger.
>>97931917Looks like you got your assclitty punched in and exposed for being a hemorrhoid. Plug it up, sis!
>>97932318>>97933178
>>97933469Yes, games aren't stories, so the fighter doesn't have the benefit of the author setting up everything in just such a way as to allow him to be relevant. Thanks for noticing.
>>97933131Child. Pull out of your mother's shitter and go do the dishes.
>>97933475>>97933480Yep, no argument. Thanks for agreeing with me again.
>>97933489You've never played an RPG before. We know, you don't have to keep telling us. Go play with your little spells or whatever.
>>97933501Yeah, the guy who keeps talking about books instead of games is the one who plays games. Lol.An Allip is CR 3, so it is an appropriate encounter for four 3rd level adventurers.In a party of a cleric, wizard, druid, and fighter, which class features does the fighter have that allow him to be relevant in this encounter?
>>97933524You're gonna have a lot of fun when you find out what "pen and paper" games are written in.
>>97933501Thanks for agreeing with me again.
>>97933527Thanks for agreeing with me again.
>>97933527Can't name a class feature? You're conceding the argument?
>>97933524How do you deal with golems?And why are you using D&D?There's supposed to be, what, 6 - 10 encounters in between sleeping to recover spells? So that's literally about 80 mooks in total? How are you dealing with all of them?Look, here's how we know you've never played a game: you've never had a party of nothing but "casters" as you call them. Go try that and think about the experience afterwards.Good luck getting a group, though. There's a reason you've never played the game.
>>97933546Can't name a class feature? You're conceding the argument?
>>97933534You're doing it wrong, idiot.
>>97933544You're getting crushed, dude. Stop. You're shitting up the thread with your panic attack. No one cares if you like playing casters. Go play your casters.
>>97933554How is the caster dealing with the golem? You can't name a class feature? You're conceding the argument. Go think about what just happened to you here.
>>97933557>>97933561>>97933569Can't name a class feature? You're conceding the argument?
>>97933569Fly, Teleport, Shapechange, Summon Monster, Incendiary Cloud, Orb of Force, etc. The fighter can't kill a clay golem btw. A wizard can. So are you going to name a class feature?
>>97933561You're the one getting destroyed, retard.
>>97932318That makes sense seeing how you never played anything.
>>97933626Ironic.
>>97933569well?
>>97927967Puck off, fuckee.
>>97933569Can't name a class feature? You're conceding the argument?
>>97933627No u
>>97927967>You pick a domainStop Reading here
>>97931140This is the biggest load of "My dad works at Nintendo"-tier fake bullshit I have seen in awhile.
>>97933544>>97933554>>97933611>>97933671>>97933723
>>97931140Proofs?
>he somehow managed to make a fuckee thread even worse
>still can't name a class feature
>>97931140You're the one who said silly bullshit and doubled down. Your position is wrong. Mine is correct.
>>97934375You're the one who said silly bullshit and doubled down. Your position is wrong. Mine is correct.
>>97934368>still can't name a class feature>>97934184>pamming a puckee thread even more often than puckee spams threadsWhew, boy, go pick up some xanny for that panic disorder.
>>97927967Kill yourself redditor
>>97927967>in the game>implying D&D 5e is THE gamekys
>>97927967>Stop having fun wrongOnly if you stop reposting this fucking thread
>>97935610Nope. Reply if I'm right :)
>>97935619>still can't name a class feature
>>97935860>still can't name a class feature
>>97935928>still can't name a class feature
>>97927967My Cleric has the War, Law (traded away for Law Devotion), Sun, and Healing Domains.His hobbies are "sword" and "fuck the undead", and his spell list is mainly group buffs, utility, Ice Slick (aka Holy Grease), ammunition for Channel Spell, and two castings of Heal, although he also heals people by hitting motherfuckers thanks to the Martial Spirit Stance and Revitalizing Strike Maneuver.One of his favorite moves is having his Celestial Raven move into flanking position so that he can teleport to an enemy using the Knight's Move spell.He's not as much of a swiss army knife as the Bard Sublime Chord or even the Wizard, but he's still crazy flexible, and fun as fuck to play as.
Cleric is only stacked because when they introduced Paladin to be a Cleric/Fighter hybrid, they forgot to bust down Cleric's chassis into a d4 hitdie, .5 BAB, no weapon or armor proficiency Wizard-parallel to make sure they were different. So there's really two Paladins, but one of them gets level 9 spells and, in an edition when caster level was not class level, full potency progression.
>>97927967dnd healing pretty much boils down to-are they on the ground bleeding out? heal them-do they have at least 1 hit point? dont healits so fucking binary. the combination of ups and downs and mobs almost always 1 shotting with any hit that connects means its never worth it to gradually heal players, a player at 25% health and 75% health have effectively the same amount of health, since a club from an ogre or a breath from a dragon will 1 shot them at either value, and heals get relegated to "are they down or not" and the whole game is played around 0 or 1 hit point. the only time this hasnt been the case was 4e who's damage and healing profiles actually fucking worked, or other adaptations that use different health tracking systems like lancers 4e adaptation which impliments a mix of health, and random destruction tables along with repair and shielding mechanics that are substantial. but healing in dnd is otherwise basically not a thing
>>97927967Traditional games?
>>97936788I almost thought you might have a point until you mentioned Lancer, which has an even more retarded healing system because everyone is carrying around several legit full-heals that they can use in the middle of combat.You Lancer fags are so desperate for a "win" on an anonymous basket weaving forum that you spout this retarded shit without even listening to yourselves. Absolute brain rot.
>>97936525>.5 BABIf we are talking 3.x, they didn't really forget. It was a result of the busted ass playtest.They thought the Druid was a weak class because the playtester kept attacking things with a scimitar for example, IIRC.And they did release the Cloistered Cleric as a variant later on, and that thing is even more busted thanks to receiving some extra shit while having access to all the same buffs and multiclassing.The Cleric's chassis is nice, but it's hardly the source of its power ceiling I think.Also, the Paladin's been a Cleric/Fighter hybrid since 2e right?Before that it was a sort of Fighter kit/prestige class kind of deal, I think?The Cleric was a half combatant from the get go too, IIRC.
>>97935642Yes, it's the world's greatest roleplaying game.
