A Cleric Tied to a chair

[Karavek]

My experience differs from Karavek entirely. Clerics were ALWAYS the healers in our PnP games. Spontaneous was added, from my perspective, so that clerics could use spells for something other than healing, otherwise if you memorized too few heal spells it could wipe the party. I also always played with very tough DMs who ran their own content rather than modules, if there wasn't a cleric in the party they would adjust content. If there was, most fights required perfect strategy (because he knew we could) and good healing just to survive. All too often we needed to be in 3 parts of the world at once, so spending 3 days healing up wasn't an option, and new and creative ways to travel were always surfacing. We rarely had money to blow on 1 shots and our GMs rarely continued a game past 12th level because the characters became too super-heroish past that point. But one thing was always clear... the party was more powerful with a healer than without.

sorry but its clear from what you describe your DM was anything but tough.

A tough AKA Killer Gm like myself for example is the nightmare of holy trinity mindset players. This is because a good DM if running smart enemies will use things like assassination to remove anything so obvious as a healer. First time the so called healer undoes hard earned injuries on the party that cleric is marked for death by the PTB they dare to face.

Likewise a properly played cleric wont offer heals to those not of his faith, without forcing you t0o convert to their faith anyways. THis is a key aspect of role playing a cleric few who did ever embraced. they felt uncomfortable trying to push their religion even a fantasy one onto their fellow players. First time a dwarf cleric tried to heal an elf player he lost all his powers until he killed that elf. His dwarven gawd who was lawful good was that offended by abusing his powers.

Finally a good DM doesnt balk at high lvl adventure, he embraces it as the time he can finally wipe out the party in a heroic fashion without any guilt.

I cut my end game DM teeth in 2nd ed on a lovely little module called the apocalypse stone. a story with a plot that tricks the party into triggering the end of the world, and NO WAY to stop it. With some fun suggestions at the end in how to run a post apocalyptic fantasy campaign in which the party now wanders the land as cursed death knights much like the infamous lord soth of krynn.

A dm who allows players easy access to healing magic is about as opposite of tough as wet tissue imo. If the party is badly injured and you for the sake of plot need them to be healed that is when the wandering NPC pacifist healer comes into play to offer some speedy mending of their war torn bodies. But in general a skilled DM wants his party badly injured most of the time to increase the sense of being at risk.

Ive been pretty much only a DM/GM now for close to 20 years. Ive DMed for 1st,2nd, 3E and 3E+ as well as Alternity and countless variations of D20 including my own amalgamated D20 that brings together the best of the various D20 systems.

Healing is the ONE thing that smart DMs always limited and hold tight reigns on if they want to keep the party off balance and feeling like death is just around the next bend in the road.

[Rawrargh]

sorry but its clear from what you describe your DM was anything but tough.

A tough AKA Killer Gm like myself for example is the nightmare of holy trinity mindset players. This is because a good DM if running smart enemies will use things like assassination to remove anything so obvious as a healer. First time the so called healer undoes hard earned injuries on the party that cleric is marked for death by the PTB they dare to face.

Likewise a properly played cleric wont offer heals to those not of his faith, without forcing you t0o convert to their faith anyways. THis is a key aspect of role playing a cleric few who did ever embraced. they felt uncomfortable trying to push their religion even a fantasy one onto their fellow players. First time a dwarf cleric tried to heal an elf player he lost all his powers until he killed that elf. His dwarven gawd who was lawful good was that offended by abusing his powers.

Finally a good DM doesnt balk at high lvl adventure, he embraces it as the time he can finally wipe out the party in a heroic fashion without any guilt.

I cut my end game DM teeth in 2nd ed on a lovely little module called the apocalypse stone. a story with a plot that tricks the party into triggering the end of the world, and NO WAY to stop it. With some fun suggestions at the end in how to run a post apocalyptic fantasy campaign in which the party now wanders the land as cursed death knights much like the infamous lord soth of krynn.

A dm who allows players easy access to healing magic is about as opposite of tough as wet tissue imo. If the party is badly injured and you for the sake of plot need them to be healed that is when the wandering NPC pacifist healer comes into play to offer some speedy mending of their war torn bodies. But in general a skilled DM wants his party badly injured most of the time to increase the sense of being at risk.

Ive been pretty much only a DM/GM now for close to 20 years. Ive DMed for 1st,2nd, 3E and 3E+ as well as Alternity and countless variations of D20 including my own amalgamated D20 that brings together the best of the various D20 systems.

Healing is the ONE thing that smart DMs always limited and hold tight reigns on if they want to keep the party off balance and feeling like death is just around the next bend in the road.

good for you, have fun in your pnp groups, but you have completely lost touch with the way ddo plays. I suggest you take a break from imposing your will upon these forums... Maybe try playing the actual game (DDO, not pnp) because the things you've posted is so out of whack that I can't help but think you're just trolling.

[Aashrym]

sorry but its clear from what you describe your DM was anything but tough.

A tough AKA Killer Gm like myself for example is the nightmare of holy trinity mindset players. This is because a good DM if running smart enemies will use things like assassination to remove anything so obvious as a healer. First time the so called healer undoes hard earned injuries on the party that cleric is marked for death by the PTB they dare to face.

Likewise a properly played cleric wont offer heals to those not of his faith, without forcing you t0o convert to their faith anyways. THis is a key aspect of role playing a cleric few who did ever embraced. they felt uncomfortable trying to push their religion even a fantasy one onto their fellow players. First time a dwarf cleric tried to heal an elf player he lost all his powers until he killed that elf. His dwarven gawd who was lawful good was that offended by abusing his powers.

Finally a good DM doesnt balk at high lvl adventure, he embraces it as the time he can finally wipe out the party in a heroic fashion without any guilt.

I cut my end game DM teeth in 2nd ed on a lovely little module called the apocalypse stone. a story with a plot that tricks the party into triggering the end of the world, and NO WAY to stop it. With some fun suggestions at the end in how to run a post apocalyptic fantasy campaign in which the party now wanders the land as cursed death knights much like the infamous lord soth of krynn.

A dm who allows players easy access to healing magic is about as opposite of tough as wet tissue imo. If the party is badly injured and you for the sake of plot need them to be healed that is when the wandering NPC pacifist healer comes into play to offer some speedy mending of their war torn bodies. But in general a skilled DM wants his party badly injured most of the time to increase the sense of being at risk.

Ive been pretty much only a DM/GM now for close to 20 years. Ive DMed for 1st,2nd, 3E and 3E+ as well as Alternity and countless variations of D20 including my own amalgamated D20 that brings together the best of the various D20 systems.

Healing is the ONE thing that smart DMs always limited and hold tight reigns on if they want to keep the party off balance and feeling like death is just around the next bend in the road.

Well, I would have to disagree because:

1) It's not the DM's job to kill the party. The idea is to provide entertainment and develop storyline with suitable challenge that the players will overcome. Killing off the healing because he's healing invalidates abilities provided to him by the game mechanics. If he's overwhelmed to the point he can't protect himself he should have some option available for strategy or you've gone overboard and need to soften up on him with some blind luck added or an intervening incident of some sort. Killer DM'ing is not part of the game.

2) The cleric's god provides healing to ease the suffering of others. Promoting religious recruitment is okay but refusing to provide healing is refusing to use the gifts from the gods for their intended purposes and falls under alignment issues. A good cleric doesn't refuse to aid another who needs it based on moral differences, let alone refuses to help their friends and companions in times of need, and also let alone to help with the completion of an important mission that could ultimately fail without that aid. Not using the gifts provided to meet the goals needed and help others because a lawful good fighter worships a war god instead of a sun god would be ridiculous. Refusing that healing to force behavior would be an attempt to control and subjugate others, leaning towards lawful evil behavior and much more serious issues for the cleric.

The reason few embrace that "key aspect of playing a cleric" was because it's not correct in the first place.

[Myrrae]

Likewise a properly played cleric wont offer heals to those not of his faith, without forcing you t0o convert to their faith anyways.

I believe 3.5 Forgotten Realms disagrees with this, seeing as they added "Faith Healing(MoF p93) – Cures 8 hp +1/level
damage (max +5) to worshiper of your patron." to give an added benefit when you healed members of your faith - which rather assumes that clerics will be healing non-members.

The whole point of gaming is for everyone to have fun, not to decide who is a 'smart' GM based on arbitrary criteria involving healing. Which really doesn't reflect either way on an MMO like DDO since I don't believe that running around almost dead adds to the enjoyment of the game. (There was actually a video game where every time you died, you ended up not being able to raise your hit points above max until you killed a boss... I remember thinking that was a very strange design).

[Manatha]

I agree with most of your above post. I just wanted to quibble with the two paragraphs I cited.

(1) Yes, Barbarians may well pull aggro when they shouldn't. That does not excuse them from making an effort, or at least not compounding the problem with +threat enhancements. Or, if they decide they want the +threat stuff, they need to take steps to improve avoidance, mitigation, and healing amp in order to not bog down the party by sucking down all available healing resources.

If you choose build options that deliberately get you aggro but fail to plan for survival once you get it, you're stupid...regardless of how many fellow idiots are running around out there with you. Popular is not the same as smart...just look at Paris Hilton.


(2) The scarcity of tanks and the scarcity of healers is not an unrelated phenomenon. The full-******, healsponge DPS type may frustrate a healer, but he infuriates a tank. When every Tardbarian on the planet is using an Epic Claw set, why bother even TRYING to hold aggro?

True tanks disappeared en masse, right about the time Intimidate got nerfed into near-uselessness. What you'll see nowadays are mostly fighter-monks or paladin-monks with lots of PRR from stances and feats. They don't turtle, but they still trade DPS for a lot of mitigation.

Many tanky builds I see these days will multiclass for self sufficiency and take up a soloing career. It's easier to build a viable soloing toon at the tank end of the curve than at the squishy-but-high-DPS end. Torc and Conc Opp give far too much endurance to a self-healing tank for any self-healing Barbarian/Rogue type to compete.

This is true... I was speaking to the concept that barbarians can build to tank, provided they take all the steps to ensure they have everything they can to mitigate damage (Just as, surprisingly, rogues can build to tank outside of raids - it just isnt always the best idea and I've rarely seen it done).

I remember the intim nerf and the fact it had us stop swinging to do a silly looking animation that irritated the hell out of my cleric's partner. I continued to level that cleric for another 2 levels after he quit then stopped. She's been paused waiting for him to decide if he wants to get back into the game since then (and she's become my static VoN runner for at level with guild when I have no others available).

She's still fun to play, but doesnt level. Thus the other cleric I raised, and the two FvS I've been playing around with (and now a druid healer XD)

There is one tank I recall having seen recently and he's on all of my healer's friends lists - he has so much healing amp my clw was hitting him for 100+ without being a crit in epics (Forget his level, but I remember him being 20~). It was the first time in a long time I'd seen someone actually tank with everything needed for it.

So really... we have two issues with healers - one, that people expect the heals to do nothing but healbot. Second, tanking is nolonger attractive, which means threat goes wild and the squishiest, most damaging person in the group is going to have everything ****ed at them.


The player base that feels the need to turn caps lock on and scream '*** HEAL ME!!!!1!1' just makes it all that much worse and encourages the BYOH/Divine only madness.

@Myrrae
That makes me think of Guild Wars. They had a design where every death brought you down -2%, a boss kill would give you +2% or mitigate the death penalties you'd already suffered.

[Myrrae]

@Myrrae
That makes me think of Guild Wars. They had a design where every death brought you down -2%, a boss kill would give you +2% or mitigate the death penalties you'd already suffered.

Did it wear off with time, or did you have to get a boss kill to remove it?

I think in MMO terms the one that I was 100% sure wouldn't last was EQ II and group xp debt. That is, whenever someone in your party died, it would take you more xp to level. Although it would wear off if you logged out and didn't play for long enough.

There's another take... "HEAL ME OR LOSE XP!" I definitely do agree that if you want a healbot strapped to your back you should buy a hireling. Just keep them out of lava pits. (I've noticed that Heystack likes to stand in the lava in Servants of the Overlord by the fire reaver named and yell that he needs healing)

[Karavek]

Did it wear off with time, or did you have to get a boss kill to remove it?

I think in MMO terms the one that I was 100% sure wouldn't last was EQ II and group xp debt. That is, whenever someone in your party died, it would take you more xp to level. Although it would wear off if you logged out and didn't play for long enough.

There's another take... "HEAL ME OR LOSE XP!" I definitely do agree that if you want a healbot strapped to your back you should buy a hireling. Just keep them out of lava pits. (I've noticed that Heystack likes to stand in the lava in Servants of the Overlord by the fire reaver named and yell that he needs healing)

In GW1 you suffer a % penalty to your max life and energy each time you die. Been I while but I think its around 10%. If you kill a boss you get a 2% buff or reduce the current penalty by 2%. Bosses in GW are not the big baddies they are here. In GW each mob even the ones people would refer to as trash mobs are capable of doing real harm. Difficulty there was based on actual tactical challenge and approaching it would practical application of various skills. I freely and with no shame admit GW is so challenging I as a casual on and off player there since the launch of its first chapter still have yet to beat any of its campaigns with any character. Yet unlike here on DDo never once felt I lost due to poor game balance or cheap mechanics like bloated HP or excessive damage forcing players to meta game at the very beginning of character creation.

There Monks are the main healer class, but actually have 3 sub focusses one for healings, one for damage prevention and one for dmg. most 8 man missions against challenging content brought one healer and one protector back in year one, now days with other classes like ritualist the healing role is more broadened. Meanwhile in PvP where being a monk puts a huge target on you, monk assassins who spec to evade and survive become defacto aggro magnets who are hard to put down, as most spikers like sins will go all out trying to catch a healer using their very own tricks against them.

If you never tried it try picking up guild wars prophecies the first chapter, its all of 20 bucks any more, has no monthly fee, and I promise will provide its costs value in time exploring a well rendered world with rich lore, and trying out alot of different skill comboes to find one right for you on the class you prefer. Hell it even can lead to benefits in GW2 I hear, although due to NC Soft ****ing me off over their klling of city of heroes I am currently on the no GW2 for me bandwagon. Kind sad cus for years I was waiting on GW2 and looking forward to it ebing my new main MMO. well maybe THe Everscrolls online will work out better.

DDO on the other hand well.....it might get better around here but my hope is long since gone.

[Rixaen]

Whats really sad is so much of this thread still holds true about player behavior towards those they deem support players during content.

[Khatzhas]

Did this really need to rise again?

Whats really sad is so much of this thread still holds true about player behavior towards those they deem support players during content.

The main assertion in it was only ever true about a minority of players, but it holds true of their behaviour towards any players they deem not as worthy as themselves.
Whether that be because they decided to play a support class, a non-self-healing class, a character that wasn't heavily optimised or whatever.

The sad fact is that their attitude particularly victimises the players new to DDO, whose only previous experience is with other MMOs or PnP D&D if any, and may drive them away before they have the chance to learn the traps and tricks of DDO.

[jalont]

Whats really sad is so much of this thread still holds true about player behavior towards those they deem support players during content.

Ugh, did you really need to raise this thread? Your point is probably wrong. "Support characters" are now inherently weaker choices to play, so people playing them probably aren't the best players in the game. It is quite possible that people seeing this behavior from others are just playing badly and that it has nothing to do with them being support characters. If you find that someone is upset with your gameplay, perhaps ask yourself, "should I be playing better"?

[Rixaen]

Ugh, did you really need to raise this thread? Your point is probably wrong. "Support characters" are now inherently weaker choices to play, so people playing them probably aren't the best players in the game. It is quite possible that people seeing this behavior from others are just playing badly and that it has nothing to do with them being support characters. If you find that someone is upset with your gameplay, perhaps ask yourself, "should I be playing better"?

yeah because when people verbally abuse others its the one being abused fault right. Just like when someone gets assaulted in the real world be it purely a beating, sexual assault or again verbal abuse its not the one doing the abusing who is to blame and need to reflect on self improvement.

Seriously you are as ignorant as ever if you believe Classes like Cleric and FVS and Druid cant compete in the DPS ring with pure warriors. Especially in a game with huge amounts of trash mobs, the more AOE and the bigger its radius of effect will always lead to superior DPS over close quarters melee types. Maybe in a single boss fight type but again the superior build is the one that can solo fight it period, any build that needs a ally or a nannybot( hireling cleric) is not an optimal build.

And as for better players, even the vast majority of self proclaimed melee specialists on these forms will if you read them long enough come out as those who really prefer to just stand there and swing at a HP punching bag like it was a candy filled pinata rather then employ the mechanics of active tactical play.

There is after all an entire current thread griping about managing clickies and wanting perma defense effects that rightfully should not be on items and kept mainly in the hands of casters.

You know what a great epic quest would be, one where all gear was removed at the start and the group had to play completely gearless. Guess what only casters and monks, and then only those who had eschew mats and focussed on fists and wisdom would last long because some classes are overly dependent on items. This is a classic PnP tactic at high lvl play to weed out the players who depend on monty haul loot levels and dont adapt well when it suddenly goes poof.

[jalont]

yeah because when people verbally abuse others its the one being abused fault right. Just like when someone gets assaulted in the real world be it purely a beating, sexual assault or again verbal abuse its not the one doing the abusing who is to blame and need to reflect on self improvement.

This game has jerks in it. Everyone that pugs has a chance to get "attacked". Divines are not special little flowers.

Seriously you are as ignorant as ever if you believe Classes like Cleric and FVS and Druid cant compete in the DPS ring with pure warriors. Especially in a game with huge amounts of trash mobs, the more AOE and the bigger its radius of effect will always lead to superior DPS over close quarters melee types. Maybe in a single boss fight type but again the superior build is the one that can solo fight it period, any build that needs a ally or a nannybot( hireling cleric) is not an optimal build.

There is nothing that a divine does that isn't done better by another class except for Druid. Optimal players want optimal builds. Divines are not optimal at anything except healing. There is no debate here.

And as for better players, even the vast majority of self proclaimed melee specialists on these forms will if you read them long enough come out as those who really prefer to just stand there and swing at a HP punching bag like it was a candy filled pinata rather then employ the mechanics of active tactical play.

There is after all an entire current thread griping about managing clickies and wanting perma defense effects that rightfully should not be on items and kept mainly in the hands of casters.

You know what a great epic quest would be, one where all gear was removed at the start and the group had to play completely gearless. Guess what only casters and monks, and then only those who had eschew mats and focussed on fists and wisdom would last long because some classes are overly dependent on items. This is a classic PnP tactic at high lvl play to weed out the players who depend on monty haul loot levels and dont adapt well when it suddenly goes poof.

I'm not sure what any of this means. I talking about managing clickies in the other thread because it's annoying. There is no challenge to having to click a clickie every seven minutes. It's just busy work. When I saw I want challenge in a game, I mean it. Managing clickies isn't challenge. Everyone should be able to do it. It's just pointless game design.

[Khatzhas]

Ugh, did you really need to raise this thread? Your point is probably wrong. "Support characters" are now inherently weaker choices to play, so people playing them probably aren't the best players in the game. It is quite possible that people seeing this behavior from others are just playing badly and that it has nothing to do with them being support characters. If you find that someone is upset with your gameplay, perhaps ask yourself, "should I be playing better"?

Depends on your definition of "support" character. Taken by pure class, Bards are in a fairly bad spot, but Artis aren't bad, and FvS, Clerics are some of the more powerful classes. Compared to several of the non-"support" classes they are currently considerably better.

Seriously you are as ignorant as ever if you believe Classes like Cleric and FVS and Druid cant compete in the DPS ring with pure warriors. Especially in a game with huge amounts of trash mobs, the more AOE and the bigger its radius of effect will always lead to superior DPS over close quarters melee types. Maybe in a single boss fight type but again the superior build is the one that can solo fight it period, any build that needs a ally or a nannybot( hireling cleric) is not an optimal build.

Indeed. Clerics, FvS and such have been given so much power, that they are able to compete with pure warriors in melee, before you start looking at the rest of their spells and class abilities. DPS differences can be minimal, but the survivability difference given by effective combat self-healing is massive.
In fact, given those advantages and the level of damage melee in high-end content exposes you to, it might be considered ignorant to suggest that warriors could compete with more self-sufficient classes in melee. Healing and magical defenses are so necessary for melee that being optimal at that and just a bit off optimal at DPS is far superior than being optimal at DPS and having no class-based source of healing or self-sufficiency.

And as for better players, even the vast majority of self proclaimed melee specialists on these forms will if you read them long enough come out as those who really prefer to just stand there and swing at a HP punching bag like it was a candy filled pinata rather then employ the mechanics of active tactical play.

I'd have to disagree with you there. As far as I can tell, most of the melee specialists play very tactically, pulling one that a time if they can't handle groups, and maneuvering when they can to avoid some attacks. Of course, by the very nature of the melee playstyle, they are required to be in attack range of the mobs in order to fight them themselves, so they have to rely on game mechanic defences such as AC rather than non game mechanic defences such as jumping, kiting and perching. That is probably where that misapprehension came from.

There is after all an entire current thread griping about managing clickies and wanting perma defense effects that rightfully should not be on items and kept mainly in the hands of casters.

Stuff like Displacement, Death Ward, Energy Resists?

You know what a great epic quest would be, one where all gear was removed at the start and the group had to play completely gearless. Guess what only casters and monks, and then only those who had eschew mats and focussed on fists and wisdom would last long because some classes are overly dependent on items. This is a classic PnP tactic at high lvl play to weed out the players who depend on monty haul loot levels and dont adapt well when it suddenly goes poof.

Ah, Yep. A fairly classic hook or incident. Ideal for a DM who wishes to drive home to some of their players the point that they picked the wrong class at character creation.

[cdbd3rd]

...
[re: DM stripping party of gear]
Ah, Yep. A fairly classic hook or incident. Ideal for a DM who wishes to drive home to some of their players the point that they picked the wrong class at character creation.

Off the topic (what there is of one), and sadly helping perpetrate activity in an undead thread...


I have to say if the reason your DM used that plot device was to force his/her will upon the players, then that DM, IMO, was a very poor choice to run the game.


Now back to your regularly scheduled bickering.


edit for PS: I remember when this thread first hit the lists, and how I'd hoped it was the start of a good fiction story thread. Alas...