What do you do if the party dosen't bring a healer?

[Ozreth]

About to run my first session of Expedition to Greyhawk today. Turns out the party decided not to bring a cleric...or any other type of healer for that matter. The person who stalled on actually joining the game was going to be one but didn't for some reason.

Anyways, I'm thinking I could just add extra healing potions to all of the drops. OR I could just let people die here and there (which Im sure will happen anyways, this module looks tough) for their ignorance : )

First person to die has to reroll cleric!

Anyways, what do you do in these situations?

[Kurald Galain]

You drop in an NPC healer who goes along with the party and doesn't do anything useful except healing and snark?

[Zaq]

Healing belts (MIC) aren't overpowered even at the lowest levels, and will serve the job of a bored cleric pretty well into the game. Just scatter a few of those throughout the loot (the party finds a stash in the armory, the guards or mooks have a couple, or whatever... they're useful enough that it makes perfect sense for enemies to have them) and be glad that no one has chosen the divine route to breaking your game in two.

[Eldariel]

Party has someone with UMD? Wands of Cure Light Wounds/Lesser Vigor has them covered. Nobody has it? Healing Belts still work. Really, they probably want Healing Belts anyways, and Wands for constant healing after encounters..

[DragoonWraith]

After first level or so, Healing Belts and Wands of Cure Light Wounds and/or Lesser Vigor (all 750 gp) become easily affordable if the group pools their money. These can handle out-of-combat healing easily.

In-combat healing is just inefficient until Heal comes into play, so it's not like lacking the Cleric's healing is all that important, since it wouldn't have really mattered until level 11 anyway.

[Lysander]

You drop in an NPC healer who goes along with the party and doesn't do anything useful except healing and snark?

This is a simple way of doing it, of course the NPC gets a percentage of the loot and xp, so the party wants to make him unnecessary ASAP. You could also put in a lot of in-game time between encounters so natural healing can restore them between fights.

[Flickerdart]

This is a simple way of doing it, of course the NPC gets a percentage of the loot and xp, so the party wants to make him unnecessary ASAP. You could also put in a lot of in-game time between encounters so natural healing can restore them between fights.
Why? Hirelings don't get a share of party experience, the same way that summoned creatures or your familiar doesn't. Maybe they pay the guy to follow them around, yes, but it could work out cheaper than buying braces of CLW wands.

[Hague]

Yeah, a horde of adepts that you hand a few wands to should do the trick. Maybe give them the Heal skill trick that lets Heal directly restore hp.

[Dr.Epic]

Healing belts (MIC) aren't overpowered even at the lowest levels, and will serve the job of a bored cleric pretty well into the game. Just scatter a few of those throughout the loot (the party finds a stash in the armory, the guards or mooks have a couple, or whatever... they're useful enough that it makes perfect sense for enemies to have them) and be glad that no one has chosen the divine route to breaking your game in two.

What book are they in?

[Kurald Galain]

What book are they in?

MIC.

Which stands for the Magic Item Compendium.

[Hague]

Yeah, good luck buying a copy of that one though... Somewhere around 50+ US dollars at the moment.

[The Rose Dragon]

What book are they in?

MIC? Magic Item Compendium, that is?

[Oracai]

Make a pregen cleric and kill off a party member who is reasonable in an aumsing way then hand them the premade cleric, Do this enough times and u can force a Balanced party xD

[Greenish]

Make a pregen cleric and kill off a party member who is reasonable in an aumsing way then hand them the premade cleric, Do this enough times and u can force a Balanced party xDHeh, yeah, a party entirely composed of clerics would be reasonably balanced.

Killing people's own characters to force them to play premade ones is bad form though.

[Oracai]

Killing people's own characters to force them to play premade ones is bad form though.

That is true but it also teaches them that next time they should be able to make a balanced party between them without intervention

[Eldariel]

That is true but it also teaches them that next time they should be able to make a balanced party between them without intervention

This assumes a healer is necessary. Which it isn't.

[Greenish]

That is true but it also teaches them that next time they should be able to make a balanced party between them without interventionI'm not sure what you mean.

[holywhippet]

What classes did they go with anyway? Try and coax them into level dipping into a healing class. Heck, even a level of bard would be good as they can then use wands of CLW.

[Oracai]

Well players should be able to use common sense mainly to make a balanced party between them without anybody having to intervene and do something like forcibly making them play premade characters.

[Eldariel]

Well players should be able to use common sense mainly to make a balanced party between them without anybody having to intervene and do something like forcibly making them play premade characters.

What is this "balanced party" you speak of? One of the beauties of 3.5 is that you can make basically any kind of a party work on some level (though obviously, a Tier 6 party will not be capable of performing the kinds of deeds a Tier 1 party can); there's basically nothing that's required.

[Greenish]

Well players should be able to use common sense mainly to make a balanced party between them without anybody having to intervene and do something like forcibly making them play premade characters.Define "balanced party".

[FMArthur]

That is true but it also teaches them that next time they should be able to make a balanced party between them without intervention

No it doesn't, it teaches them that you are a bad DM incapable of adjustment.

[Starbuck_II]

You could bring a Dragon Shaman 1 dip or NPC: even though the Fast healing aura only heals yup to 1/2 max, it still helps keep everyone alive.

Add in Healing Belt for 750 gp, very cheap and everyone can heal themselves when needed (or others).

[RandomNPC]

on the party balance, if the DM says "Do what you want, just don't be silly about it" and gives a few examples of silly, almost silly, and highly acceptable, and the player makes 4 silly characters in a row, THEN it's ok to give them a pre-gen.

As for healers, just toss out some extra healing loot, and if things to to tough let them draw and drink potions as a single action instead of move and standard.

[Kurald Galain]

Just a radical proposal - you know what else can make up for the lack of a healer?

Downtime.

For some reason, this never seems to come up much in campaigns I hear about. But it's very easy (and fitting, and realistic) for the DM to say that "it is now two weeks after the mighty Battle of Blorghipur, and you have fully recovered from your wounds".

[Oracai]

on the party balance, if the DM says "Do what you want, just don't be silly about it" and gives a few examples of silly, almost silly, and highly acceptable, and the player makes 4 silly characters in a row, THEN it's ok to give them a pre-gen
My point exactly and a balanced party is nothing specific its just a party that can survive.

No it doesn't, it teaches them that you are a bad DM incapable of adjustment.
No, thats if you do it to a whole party and if you have to pregen a whole party the players are obviously very unexperienced or very very silly

[CyMage]

No, thats if you do it to a whole party and if you have to pregen a whole party the players are obviously very unexperienced or very very silly

If you do it to even one person, you need to think if you really should be DMing. The whole point of playing D&D is to have fun, not just for the DM but for the whole group. If you have to force someone to play something they didn't want to play just so you can have fun as they follow your story, then you failed already.

[NineThePuma]

I think the OP is looking to help them live without a healer. Which is harder than it sounds, as you have to be much more cautious.

My advice would be to have an Adept join the party or something, as an NPC, and make them do a horrible job in combat.

[CyMage]

I think the OP is looking to help them live without a healer. Which is harder than it sounds, as you have to be much more cautious.

My advice would be to have an Adept join the party or something, as an NPC, and make them do a horrible job in combat.

Well, if we knew what the party composition was, we might be able to offer some suggestions.

[Oracai]

If you do it to even one person, you need to think if you really should be DMing.

What if the player specificaly played a character that had no help to the party and was just ruining the campaign for everybody else? Or if they said thye didnt realise we needed a specific role filled an they wouldnt mind? Would it then be accpetable?

[mostlyharmful]

Yeah, good luck buying a copy of that one though... Somewhere around 50+ US dollars at the moment.

Buy? I understand not this strange concept.

[Eldariel]

I think the OP is looking to help them live without a healer. Which is harder than it sounds, as you have to be much more cautious.

...why not just give them the Wands and Healing Belts as suggested? Then it's just as if you had a healer except you don't have a healer. Honestly, that solves basically all healing needs. The game has a dozen built-in means of assuring healing is readily available so unless DM specifically tries to make it scarce, lacking a healer doesn't really change anything.


Just a radical proposal - you know what else can make up for the lack of a healer?

Downtime.

For some reason, this never seems to come up much in campaigns I hear about. But it's very easy (and fitting, and realistic) for the DM to say that "it is now two weeks after the mighty Battle of Blorghipur, and you have fully recovered from your wounds".

It's a real pain to have to rest a week after each fight in a game that expects multiple encounters per day; HPs wear down real fast without a Wand. Not to mention it makes it completely impossible for the DM to use events which involve relevant time limits since anyone in the party eating one crit prolly means they're out of commission for the rest of the adventure, and it's really no fun to say "Yeah, guess I have to stay back to heal for this session so you play this time and I'll go watch a movie." Now, sure, if you run VP/WP it's fine, but with standard HP, HP damage just occurs a bit too frequently to be able to sustain the same encounters without healing between them, and time limits make the downtime not an option.

[Kurald Galain]

It's a real pain to have to rest a week after each fight
Sure. But I wasn't suggesting doing that after each fight, anyway. Nor was I suggesting that some of the party stay behind to rest while the others adventure.

[Eldariel]

Sure. But I wasn't suggesting doing that after each fight, anyway. Nor was I suggesting that some of the party stay behind to rest while the others adventure.

Yeah, I was implying no such thing; I was just pointing out that those are the only real options for adventures with time limits where someone gets too low. I mean, when your 50 HP character gets cut for 40 damage, I don't think you'll happily be continuing adventure any time soon. So that forces the entire party to stop. Which throws things like time limits out of the window.

[CyMage]

What if the player specificaly played a character that had no help to the party and was just ruining the campaign for everybody else? Or if they said thye didnt realise we needed a specific role filled an they wouldnt mind? Would it then be accpetable?

If a player is distruptive, then it's a problem with the player not the character they're playing.

3.5 is flexible enough that these 'roles' are a lot looser. There is no role that's so important that you have to ruin someone's fun for it.

[WarKitty]

What if the player specificaly played a character that had no help to the party and was just ruining the campaign for everybody else? Or if they said thye didnt realise we needed a specific role filled an they wouldnt mind? Would it then be accpetable?

Depends. If they want to roll a new character they can roll a new character. If they're not willing to work with the party that's typically a player problem. If they're not able to work with the party that's typically a case of poor planning on the party's part.