[4e] Is the Cleric's Healing Word overpowered?

[wodan46]

From what I can observe, Healing Word allows you to trigger a surge twice per encounter and twice per 5 minutes outside of 1, but more importantly the HP recovered from the Surge is doubled. For a level 1 character, surges go from being 5-8 HP a surge to 13-16 HP a surge. Given that you shouldn't need to many surges per combat, that means that essentially every surge for your party can be used that way. Warlords raise the average surge to 9-12, or by 50%, not as good but still effective.

Lets say you have a Level 1 Dwarven Fighter with 33 HP and 18 Con. He has 13 surges, which will normally give him 8 HP a use, or effectively 104 HP worth of recovery per day. The presence of a Warlord automatically raises this to around 150 HP of recovery, while a Cleric brings this 201 HP of recovery.

In short, Clerics are essentially indispensable, as they double the amount of damage your party can take, and that's just with their minor actions, as they have a ton of combat abilities that also do damage while giving allies AC and temporary HP to further toughen them. If your party doesn't have a Cleric, they at the very least must have a Warlord, who gives less but still impressive recovery, but gives more offensive firepower to your party instead.

[JaxGaret]

You forgot about multiclass feats and the Paladin's Lay On Hands power. Defenders seem to have a fair number of healing powers as well, the Fighter with self-healing, and I think the Paladin gets both self-healing powers and other powers that heal others.

But yes, having Leader-type abilities is essential in 4e.

[marjan]

So the problem you have with "healers" is that they heal double than what would be healed without them. I really don't see any problems here.
As for healing being a minor action: Remember how healing sucked in combat most of the time.

[Yakk]

From what I can observe, Healing Word allows you to trigger a surge twice per encounter and twice per 5 minutes outside of 1, but more importantly the HP recovered from the Surge is doubled. For a level 1 character, surges go from being 5-8 HP a surge to 13-16 HP a surge. Given that you shouldn't need to many surges per combat, that means that essentially every surge for your party can be used that way. Warlords raise the average surge to 9-12, or by 50%, not as good but still effective.

Why do you think that the HP recovered from the cleric's healing word surge is doubled?

[Tyger]

Yeah, its not double, its an additional 1d6 (scaling with level of course). Still handy, but not quite as nice as is presented herein.

[wodan46]

Cleric's have the Healing Lore class feature which adds their wisdom modifier to ALL powers they use with the Heal keyword. Hence, Healing word is regular surge+1d6+wisdom modifier. A Cleric with 18 Wisdom is granting 7.5 extra HP a surge at level 1 on average, which will double the surge of any character with less than 32 HP.

Even by level 30, Clerics will be granting around 6d6+8 HP per Healing Word , or 29 HP on average. Defenders will have 200 or so HP by then, meaning that its still a 60% increase for surges on them, 100% for Wizards, and 80% for anyone else.

[SadisticFishing]

Not having a defender is worse, and not having a controller or striker can cause just as many problems.

Without a striker, good luck killing a giant monster.

Without a controller, good luck killing swarms of little monsters.

Without a defender, good luck killing medium groups of medium sized monsters.

/shrug it's how 4e is set up, and it's how every RPG ever has been set up. The difference is no bigger.

[Saph]

Not having a defender is worse, and not having a controller or striker can cause just as many problems.

No, Wodan is right. You're massively underestimating how effective a Cleric's heals are.

A normal 1st-level character has 25-30 HP. They're recovering 7 HP per healing surge. A cleric's Healing Word effectively doubles that, and they can do it as a minor action twice per battle, as well as using it after battles to almost double the party's longevity.

Powers like the Cleric's Healing Word are the only effective way to heal someone up from the dying status - anything else requires you to get over next to the fallen character, which can often mean taking AoO's that end up doing more damage than the healing. Without a Cleric or Warlord, it's many times harder to recover if a fight goes badly. By contrast, you can kill enemies just as effectively without a Striker, it just takes slightly longer.

In my experience so far a Cleric/Warlord is the only really essential character type in a party - you can manage without any other, though Defender comes close. (The only time I've seen PCs die and come close to losing a battle was when the Cleric got KOed in the first round.)

- Saph

[wodan46]

A Fighter can be a substitute for a Striker. A Ranger with lots of multi-attacks can substitute for a Controller. A Warlord or Cleric can stand in for a Defender. They can all do so without crippling their optimization too much.

Nothing can stand in for a Cleric, not even with multiclassing and feats. Even the Paladin and Warlord are utterly eclipsed by it.

[RoboticSheeple]

Is the 3.5 cleric overpowered? At level one a character can heal 0 points during encounters and 0 points between encounters but the level 1 cleric can heal a total of 1d8+1 once and +1 three times throughout the day! Given that you start with anywhere from 4 to 14 hitpoints (assuming normal con bonuses) it means that essentially your party can hope to make it through two or three battles without dying!

In short, Clerics are essentially indispensable as they keep your butt alive. If your party doesn't have a Cleric, they at the very least must have an undertaker because they will die, quickly.

[marjan]

they at the very least must have an undertaker because they will die, quickly.

And who's gonna take care of undertaker, when he bites the dust?

[SadisticFishing]

I disagree. Warlord is definitely good enough to stand in for a cleric, from my (admittedly limited) experience. Killing them faster while still healing, and having massive tactical advantage just works for me.

[Roderick_BR]

It's not overpowered, only powered. That's what he is supposed to do, give MORE healing than the characters have normally.
I mean, if sleeping for 6 hours heals ALL your HP, having the cleric give +1d6 +wisdom modifier is not all that powerful.
The paladin's lay-on hands allow a character to activate their healings during combat, that's it. He doesn't get the +1d6 and ability modifier (there's a feat to add your Cha modifier). But then again he is not a full leader.
I didn't read the others classes, but, yes, anyone with leader abilities is necessary in a party, in the same way healers where needed in the past 3 versions of the game.