It's surprising how few people would want to play a support

It's surprising how many people play games with this kind of rigid role system at all.

>>46445608
I don't know. Warlord/Captain seems a pretty cool class if you ask me. Leader of Men, and all that. Maybe it works better when paired with a leadership role as it should be

>>46445608
I played healbitch for like year

being purely reactive is boring

it was just buff and heal every encounter

>>46445671
>being purely reactive is boring
Opinions.
I enjoy it, but like anything some people like/enjoy it and others simply can't stand it.

>it was just buff and heal every encounter
As opposed to what? Prep and cast, hack and slash? Anything can be made to sound boring.
Just be happy there are people that want to do what you don't want to do, and that hopefully you are successful as a team because of it.
I'm happy there are little brain-addled ninnies that want to go running around swinging swords at anything that moves, as it keeps those things from poking holes in me.

>>46445608

Ego op. Simply ego. Everyone would rather be the mc.

Everyone wants a dedicated healer, but nobody wants to play one. Understandably so. Unless it's paired with a second role, you have little agency in combat.

I think two players, each as an off healer is better. Same amount of healing, but neither player is a one trick pony.

People simply aren't creative enough to make fun healing classes, it's all there is to it. They are only combat focused and don't think about their character outside of combat, and don't think of combat outside of being as efficient and useful as possible.

>>46445608
I enjoy playing the healer.

Part of it, I think, is that I like having a potential backup reserve of health available in case I need it. I also don't like relying on others to heal me when I might need it most, so I prefer to be the one which others can rely on. I prefer some sort of martial combat along with my healing, either archery or hammer/shield, so perhaps my biggest fault is walking into combat when it may not be the wisest course of action.

I had one fight where everyone else ended at full health, but a last-round crit at full damage took my character from full HP straight to dead. My comment was "Well at least everyone else is fine."

I think the greatest concern is just being useless when healing is not necessary. It is not JUST wanting to heal, and it isn't wanting to mircomanage a large number of short-duration buffs either. (Well, not for me.) It's wanting to be functional while also being a healer. D&D Clerics frequently do this well, even outside 3e and without multiclassing. D&D4e Warlords did this very well also, giving you important stuff you could do (repositioning allies while attacking) outside recovering ally HP. A mage/healer hybrid is sort of the same idea.

It's basically the same concern that low level D&D Wizards have, with not wanting to be stuck with a crossbow as their only meaningful contribution all day.

As a dm, i dont really care. If they hand me four martials, i will tailor the campaign towards that. If they need something they will figure out a way. My current party has no healers and they decided to befriend a random npc paladin and convinced him to follow them around spouting praise for pelor

>>46445608
I'm playing a bard right now and my party doesn't have a cleric. I have to act as both the buffer and the dedicated healer, despite being a weak class for the latter.

Out of combat though, I practically run the show through a combination of skills and languages. In a party that has no obvious leader, I manage to act as the face.

>>46445608
Guys, I've got this great idea!
I'll make a game, and everyone will characters who work together to solve problems.
We'll make it so some people solve all problems easily, and others have a difficult time doing anything except their very narrow schtick.
Then, we'll ridicule the people for not happily embracing their turn to play a dippy unitasker.
Also, if they do find a way to play a unitasker character and make them useful outside that task, we'll be sure to condemn them for being selfish and not knowing their role.

>>46445608
>play your character like it would be in a vidya.
Sit on a cactus.
It's a blessing that background character is rarely concept in TTRPGs.
Clerics should be focused on advancing their Divinity or Philosophy's goals, if that is accomplished by keeping some utile mercs functional, cool. But the Cleric's role is as an agent of the divine, not party life support.
Ditto for Paladins.
Bards are socialites, scholars, and Jacks of all trade. If they learn some helpful magic, cool. But playing nurse or cheerleader isn't what they are.
The only explicite group coordinator/enhancer/health and welfare class existed in 1 edition of DnD and there was a gods awful howling fit over it's existence.

>>46445608
Because the healer is only needed when things get fucked up.

In a perfect encounter, the healer doesn't need to do shit, and afterwards feels like they didn't contribute.

In a fuckup scenario, everybody's pissed that they got fucked up, and the healer gets blamed for not supporting them enough.

The golden middle ground of "Golly Gee, that was a close one! Good thing we had our healer to tip the scales!" never really happens, because the healer isn't someone who's recognized as DOING things. They just enable other people to do them.

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>>46445608
>tfw want to play support
>each time instead get forced into an offensive character or role
I guess it's my fault for playing PF

There just aren't a lot of priestly types I really want to play. For every 1 I can think of there's a huge amount of non magic types.

I also don't really buy into the idea that a party really NEEDS to have a diverse set of classes though. It's not too hard to tailor encounters to a given party (ironically unless they're a bunch of clerics or druids in 3.5 or something)

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I think it depends on your group and your own personality and way of playing. People way too often think of the supports as the way they're treated in MMORPG's, little more than background characters who only sit back and maybe drop a heal every so often on the tank. But the fun thing about tabletop roleplaying is that you can always put a twist on characters and the way they act.

I personally love, love, love playing support. I played an Elf Cleric who was trying to garner donations for her church and as such would try to swindle people of their money for heals (in a very sly way, too); she even became a sort of healer and main source of income, the PCs would roll in a village, set her shop and let her make money, some of which would go to the party's fund. I played a flirtatious Tiefling Bard who only buffed people he was attracted to (so basically everyone anyway) and composed lewd songs about the party members. It was a fun character quirk and very interesting.

I've lots of similar stories, really.

Stop thinking tabletop games are MMOs.

>>46449687
That's more of a low level MMO thing that a RPG thing. Classes that exclusively heal are pretty rare in games, and healing is often something you save for after a fight in DnD at least

>>46445651
What does a Warlord/Captain even do?
What are their skillsets and requirements?

>>46449541
You don't have a lot of practical experience playing tabletop games do you? You sound like everything you know you know from /pfg/.

>>46445916
>As opposed to what? Prep and cast, hack and slash? Anything can be made to sound boring.
Prep and cast has variety, at least in principle.

Sure you CAN be reduced to boring too, if you're a blaster.
>fighter: full attack full attack full attack full attack
>wizard: fireball fireball fireball fireball fireball
>cleric: heal heal heal heal heal heal heal

Buut the wizard can also
>spiderweb, grease, flame cantrip, prismatic spray and laugh at them stumbling around in a fire
and non healbot cleric can
>buff self, call divine thunder, turn that zombie, mace the necromancer in the face
See the difference?

Of course doesn't invalidate existence of people /preferring/ the stable routine combat. But saying that everything is the same routine is disingenuous.