Here are the best non-Cleric healers in D&D!
The great thing about Dungeons & Dragons is that you and your party are free to do whatever you want when building your characters. The one downside of that is that you can very quickly create problems if you don’t have a certain type of character, such as a healer.
D&D is very combat-oriented, so having a healer is ideal for most parties, but just because clerics are the healing class by default doesn’t mean your healer has to be one. Some various classes and subclasses heal as well, and as such provide you with some more unique gameplay and story backgrounds for your healer.
What Makes A Good Healer In Dungeons & Dragons?
When you’re playing D&D, a good healer will do three things in battle: restore hit points, heal status conditions, and revive allies. There are lots of ways to heal HP, and it’s pretty easy to take something like the Magic Initiate or Healer feats to get some healing if nothing else.
Status conditions will require spells like Lesser and Greater Restoration, but can also be healed by potion and sometimes just taking a long rest.
Revival is the hardest to pull off and requires specific spells with limits, such as Revivify, Raise Dead, and True Resurrection, and even though Clerics are good because their spell list naturally has access to all of these and the spell slots to use them, you can build other healers with different subclasses that fill the same niche.
Alchemist Artificer
Alchemist Artificers specialize in making various potions and double as good healers. They always have spells such as Raise Dead and Heal prepared, can cast Lesser Restoration, Greater Restoration, and Heal without expending a spell slot, and finally can boost the amount of healing their spells do.
On the other hand, be wary of the fact that Artificers are half-casters and have fewer spell slots to use compared to a straight cleric. They also struggle to heal efficiently at lower levels, as while they can create one random potion for free a day, any other potions will cost a spell slot.
Celestial Warlock
Celestial Warlocks get an expanded spell list, allowing them to take Cure Wounds, Revivify, Lesser Restoration, and Greater Restoration as Warlock spells. Additionally, they have access to a pool of d6s they can use to heal allies as a bonus action, and can give themselves and allies temporary hit points.
However, that limited pool of healing can be a drawback; at higher levels, it will be less efficient than having a cleric or paladin cast Heal. It’s not well-suited to being built purely as a healer but if you want to combine healing and damage, it’s very good.
Oath Of Glory Paladin
What's nice about paladins is that any subclass you choose will be able to heal with Lay On Hands, and their spell list gives them quite a few of the same useful spells as clerics, such as Raise Dead and Lesser Restoration. Unfortunately, they only have spell slots up to the fifth level, locking them out of the really useful ones such as Heal and Greater Restoration.
Oath of Glory Paladins with the Blessed Warrior fighting style is the best suited if you want a very healing-focused build because of their access to cleric cantrips such as Spare The Dying and the ability to give allies temporary hit points and protect them from attacks..
College Of Lore Bard
While Bards already naturally have access to a good number of healing spells, such as Healing Word and Lesser Restoration, and all bards can take cleric spells via the Magical Secrets class feature, College of Lore bards get to take them sooner, giving them quicker access to Revivify and cantrips like Spare The Dying.
You’re limited in the number of Cleric spells you can take, but by the time you hit 18th level, you will have access to eight spells not on the bard list, enough for you to take the important ones such as Heal, and optional but helpful ones such as Death Ward or Hallow.
Circle of Wildfire Druid
The druid and cleric spell lists overlap quite a bit, even more so than the Paladin and Bard ones do. In particular, Druids are the only other class that naturally has access to Heal.
Some spells, such as Revivify, are optional expansions to the druid spell list. Double check with your Dungeon Master which lists you are using.
You can make any druid a healer if you’d like, but Circle of Wildfire Druids are specifically built to heal and heal well. They can always have Revivify and Cure Wounds prepared, can increase the healing power of their spells, and heal allies when they defeat certain enemies.
Divine Soul Sorcerer
If you want to do everything a cleric can do without classing into a cleric, a Divine Soul Sorcerer is your best bet as they can take any spell from the cleric or sorcerer spell list. They also get access to Metamagic, allowing them to be versatile casters, and get the additional option of spending a sorcery point to reroll a die when they or allies roll to heal.
Finally, they can recover up to half their hit points automatically as a bonus action. The main downsides compared to a cleric have less to do with healing and more to do with not getting other features such as Turn Undead and Divine Intervention.
