I mentioned the even on a 1 Orc per healer basis to illustrate that even if you succeed, you still fail. After all, there are PLENTY of instances, even in routine encounters where enemies can just focus fire on the same person and drop them in one round. They are most common at level 1 though, mostly because you can't do anything about them. Anything harder than routine makes it worse. The solution, of course is to use mitigation measures that actually work.
Now I was speaking with someone who has no D&D experience last night. Even she knew how things were "supposed" to work. She did not know how things actually did work. I told her. She was very surprised and amused. The bit about the Cleric went something like this:
Me: The Cleric, by the way is meant to be a heal bitch. Guess what they're supposed to be doing?
Her: Going in the thick of it?
Me: Well that's one answer, but the answer is actually "anything other than healing". Buffing the party actually provides enough mitigation to help. Casting offensive magic on the enemy actually provides enough mitigation to help. Going in there and fighting the enemy actually provides enough mitigation to help. Healing means they still take more damage than you heal and still die. As an added bonus, actually doing things is more fun than being a heal bitch.
I forgot to mention this was in combat, and out of combat healing is not subjected to this. But it was kind of implied by the terms, and she's smart, so she likely knew what I meant.
