Healbots no. Damage will outpace healing anyway. That does not mean the party should have no healer at all, but if you are healing in combat then that normally means the party is not doing something correctly.
It is more efficient to prevent damage than try to heal it while fighting.
Improving defenses(saves and AC), battlefield control, summons, and being efficient at killing the bad guys can make it so that all healing can take place after the fight is over.
There will be exceptions, but for the most part, that is how things should go.
Some form of healing is needed. A healbot is actually...almost deadweight in the party, to a degree. If you have someone who LIKES to play the "healbot" style, a simply switch to a buffing and support style character that can heal outside of combat is what works best in Pathfinder.
Wraithstrike nailed that heart of it above this post, basically.
The only healbots I've seen that can really manage the role are paladins that throw everything they got into it, halflings specifically.
A halfling hosipitaler with quick channel and selective channel might be able to get off enough healing to actually be able to stay ahead of damage if he also uses things like shield other to spread the pain over multiple people.
This boils down to definition of "Healbot" and also the group playstyle.
I'll never play in our group without a "heal" class. If it looks like our group won't have a healer I immediately change whatever I was about to play into a healer. With a large mace. And Strength. And buffs. And a decent breastplate.
They call me a healbot. I call myself an unkillable war machine.
Clerics, druids and paladins are all "Healers" - would you call them "healbots"?
Healbot to me normally means someone who character is built to heal as a primary action, normally because the party is always in trouble.
I am not very good at min maxing or optimizing and it's bothersome for me because I want my characters to survive more often can people tell me how to optimize/min max please?
*channels lewis black*
1) Kill it, kill it good.
Defense does not work. There are simply too many ways to kill you. Hit points, blown will save, blown fort save, ability drain... your character is like a city with 5 gates. You can't cover them all. Your only option is to go out onto the field and kiiiill.
Even if YOU personally, are an invulnerable tank... your party is not. Monsters can simply walk around you and go after something squishier. That leads to longer rounds, more consumables, and more spells lost. Have some way of getting the monster dead or out of the fight and doing it fast.
1a)Melee: Get the damned two hander. You're not going to beat strength and a half damage. Rogue.. ninja, fighter, monk, melee cleric .. it doesn't matter nothing beats a big honking weapon. Don't give me this bonus damage malarky. Sure, your two weapon fighting rogue can do good damage when full attacking with a flank. Great! I have a lunar cleric that can level mountains during the blue moon in february. Guesse what.. that doesn't happen all that often.
2) This is the party you want.
This is the party you're getting
If no one in your group knows the rules well enough to optimize, chances are they don't know the rules well enough to strategize either. Do not depend on your party to work with you unless they have a long proven record of doing so consistently. If you're a caster and your tank leaves you more open than the red light district, invest in acrobatics
3) Break rule 2 as much as you can. You cannot control the other players at the table. You can control yourself. If you are the tank, make yourself deadly thicket of blades so that if anyone comes near your squishies, they die. If you are the wizard and can't SOD/SOS (save or die/save or suck) then buff the party or summon him a flanking friend.
4) As an arcane caster, some of the game breakers are
Enlarge person: makes your meat shield a killing machine. (works better as a potion)
color spray: it ends encounters.
Grease: severely ends longer encounters hillariously.
Glitter dust ends encounters and counters invisibility
invisibility can get you out of a jam or let you be better than a rogue.
____
more tommorow
So tanks should just sit in front of the caster? Shouldn't they move farther away to attract enimes?
So tanks should just sit in front of the caster? Shouldn't they move farther away to attract enimes?
Not more than their casters' single move action distance unless they are willing to risk their sorry rear ends swinging in the breeze for more than a single rounds' worth of loving attention from the current big nasty tank-nomming critterbeast...
The caster if played well is the most dangerous person on the field of combat. If the melee types moves out of the way the bad guys just get a clear path to him.
A fighter type might take out one enemy at time. The caster can make everyone have a bad day.
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All credit to these go to Caelic, originally posted over at the Gleemax boards.
Quote from: Caelic
I. Thou shalt not give up caster levels.II. Wieldest thou thy two-handed weapon with alacrity; but two weapons shalt thou not wield, excepting that thou hast a source of bonus damage such as Sneak Attack.
III. Doubt not the power of the Druid, for he is mighty.
IV. Avoid ye the temptation of Gauntlets of True Strike, for they shall lead thee astray down the Path of Non-Rule Cheese.
V. Thou shalt not give up caster levels. Verily, this Commandment is like unto the first; but of such magnitude that it bore mentioning twice.
VI. Makest thou no build with an odd number of fighter levels, for such things are not pleasing to the Spirits of Optimization.
VII. The Rules of Pathfinder are paramount; invoke not the rules of 3.0 if a newer version be available.
VIII. When beseeching the Bretheren of Optimization, come thou not empty handed, lest they smite thee; rather, bringest thou thine own build, that they may offer suggestions and guidance.
IX. Invoke not "common sense," for it is not common.
X. Thou shalt call no build "The Ultimate X" unless his name be Pun-Pun, or thou shalt see thine "Ultimate" build topped by the Bretheren within five minutes of posting.
Seriously, I laughed so hard I might have peed a little.
Players who believe that dedicated healers (healbots) are necessary are often under that impression because a character made to heal at the expense of efficiently killing things, buffing the party and disabling enemies often WILL have to spend lots of actions healing. This isn't because dedicated healer is an important role, but because the party is fighting down a man (or down half a man - you can only make a character so bad at melee combat).
Every time an enemy is taken down a round earlier because of the combined offensive talents of the party, all of the damage/bad stuff that that enemy would have done on his turn was preemptively healed and cured by the party without spending any special resources. Every time the extra hits and damage from a buff take out a foe a round early, that buff healed the party for whatever the foe would have done, and might do it again the next round. If an enemy is puking his guts out because you hit it with a nauseating effect, or uselessly stuck at the bottom of a magical pit you conjured, that's just as good as healing whatever damage and effects it would have caused - and if it's a multiround effect then you might do it again next turn. If the monster you summoned eats an attack, then that damage didn't hit an ally. More "preemptive healing".
Having someone in the party who can heal - reliably use a wand of CLW, avoid botching scroll use to remove conditions, get someone up off the ground in combat when that does happen, etc., - is incredibly useful. It's a good thing that like nine classes have CLW on their spell list. It's even nice to have someone who can drop the big heals later on, if they have to. But having a dedicated healer is not only unnecessary, if the character sacrifices too much else for the sake of being a better healer than they can actually be a liability.
Players who believe that dedicated healers (healbots) are necessary are often under that impression because a character made to heal at the expense of efficiently killing things, buffing the party and disabling enemies often WILL have to spend lots of actions healing. This isn't because dedicated healer is an important role, but because the party is fighting down a man (or down half a man - you can only make a character so bad at melee combat).
I think to some effect this is a matter of the group and not just the individual. Being down 1 man from the really effective party probably wouldn't do this, but if the rest of the party isn't optimized at all, a healer starts to look like a better idea which of course, makes them more neccesary.
I am not very good at min maxing or optimizing and it's bothersome for me because I want my characters to survive more often can people tell me how to optimize/min max please?
I was going to write something rant-like about optimisation and mini-maxing, but I drew back. I'd just say 'don't'. Convince your other players and GM not to. Come up with a character you like and choose feats, skills and advancement on the basis of their character and expect your GM to throw power (not level)-appropriate challenges at you as that's what a good GM does.
So what *does* count as 'rant-like' then?
Real optimization is about math and excel.
Find all options that could help you archieving whatever you are trying to min/max.
Use Excel to calculate what is the best option out of all possibilities.
The hard step is to think of all stuff that could be important, so you mainly have to know the rules (races, feats, characters, spells and items).
I optimize by asking the question "what do I want to do?", then I pick a class, and see how well I can do it. If it's not satisfactory, I pick another class, and try from there. Though I rarely have to pick more than once.
The first thing you will need to do is to take a look at the campaign you will be playing in. Optimizing a character can vary a lot depending on campaign. Many builds on these boards are designed in a vacuum out of necessity, or assume some kind of "standard campaign". But home games vary greatly. A PC for a high intrigue / low combat campaign will have very different requirements than one for a good old fahioned dungeon romp. Use your experience or - even better - just talk to your GM.
There is a lot of good advice in this thread. The one I would add is this: always rate an ability in regards to the action(s) it needs to activate. Think of your actions per round as a currency. Most combats do not last more than a few rounds, so your currency is usually quite limited. You want to make sure that you get the most bang for your buck, so to speak.
Druids are quite complex, probably the most complex class in the game, as you have a full spellcaster with an animal companion that needs additional book-keeping (and thought, too) and you also need to know your wildshapes and what different powers they bring to the table. The first thing to do is to really get to know the class and its many abilities. And you should prepare stat blocks for summoned animals, for your wildshapes and so on, as doing this on the fly while in combat is not really feasible most of the time.
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Here's my advice at being better at optimization in and of itself.
Before optimization there must be a focus. What are you wanting to do? What is your primary means of achieving success? You need to focus your character in on what you want him to do.
First Mechanical optimization:
You need to know what the spread is that you are likely to be facing, at each level. You can build to your heart's content but if you don't know what your target numbers look like you won't know if what you build is any good or not. You need to be aware of the average AC, save throws, CMD, and HP of each CR. You'll also need to have a general knowledge of the attack bonus, average damage and save DCs of abilities for each CR too. Having this knowledge helps you know what your character is going to need in order to successfully harm and not be harmed by the monsters you will face, and just how successful he is likely to be against each CR.
Very nice post Abraham!
I second everything you said, most of the times I've seen optimization fail was either because the player was not focusing his effort in the right direction or because he was not doing things efficently (AC is a great example, so many bonuses to get and a lot of people make the unbelievable mistake to get a +5 item before getting the others).As for the original request, remember that some classes have more chances of survival than others: for example, paladins are a great choice for someone who want to keep being alive.
Generally, when I build a new character I do it like described below: since it turned into a wall of text I'll summarize the key concepts.
- choose a concept that you like but keep verifying that it works: compare what you do with the kind of enemies you will come up against. If other characters are available on these boards, compare how your PC performs against them. Some concept can't really be made to work in D&D: know how much effective you want to be and be ready to drop something out of your original concept
- be efficient: always verify if you can spend less resources (money, feats, etc) to achieve the same result.
- be effective in your primary role: choose how you will contribute in combat and make sure you do it. Don't waste too much resources on other stuff before you are 100% sure that you are doing really well your job. To do this YOU MUST RUN THE NUMBERS IN EXCEL. I've see plenty of guys that don't have a clue about their character effectiveness (an hint: all of those spend a lot of time blaming the dice)
- know your weaknesses: to know if your next pick of the treasure should be the ring of protection or the cloak of resistance you must know how good your defenses are against the typical monster of that CR.
- read the guides: guides are a good starting point for optimization. Read them and get the key of what the authors are trying to achieve, then keep them in mind as you build your character. Some may be outdated, some may be too extreme: read them anyway and look for ideas and key concept, then use those as you see fit.
step 1, character concept.
I think of a kind of character that I'd like to play. It may be a savage warrior with a big weapon, a swift archer, a smart and charismatic magic user, a zealot priest.
Up to this point no mechanical choice is made.
step 2, focus.
I try to envision the main area of contribution of my character. It could be straight damage, it could be maneuvering, it could be buffing, it could be debuffing.
I still try to simply envision the character, but this time in a dynamic way: I envision how it wins against its foes.
Up to this point its all stuff I do in random moments: maybe I see a movie which makes me think of something I'd like to play, maybe it's something I read on the boards, maybe it's a book or a comic. All this takes almost no time at all: if I think "that's cool" next time I need a character I'll dig up the idea and spend some time on it.
step 3, mechanical evaluation.
Now that I have some kind of idea of my character, I see if it's worth pursuing further and in what way. Various things are considered.
- The context: not every campaign is the same. The level of optimization needed, the focus on combats, the range of levels involved in the campaign: all of those will vary and need to be considered.
- The mechanic of my role (decided in step 2). I make a list of what is key in performing well in that roll: this mostly includes a few key feats and a couple of suitable classes. In this process I read a few guides and I look through the whole feat list singling shining gems.
The result of this step should be 1) the generic assessment that what I had in mind could be possible and effective (if not, rethink the concept, maybe concentrating on a single aspect) and 2) a couple of possible skeletons with only a few key feats and 2-3 possible classes/archetypes. I also set what my primary characteristic will be (in some cases is very easy, such as for wizard, but for other kind of characters it's not).
step 4, consolidation.
From step 3 I've a couple of stubs of builds: from there I proceed to build around their key features.
I look for the rest of archetypes to see if I missed something, I put down about half of the feats directly related to what I want to do. I try not to put all my resources into doing this: for example half (sometimes three quarters) of the feats will usually be enough to define what your mid level character will be able to do. I also start considering some items, either because key to the build (for example ability enhancer for prerequisites) or because directly related to my primary role (the big weapon my warrior is going to wield).
For now I still don't focus much on secondary roles, but I start putting down ideas for later (for example if I'm building an archer I take mental note that it could be a good scout, but I leave that for later).
The result of this step is a general idea of what my character could be able to do in his area of competence. For a damage dealer I'll have an idea of what his bonus to hit will be, how much damage every hit will deal. I also look up some target number to see if those value are acceptable.
At this point I decide if what I have in my hands is good enough to play or not. Maybe a concept is simply too weak; maybe another is not right for the level range I'm going to play in; maybe the campaign uses 15pb and I need much more; maybe I need a lot of gold to make the build work and the campaign is low wealth/low magic; maybe I can obtain a much better result by changing the concept a bit (or maybe it can inspire me a new concept and I go back to steps 1-2).
I usually still have a couple of builds with different classes/archetypes and a few key feats.
step 5, survivability and variety.
Now that I know that the character can be good enough in a specific area, I try to let him live enough to do so.
I evaluate the weakness of the character: the whole stats array is put down (usually a couple of them to choose later) and I try to assess if the defenses are enough for how I will play it. I try to cover its weak points with stats, feats and equipment.
I also try to make sure that the character has enough to do out of combat to be always fun: skill points (and spells when appropriate) are the main resources. I try not to use feats for this and I only dedicate about one tenth of my wealth to situational things.
step 6, choice.
Once that all this is done, I evaluate the 2-3 builds I made and choose the one whose balance between effectiveness/survivability/usefulness outside of combat I like the most.
step 7, finishing touches.
Now that I have a basic build I run some numbers in excel and see if what I had in mind really works as I thought. This is primarily done for the main area of contribution and is more important for damage dealers.
This is the area in which I may notice that a +1 enhancement is better than flaming or that weapon focus is less important than I thought and thus the feat slot is better spent on something else. In this phase I put great important to efficiency: I'm careful about how I spend my goal or my feat slots.
Without the excel I also check the skills (for example I may notice that due to the CMD of the enemies of a certain CR is impossible to tumble and it's useless to put full ranks in acrobatics), my saves, my AC and see whether I must reallocate something or not.
It's a fine tuning endeavor that may require more time than everything else but which really makes a difference.
Wow, lots of advice in this thread for a difficult question :-)
Regardless of what was posted before - I did not read every post - I would just add or reiterate 3 things:
1. Focus
Decide what your character should be good at. It should be something mechanical, like hit things, cook well (profession cook), high saves, high DCs... This is 1st priority.
Then choose something flavorful, some quirk or trait. This would be something that makes you WANT to play this specific character right NOW, e.g. is good at boasting (put ranks into bluff, get a skill focus, arrange ability scores), runs faster than anyone else (class, feats, encumberance, armor etc.). This is 2nd priority.
Next come additional mechanical strengths (e.g. can also do melee, knows a few spells etc.) and meeting requirements for later prestige classes or synergizing abilities for later multiclasses.
A character must be fun to play at every level, not 3, 5 or 10 levels later :-)
2. Know abilities and rules
Read up on concealment, cover, attack of opportunities, concentration, withdrawal, 5-ft steps etc. Know your own class abilities and how they work there. For example: When you are invisible, does someone who can smell you get an attack of opportunity when you move (answer: no)?
3. Survivability beats might
The most important stats on your character sheet are not strength, your bab or the like. It is saves, con, hp, resistances etc. Instead of getting that 20 intelligence for your wizard at level 1, rather spend the points for 18 intelligence and add more to dex and con instead. Instead of that 20 strength and 12 con for your fighter, consider a 16 strength and 16 con.
Generally, for starters, I would try to "progress" your optimization abilities this way:
1 - use simple single class (fighter, cleric, paladin, wizard ...), e.g. classes with clear focuses and lots of built-in power
2 - use more complicated classes which require you to focus and be more careful (bard, monk, rogue, ...)
3 - start "dipping" 1-2 levels into other classes. Look for synergies.
4 - prestige classing
5 - concept characters: that half-orc fist-fighting paladin, that travelling cook who fights only with his (improvised weapon) frying pan etc. This will be hard to make effective.
6 - everything, muticlass with prestige class, how does magic work together with melee
Maybe this helps a bit :-)
Players who believe that dedicated healers (healbots) are necessary are often under that impression because a character made to heal at the expense of efficiently killing things, buffing the party and disabling enemies often WILL have to spend lots of actions healing. This isn't because dedicated healer is an important role, but because the party is fighting down a man (or down half a man - you can only make a character so bad at melee combat).
Every time an enemy is taken down a round earlier because of the combined offensive talents of the party, all of the damage/bad stuff that that enemy would have done on his turn was preemptively healed and cured by the party without spending any special resources. Every time the extra hits and damage from a buff take out a foe a round early, that buff healed the party for whatever the foe would have done, and might do it again the next round. If an enemy is puking his guts out because you hit it with a nauseating effect, or uselessly stuck at the bottom of a magical pit you conjured, that's just as good as healing whatever damage and effects it would have caused - and if it's a multiround effect then you might do it again next turn. If the monster you summoned eats an attack, then that damage didn't hit an ally. More "preemptive healing".
Having someone in the party who can heal - reliably use a wand of CLW, avoid botching scroll use to remove conditions, get someone up off the ground in combat when that does happen, etc., - is incredibly useful. It's a good thing that like nine classes have CLW on their spell list. It's even nice to have someone who can drop the big heals later on, if they have to. But having a dedicated healer is not only unnecessary, if the character sacrifices too much else for the sake of being a better healer than they can actually be a liability.
This makes sense if you're playing a pure numbers game, but in my experience literally nobody plays that way. Even a single PC death is something to be avoided at all costs until getting raised is readily available, so players will sacrifice killing effeciency to ensure party members don't die.
This makes sense if you're playing a pure numbers game, but in my experience literally nobody plays that way. Even a single PC death is something to be avoided at all costs...Players who believe that dedicated healers (healbots) are necessary are often under that impression because a character made to heal at the expense of efficiently killing things, buffing the party and disabling enemies often WILL have to spend lots of actions healing. This isn't because dedicated healer is an important role, but because the party is fighting down a man (or down half a man - you can only make a character so bad at melee combat).
Every time an enemy is taken down a round earlier because of the combined offensive talents of the party, all of the damage/bad stuff that that enemy would have done on his turn was preemptively healed and cured by the party without spending any special resources. Every time the extra hits and damage from a buff take out a foe a round early, that buff healed the party for whatever the foe would have done, and might do it again the next round. If an enemy is puking his guts out because you hit it with a nauseating effect, or uselessly stuck at the bottom of a magical pit you conjured, that's just as good as healing whatever damage and effects it would have caused - and if it's a multiround effect then you might do it again next turn. If the monster you summoned eats an attack, then that damage didn't hit an ally. More "preemptive healing".
Having someone in the party who can heal - reliably use a wand of CLW, avoid botching scroll use to remove conditions, get someone up off the ground in combat when that does happen, etc., - is incredibly useful. It's a good thing that like nine classes have CLW on their spell list. It's even nice to have someone who can drop the big heals later on, if they have to. But having a dedicated healer is not only unnecessary, if the character sacrifices too much else for the sake of being a better healer than they can actually be a liability.
This is very much true IMO. Preventing character death has utmost priority IMO. So even if a combat is tough and requires one to channel 5 times, quicken cure light wounds and heal 3 times, it has been worth it if it prevented character deaths, resurrection troubles (if they had not been slain by wights or such nasty creatures in the first place) etc.
Dedicated healers can be lots of fun and very effective. I am not sure how some people play them, but those kind of classes can usually not only heal - even when they are dedicated - but usually also resist energy, delay poison, bless, inspire courage or similar things.It is wrong to dismiss dedicated healers and always reduce healing to a numbers game. IMO and IME (in my experience :-P) real games work differently :-)
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I think the points have been strong. So, let's put it all together.
You want to play a "tank" focused Druid. There are two strong archetypes for this: the tripmonkey (Wolf) and the pouncemonkey (Big cat).
For tripmonkey, you'll want the 13 int for Combat Expetise / Improved Trip / Greater. Getting that +4 bonus, coupled with your size and such, will be important.
Pouncemonkey is mostly about damage. I recommend never playing Pouncers without Dragon Style; friends get in the way far too much.
Both will otherwise focus on strengh; you'll need some Wis for buff spells (14 is just the "default typical" here). Some Con and Dex helps survivability.
To min-max, you look at the benefits of Int and Chr. Usually these are the easiest stats to throw away; you gain no particular benefit from either, though tripmonkey needs the 13 for tripping.
9 times out of 10, if you are a long term build, feather domain or fur domain > animal companion. Boon companion, if allowed, is a deaf that essentially gives Druids a free spell / lvl and pretty significant bonus, in exchange for no companion until 5
So, the build
Pouncy (Human), 20 points
Str: 19
Int: 7
Wis: 14
Dex: 14
Con: 14
Chr: 7
1) Improved Unarmed Strike, whatever 3) Dragon Stance 5) Boon Companion 7) Natural Spell
Vs "Trippy", who has an int bonus (few more skills) and is focused on taking down single opponents
Str: 18
Int: 14
Wis: 14
Dex: 12
Con: 12
Chr: 7
1) Combat Expertise, Improved Trip 3) Power Attack 5) Boon Companion 7) Natural Spell 9) Greater Improved Trip
Generically I prefer the wolf (tripdown is the best defense in the game, difficult terrain makes life hard); but either way I take the cat as an animal companion (companions can't qualify for the improved trip line).
Hope that helps focus. Just pick an idea and figure out what elements do/do not support it.
It is wrong to dismiss dedicated healers and always reduce healing to a numbers game. IMO and IME (in my experience :-P) real games work differently :-)
Are you implying that no one here has palyed in real games? :D I don't think so. Healing is sadly a numbers game. That is you're trying to outrace the numbers being dealt with numbers being given back. In the grand scope of numbers, healing falls behind. Ultimately being proactive is ten times better than reactive.
Alright so heres my 2 cents.
What Optimization is:
Optimization is the practice of making the math match your vision for the character. This could mean making a master swordsman, a powerful caster, or a deadly iron chef.
Ultimately it's about making something the best at what you want them to do even if the goal is not to make them "the best". It's about makign the math match the concept.
Now seeing as this is a game, and no one wants to constantly write up new characters optimization tends to skew towards survivability and being great at combat. This is just fine and in the scope of the game is generally expected.
What optimization isn't Optimization is not min maxing. Min maxing is about getting one or two tricks out of the game and being the best at it. At the sacrifice of other things, it might be multiple dumpstats, it might be taking a number of flaws, it might be taking bizarre combinations but that's ultimately what it is. There are degrees of minmaxing, some worse than others, but that's generally how it goes.
Now, in your case you are asking to make characters better at survivability. As mentioned before this is a difficult question. And many excellent posts have been made on the subject. So there's very little I can really add to the discussion that hasn;t been talked about already.
I'd have more to add but I have a couple of things to do and no time for this so I'll be back later with some actually helpful advice.
It is wrong to dismiss dedicated healers and always reduce healing to a numbers game. IMO and IME (in my experience :-P) real games work differently :-)Are you implying that no one here has palyed in real games? :D I don't think so.
No, just that a lot of the discussions are too theoretical :-)
Healing is sadly a numbers game. That is you're trying to outrace the numbers being dealt with numbers being given back.
And *this* is where you and many others are missing the point. The aim is *not* to outrace damage with healing. That is really hard.
No, the aim is to provide enough healing to keep characters from dying. And for that sometimes a cure light wounds is enough, sometimes an optimized/dedicated healer is required. :-)
Just to add to a very good post...
Optimization is not munchkining. Munchkining is when you try to abuse the rules either by going against their intent or using a badly written/thought out ability that never should have gotten past the devs rather than simply using the existing rules to your advantage. For example
-The gunslingers ranged trip can easily topple the tarasque
-Memorizing three terrible remorse spells for the final boss encounter...
An optimized is only needed in the case of bad tactics or bad builds.
Note: By dedicated healer/healbot I mean someone who builds the entire character primary around healing. That is different from someone who can heal such as a battle cleric, oracle, druid, or witch.
So, how have you died previously? Stories?
Mostly as a tank I get to reckless with casters bad choices and no teamwork for instance creatures getting past the tank, also failing at climbing.
An optimized is only needed in the case of bad tactics or bad builds.
Note: By dedicated healer/healbot I mean someone who builds the entire character primary around healing. That is different from someone who can heal such as a battle cleric, oracle, druid, or witch.
Then we have the same definition of a "healbot". I have seen such a character in actual gameplay over the course of a campaign that took the party up to level 24. He focused primarily on channeling and diplomacy (and thus charisma). He had taken feats for it and had an insane number of channelings in addition to his usual spells.
Being a dedicated healer he managed to always help the party to survive that first onslought that would reduced them to almost zero, killing them in round 2 that way, by bringing them up to half or more again. Removing ability penalties quickly, dispelling debuffs while channeling as a move action, removing curses and much more really upped the survivability of the entire party.Even a character that focuses on healing has *more* stuff available than just cast cure light wounds. Even casting buffs or readying counterspells when healing is not needed at this very moment, for example :-)
I guess it is just experience then. I have never needed a healbot, but I do find healers useful.
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Note: By dedicated healer/healbot I mean someone who builds the entire character primary around healing.
I do think some people are missing that point a little bit. If your party needs a "healbot" it should be a GM PC, coz it would bore the hell out of a player :P
"Hi guys, I'm your new party member Jack. I'm great at healing, like seriously great. I'm so great last time anyone died within a mile of me they auto-resurrected. Then there was this one time me and a buddy were swallowed whole and I healed for three days straight before they came to rescue us! Did I mention the time we had a healing contest and I overhealed my volunteer and he turned into a beam of pure positive energy?"
"What? Weapons? Pffft, I'm a pacifist. Did I mention I heal?"
First round: fighter fights defensively against BBEG and minions, none of them hit.
Cleric: Does nothing.
Second round: rogue aids fighter giving bonus to AC, no damage
Cleric: Does nothing.
...
Cleric: THIS SUCKS, TAKE DAMAGE GUYS!
Party: Hell no, THAT's why I wear armor!
Note: By dedicated healer/healbot I mean someone who builds the entire character primary around healing.I do think some people are missing that point a little bit. If your party needs a "healbot" it should be a GM PC, coz it would bore the hell out of a player :P
"Hi guys, I'm your new party member Jack. I'm great at healing, like seriously great. I'm so great last time anyone died within a mile of me they auto-resurrected. Then there was this one time me and a buddy were swallowed whole and I healed for three days straight before they came to rescue us! Did I mention the time we had a healing contest and I overhealed my volunteer and he turned into a beam of pure positive energy?"
"What? Weapons? Pffft, I'm a pacifist. Did I mention I heal?"
First round: fighter fights defensively against BBEG and minions, none of them hit.
Cleric: Does nothing.
Second round: rogue aids fighter giving bonus to AC, no damage
Cleric: Does nothing.
...
Cleric: THIS SUCKS, TAKE DAMAGE GUYS!
Party: Hell no, THAT's why I wear armor!
Funny writing :-D
However, this would not be the regular case in our games. Were it my game, you quickly find that armor won't help you against maneuvers, touch spells, traps and more. I would let this work once or twice, but PCs should not feel untouchable.
Funny writing :-D
However, this would not be the regular case in our games. Were it my game, you quickly find that armor won't help you against maneuvers, touch spells, traps and more. I would let this work once or twice, but PCs should not feel untouchable.
Did you just say "Touch spells"? :P
At what point do you then draw the line before making AC irrelevant? I know it's a balancing act and I shouldn't have inferred that all fights would be damage-less. Just that at early levels it's generally quite common (YMMV!) for monsters to miss so a heal focused cleric is a bit like a fish out of water at those levels.
All I was saying is there are rounds in combat where a healing cleric does nothing. Let's say the enemy rolls snake eyes on their damage. My cleric would look at the rogues puppy eyes and snicker "You call that damage??? 'Tis but a scratch!"
Funny writing :-D
However, this would not be the regular case in our games. Were it my game, you quickly find that armor won't help you against maneuvers, touch spells, traps and more. I would let this work once or twice, but PCs should not feel untouchable.
Did you just say "Touch spells"? :P
At what point do you then draw the line before making AC irrelevant? I know it's a balancing act and I shouldn't have inferred that all fights would be damage-less. Just that at early levels it's generally quite common (YMMV!) for monsters to miss so a heal focused cleric is a bit like a fish out of water at those levels.
All I was saying is there are rounds in combat where a healing cleric does nothing. Let's say the enemy rolls snake eyes on their damage. My cleric would look at the rogues puppy eyes and snicker "You call that damage??? 'Tis but a scratch!"
Then your healing focused cleric would use his other spells for good use, as I described above. He does not lose his spellcasting power - or combat prowess - just because he specializes by choosing appropriate feats, traits, equipment and skills, does he?
Or do your healing focused clerics fill all their spell slots with "cure" spells even though they can cast them spontaneously? ;-P
I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this: there are many class guides on the internet, freely available, written by Treantmonk and others. Pick a class and read the guide.
I know about the holy ones treantmonk/rogueedilon
First round: fighter fights defensively against BBEG and minions, none of them hit.Cleric: Does nothing.
Second round: rogue aids fighter giving bonus to AC, no damage
Cleric: Does nothing.
...
Cleric: THIS SUCKS, TAKE DAMAGE GUYS!
Party: Hell no, THAT's why I wear armor!
Ok, so you've avoided taking any damage, but you haven't inflicted any damage in return. Might as well not even count as a round of combat. In addition, if all it takes is fighting defensively to avoid getting hit at all said villians seem pretty weak. Furthermore, if the fighter is going to fight defensively, which reduces his damage potential, why is the BBEG and his minions even bothering with him when it looks like the rogue is a softer target and more of a threat?
I know you just come up with this example off the top of your head so I'm sorry to nitpick it. It's just that in my experience no matter how much you buff yourselves you're going to take damage, and potentially a lot of it. Also, as it's been mentioned before being a dedicated healer isn't just about healing hit point damage. It's also about removing conditions, afflictions, debuffs, and so on. When no actual healing magic is necessary there's usually buffs to cast as well. No well-made character period should find himself with nothing worthwhile to do as a matter of routine.
Finally, whether or not playing a healer is fun is up to the individual player. I know if someone comes from a videogame background healing might seem less fun than dealing out damage, but in a lot of cases good healing is the only thing that saved the PCs from a TPK and a lot of players enjoy playing the savior role.
An optimized is only needed in the case of bad tactics or bad builds.
Note: By dedicated healer/healbot I mean someone who builds the entire character primary around healing. That is different from someone who can heal such as a battle cleric, oracle, druid, or witch.
I disagree. I had a GM state at the start of a campaign "This is going to be a tough campaign, bring your A-Game." and one of our players missed this, so he died at least once a session before it disintegrated. I honestly don't think that if he'd built an optimized character, he'd have survived anyway (this guy had abysmal luck, at one point dying to something that had only a 3% chance of occurring: getting a critical from a golem, it rolling high enough to cause massive damage, and then failing his save), but who knows?
I had another GM who couldn't make fights work properly, he just didn't understand the CR system, and while we still won our fights, someone died nearly every combat.
There are times when you have to build an optimized character or you end up building a lot of characters.
Then your healing focused cleric would use his other spells for good use, as I described above. He does not lose his spellcasting power - or combat prowess - just because he specializes by choosing appropriate feats, traits, equipment and skills, does he?
Or do your healing focused clerics fill all their spell slots with "cure" spells even though they can cast them spontaneously? ;-P
I think I got confused somewhere. Once you've got combat prowess and feats/traits/etc you're not a healbot any more. You're a god of war or the parties best ally - a direct channel to the gods.
Healbots - the way wraithstrike describes them - are not fun to play for me, but as Xexyz points out, some people would like that. Personally I do enjoy playing the character who can heal as well - it's like "My strengths make you stronger, so by our powers combined, CAPTAIN PLA..." er, wrong universe, same concept.
I think, in essence, I'm only still debating this because someone infered that having a healer in the party was unnecessary unless you were a tactical moron. I'm saying that it doesn't matter if you're a tactical genius, a DM/GM will still twist things to damage you so you better have a healer in the party because non-magical healing is broken.
Ok, so you've avoided taking any damage, but you haven't inflicted any damage in return. Might as well not even count as a round of combat.
You haven't met our fighter! Anyway, yes it's a rough example and we don't often go toe-to-toe with single enemies and they don't always target the fighter. Hey, did you know how much blood a rogue's body contains on average? Buckets, man, buckets!
Any other ideas for becoming a better player?
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Any other ideas for becoming a better player?
Pheromones.
Things I can control?
Some Barry White and a bottle of Cristal?
Play with some people that are better than you are. find an online game, a pfs game or a different group. Find some people that are kicking ass with their characters and ask them how they're doing it and why.
Ok I'll look for a second group, I'd do pbp but I don't understand it well enough.
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Well, the best method I can think of is to make sure you read everything about a certain class thoroughly, and most importantly, never underestimate things that don't initially look appealing. Always read between the lines, because its the minor details that make certain choices better than others. For instance, think on it this way: the Grease spell initially doesn't seem too good, unless you are aware that characters attempting to move through it are flat-footed...and they can't save against this. Cast grease, sit beside your rogue sipping tea and munch popcorn, and watch the sneak attacks slowly turn your enemies into so much red mist. Things like this often don't jump out.
If the idea of going through every bit of errata and book with a fine-toothed comb fills you with dread, I recommend going around and seeing what other people have suggested for your particular class/race/build, or what have you. There is an entire community out there of people who enjoy doing this and then posting their achievements throughout the web, so that you don't have to. Good luck.
To build on what Drunken Dragon has said, Grease is a great spell, the flat footed condition is awesome... but it has even more application than that.
Have an ally in a grapple? Grease him -- he gets an automatic +10 to escape.
Have something you don't want the bad guys grabbing? Grease it -- they now have a really hard time keeping hold of it. Heck think your opponent has a bad reflex save? Grease the weapon in their hand. Greasing the ground could knock them prone, greasing the weapon will reduce their damage (or possibly remove it entirely) and grant AoO's each time they try and pick it up -- this tactic can work very well on wizard's that have a weapon as their arcane bond (or wand/staff etc).
Now each situation is limited -- you might not have a chance to grease a weapon, or the ground, or your ally... but chances are you'll have one such situation come up and when you use the spell in that situation you'll look like a genius if it works, and simply like you have a good grasp of the game if it doesn't.
Also look for end run plays. Mind Blank and greater invisibility is a hard combination to beat since it takes all divination spells out of play -- but it doesn't kill echolocation a fourth level transmutation spell which will allow you to detect the invisible creature, since transmutation spells are unaffected by Mind Blank.
"the Grease spell initially doesn't seem too good, unless you are aware that characters attempting to move through it are flat-footed." - The Drunken Dragon
The Grease spell doesn't say that people moving in it become flat-footed.
No, but the acrobatics skill does.