My group has been playing Way of the Wicked (awesome AP btw) for a few weeks now and our player who was in charge of healing dropped from game. I have been chomping at the bit at the opportunity to play a psionic class and was given the go ahead to play a Vitalist. Given the nature of the AP, I have decided to go with the soultheif method with both the lifeleach and sadist archtypes.
I have read the guides that are out there and looked around at other posts, but am not really finding the info that I was looking for. More to the point, I'm not really sure what Feats and Powers really complement this play style. Ive never been big on only healing, so this type of character really appealed to me.
Here is what I have so far.
Level 5
Human (25pt buy)
Str:8
Dex:13
Con:16
Int:11
Wis:21 (+2racial and +1 lvl4)
Cha:7
Feats:
Psicrystal Affinity (1st)
Psionic Body (human)
Unwilling Participant (bonus)
Improved Psicrystal (3rd)
Psionic Meditation (5th)
Any ideas of a combat rotation would be helpful too.
I ran a soul thief for a bit and virtually all my feats went to expanded knowledge so I could steal the best powers from other lists. Boat loads of class features, and the best (and most spammable) powers = winning combination. That was a while ago and the vitalist might have been updated since then however, not that having energy missiles or astral constructs is ever a bad thing.
Expanded Knowledge, Leadership, Metapsionic Feats are all good. Cushion the Blow and its follower saw some use in our campaign once all those ability damagers start coming in.
I have a DMPC vitalist supporting my kids' party, and she's taking the crafter route. Can't wait to start making them dorjes - gonna save me a lot of power points on healing.
Didn't plan much ahead of that, though. Guess I'll craft all the way?
How's that sadist archetype? Didn't really like any of the options for Vitalist other than the main one... it's a pretty solid class. But I bet Dreamscared could come up with an archetype-only book, if not a couple more classes. Wouldn't mind it one bit!
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Archetype only book you say? Hmmm... not a bad idea at all.
So far really enjoying the class. The archetypes add a whole new twist on the vitalist and my not be optimal, but gives great flavor and rp potential. Still haven't really figured out how to maximize my healing with the archetypes I'm using and being a soul thief vitalist and all, but I'm sure there are ways.
And I second a book of archetypes only. Delicious, delicious archetypes.........
The combination of archetypes is pretty deadly too; once you force them into a network, you can basically siphon off life forever from an enemy. I've used it on hidden enemies, insubstantial enemies, etc.
So after playing this character for a few sessions now, i have a few questions for some of you others that may have ran a Vitalist before.
I seem to be a VERY effective healer and want to make sure that I am not doing something wrong. This is without using the Mender Method and just seemed very high for the level.
Combat goes like this. Cast Hustle, gaining an extra move action. Unwilling Participant as a move action by spending my focus, then using my second move action to regain focus. Standard action casting Mend Body, spending my focus to roll 6d6 healing. This is empowered due to damaging one of my party for my level in damage, typically the unwilling participant. As I am now level 7, the average healing is 21 empowered to 31 given to 3 players, making for a total of 93 healing over the whole collective. This will only get higher as we progress in levels and seems a little high. All this for 12 points out of my pool of 67 power points.
Am I doing something wrong, or are Vitalist really that effective a healer?
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Looks legit. You are burning 15% of your base resources to do it, though (not counting any bonus power points from race or Wisdom)... and it requires someone to take that damage... and you're very much playing to your strengths.
Let me make a point, though:
Healing as an action SUCKS.
I say that having played RPGs now for around 30 years. If you're in a multicharacter game, it's not so bad having one of your characters be the healer. If it's your only character in the game, it sucks. It's why in MMOs, healers are one of the hardest roles to find and keep. It's why in nearly every group I've ever played, we've had to hire a healer NPC, had a DMPC healer, or had a "healer" who went offense, or just went with potions and wands and tried to take down the enemy fast enough that nobody died first.
The vitalist was designed around the idea that healing... sucks. You should be doing fun things, with healing certainly a necessary function, but understandably boring, so making it efficient important so you can get back to doing what you should be doing - having fun.
Excellent. Nice to get a response right from the source. One of the reasons I love your guys products at Dreamscarred so much.
And I have to agree, healing as an action does suck. I'm loving the Vitalist for just that reason, and even better with the awesome archtypes that are available. With the plethora of actions available to the Vitalist and the varying abilities of the archtypes, it is the ONLY "healing" class that I have every really enjoyed playing. Just nice to know that I can pull out all the stops and heal the players well too if it comes down to it.
Thanks for the responce Jeremy.
Cheers
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it take a full round action to regain focus?
I'm pretty sure he has Psionic Meditation, which reduces it to a Move Action to regain psionic focus.
As others have said Expanded knowledge x lots as feats and just fill in what spells your group needs. I went for Astral construct, Energy Missile and Metamorphosis as my first three.
In combat I generally force the monster most likely to die first into the collective, drained their life to top people up if needed and save big powers on big encounters (hopefully with free power)
That said we tend to play a very attrition based game where casters cannot just use their big spells all the time.
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