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This is for the guys commenting on the Guide to the Guides to talk about medics.
No one likes playing the medic of the party. It's not flashy or glamorous but every party needs one. At low to mid level a party won't survive without one and at higher levels a medic can raise dead characters. Especially useful without any means to instantly travel to a city. Being the medic means you are a team player. In a standard party of four it is absolutely mandatory to have one. A Rogue or someone with it's abilities to disarm and disable traps and unlock doors another vital requirement. I have seen a party without these two things and they don't last long unless you have a generous and nice Game Master.
The Best medic is The Life Mystery Oracle. Everything about them screams Healer. All spells with the word Cure in them go on your spell list before anything else. The bonus spells for their mystery most all go towards healing and curing. One immediate disadvantage is Simple Weapons only and their curses. Medium armor and shield proficiency provide enough protection before magic.
To start depending on race Clouded Vision or Tongues are the least of the curses to deal with. I prefer Tongues since most PCs have the option depending on Intelligence to pick one of your languages you speak in combat. Clouded Vision is useful if you are picking a race that doesn't offer Dark vision.
I prefer Aaasimars over Humans. While the extra feat is hard to pass up the aasimar offers dark vision, bonus to Perception and three Channeling feats. The three together give your channeling a lot more versatility. With an Aasimar you then can take Tongues Curse which I have found the least restrictive.
Now the first revelation I often pick is Safe Curing. It lets you cast Cure spells with provoking attacks of opportunity. With medium armor and a shield you can stand behind the frontline warriors and heal with little fear. The second revelation is Channel. Pick Selective and Extra Channel quickly afterwards if not before. Those two revelations allow you to heal the party in a wide variety of situations without too much difficulty. I suggest Reach Metamagic feat at some point.
Being the medic I pick spells that heal or buff the party I don't get through my mystery. Blessing of Fervor being the best spell at mid level Heroes Feast at higher levels. This is where it becomes painful because your spell selection is limited and you need to consider party needs over your wants. This is where Channeling makes the difference. I play Lawful or True Neutral for this reason. Pick Versatile Channel. You now at a slightly lower power cause damage with your channel. With the assimar feats your channeling becomes offensive. A high Charisma and Extra Channel gives you the ability to inflict some damage in between healing party members.
The disadvantage for being the medic is you are not a damage dealer. A level or even two of fighter helps this somewhat. The first two levels of fighter give you two combat feats. I recommend Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot. I suggest using a bow unless you take a penalty for strength. The reload time on a Crossbow is a minimum of a Move action for a Light and for a Heavy a Full Round action. A bow has no reload time with damage comparable. While painful to do because you lose ninth level spells three levels of Gunslinger Musket Master Archtype gives you a boost in offensive capacity. At third level you reload Muskets as a one handed firearm, with Rapid Reload and Alchemical Cartridges this becomes a Free Action. D12 damage against Touch AC at Forty feet makes the loss of ninth level spells almost worth it.
Another route to take is take two levels of Envoy and one level of Holy Vindicator. At second level Envoy there is an ability that lets you channel both positive or negative energy at your level. The one level of Vindicator allows you to spend a channel to boost your AC by your channel damage.
I don't see why not just be a fat frontliner with a Life Oracle.
Life Battle
Male Human oracle 8
TN Medium humanoid (human)
Init +1, Senses Perception +6
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DEFENSE
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AC 25, touch 13, flat-footed 24 (+11 armor, +1 deflection, +1 Dex, +1 natural, )
hp 57 ((8d8)+19)
Fort +8, Ref +4, Will +5
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OFFENSE
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Speed 15 ft.
Melee longspear +2 +13/+8 (1d8+9/x3)
Special Attacks Channel (4d6, DC 19, 6/day),
Oracle Spells Known (CL 8th; concentration +13)
4th(4/day)-blessing of fervor(DC 19), restoration(DC 19), cure critical wounds(DC 19)
3rd(6/day)-invisibility purge(DC ), prayer, remove curse(DC 18), neutralize poison(DC 18), cure serious wounds(DC 18)
2nd(7/day)-bear's endurance(DC 17), bull's strength(DC 17), eagle's splendor(DC 17), hold person(DC 17), remove paralysis(DC 17), restoration (lesser)(DC 17), cure moderate wounds(DC 17)
1st(8/day)-comprehend languages(DC ), divine favor(DC ), obscuring mist, protection from evil(DC 16), remove fear(DC 16), sanctuary(DC 16), shield of faith(DC 16), cure light wounds(DC 16), detect undead
0th(at will)-detect magic, detect poison, guidance(DC 15), light, mending(DC 15), read magic(DC ), scrivener's chant(DC 15), stabilize(DC 15)
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STATISTICS
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Str 20, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 7, Cha 21,
Base Atk +6; CMB +11; CMD 24
Feats Armor Proficiency, Heavy, Great Fortitude, Selective Channeling, Quick Channel Skills Diplomacy +16, Knowledge (Religion) +11, Perception +6, Spellcraft +11,
Traits Resilient, Sacred Conduit,
Languages Common
SQ bonus oracle spell (5x), dual talent, lame, life link, life mysteries, orisons, spirit boost,
Combat Gear candle (10), torch (10), rations (trail/per day) (5),
Other Gear amulet of natural armor +1, headband of alluring charisma +2, jingasa of the fortunate soldier, ring of protection +1, longspear +2, belt of giant strength +2, full plate +2, cloak of resistance +1, pouch (belt), backpack, bedroll, waterskin, flint and steel, pot (iron), mess kit, rope (hemp/50 ft.), soap (per lb.), 1036.0 gp
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SPECIAL ABILITIES
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Bonus Oracle Spell (5x) Add one spell known from the oracle spell list. This spell must be at least one level below the highest spell level the oracle can cast.
Channel (Su) You can unleash a wave of positive energy. You must choose to deal 4d6 points of positive energy damage to undead creatures or to heal living creatures of 4d6 points of damage. Creatures that take damage from channeled energy receive a DC 19 Will save to halve the damage. You can use this ability 6 times per day.
Dual Talent Some humans are uniquely skilled at maximizing their natural gifts. These humans pick two ability scores and gain a +2 racial bonus in each of those scores. This racial trait replaces the +2 bonus to any one ability score, the bonus feat, and the skilled traits.
Lame One of your legs is permanently wounded, reducing your base land speed by 10 feet. Your speed is never reduced due to encumbrance. You are immune to the fatigued condition (but not exhaustion).
Life Link (Su) As a standard action, you may create a bond between yourself and another creature. Each round at the start of your turn, if the bonded creature is wounded for 5 or more hit points below its maximum hit points, it heals 5 hit points and you take 5 hit points of damage. You may have 8 bond(s) active at a time. This bond continues until the bonded creature dies, you die, the distance between you and the other creature exceeds medium range, or you end it as an immediate action (if you have multiple bonds active, you may end as many as you want as part of the same immediate action).
Life Mysteries You draw upon the divine mystery of Life to grant your spells and powers.
Orisons You can prepare a number of orisons, or 0-level spells. These spells are cast like any other spells, but they are not expended when used and may be used again.
Resilient Growing up in a violent neighborhood or in the unforgiving wilds often forced you to subsist on food and water from doubtful sources. You gain a +1 trait bonus on Fortitude saves.
Sacred Conduit Your birth was particularly painful and difficult for your mother, who needed potent divine magic to ensure that you survived (your mother may or may not have survived). In any event, that magic infused you from an early age, and you now channel divine energy with greater ease than most. Whenever you channel energy, you gain a +1 trait bonus to the save DC of your channeled energy.
Spirit Boost (Su) Whenever your healing spells heal a target up to its maximum hit points, any excess points persist for 8 round(s) as temporary hit points (up to a maximum of 8 temporary hit points).
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I'll just repost what I wrote in the guides thread. I wanted to delete the post (so others didn't continue the derail) but couldn't figure out how. Hopefully a mod will clean that up. Anyway.
I personally view "the party is doomed without a dedicated healbot" to be a sign of poor game design, poor scenario design, or poor GMing. No player should ever feel obligated to play a specific kind of thing "because the party needs one" since "I am playing this character, instead of the character I want because the rest of the players wanted me to" is a good way to create intraparty strife, which results in everybody having a worse time. The point of the game, after all, is to have fun.
A party consisting of a Barbarian, a Swashbuckler, a Monk, and a Rogue should be able to go on adventures and have fun. They probably won't be able to face down as tough challenges as the party consisting of a Wizard, a Druid, an Oracle, and a Bard but that doesn't mean that the former party is a pack of useless fools wasting precious oxygen on Golarion (or wherever). The GM just needs to tweak the scope of the campaign and the difficulty of the antagonists in order to make sure the party is challenged appropriately (sometimes that means shifting up, sometimes down.)
Tots agree.
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Nobody likes playing the medic? B+$&$$%+. You've got someone that loves playing the medic right here. If my character isn't a primary medic they have access to some form of healing...aside from the one rouge I made.
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Well, personally I'm not a huge fan of entirely redesigning encounters or campaigns just because of class compositions. Certain things should be entirely reasonable challenges no matter what classes people play. Flying monsters should be reasonable level 5+. Invisible monsters around the same time. Darkness and Deeper Darkness should show up sometime in the campaign. But that being said, I think a lot of people really underestimate how well an "unbalanced" party can do. I see it all the time with PFS where every player shows up with their front line melee character, and it all seems to work out. Whether it's using consumable items, or creative thinking that gets around the problem, there's a lot that players can do even if they don't have caster levels.
And personally, I've always found a good arcane caster to be a better boon to a group than a healbot anyway.
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The party doesn't need a medic. Not in the sense of in-combat healing as a regular thing they do every turn.
What the party needs is someone who can, out of combat, remove harmful conditions, operate a Wand of CLW, and manage a Raise Dead.
In-combat, all they need is to be willing to step in and cast a Cure when someone's in the negatives, and eventually do that with the Heal spell instead. Breath of Life is super nice to have, too.
That's...pretty easy for any Cleric or Oracle to provide (okay, the Oracle needs to invest some spells, but not all that many of any level but 3rd). Or for a Healing Patron witch. An Alchemist with Infusion can actually manage pretty well, too, especially a Chirugeon.
And so on and so forth. Heck, you can easily split up the duties. A Hospitaler Paladin with Ultimate Mercy to handle HP damage and Raise Dead while an Alchemist keeps a third level slot or two free for condition removal would work fine, for example.
None of the conditions I list above necessitate having 'medic' be your characters primary role. A Warsighted Oracle of Battle with maxed Str and starting Cha 14 and mostly combative spells can easily handle as much healing as the party ever really needs, especially if human and using the FC bonus, while still being primarily a melee combatant not 'the medic'. You can do the same with a dedicated save-or-suck Witch by taking the Healing Patron. Or with a Cleric by existing as a Cleric.
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So in PFS the other day the party was 2 healers lv7, a super tank paladin that traded out his smite for an AC booster lv6 and an under-leveled barb lv4.
The mini-boss took forever since they couldn't do damage nor deal with the spellcaster's spells. one of the healers had a fly available, but the party wanted him to heal instead of cast it on the paladin. So he healed, and then the caster hurt them again so they wanted another heal instead of the fly to reach the caster. Finally they did a fly instead of a heal so the paladin could reach the caster, then the barb decided to climb the stairs to the floor the caster was on. This fight caused them to use so much resources and lasted like 16+ rounds. I know cause we burned through all 12 of the barbs rounds plus more.
Then the boss fight, it had DR5 and fast healing 5. it took forever as well cause of all the healiig needed and cause no one could really hurt it a lot.
had the healers and party had been more proactive the fights would have been so easy I feel.
Does anyone have a quick list of condition removal spells to keep in mind for each spell level?
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I'll just repost what I wrote in the guides thread. I wanted to delete the post (so others didn't continue the derail) but couldn't figure out how. Hopefully a mod will clean that up. Anyway.
I personally view "the party is doomed without a dedicated healbot" to be a sign of poor game design, poor scenario design, or poor GMing. No player should ever feel obligated to play a specific kind of thing "because the party needs one" since "I am playing this character, instead of the character I want because the rest of the players wanted me to" is a good way to create intraparty strife, which results in everybody having a worse time. The point of the game, after all, is to have fun.
A party consisting of a Barbarian, a Swashbuckler, a Monk, and a Rogue should be able to go on adventures and have fun. They probably won't be able to face down as tough challenges as the party consisting of a Wizard, a Druid, an Oracle, and a Bard but that doesn't mean that the former party is a pack of useless fools wasting precious oxygen on Golarion (or wherever). The GM just needs to tweak the scope of the campaign and the difficulty of the antagonists in order to make sure the party is challenged appropriately (sometimes that means shifting up, sometimes down.)
I disagree with this sentiment. You wouldn't expect a party to fare very well in a fight-heavy scenario where nobody wanted to play the "mandatory role" of striker/tank to stand between monsters and squishies.
If you're going to be facing challenging monsters, they'll probably manage to hurt you a couple of times while you're fighting them. If you can consistently stop monsters from hurting you, are they really challenging?
The amount and type of hurt also changes as you level up. At low levels, you can often remedy it with some quick wand charges, but at higher levels, enemies do so much damage that a wand just doesn't go fast enough, and also wears out very fast. In addition, enemies inflict many different conditions. Like paralysis, blindness, severe ability damage or drain. Some of these can wait until the end of the adventure to be cured; some need to be cured immediately or there'll be corpses.
What also changes is that at low levels, PCs are relatively well able to substitute for each other. Melee fighter goes down? Archer ranger draws a sword and goes switch-hitting. Cleric steps up from second to front line with his mace. Wizard spends his blast spell in this fight instead of the next one, and the fighter will have to work harder in that one.
But at later levels, as everyone develops more special abilities, it's much harder to do that. If the archer goes down, the melee fighter doesn't have the feats to really be all that impressive against the enemy that's too fast to keep close to. And the caster cleric isn't doing enough melee damage to really replace that fighter that just dropped.
So keeping the enemy team from doing some focus fire and taking down a PC becomes much more important.
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The term "healbot" also suggest a rather low-tactics appproach to being what I think is more properly called a "support cleric" (or other class variant). The SC does heal a frontliner if it looks like he might otherwise have to stop full attacking enemies, but he's also checking to see if it's time to break out the Communal Align Weapon spell to get through that DR/Good, or the Communal Resist Fire against the breath weapon. Should he lead with Blessing of Fervor or is it better to cast Freedom of Movement so the two-hander paladin can't be Grab-Constrict-Swallow Whole'd?
Such a support caster is a very full-scale role and starts to become very nice to have around level 5, and hard to survive without at level 9 or so. Before that time hitting a lot and very hard can be extremely effective, but enemies start throwing stranger and stranger attacks at you and a 2H melee dude often needs some help handling that.
The thing is, even back in 3.0 the need for a cleric that went beyond healbot was very clear. That's what the Spontaneous Cure Spells class feature comes from. Before, clerics might get angry comments from other players; "why did you prepare X instead Cure Annoying Wounds?". Clerics were guilt-tripped into being only healbots. Spontaneous Cure Spells circumvents that, because a cleric can provide healing without the "guilt" of preparing non-healing spells.
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I'll just repost what I wrote in the guides thread. I wanted to delete the post (so others didn't continue the derail) but couldn't figure out how. Hopefully a mod will clean that up. Anyway.
I personally view "the party is doomed without a dedicated healbot" to be a sign of poor game design, poor scenario design, or poor GMing. No player should ever feel obligated to play a specific kind of thing "because the party needs one" since "I am playing this character, instead of the character I want because the rest of the players wanted me to" is a good way to create intraparty strife, which results in everybody having a worse time. The point of the game, after all, is to have fun.
A party consisting of a Barbarian, a Swashbuckler, a Monk, and a Rogue should be able to go on adventures and have fun. They probably won't be able to face down as tough challenges as the party consisting of a Wizard, a Druid, an Oracle, and a Bard but that doesn't mean that the former party is a pack of useless fools wasting precious oxygen on Golarion (or wherever). The GM just needs to tweak the scope of the campaign and the difficulty of the antagonists in order to make sure the party is challenged appropriately (sometimes that means shifting up, sometimes down.)
I disagree with this sentiment. You wouldn't expect a party to fare very well in a fight-heavy scenario where nobody wanted to play the "mandatory role" of striker/tank to stand between monsters and squishies.
If you're going to be facing challenging monsters, they'll probably manage to hurt you a couple of times while you're fighting them. If you can consistently stop monsters from hurting you, are they really challenging?
The amount and type of hurt also changes as you level up. At low levels, you can often remedy it with some quick wand charges, but at higher levels, enemies do so much damage that a wand just doesn't go fast enough, and also wears out very fast. In addition, enemies inflict many different conditions....
There is no striker/tank role. If your group is comprised primarily of ranged/"squishy" characters, you need to plan accordingly, and it's your fault if you die because you didn't have the tactical understanding of how to play with what you've been given.
A typical group in combat usually "needs" a hammer, arm, and anvil, with many of those roles being interchangeable depending on your class. Heck, I had a trip/dirty trick reach fighter that, for a vast majority of encounters, completely eliminated the need for healing because he could so efficiently keep the enemy locked down. If I had chosen to do so, he could probably have done it at range as an archer.
You don't need a tank, you don't need a healer, heck, you probably don't even need a dedicated DPR guy. You need sound tactical knowledge and an understanding of what your group needs. We went a REALLY long time without anyone as a healer AT ALL with the above character.
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I play a level 14 Cleric in PFS, and I'm all about the heals. As mentioned, it isn't a sexy job, but I enjoy it a lot. I had to find my way into it, but once I did, I loved it. I'm built for utility. I don't do any damage, but I keep people upright. While I have lots of characters who just dish out damage, I've never felt happier just making sure everyone is all right. There's just nothing like that rush of "oh crap, I'm in the negatives, we're gonna die for sure," only for the Cleric to cast Heal on you and you're totally fine again.
I'm not the most valuable member of the group, as we're all fulfilling a certain niche, but I would say I'm the only one who can make sure everyone's all right. Break Enchantment, Blessing of Fervor, Freedom of Movement, Remove <X>, and so on. Without the Magus, fights would've lasted a lot longer, but we would've made it, I'm sure. But without me, people would've been dead. The number of times I cast Breath of Life to fix a death is amazing. And if I'm not needed for healing, I've specced into the Bless Equipment feats to boost people even more.
Bottom line: "Healbot" is a short-sighted and negative term and if you keep using that word, people will stop playing them. Clerics/Oracles are way more than that and you should be proud of playing one. Anyone can wield a sword. Not everyone can make people fight on for longer than they should because my god wills it so.
If you're going to be facing challenging monsters, they'll probably manage to hurt you a couple of times while you're fighting them. If you can consistently stop monsters from hurting you, are they really challenging?
Yes, as long as you were "challenged" to find some way to keep that from happening.
For example, if the wizard summons a Wall of Meat to keep the baddies away, it might be the case that no one in the party took hit point damage, but the wizard just burned one or several high level spells to keep putting "another brick in the Wall."
At low levels, you can often remedy it with some quick wand charges, but at higher levels, enemies do so much damage that a wand just doesn't go fast enough, and also wears out very fast.
You misunderstand the role of the wand. The wand is normally used out of combat, when it doesn't matter how long it takes, and you can if necessary spend two minutes burning twenty charges of the wand for 20d8+20 hit points. And, yes, that can burn out a wand quickly.... but the 750 gp per wand is pocket change at those levels.
There is no striker/tank role. If your group is comprised primarily of ranged/"squishy" characters, you need to plan accordingly, and it's your fault if you die because you didn't have the tactical understanding of how to play with what you've been given.
Precisely. You don't need a "tank", you need an anvil -- someone that can keep the bad guys from hurting the squishies. This can be a summoned monster, a tripping wolf companion, an area-denial spell, or a simple tanglefoot bag.
Just remember that the druid's entangle spell can do a lot more to keep a twelvepack of kobolds away from the wizard and the sorcerer than the druid herself can.
In Wrath of The Rightous where I played a Wizard we kept getting jumped by monsters from every direction. My Wizard having the lowest AC needed healing after every battle and often in battle.
That's not an argument for needing a medic; that's an argument for learning how to play a wizard. A wizard who relies on AC to avoid damage is a badly-played wizard.
Bottom line: "Healbot" is a short-sighted and negative term and if you keep using that word, people will stop playing them.
Good!
People should not play "healbots." They're not fun to play, and they're not particularly useful.
If you want to play a cleric, there are lots of things that you can do that are both fun and useful. There's a reason the term "CoDzilla" was thrown around so much, esp. in 3.5 -- clerics can totally dominate the battlefield as well as the out-of-combat adventures. Cleric is one of the most powerful classes,.... until you decide to gimp it by making it a healbot.
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I have played Clerics all my gaming life. Oracles became a new favorite after reading them. Now regarding sound tactile knowledge and such. The perfect plan is useless in the heat of battle any soldier will tell you that. In Wrath of The Rightous where I played a Wizard we kept getting jumped by monsters from every direction. My Wizard having the lowest AC needed healing after every battle and often in battle. D6 hit points don't go a long way when a longsword does a D8. It wasn't as if I ran into melee I did everything I could not to get attacked, it didn't help for half our battles.
Now I have played two Oracles to 20th level a Flame Oracle of Asmodeus and a Life Oracle without a deity. I liked my Flame Oracle because he had more offensive abilities then the Life Oracle and we were evil which was fun. The Life Oracle I had one complaint which was lack of an offensive punch. Almost all my spells were designed to heal restore or buff the party. Shield of Faith was the only spell I picked for myself. Blessing of Fervor was our first spell before every combat followed by Bless.
Higher levels was where my Oracle was not needed as a healer as often. Low to mid levels you need a healer because magic depending on the campaign may not be available. I keep reading about potions and wands doing the healing. I think that's a mistake. One both cost money and are gone once used. Wands unless you have a class that can cast healing spells require Use Magic Device and a high Charisma. Two that's money not used for more permanent items. Armor, shields, weapons, Etc, etc. Again assuming magic is even available.
We never reffered to my healers as Healbot except once and that was Star Wars because I was a droid.
Having good tactical knowledge isn't about having the perfect plan. It's about knowing what to do when given a situation, and having backup plans when that doesn't work. You mentioned that your Wizard had the lowest AC in the group: Why? Did you have Mage Armor up? Did you have a shield? Decent Dexterity? These are all part of the tactical aspect of building your character, and only a few elements of it. I'm currently playing a cleric who, despite being spell/channel focused (for damage: it's an undead-heavy campaign), has the highest AC in the party by a WIDE margin, and frequently jumps into the front line to draw hits away from his allies as his form of support.
In addition, character WBL is designed around having expendable currency: money specifically for consumable items (like Wands). A wand of Cure Light Wounds is an extra ~225 HP in healing for 750 gold. At low levels, it's easily worth the cost, and at high levels it's a drop in the bucket of what is expected to be used for your consumable wealth.
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There is no striker/tank role. If your group is comprised primarily of ranged/"squishy" characters, you need to plan accordingly, and it's your fault if you die because you didn't have the tactical understanding of how to play with what you've been given.
A typical group in combat usually "needs" a hammer, arm, and anvil, with many of those roles being interchangeable depending on your class. Heck, I had a trip/dirty trick reach fighter that, for a vast majority of encounters, completely eliminated the need for healing because he could so efficiently keep the enemy locked down. If I had chosen to do so, he could probably have done it at range as an archer.
You don't need a tank, you don't need a healer, heck, you probably don't even need a dedicated DPR guy. You need sound tactical knowledge and an understanding of what your group needs. We went a REALLY long time without anyone as a healer AT ALL with the above character.
So what I was getting at, is that you don't expect a party to do very well if there is nobody in the party that's actually good at killing enemies, if all they can do is keep them at bay.
But the other side of that is that it's naive to think that you can almost always prevent enemies from doing serious harm to you. If you can really consistently stop the enemies from doing real harm, they're by definition not challenging enemies.
PC healthcare is not merely casting cure spells like walking CLW wand. It involves several layers of safety;
1) Lifestyle choices. Well-built PCs, sound tactical maneuvering. This is mostly up to the other players.
2) Preventing harm in specific situations. This is where a cleric comes into play to cast stuff like Resist Energy. Preventing can be very efficient. Clerics do this a bit better than oracles especially in a multi-day conflict where you can adapt spell selection to enemies.
2a) Altering the situation: throwing up Walls, debuffing enemies. This requires real specialization when save DCs need to be high. To really stratosphere your caster stat, you'll have to give up some combat versatility.
3) First Aid. A PC has been hurt and needs immediate help to stay effective (Remove Blindness/Paralysis) or to even survive the fight (Breath of Life, Delay Poison). This is something oracles can be very good at because of their quantitiy of spells and spontaneously replicating the thing you need a lot of. Also, scrolls.
4) Long-term care. Removing negative levels, curses, diseases, petrification, ability drain. Raising the dead. Clerics do this best because you may need a wide selection of rarely-used spells and caster level can be important for dispelling/removing curses.
5) Continuity of Government. If all else fails, retreat with as much bodies as you can move. Or use tissue samples or something. Using spells like Obscuring Mist or Word of Recall, if you can't win this fight, get out of there and recover so you can try again under better circumstances.
In Tarxx's parlance, you're the hand in surgical latex glove. It is NOT a dumb role.
What makes this a powerful paradigm is that you work to avoid single-point failures. If something goes wrong, you don't lose, you start fixing it at the next line of defence.
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If you're going to be facing challenging monsters, they'll probably manage to hurt you a couple of times while you're fighting them. If you can consistently stop monsters from hurting you, are they really challenging?Yes, as long as you were "challenged" to find some way to keep that from happening.
For example, if the wizard summons a Wall of Meat to keep the baddies away, it might be the case that no one in the party took hit point damage, but the wizard just burned one or several high level spells to keep putting "another brick in the Wall."
That wasn't Davor you're quoting, that was me.
What I'm getting at is, that if you can routinely keep enemies from getting to you with a summoned critter, those enemies weren't really challenging. If you can usually keep enemies at bay that way, there's some challenge, but it also means that sometimes you don't succeed and get hurt.
At low levels, you can often remedy it with some quick wand charges, but at higher levels, enemies do so much damage that a wand just doesn't go fast enough, and also wears out very fast.You misunderstand the role of the wand. The wand is normally used out of combat, when it doesn't matter how long it takes, and you can if necessary spend two minutes burning twenty charges of the wand for 20d8+20 hit points. And, yes, that can burn out a wand quickly.... but the 750 gp per wand is pocket change at those levels.
My point is that if you do get hurt in combat and need the healing, the CLW wand doesn't cut it. And while the CLW wand is cost-effective, the higher-level wands that would heal "fast enough" are not so cheap.
There is no striker/tank role. If your group is comprised primarily of ranged/"squishy" characters, you need to plan accordingly, and it's your fault if you die because you didn't have the tactical understanding of how to play with what you've been given.Precisely. You don't need a "tank", you need an anvil -- someone that can keep the bad guys from hurting the squishies. This can be a summoned monster, a tripping wolf companion, an area-denial spell, or a simple tanglefoot bag.
Just remember that the druid's entangle spell can do a lot more to keep a twelvepack of kobolds away from the wizard and the sorcerer than the druid herself can.
That wasn't me, now you're quoting Davor under my name.
I think you're both also misinterpreting the point by focusing on a narrow definition of the word "tank". My point is that nobody expects a party to do very well if they can't somehow keep enemies from getting to any party member they like, or eventually destroy enemies. I'd call a wolf tasked with keeping enemies from getting to the party a tank as well, and a sorcerer destroying enemies with Scorching Ray spam is also a striker.
My point is: you don't expect a party succeed if they leave a major hole open such as:
- No plan to actually defeat enemies, apart from holding them off a long time and hoping they go home
- No plan to recover when the enemy gets in a nasty attack of some kind; which higher-level enemies will do quite a lot
Ascalaphus raises a good point: sometimes you can't avoid being hurt. another thread that's raging right now is the "death by saving throws"-thread, that's now morphed into complaining about crits. Sometimes you get hurt badly, and you can't take another hit. In those cases, someone with healing capabilities needs to step up and heal. I've been in a PFS scenario where we had a Flame Strike-happy Oracle way above our level, and we didn't have Resist Energy (Fire) on. One Wizard died at that table, and that's it, because my repeated Channels kept everyone above Flame Strike death range*. Without me, we'd all have been burned to a crisp.
In-combat healing isn't always necessary, but when the tides turn, you need a backup. I think every caster capable of learning a Cure spell should have at least one of the highest level you can cast. Sometimes a regular Cure Light won't work.
* Flame Strike Death Range will be the new name of my metal band.
Ascalaphus raises a good point: sometimes you can't avoid being hurt.
Shrug. Situational needs are exactly why consumables exist; if you have a reasonable plan to avoid being hurt, but want to cover your bases anyway, that's why you have a scroll (and someone with UMD -- but you would have that anyway if you have the planning skills needed to get out of a phone booth).
You don't expect your sorcerer to learn ear piercing scream on the off-chance that you might come across something vulnerable to sonic damage; you buy it in a wand or a scroll -- or simply do without because you have other ways to accomplish the task of doing something for hit point damage. You don't expect the wizard to memorize disguise weapon on a daily basis if you're in the wilderness.
You don't need a character to cast breath of life if you can afford 4,500 gp for a set of first aid gloves -- which lets even the fighter cast that spell twice. And then the cleric can do something useful with that fifth level slot, like prepare sanctify weapons so that everyone can effectively gank the demons you're fighting.
There is no striker/tank role. If your group is comprised primarily of ranged/"squishy" characters, you need to plan accordingly, and it's your fault if you die because you didn't have the tactical understanding of how to play with what you've been given.
A typical group in combat usually "needs" a hammer, arm, and anvil, with many of those roles being interchangeable depending on your class.
Except that's not what Davor seemed to mean -- he specifically distinguished ranged/"squishy" characters from striker/tanks.
A blaster wizard is a hammer, but not a striker/tank, as is an archer rogue or ranger. And the general meaning of "tank" is someone who physically stands between the BBEG and the "squishies" in the back in order to protect them. The key insight that a lot of people miss is that there are lots of ways to keep the BBEG from hurting you, and many of them do not involve a character physically standing in between. As examples, someone can debuff the BBEG so he can't attack effectively, someone can create difficult terrain (including walls of meat) that prevent him from approaching, or someone can grant the good guys abilities that make them immune to damage.
_Or_, and this of course is the point of the thread -- you can let the BBEG do his worst and then fix everything before it becomes serious. That's the role generally taken by a medic, and it's a poor and inefficient one.
Those three elementals that I summoned? The ones that the BBEG killed with one hit each? Those are three hits, for at least 39 hit points, that the BBEG didn't do to anyone in the party -- and so I saved us 39 hit points in damage at the cost of a third level spell (SM III). (And probably more, since he was unlikely to do exactly enough to kill each critter.) I also bought us three attacks worth of time to counterattack him, at least one round, possibly three. The archer used that time to do another 20 points of damage to the BBEG. Everyone else could do something -- even the elementals themselves could possibly scratch the paint.
You know what else I could have done with a third level spell? I could have healed 3d8+5 hit points, for a maximum of 29 hit points.
So, by not playing healbot, the party is at least 10 hp up over where they would have been otherwise, and the BBEG is down substantially.
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First Aid Gloves are pretty sexy, but a scroll of ear-piercing scream is 1d6 damage, DC 11 save for half. Not so sexy. Same for the scroll of Remove Curse: do you really think a caster level 5 is going to cut it?
One of the reasons First Aid Gloves (talk about awkward acronym) are so sexy is that they're fast to use. Many consumables are pretty hard to use in the middle of a fight. Drawing a potion provokes. Drinking a potion provokes. And it's explicitly permitted to strike at the potion with the AoO.
I'm all for using good consumables, but I don't think they're a complete answer. If I'm going up against a dragon, I'm much more interested in that high-caster-level Resist Energy. And there aren't any Death Ward potions, and a ring of Freedom of Movement is pretty expensive. You can get them on a scroll, but who's gonna cast it? Right, the divine caster.
Buying wands, scrolls or potions shouldn't be done just to not have a healer type in the party.
You have it exactly backwards.
Wasting a character playing a healer type shouldn't be done just to avoid spending money on wands, scrolls and potions.
You've reduced CoDzilla to an animate pile of gold.
I'm all for using good consumables, but I don't think they're a complete answer. If I'm going up against a dragon, I'm much more interested in that high-caster-level Resist Energy. And there aren't any Death Ward potions, and a ring of Freedom of Movement is pretty expensive. You can get them on a scroll, but who's gonna cast it?
The sorcerer, with her charisma and tricked out UMD skill.
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Those three elementals that I summoned? The ones that the BBEG killed with one hit each? Those are three hits, for at least 39 hit points, that the BBEG didn't do to anyone in the party -- and so I saved us 39 hit points in damage at the cost of a third level spell (SM III). (And probably more, since he was unlikely to do exactly enough to kill each critter.) I also bought us three attacks worth of time to counterattack him, at least one round, possibly three. The archer used that time to do another 20 points of damage to the BBEG. Everyone else could do something -- even the elementals themselves could possibly scratch the paint.
You know what else I could have done with a third level spell? I could have healed 3d8+5 hit points, for a maximum of 29 hit points.
So, by not playing healbot, the party is at least 10 hp up over where they would have been otherwise, and the BBEG is down substantially.
While I agree that generally healbots aren't needed - your example here is misleading.
Sure - those 3 BBEG attacks dealt at least 39pts of damage, but that DOES NOT mean that those 3 swings at another PC would have done at least 39pts of damage. A PC will likely have much better defenses than a small elemental, so likely at least 1 of those 3 BBEG attacks will be a miss. If 2 of the 3 BBEG swings which deal 15hp each are misses then healing for 3d8+5 is a better use of your time than the SM III is.
That's why the general rule is that the higher the group's defenses, the more beneficial in-combat healing becomes.
(Admittedly - at level 5 it would almost never be worthwhile to use a level 3 spell for healing. But - at that level the BBEG is unlikely to both have 3 swings and be able to kill small elementals in a single hit anyway. *shrug*)
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And with that you have made a Sorcerer your healer rather then a blaster which is what they are. I have played one Sorcerer ended up making him an Int based rather then Chr base. Didn't put a single point into Use Magic Devices.
A party as a general rule should have one even two Martial classes. Lots of HP good armor and good to hit ratio. An Arcane class a Wizard would be best but any of them work well enough. A stealthy Rogue type one with the ability to disarm magical traps. And last but not least a Divine Healer. With archtypes you can make one character fulfill two roles.
This is based off of playing for thirty years. Not just my experience have heard several other DMs tell me stories of how their players all b+@+%ed and whined about dying all the time because they lacked one of those crucial elements. Most of the time is because they didn't have a Rogue or a Healer. They all played fighter type classes with maybe an Arcane type thrown in. In every case most died during combat or shortly thereafter because they were cursed, or poisoned.
Now is it fun to play the medic of the group? No not really and I know a lot of people that avoid it rather dying repeatedly then suck it up and play what the group needs.
Your Breakdown is an Outdated method and is hindering to group make ups. This no longer applies to Pathfinder.
Please go read the Forge of Combat and enlighten yourself.
Those three elementals that I summoned? The ones that the BBEG killed with one hit each? Those are three hits, for at least 39 hit points, that the BBEG didn't do to anyone in the party -- and so I saved us 39 hit points in damage at the cost of a third level spell (SM III). (And probably more, since he was unlikely to do exactly enough to kill each critter.) I also bought us three attacks worth of time to counterattack him, at least one round, possibly three. The archer used that time to do another 20 points of damage to the BBEG. Everyone else could do something -- even the elementals themselves could possibly scratch the paint.
You know what else I could have done with a third level spell? I could have healed 3d8+5 hit points, for a maximum of 29 hit points.
So, by not playing healbot, the party is at least 10 hp up over where they would have been otherwise, and the BBEG is down substantially.
While I agree that generally healbots aren't needed - your example here is misleading.
Sure - those 3 BBEG attacks dealt at least 39pts of damage, but that DOES NOT mean that those 3 swings at another PC would have done at least 39pts of damage. A PC will likely have much better defenses than a small elemental, so likely at least 1 of those 3 BBEG attacks will be a miss. If 2 of the 3 BBEG swings which deal 15hp each are misses then healing for 3d8+5 is a better use of your time than the SM III is.
Perhaps, but if what I'm trying to do is "protect the squishy," that sorcerer is unlikely to have great defenses. And if the person I'm protecting is the invulnerable paladin, I probably won't need to heal him in combat at all, since he can take the misses, and even the hits, and we can patch him up after combat with a wand.
Either way, I don't see a likely situation where I want to be healing. And if we're just discussing "yes, but it's _possible_ even if unlikely" situations, I don't want to spec my character to handle zebras when I'm working on a horse farm. Or a high-rise apartment in Midtown Manhattan.
And with that you have made a Sorcerer your healer rather then a blaster which is what they are.
Goodness, no. I made the sorcerer a blaster who can be anything (via UMD) in the event that blasting is not sufficient. ("Oh my god, we need someone to cast tongues!"//"Relax, I have a scroll for that.") What the hell else was she supposed to do with her skill points, anyway?
I have played one Sorcerer ended up making him an Int based rather then Chr base. Didn't put a single point into Use Magic Devices.
Bad decisions on your part are not necessarily the only way to play. Which is why we're telling you not to play healbots.
A party as a general rule should have one even two Martial classes. Lots of HP good armor and good to hit ratio. An Arcane class a Wizard would be best but any of them work well enough. A stealthy Rogue type one with the ability to disarm magical traps. And last but not least a Divine Healer.
Goodness, no. Repeating a wrong statement on your part will not make it correct. You don't need a rogue when a single trait (or any of a dozen actually useful classes) will give you Trapfinding. You don't need a healer when skill points will suffice, and are much more plentiful.
In general prevention is better than cure, I think most people would agree with that sentiment. Most would probably admit that it's worth using a Standard Action to heal if it stops a useful party member being killed next turn as well. There is a balance, but where you think that lies is up to you.
Dedicated HP-only-healers doesn't make sense in Pathfinder. Buffing/Healing/Damage Prevention/Condition Removal usually come packaged together for good reasons. Smart tactical use of your spells and abilities, and more strategically your build are not obvious to every player though.
I despair a little when I see things like high Wisdom, high Charisma Clerics with dumped physical stats, no variant channel or save-based spells. All their stats buy them is a couple of extra channels or bonus spells, when they could be competent archers or melee combatants in addition to good healers.
For me the tipping point is 50%. If you spend more than 50% of your total build resources (stats, feats, Domains/Revelations/Spirit/whatever) on HP healing then you've gone wrong. Once you go beyond that point you're sacrificing your more effective options for your backup plan, which means that your backup plan gets used too much.
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I'm all for using good consumables, but I don't think they're a complete answer. If I'm going up against a dragon, I'm much more interested in that high-caster-level Resist Energy. And there aren't any Death Ward potions, and a ring of Freedom of Movement is pretty expensive. You can get them on a scroll, but who's gonna cast it?The sorcerer, with her charisma and tricked out UMD skill.
It's gonna have to be pretty tricked out to be sure of meeting that DC 27 to do a caster level 7 cleric spell. And he's also going to need to make a roll to fake a wisdom of 14 (DC 29). Those are pretty high DCs if you can't afford to fail.
On top of that, he's spending a move action to draw the scroll, and FoM and DW are both touch spells, so he might not manage that in a single round. But if you need either of those spells, you really can't wait. Because that's either a Swallow Whole (and little to none of your 2H stuff works while swallowed whole) or another round of negative levels or con drain. Which you'll need another consumable to cure. At this point it's getting pretty expensive, L4 spell scrolls are 700gp at least.
You can afford to do that every other fight at level 15, sure. But at level 7 it's not certain you can make the DC, and it's a hefty WBL tax even if you do.
In general prevention is better than cure, I think most people would agree with that sentiment. Most would probably admit that it's worth using a Standard Action to heal if it stops a useful party member being killed next turn as well.
Even in that situation, I'd still want to look at whether I could do something else that would stop a useful party member from being killed and accomplish something else besides (like disable the bad guy). If I'm close enough to cast cure on the useful party member, I'm also close enough to his opponent to cast blindness on him, which not only cuts the chance of his being killed by something like 2/3 (between the miss chance and the tactical disadvantage of the debuff) and lets the other people in the party wail on him with impunity.
Yes, this assumes that the Bad Guy fails his Will save, but I'm also assuming that we know what we're doing (Knowledge checks -- literally -- for the win!) and that I spec'ed out my cleric so that bad touch save-or-suck spells are practical (which is part of the assumption that we know what we're doing). If for some reason I didn't build a save-or-suck debuff cleric, then I at least built a cleric with something useful and effective in mind, and I'll try to do something useful and effective.
That's the basic problem with healbots. Healbots don't do anything to affect the enemy. Even a buffing cleric affects the enemy because the fighter can hit harder and more often. But healing the fighter from 30% to 80% (which is about the best a healbot can hope for) won't make the fighter any better at what he does.
You can afford to do that every other fight at level 15, sure.
If I need that spell every other fight, I'm doing something so wrong that I deserve what I get.
And treasure received is specifically greater than WBL in the published material precisely because you're expected to spend it periodically on consumables.
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Guys, it's clear we can't convince Orfamay to see our reasoning. Just let it lie.
People keep saying other people don't want to play Clerics, but I think that's just a wrong assumption. In MMOs, people still like playing the healer type for the same reason I like Clerics: the problem-solving aspect of it. I have the tools to fix this, but only limited resources. How and when should I utilise them? They don't get to hack at enemies or throw fireballs around, but generally feeling useful is also one aspect of gameplay. The fact that you don't like it doesn't mean others don't like it, either.
Also, as for combat efficiency, I have a great example: In a certain PFS scenario, we fought against an enemy with way too many Flame Strikes in his repertoire. The numbers aren't totally correct, but form a good approximation. Let's say one Flame Strike deals 60% of total HP to everyone in the area of effect. My Channels only manage to cure 30%. I'm lagging behind in healing, but without me, a second Flame Strike would've killed us all. Now, with a Channel in between, they're at 10% of total HP, meaning they can fight on for another round. By me spamming the Channel button and forcing him to use other spells, we managed to get away safely (didn't beat him, unfortunately), with only a dead Wizard. Without me, we'd all have been dead by round 2. Now, we managed to survive round 6, purely because I kept on healing. If I'd played a more offensive character, we might have defeated him eventually, but we'd still be dead by round 2.
It's an ugly truth, but healing is necessary sometimes. There are items to help you with that (as the aforementioned First Aid Gloves, and Scrolls of Remove <X>, all with a low caster level), but why settle for 5d8+9 when you can cast a Heal for 100+?
Anyone can disarm traps now. Magical traps on the other hand is limited to Rogues and a few archtypes.
... or anyone who takes the "Trap Finder" trait ("You can use Disable Device to disarm magic traps, like a rogue.").
Literally. It's now half a feat to have that ability.
Now look at the Sorcerer it has 2+Int for skills. Unless you have great stats Int will be a stat likely ignored. So right there one skill is spent every level Use Magic Devices. In no campaign have I ever been in has it been useful at all.
More like in no campaign have you ever been in has it been tried at all, I suspect. Sorcerers are great at casting any spell in the game if you trick out UMD. How is that not useful?
My way isn't wrong it's what works. Now will admit it may not work for others but thirty years personal experience with a variety of groups.
Except that thirty years ago Pathfinder didn't even exist, and the rules were entirely different. So this pseudo-experience you claim to have is actually misleading, and you don't actually understand the Pathfinder ruleset very well (for example, missing the trait that lets anyone act as a rogue).
So between you and your clueless game masters who are apparently also stuck in the 1980s (how's second edition treating you?), forgive me if I don't take your outdated experience as definitive or even relevant.
I despair a little when I see things like high Wisdom, high Charisma Clerics with dumped physical stats, no variant channel or save-based spells. All their stats buy them is a couple of extra channels or bonus spells, when they could be competent archers or melee combatants in addition to good healers.
For me the tipping point is 50%. If you spend more than 50% of your total build resources (stats, feats, Domains/Revelations/Spirit/whatever) on HP healing then you've gone wrong. Once you go beyond that point you're sacrificing your more effective options for your backup plan, which means that your backup plan gets used too much.
Fun point: I built my Cleric as a melee-dude, but as I was pretty new to Pathfinder, I underestimated how important it is to have a high STR if you want to hit (and hurt) the enemy. I naturally fell back into the support role precisely because I couldn't do anything else. Sure, my dinky Cleric can hit for a d8+3, but why should I if I have other party members who hit more reliably and for three times as much damage as me?
This isn't meant as an attack on you, just to illustrate why I'm a support Cleric, rather than a bashy Cleric. It's also why I have Bless Equipment, for when I have time to be proactive in a fight.
Anyone can disarm traps now. Magical traps on the other hand is limited to Rogues and a few archtypes.... or anyone who takes the "Trap Finder" trait ("You can use Disable Device to disarm magic traps, like a rogue.").
Literally. It's now half a feat to have that ability.
Except that it comes from a specific adventure path and it might not be allowed in other APs. I know a case in which the GM has allowed it just for the Trapfinding, but not every GM will be like that.
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My way isn't wrong it's what works. Now will admit it may not work for others but thirty years personal experience with a variety of groups.
Except that thirty years ago Pathfinder didn't even exist, and the rules were entirely different. So this pseudo-experience you claim to have is actually misleading, and you don't actually understand the Pathfinder ruleset very well (for example, missing the trait that lets anyone act as a rogue).
So between you and your clueless game masters who are apparently also stuck in the 1980s (how's second edition treating you?), forgive me if I don't take your outdated experience as definitive or even relevant.
I will concur here. I don't think it ment to come off harsh sounding...But there is lots of truth behind it.
The Forge of Combat and Fueling the Forge
"Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality"
Dedicated HP-only-healers doesn't make sense in Pathfinder.
The one exception I feel is the Life Mystery Oracle who is also a Paladin, since you can heal the entire rest of the party at once with your HP wia the Life Link revelation, and then lay hands on yourself as a swift action leaving you able to do whatever you want to do with your standard and move action. Healing as a strategy really needs action economy tricks like that to really be viable or interesting. Plus (esp. with the hospitaler archetype) you have copious channeling for post-combat healing.
If I'm going to play a healer, I'd prefer to to be one who can still attack most rounds. If my entire round is devoted to casting a spell, I'd really rather it be a spell that does something that wouldn't be just as useful to do after the fight is over in most cases. So if I'm in a campaign or with a party that for whatever reason *needs* a healer for some reason, I'm going Oracle [size of party-1]/Paladin [the rest].
After all if you're going to play something weak or narrow, optimize it until it's no longer at least one of those two things.
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Dedicated HP-only-healers doesn't make sense in Pathfinder.The one exception I feel is the Life Mystery Oracle who is also a Paladin, since you can heal the entire rest of the party at once with your HP wia the Life Link revelation, and then lay hands on yourself as a swift action leaving you able to do whatever you want to do with your standard and move action. Healing as a strategy really needs action economy tricks like that to really be viable or interesting. Plus (esp. with the hospitaler archetype) you have copious channeling for post-combat healing.
If I'm going to play a healer, I'd prefer to to be one who can still attack most rounds. If my entire round is devoted to casting a spell, I'd really rather it be a spell that does something that wouldn't be just as useful to do after the fight is over in most cases. So if I'm in a campaign or with a party that for whatever reason *needs* a healer for some reason, I'm going Oracle [size of party-1]/Paladin [the rest].
After all if you're going to play something weak or narrow, optimize it until it's no longer at least one of those two things.
Yes. Everyone agrees that Oradins are legit.
Yes, people who want to play dedicated healers can totally do that. I have no objections, and I don't think anyone ever has, really.
Yes, like most options, healing has situational value in combat.
No, people shouldn't be forced to play a character they don't want to play because of some archaic devotion to tank/healer/DPS tropes that aren't necessary anymore.