So my local group has just begun a gestalt campaign set in a weird mix of current day and fantasy world. Our DM gave us 25 point buy and generally free reign he had only a single class he would not allow being the OG summoner most of the rest of the group agreed. So after speaking with a few of the other players during char gen I found one guy playing a psionic character and was interested soon after discovering the Vitalist and I thought a Vitalist Life Oracle would be super fun seeing as I enjoy being a heal bot as some would put it.
BUT then I was told the Vitalist is too good at healing. But every where else I can find seems to say that healing is not great personally fine by me I don't mind being a less than great character mechanically But according to him I would be able to keep up with the damage that enemies/traps/ect. can put out and the LV 15 class feature where I can be very far away to heal the limit only being the plane that the party is on.
So I suppose two part question is there any way to match the healing a Vitalist can do in combat any other combos of classes? And Is there any real way the Vitalist is as broken as he seems to believe cause it seems to me that the only thing the class does is make in battle healing efficient and effective?
Only Vitalist I can find is the third party psionic class. As such, flagging this to be moved.
The Vitalist does not look that overpowered to me, at least at the earliest levels. Maybe your GM just does not like power point based psionic classes? There could be balance problems with that entire spellcasting system in general as opposed to that class in particular.
Would your GM have a problem with an Oracle with the Life mystery?
Apologies I could have read a bit more in regards to the proper sub forum flagged me too. (I do want to ask is asking for an alternative to the 3rd party class in the core stuff grounds for a move or should I just have picked a better thread title)
He suggested the Life Oracle as a alternative because it was worse at healing and told me the game of pathfinder was designed in such a way that healing is supposed to be bad. But because I get to take two classes I initially intended to take levels in both Vitalist and Life Oracle but that was too much healing.
Life Oracle or Shaman (You want life link) + Skald.
Depending on Party Composition you might want to go the Skald Archetype that give's enhancement bonuses (so everyone can benefit).
Pick up Celestial totem
Your Life Link Now heal's everyone for 5 + Level every round.
Lay down a Path of glory for 1 + Level Healing to all allies standing on it (passively)
Then Channel Energy for another 1/2 level D6 + Level Healing
So in ideal circumstances you could be Healing Channel + 6 + 3 x Level HP a round.
At level 5 that's 10 (3d6 avg) + 16 = 26 HP with a channel or 16 HP passively, not too bad.
He's playing a Gestalt game, apparently allowing third party, but doesn't want to shake up the core design of Pathfinder? I don't know what he was expecting. Sounds like trouble brewing to me.
(Unless he didn't intend on allowing global access to Psionic classes, which is understandable. I know the only Psionic class I allow right now is Soulknife, simply because I'm not familiar enough with the others yet.)
Anyway, you could push the point, but it may not be worth it. In that case, your best choice is to pick another strong healing class. Try Cleric/Oracle, or the Healer Paladin archetype maybe? Alternatively, if pushing the GMs buttons is something to be avoided, Bard/Oracle or Witch/Oracle are probably the best pure support class combos you could have, but aren't *quite* as healing oriented.
I'll run the Skald thing by him see if thats okay he seems pretty adamant about making sure the combat healing is bad so that the game design works in his head. (Also I do believe the other guy is playing a soul knife but that is not a good class according to him so its fine)
I believe what I have right now is a Paladin/Oracle and I have lost a bit of healing but his big issue was the Vitalist making combat healing a viable option and even though I love watching health bars I'll see if swinging lay on hands and CLW.
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As one of the designers of the vitalist, let me give some of my view on it (all of the below is my personal opinion, but shaped the vitalist design):
Healing is one of the least effective things your character can do during a combat / encounter. You're reacting to damage that's already been dealt to prolong the encounter. That's it. Typically, your best course of action is to end the encounter as quickly as possible. Healing is the opposite of that. You're spending your actions to make the fight take longer.
Until your character or the enemy hits 0 hit points or below, any hit point damage has essentially no effect. Once the combat is over, healing options like a Wand of Cure Light Wounds are incredibly cheap ways to bring you up to full health.
So really, the only thing that "matters" is in-combat healing to keep you from getting under 1 hit point.
The vitalist does this well. It's intended to, because healing sucks. As a player, it's boring. My gaming group throughout the years has had to rely upon NPC healers because nobody wants to do it. As a tactic, it's only a stalling tactic, it's not really an effective tactic.
By 15th level, Limited Wish has become available, and your GM is upset that you can heal hit point damage?
It sounds like your GM likes to use hit points as a player resource to maintain the flow of the game. The problem is not that the vitalist is too strong - the problem is your GM's play style and the vitalist mitigating a boring and tedious part of the game don't get along nicely.
Just my 2 cents.
As one of the designers of the vitalist, let me give some of my view on it (all of the below is my personal opinion, but shaped the vitalist design):
Healing is one of the least effective things your character can do during a combat / encounter. You're reacting to damage that's already been dealt to prolong the encounter. That's it. Typically, your best course of action is to end the encounter as quickly as possible. Healing is the opposite of that. You're spending your actions to make the fight take longer.
Until your character or the enemy hits 0 hit points or below, any hit point damage has essentially no effect. Once the combat is over, healing options like a Wand of Cure Light Wounds are incredibly cheap ways to bring you up to full health.
So really, the only thing that "matters" is in-combat healing to keep you from getting under 1 hit point.
The vitalist does this well. It's intended to, because healing sucks. As a player, it's boring. My gaming group throughout the years has had to rely upon NPC healers because nobody wants to do it. As a tactic, it's only a stalling tactic, it's not really an effective tactic.
By 15th level, Limited Wish has become available, and your GM is upset that you can heal hit point damage?
It sounds like your GM likes to use hit points as a player resource to maintain the flow of the game. The problem is not that the vitalist is too strong - the problem is your GM's play style and the vitalist mitigating a boring and tedious part of the game don't get along nicely.
Just my 2 cents.
Wow hey thanks for the input, me personally I find healing exciting cause my imagination has my PC constantly on a swivel blasting healing sweetness at any in danger friend but thats not everyone.
I think after I explained that healing was a bad move on my part he just kinda looked at me and was confused that I wanted to be bad I think I even offered to just give up the telepathy and the forever range on the network but it was too much to balance.
I took some of the other suggestions from the thread to him and the only thing he's allowed so far has been the Oracle/Paladin so I can heal but I mocked up a few level 1/5/10 versions of the Oracle/Paladin and the Oracle/Vitalist and the only difference I can see is that the Vitalist version is more efficient where the skald, the druid and the paladin all do heal (in some cases more no matter the level) the fact that I can kinda keep all PC's topped up is dangerous.
But yeah thanks for the thoughts!
We have a multiclass vitalist / life spirit shaman in our Reign of Winter group, and I would rule in the "too good at healing," camp. It basically boils down to the collective mechanic being too powerful against single target damage. You can very easily blast a multitarget healing spell or power like mass cure moderate wounds or channel positive energy and funnel multiple characters worth of healing from that effect to a single target.
Healing is relatively weak in Pathfinder because being damaged is exciting—you start to worry about tactics and what you're going to do. You sweat every roll of the die. If a healer can immediately take you from 80 damage to 10 damage in a single round, you stop sweating damage because "My healer will heal me up next round."
Basically, a vitalist takes single enemy fights and trivializes then more then they already are acton economy wise, and its largely because the collective doesn't have any scaling limiters built into it.
For example, if healing was stored in the collective and a member needed to take an action to access it, there would still be suspense and decision-making. Do I take the healing or try to kill the boss this round? Alternatively, the collective could have doled out healing bit by bit each round, so if you stored 100 points in the collective then maybe you could only allocate 5 points of healing to one creature each round as a swift action. (Maybe even a free action once per turn.) That way, you keep the "I don't waste overhealing" mechanic while giving interesting gameplay choices to the vitalist and keeping damage done to players at relatively the same pace.
Basically, to challenge a vitalist you have to start throwing around more damage which makes the vitalist feel like his special class abilities do nothing.
The best advice one can give a healer is to be a "Healer Plus," meaning that you have other tricks and contributions that you bring to the party besides healing. "Healer plus Buffer," or "Healer plus Summoner," or "Healer plus Damage Dealer," are all good role combinations for a healer. That way you have something you do when healing isn't needed, which is actually a mechanic you see in video games too. (Example: Yuna in FFX can summon monsters.) The other option is that your GM needs to prepare to make healing something that a dedicated healer HAS to do every round in order to survive, the way that boss fights in classic RPGs would throw diseases and poisons and curses out left and right to give your healer character a purpose.
For example, in PFS I play a herald caller of Sarenrae. I built my character to heal, but healing is my reactive option. I save it when people who do more damage than me regularly are dying. In the meantime, I summon monsters, buff the party, and enable flanks for rogues.
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My experience playing a vitalist is the more interesting encounters are the ones that don't rely on hit point damage as the threat.
Detrimental effects, compulsion effects, abilities that take someone temporarily out of the combat, strategic tactics - all of these are far more effective than "throw more damage at them!"
And my experience is that single-enemy encounters are already largely trivialized due to action economy - 4 actions each round vs. 1.
But, some game styles play differently. To each their own.
We have a multiclass vitalist / life spirit shaman in our Reign of Winter group, and I would rule in the "too good at healing," camp. It basically boils down to the collective mechanic being too powerful against single target damage. You can very easily blast a multitarget healing spell or power like mass cure moderate wounds or channel positive energy and funnel multiple characters worth of healing from that effect to a single target.
Healing is relatively weak in Pathfinder because being damaged is exciting—you start to worry about tactics and what you're going to do. You sweat every roll of the die. If a healer can immediately take you from 80 damage to 10 damage in a single round, you stop sweating damage because "My healer will heal me up next round."
Basically, a vitalist takes single enemy fights and trivializes then more then they already are acton economy wise, and its largely because the collective doesn't have any scaling limiters built into it.
For example, if healing was stored in the collective and a member needed to take an action to access it, there would still be suspense and decision-making. Do I take the healing or try to kill the boss this round? Alternatively, the collective could have doled out healing bit by bit each round, so if you stored 100 points in the collective then maybe you could only allocate 5 points of healing to one creature each round as a swift action. (Maybe even a free action once per turn.) That way, you keep the "I don't waste overhealing" mechanic while giving interesting gameplay choices to the vitalist and keeping damage done to players at relatively the same pace.
Basically, to challenge a vitalist you have to start throwing around more damage which makes the vitalist feel like his special class abilities do nothing.
The best advice one can give a healer is to be a "Healer Plus," meaning that you have other tricks and contributions that you bring to the party besides healing. "Healer plus Buffer," or "Healer plus Summoner," or "Healer plus Damage...
I believe Jeremy Smith put it very well in to each his own thing. Because of character reasons more than one PC out of the six of us is actually not willing to be apart of the collective for character reasons So I cannot funnel healing but that is just one case at one table cest la Life right?
And If I am reading right the game was designed with the idea that healing was supposed to be a not very good band-aid for people so things are exciting? I dunno if the prospect of always being near dead is exciting sounds more draining and nerve wracking to me.
The collective is gated by the use of Power points right? If you store the healing in the collective and let people grab a little as they please (Five seems fairly low to me for sure) Then does that not just present the same problem of rather than using my action to heal myself or anyone who is capable of using the healing is better of just using that action to kill/damage/hinder a bad person.
I don't know if the more damage is a solution as the Vitalist is only a healer until his resource is gone like any caster type and as far as I have seen the more powerful enemies in the game will outstrip me even if I am good at healing cause offense has the longer end of the stick Which is something I notice in video games. Most of this is just for the sake of conversation I don't think healing will ever just not be needed cause being a safety net or heal bot will make people worry less but they might also take some more risk because they aren't constantly "OH MAN OH BOY I AM GONNA DIE!"
Don't have much on the single enemy fights cause I haven't been in one but I suppose when healing is not needed the sheer preponderance of spells that do not heal I will even if I don't want it have a spell that can do something in any given situation and can do that stuff that is pertinent to the situation.
About oracle and vitalist:
The healing range and being able to re-direct healing effects is what makes the vitalist work, otherwise he is one of the weaker psionic classes. The range he gets later is OP and should be removed, especially for NPCs.
What that person got wrong is that the vitalist can heal more than a life oracle. For psionics it is easy to put a point value to things...so and so many HP per PP invested. and you can calculate his theoretical daily heal limit. It is a bit more difficult to calculate the oracle, but I did that before playing one and it can heal more than that. It is the class with the highest HP/day output.
If I could play a paladin/oracle as a gestalt character I would get a monstrous oradin...playing a pure life oracle without any frills is giving our DM nightmares as is, without the nice pally extras.
Healing was not designed to work badly. The system with CLW and all the others comes from 1E. In 1E you get 1d8+2 hp per level at most, unless you are a fighter, because all others don't get the benefit from high CON. Furthermore, you had only 9 HD (with some exceptions, wizards got 11d4). A cleric 17 had 9d8+16+CON bonus (let's say +1) hitpoints, a grand total of 65 hp. In that environment makes CSW sense. When the systems changed, the PCs got more and more HP and the CON bonus was unrestricted. But the healing spells didn't grow in the same proportion. Second problem is the introduction of criticals and iterative attacks, which cause much more damage than 1E had (fighter got 2 attacks per round, clerics got one and had to like it).
It would have been better to re-devise the healing spells, but nobody ever did. The basic system is the same as in 1978. And that is why healing has a bad name - and it is not intentional to torture players, it is something that has just grown over the years.
(The psionic healing works better, because it has a more advanced concept behind it, not because the vitalist can heal more. The class can also make use of the underlying psionic rules to expand it's focus, which is impossible for the traditional classes. It is still not all fun to play, when you look at the number of powers at his disposal and what his power list has actually on it. Furthermore, a vitalist works best, if other sources of healing are around for him to manage, e.g. a bard or paladin.)
1E & UA let you get up to 7/2 attacks per round with the weapon mastery skills. I had a quarter staff grand master. :-)
I also had a thief in 1E, and backstab gave up to *5 (I think) damage. As such, could make them the damage king.
/cevah
Weapon mastery was the first major power creep ;) Made the switch-class humans very popular, everyone was a fighter 4/class X for the rest for a while.
The other one was the magic section in UA...
Backstab was mostly harmless :)
Usable as an opener, if well hidden & silent, but afterwards not so much, depending on the DM and his interpretation of the "victim must not be aware of the thief" part. Besides, STR and weapon bonuses were not multiplied either, so it was around 5d6+5 at 13+ (x5 is correct). Nothing like the current version, which is usable in open battle.
...
Healing was not designed to work badly. The system with CLW and all the others comes from 1E. In 1E you get 1d8+2 hp per level at most, unless you are a fighter, because all others don't get the benefit from high CON. Furthermore, you had only 9 HD (with some exceptions, wizards got 11d4). A cleric 17 had 9d8+16+CON bonus (let's say +1) hitpoints, a grand total of 65 hp. In that environment makes CSW sense. When the systems changed, the PCs got more and more HP and the CON bonus was unrestricted. But the healing spells didn't grow in the same proportion. Second problem is the introduction of criticals and iterative attacks, which cause much more damage than 1E had (fighter got 2 attacks per round, clerics got one and had to like it).
It would have been better to re-devise the healing spells, but nobody ever did. The basic system is the same as in 1978. And that is why healing has a bad name - and it is not intentional to torture players, it is something that has just grown over the years....
Have you or any one for that matter heard of a reasonable fix so that the same complexity or idea behind the vitalist healing could be placed on top of other classes? Would it be as simple as bumping up the dice a tier or the static with an eye on how either side of the "xdx" scaled or wold it require the healing available to core classes to be adjusted in the action economy?
I don't think healing trivializes encounters unless its just a large beat stick with a lot of HP and damage dice on his/her own, so far we have played a single session and the group has had to heal once in three combats the big problem was saves and lack of teamwork which I think will outstrip any healing. I do wonder with the talk of character levels and damage if I would be able to keep up with an NPC with rouge or Ninja Levels.
The vitalist is complex...?
The vitalist is complex...?
I found him mmoderately so... I recently read through the rules, but I must read through again if I want to cogently argue about his abilities, or follow an argument about same.
No, Wordse, nobody has so far published a better healing system. Bumping up the healing spells to get them where hp and damage went is possible, but will go overboard if not handled very carefully.
There are other systems around, but they are unfortunately not better. For example, when you look at Spheres of Power, they handle magic not too badly, except for the healing. In that system a wizard gets 32 picks among those spheres, which translates roughly to 15-20 spells plus mods for them. A cleric needs to spend 15-20 picks to cover the heal effects, and gets less picks than a wizard to boot. The tax that he has to pick the same thing 4 times is also bad design (could have been easily tied to the number of picks within that sphere).
I forgot: there was an Everquest version of D20 rules including their healing magic, but the concept was for 30 levels of play and works only in context with all their other rules (e.g. they use powerpoints like the psions do).
If I had to redo the healing spells I would go the same way as Everquest 2 or Vanguard (MMO games) did. They have various healing effects: a direct heal, regeneration, several large pulses of healing over time, wards that absorb incoming damage, and a buff that heals you a bit when you get hit. There are also some other effects like group heal versions, balancing out hp within the group. Now you scale the various bits and pieces to spell levels and you are good to go.
E.g.: I buff the tank with a reactive heal and when the first BBB crits him, he is healed for 20% of his max hp. Minion A strikes him for almost nothing, but the trigger works only once per round and doesn't go off. Then I would have a heal that is a swift action, but cannot be re-used within 5 minutes. The druid would have a long-lasting regeneration spell and can augment this with a pulse that heals 5d6 four rounds in a row.
How you define new healing spells also affects other parts of the system, hopefully for the better. If you can use healing-over-time (aka HoT) you free the healer up for other stuff while it runs its course. You are also allowing metamagic to play a larger role with healing spells than now, where the feats do mostly nothing (double duration = 2x the heal). The same is true for immediate action spells.
If you want to use dice for healing or change over to percentages is another idea to ponder. Going to percentages means you cannot abuse the spells as much as dice-based ones. I would not hesitate and do it, since I believe that all of us can do basic math.
Anyway, you are right that teamwork will help a lot. Our group works hand in glove most of the time and I can see a big difference between that and five strangers, who are individualists to boot.