Cleric - Swift Action and / or Ranged Healing

[Iziak]

I just thought of these two variant ideas that might make the cleric be more than a simple healer who has to always be adjacent to allies:

Swift Healing: At 1st level, a cleric can cast any cure spells that she has prepared as swift actions instead of standard actions. A cleric casting cure spells spontaneously or from magic items does not gain this benefit for those spells, although cure spell-like abilities granted by the cleric's domain benefit from this ability.

Ranged Healing: At 1st level, a cleric can cast any cure spells that she has prepared as if they had a range of Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels) instead of Touch. A cleric casting cure spells spontaneously or from magic items does not gain this benefit for those spells, although cure spell-like abilities granted by the cleric's domain benefit from this ability. If using a cure spell at a range to attack undead, the cleric makes a ranged touch attack.

Then there could be a feat for each of these abilities that allows them tot apply to spontaneous casting, or maybe a class feature at another level.

With this variant, clerics would be able to use more of their non-healing spells and not need to stay in the middle of the action if they don't want to.

Comments? Ideas?

[Eric Tillemans]

Iziak wrote:

Comments? Ideas?

I like the options Iziak, but with channel energy already providing clerics with ranged healing options I would rather see these as feats opened up to any class that can heal and not just limited to clerics.

Clerics were already the best healers in 3.5, and Pathfinders Channel Energy have extended the healing lead further. Druids and Bards need a healing boost to keep up as secondary healers so any more improvements to healing needs to AT LEAST allow Druids and Bards to keep pace with the cleric.