Arcane Healer

[lord_void]

I was tossing and turning in my sleep the other night and had an idea for a new campaign for my weekly game, the basic concept is a demon went through and killed the mortal worshipers of the gods thus stripping them of their power and in the process of this purge literature pertaining to these gods, i.e. bibles, have been put to fire and if your caught in worship of a god you're dead.

Now, the problem...I don't have a medic dedicated class now. I know the cleric isn't just a bandaid station but he was the premiere healer and I find myself lacking that...the paladin was easy enough, I just allowed a player to use the magus, I was curious how it would work out anyway and this is a pretty good oportunity to test it--but I digress. I was talking to another member of my group and he suggested just building a new class in the form of an arcane caster with healing powers...

On the other hand I thought maybe just building a few new spells and tweaking the necromancy school a bit to get what I want, kinda like the mage in Dragon Age with it's life sucking abilities...what does everyone here think? I don't have my notebook handy but when I can I'll post a couple of my new spell ideas.

I suppose as a third option I could tweak the celestial bloodline to do what I want with the creation of new spells, maybe give here something like a Paladin Lay on Hand ability...I don't really know.

[Symar]

Bards and Witches are arcane classes with the cure line of spells, either use or base what you want off of them, maybe?

What about Druids and Rangers? Or is all divine magic gone?

[Kratzee]

Aren't arcane spells, for the most part, a result of research? Often research is done for some presumed need. In this world, the lack of divine healing is a problem that an arcane magician might see as something that needs to be rectified leading her to perform the necessary research. The result of this research is the ability to cast curative spells using arcane magic.

[lord_void]

There is no divine magic at all.
I honestly hadn't thought about the witch class as a healing option, I only picked up the APG about a month ago and havn't had time to read all of it, I instantly fell in love with the Inquisitor and have been building a lot of them and dropping in my old world. As for the bard as a back up healer he would work but his limited number of both spells per day and spells known kinda turned me off to him.

I will however look into the witch and see if I want to just use her as is or maybe change it up a little. Thank you very much.

[lord_void]

Hmm...I feel kinda short sighted right now, I hadn't thought about that little tidbit...the world has been without the divine for about 150 years so the research would have been done and probably be out there so I could solve my problems by just dropping healing spells into the spell lists for the sorc/wiz.

[Set]

Bards and Witches, as mentioned above, have some healing options. The Witches healing hex is pretty handy.

With a total lack of divine healing, consider the following;

A bardic song that allows fast healing during combat, or mitigates a small amount of damage (DR 1/- per so many levels), or a longer-use healing song that takes only a round of bardic performance and is usable out of combat to grant those who are affected the ability to recover X number of hit points over the next ten minutes of rest.

A barbarian rage power that grants fast healing while in use.

Improvements to the heal skill, allowing anyone to Treat Deadly Wound, using only a single 'use' of the Healing Kit (and no uses at all expended for mundane / non-special uses of the Heal skill).

A Rogue talent that allows an even better use of the Heal skill, or even an alternate class feature that replaces Trapfinding and allows a Rogue with this talent (or ACF) to act as a combat medic / surgeon, and heal extra points of damage equal to their dice of sneak attack with the Heal skill.

Enhanced utility of a Celestial Sorcerer's heavenly fire ability, and at least one other Bloodline having something similar, such as an Undead Bloodline variant that has a life-draining version of grave touch or a fey bloodline variant with a natural healing ability.

Monks might learn a 'chi healing' technique that allows them to use Wholeness of Body on another person, perhaps with an extended 'casting time' (a minute or ten minutes), and gain more uses per day, at the cost of some of their other class abilities.

Sor/Wiz spells of either necromancy or transmutation (or both!) that have healing utility.

The necromancy spells would draw life-energy from foes, and the caster could use it to heal himself (like vampiric touch), or even transfer health to others (draining his own hit points, or any temporary hit points he's gained from false life / vampiric touch / related spells).

The transmutation spells would knit and mend flesh and bones, but perhaps be weaker than divine cure X wounds spells, only causing lethal hit point damage to revert to nonlethal damage, and then restoring at the greatly accelerated rate for nonlethal damage.

A few more defensive options could be useful as well, to mitigate damage, such as abjuration spells that grant small amounts of DR (much weaker versions of stone skin, like 'oakskin' or something).

Finally, there's also stuff like alchemy. Weak alchemical healing salves might only be half as effective as a cure light wounds spell, but still allow even classes who don't have a special healing or self-healing option (like Fighters) to have something they can call upon in a pinch.

[lord_void]

What about for the necromancy thing kind of a cure wounds mass type feild in a radius around the caster that would act like channel energy but it only affects allies and would work basically like sucking the life out of enemies in the field to pump into the party with it taking the life drawn out of the enemy and dividing it among the allies within the field evenly...having the wiz basically act as a channel but thats about it.

[Remco Sommeling]

In the APG a necromancer specialist has the ability to heal a bit when casting necromancy spells.

Witch is a great option.

You can just treat all divine spells as 2 levels higher for other Arcane classes, this will make proper healing rare and powerful but doable without stepping on the witches toes much.

Alternatively you can treat Divine spells as an opposition school for all wizards, allowing them to be memorized by using 2 slots. Personally I'd ignore this restriction for sorcerors.

Enhance natural healing rate, doubling it seems fair enough.

Allow a 'Healer' Feat that allows you to learn and cast a number of healing spells.

[Aranai]

Don't forget that a lot of Cure X Wounds spells are on the Alchemist's extract list. Much healing could be done via the bottle, so to speak. :o

[Kratzee]

Here is some stuff I am working on for a Dragonlance campaign with little to no magical healing if you are interested. Most of the ideas are out of Green Ronin's Black Company Campaign Setting. These are still works in progress

Healing abilites or feats:

]Nature’s Healing (Ex): Beginning at 3rd level, the Heathen Cleric gains a +2 bonus to Heal skill checks. If he can beat the appropriate Heal DC check, the ranger heals an additional 1d6 hit points of damage +1 for every three of the Heathen Cleric’s levels. A Healing kit is not needed.

Class Ability:

Advanced Healing: You can cure ills beyond the skills of most.
- Prerequisites: Wis 15, Heal 6 ranks, Physician background or Physician feat.
- You may make a Heal check to neutralize disease or poison. This Heal check takes 1d4 hourse, and may only be performed if you have a healer’s kit. The DC to neutralize is 5 + the disease of poisons DC.

Physician: You are a skilled healer.
- Prerequisites: Heal 8 ranks.
- You may use the Heal skill to greater benefit. By succeeding on a Heal check (DC 15+ 1 per 5 points of damage), you automatically convert an amount of damage equal to your ranks in Heal from lethal to non-lethal damage. You may make this check once per day per target. The Heal check takes 30 minutes.
- Special: If you have the Physician background, you convert an additional +1d4 points of lethal damage.

Physician:

Physician: (1 PC needs to take this or Priest)

You gain 2 skill points to divide as you wish among Heal, Profession (herbalist), and Survival. Each level beyond 1st, you gain 1 additional skill point to place in any one of these skills. These skills become class skills.
Through advance training in medicine and healing techniques, you can repair damage at a faster rate. When seeing to a character, you can set bones, suture lacerations, and apply a myriad of balms, unguents, and other remedies that expedite the healing process. Such care requires 1 round per point of damage dealt to the subject. You must have a clean environment and adequate supplies to tend to a subject using a physician’s skill. You may convert lethal damage to nonlethal damage. At the end of the allotted time, you make a Heal check with results as follows.

Physician Healing Trait

Heal Check Result Lethal Damage Converted to Nonlethal
15 or less 0
16-20 1d2
21-25 1d3
26-30 1d4
31-35 1d6
36-40 1d8
41-45 1d10
46+ 1d12

You may attempt this Heal check once per day per character treated. In addition, when providing long-term care subjects recover hit points or ability points at three times the normal rate: 3 hps per lvl for a full 8 hours of rest in a day, or 6 hps per lvl for each full day of complete rest; 3 ability score points for a full 8 hours of rest in a day, and 6 ability points each full day of complete rest. In addition, you can tend as many as twelve patients at a time.

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