I think the healing Domain empowers cure spells automatically.
I think the healing Domain empowers cure spells automatically.That's right, but I'm looking for feats and magic items that will help create a more effective in-combat healer.
The Reach Spell metamagic feat from the APG. It allows you to apply cure spells from a distance. Due to danger or time getting close enough to touch a party member may not be viable.
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Personally I suggest giving Oracle of Life a shot. They get channeling, all the heal spells automatically added to their list, spontaneous casting, and their healing spells heal the dice roll + your Oracle level regardless of the maximum bonus the spell would normally receive.
You can take extra channeling, selective, pretty much everything a cleric can get in addition so all the awesome other things like energy body, lifesense, and the like. You should look into it.
Reach spell becomes a must-have on higher levels, so you can hit people with Heal from a distance. Good to have anyway on mid-level with healing domain for more focused healing anyway.
The usefulness of Scribe Scroll and Craft Wand cannot be overstated.
Phylactery of Channeling is not so great, as it competes with the head slot (I think?) where you want Wis/Cha.
Your job is also a whole lot easier if you have a friendly wizard/sorcerer/bard/summoner/witch casting Haste, as you get to move to optimal positions and get within reach to cast proper cures.
Beyond that, check out the Restoration domain. Replaces the useless Touch of Healing with status-removal power that will save you a lot of spells to fix statuses of fellow party members.
Dedicated healers aren't very useful. The damage that can be done far outweighs the hit points a cleric can heal, at least without access to the heal spell.
When you have a bunch of guys who don't know what strategy is they can be. However if you play in a group with people that know their stuff and hardly ever get hurt you may end up bored. My friend keeps trying to be the "healer", even though I have shown and told him that it is not needed in our group. Well maybe during a boss fight, but most of the time it is not needed.
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I agree about 50% on the point where they aren't "that" useful. You have to keep in divine spellcasters, even those focused towards healing, have more tricks up their sleeve than just cure spells. This is why I suggest checking out oracle, they have some decent offensive spells, and just about every buff in the divine book (Dogma aside).
The bit about the fact that a player receiving too much healing is resolved by the revelation that converts extra healing into temporary hit points as well so you can heal up party members ahead of time, and then get to work killin' some bad dudes.
Dedicated healers aren't very useful. The damage that can be done far outweighs the hit points a cleric can heal, at least without access to the heal spell.When you have a bunch of guys who don't know what strategy is they can be. However if you play in a group with people that know their stuff and hardly ever get hurt you may end up bored. My friend keeps trying to be the "healer", even though I have shown and told him that it is not needed in our group. Well maybe during a boss fight, but mot of the time it is not needed.
Even in a boss fight a cleric built towards something else can suffice. If you want to have some offensive utility yet retain the traditional cleric support role, I recommend an archer cleric build. Archer cleric is a happy medium between battle and pure support. Alternatively, just load up on WIS and CHA and be a caster cleric who segues into support and healing as needed.
Tark has a pretty good cleric guide which may give you other ideas.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h6-_4HvPvV-Tt7I67Gi_oPhgHmeDVA5SBl-WrJS gf5s/edit?hl=en&pli=1#
Take a look at the goggles of doom. You'll be able to see the health status of all your mates. Comes in very handy.
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All you really need to be a healbot is just pump WIS and CHA, take Selective Channeling, and Extra Channel. I'd dump all the other stats completely down to 7 if you really wanted to go extreme with it.
At low levels, Channel is the way to go. Higher levels you will need Cure spells for single target heals from full attacks.
It's not something I'd recommend, but it's certainly possible. Mainly because in PFS it's very easy for good players to end non-boss encounters before you need to actually heal. Although I've played a few PFS where the middle encounter was vastly stacked against the party, and healing was almost mandatory to face the boss.
My PFS cleric was created because I really hated bad players not knowing how to play a cleric.
human 1 of Pharasma, Healing and Death domains
STR 14
DEX 12
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 14
CHA 14
Selective Channeling
Extra Channeling
My build is basically I fight in melee to support full BAB classes. I have high AC because of armor + shield (poor touch AC, but something has to give). I heal when needed with Selective. I buff if the encounter seems to be tough from the beginning. Because I don't intend to debuff or SoD, there's no need for high WIS. I really wanted 12 on INT as well because cleric Knowledge skills are needed to ID monsters. Skills are just a huge part of PFS, so dumping scores are a bit risky (except for CHA as usual if you are a fighting class).
Tark's guide is good.
Be warned about Jadeite or wrath's comments though.
First the more obvious, seems like min/max characters are usually the weakest in PFS more so in 5+tiers. That said in PFS, 1/2 the time statistically you will be facing ecl+2 or more encounters. About a quarter you can face ecl+3-4 encounters. This is just basic tiers and mod design.
So for a cleric healing in PFS, I would say for the feats you listed, and not knowing your CHA, I would recommend turn undead. As tarq's guide ellaborate's you will be targeting a high save. So if you have bad Cha may be a bad choice.
Selective channeling is a good feat also. Extra channeling is better the worse your cha is, most other channeling feats are situationally at the best.
So I imagine you have your blasty fire domain.
Spell levels 1-4 go with your fire domain spells for domain slots.
Spell levels 5-6 go with your healing domain spells for domain slots.
Set as side 1/2 for buff spells prot evil is golden for fist.
Sheild other is Golden for a second.
Other half for magically debuffs hold etc, remove blindness.
I think a wisdom headband is more important at high levels for a cleric the best part is the extra spell, likely you will be removing effects or spontaneously casting empowering spells.
So at low levels the phylactery would help more, though for the cost you wont see that much gold till probably 5th level if you are lucky.
At higher levels when you need to cast that 5-6 level spell you can swap out one for the other with the cost of loosing bonus spells for 24 hours.
Reach spell is a bad idea, unless you get a meta magic rod. Reach is about absolutely bad for a healer that can spontaneous cast cure spells. Sure it can come om handy for remove paralisis, but being able to cast in silence should come up more.
Go with shield other and then the target gets ac and saves you take 1/2 the damage. Used this way that channel healing is twice effective.
If you feel you need to do more damage a single level dip into Zen Archer monk would help for range, this could end up being 3 levels for the plus wis to hit.
Or if you aren't LG you could go for the single level dip of Inquisitor. Allot of the spells are already on your spell list. Except for one of the best Expeditious Retreat. This also give you the ability to use Judgements as well as Heavy Repeating X bows.
Or a single dip into fighter giving you heavy armor a tower shield then martial weapons, Hp's and 2 feats. Later you would want to get mithiril full plate and a darkwood tower due to your str.
Fighting with range as skirmish support would be ideal. Shoot a bow or cast then engage with a range weapon once your meatshields are in melee.
Healers in PFS society can be very important. Some mods are very dangerous. When the party gets hit with its 6th fire ball in a single encounter at level 4, they will be greatfull for the cleric and channeling. When the fighter gets hit with by the 8th trap he will like the 4 cure light wounds.
Reach spell is a bad idea, unless you get a meta magic rod. Reach is about absolutely bad for a healer that can spontaneous cast cure spells. Sure it can come om handy for remove paralisis, but being able to cast in silence should come up more.
I disagree with this, if you are making a healbot cleric. Due to enemies in the way or terrain or anything else being able to reach someone over 30 feat away is a good thing to be able to do. Sacrificing 1 metamagic slot is a small thing to give up.
This goes back to using healbots in non-tactical parties though. They will get separated, and get their butts kicked in the process. You can't really run around keeping them up, well maybe you can, but you should not depend on it, since it is not a guarantee. I am playing with a bunch of new people now with the "charge" mentality. They were on opposite sides of room and unconscious more than once. Had they focused fire and not ran straight ahead no more than one of them would have gone down during combat.
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This goes back to using healbots in non-tactical parties though. They will get separated, and get their butts kicked in the process. You can't really run around keeping them up, well maybe you can, but you should not depend on it, since it is not a guarantee. I am playing with a bunch of new people now with the "charge" mentality. They were on opposite sides of room and unconscious more than once. Had they focused fire and not ran straight ahead no more than one of them would have gone down during combat.
Yep: players are dumb, and even repeated death doesn't wise all of 'em up.
Stats for a flexible elven cleric, 20pt Society organized-play character:
STR:10->10 (or dump to pump CHA; costs arrow damage and introduce encumbrance problems w/medium armor)
DEX+14->16
CON-12->10
INT+10->12
WIS:16->16
CHA:13->13
Level....: At Ft Rf Wi HP AC
.... base 03 00 03 03 -- 03 Traits: Reactionary, Eastern Mysteries
01 cler1 03 02 03 05 08 03 1st, Sarenrae:Glory/Sun
You have 3 skills/level, or 4 if you don't take HP with your favored-class (I like skills).
The first mod (of Society organized play): equipment...if it weren't for common decency, I would say that if you spent money on clothes, you spent too much. Hoard that starting 150gp like a red dragon. Begin with a sling, a light-mace, a buckler, and no armor. Can you survive for four measly hours as a cleric who avoids melee? I think you can. Beat the mod, pick up 300-600gp, then you're ready to buy some decent armor (breastplate) and weapons (masterwork longbow, masterwork cold-iron longsword).
Feats: 1-PBS, 3-Rapid Shot, 5-Improved Initiative, 7-Precise Shot, 9-Vital Strike, 11-Manyshot
Combat: By mid-level, you're +9 on initiative. Rapid Shot or buff, then bombard the opposition with saving-throw area spells. Try to be well-positioned at the beginning of encounters so you needn't move unnecessarily, as you'll be using move actions to swap out equipment (Quickdraw alleviates at the cost of a precious feat slot).
What are some good feats for me to take? So far I've decided on getting Selective Channeling, Extra Channeling, Turn Undead, Toughness and possibly Improved Initiative. Can't justify Channel Smite with my lackluster STR. Has anyone played with Alignment or Elemental Channel? The feats in Faiths of Purity look tempting, but I'm looking for a second opinion on those.
I don't know about Improved Initiative feat, very often you will want to be able to act last in the round to heal or channel after you've seen who is hurt and how much.
You might want to consider combat casting since you are a caster that stays close to the front line.
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Eos, if you're a "straight caster", Improved Initiative + high DEX + some other initiative-boosting mechanism (like the threat listed in my build above) grant you "battlefield control".
At the very least you'll get an extra round to volley (Rapid Shot) or buff the party before enemy incoming.
But you have to make it work -- taking ImpInit with a DEX:8 human cleric would be pointless.
I realize many (perhaps most?) Cleric players don't like being thought of as 'healbots' or the concept of combat healing. I've always embraced this role when I've played NG or CG Clerics. So I'm pretty new to PFS, and I'm looking for some advice. Most specifically I'm looking for ways to maximize my healing output on a Fire/Healing Cleric.
What are some good feats for me to take? So far I've decided on getting Selective Channeling, Extra Channeling, Turn Undead, Toughness and possibly Improved Initiative. Can't justify Channel Smite with my lackluster STR. Has anyone played with Alignment or Elemental Channel? The feats in Faiths of Purity look tempting, but I'm looking for a second opinion on those.
I'm also looking for some good (society legal) Cleric items as so far I've only found the Phylactery of Channel Positive Energy and the old stand by wisdom/charisma bonus items.
I wouldn't worry about Turn Undead in there. Obviously you're planning to Channel a lot, but I find making undead run away just makes it harder to destroy them later. :)
I would suggest good old Combat Casting. Just in case you need to risk getting close to the enemy to lay some cure or heal spells on an injured party member. That boost to casting defensively can save both your and your party member's life in this case.
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Some good advice floating around here.
As far as saying "Don't Heal," besides going against the OP's stated design goals, it really is a valid tactic. You just need to modify your general tactics based around that idea.
As far as really optimizing your healbot cleric:
Feats as above are nice. As stated, Reach Spell on spontaneous cures can become very crucial later on.
The spells sacred bond, status, and shield other should be on your every day preparation list.
This lets you keep track of your party's health (and location), get some of them with easy healing magic(at least 1, possibly more depending on how many sacred bonds you cast), and share out the damage & healing. Just watch out for AoE spells that catch both you & your shielded ally.
From there, you can decide how you want to prepare the rest of your spells and gear depending on the party composition.
I would recommend Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Perception, and (possibly) Stealth as skills to pump, along with Heal, Knowledge(Religion), and Knowledge(Local). Don't worry if you don't have them as class skills so much, since they are for your secondary role: being nice to NPCs.
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Are third party suppliments allowed in your game?
If so, you might want to take a look at this volume of the Genius Guide to Exalted Domains series.
If you choose the Healing domain as your Exalted Domain you get some cool enhanced abilities which make you a very effective healing focused cleric.
So a fighter charges to attack, if you have shield other on him he will take half the damage.
So first action he charges say 60' and attacks some party members attack and enemies attack the fighter. Hopefully he is a sword and board type and doesn't get hit as easily as other builds. Next round you move up 30 and channel...
Once you get 3rd level spells sacred bond is another good spell, reducing the effectivness of reach.
Sorry about the anti Reach feel. There are 2 reasons why I am against it.
First spell slot increase, so if you cast 3 clw that will be 6 levels of spells or shield other help buff an ally then channel or cast on yourself or the target. If the target fighter is getting overwhelmed half the damage followed by channeling helps the channeling twice as much since damage will be distributed among 2 targets.
Second, there are additional healing spells that replace that feat for example sacred bond 3rd level spell.
As far as reach it is great for people that want to deliver touch based attacks.
Now this is all just my advice. But I would think Iron will would be a much better choice.
At later levels conditions will starts showing their head, remove paralysis 2nd remove blindness 3rd.
At this point reach feat and such are definately more gear for oracles as opposed clerics. Some conditions you will as a cleric want to wait a day to remove remove curse,disease. The ones that have immediate impact, poison, blindness, paralysis. Should be on your spells per day, of course these may be first ones to spontaneous cast as heals if the condtions are right.
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Um, be really careful with Shield Other -- I call it "the cleric suicide spell" for good reason.
"Oh, you want me to memorize THAT spell, do you? Sure; I'll get right on that. Right after you prove to me that I can fire a crossbow bolt in one of your ears, through your empty head and out the other without it touching anything. Dre-e-e-eaam...."
Yeah shield other can be tough with Reflex AoE spells but at third level it is still a decent, at 5 sacred bond is a good. In society the chance of running into an AoE spamming mod is slight but there is one where fireballs rain down.
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In Kingmaker, I've seen shield other be both the difference between a TPK (since the primary damage dealer stayed alive despite taking massive melee damage) as well as a "suicide pill" for the healer (when those fireballs and other AoE stuff came down.)
It takes some practice, but it can be done.
Just try to stay 25' away from the shield other target, and you should be good for most blast spells, while still able to channel / ranged heal successfully.
Thanks everybody I have a pretty good idea of what feats I will get. I think it's worth knowing a Cleric does not need 8 hours to refresh his spells or to even sleep at all, just meditation. So even if the party is ambushed in the middle of the night the Cleric can just say he meditated before resting and still got all of his spells back. I think it's fifteen minutes to put a spell in a slot left open.
It's a pretty good way to piss off some GMs, I've found because many seem to believe every class must rest for 8 hours to refresh/reselect their spells, despite the fact that the Core rulebook clearly states otherwise.
My personal beef against playing a Life Oracle is that they miss out on the level 6 Healing domain power and that they have slower spell progression. They also only get 1 + Charisma channels per day whereas the Cleric gets 3 + Charisma.
I second the opinion that you should take a good look at the oracle of life if you want to be a dedicated healer, mainly due to one of its revelations I have not seen mentioned here:
Enhanced Cures (Su): Whenever you cast a cure spell, the maximum number of hit points healed is based on your oracle level, not the limit based on the spell. For example, an 11th-level oracle of life with this revelation may cast cure light wounds to heal 1d8+11 hit points instead of the normal 1d8+5 maximum.
IMO this is the most powerful healing ability available in pathfinder. Its average healing power easily leaves channel energy and other spells behind. Plus you do get channel energy, and its difference to the cleric can be alleviated with a single extra channel feat.
Multiclassing with witch and taking the cure hex might also be an option, but does not really help if you are treating the same group of people repeatedly...
Spell Perfection and Preferred Spell probably work almost as well for a cleric as for an arcane caster.
Maybe choose Heal as your chosen spell for both and pick up Quicken and Reach as your other 2 metamagic feats (Preferred requires Heighten). That would allow you to spontaneously swap Heal in for any spell of the same level or higher and Quicken it for free. Add Reach Spell to use it as a ranged touch attack for 1 level higher. You could go a step further and pick Magical Lineage as your trait to use Reach Spell without any adjustment to the spell level. It's not an early game concept (Spell Perfection requires 15 ranks in Spellcraft), but it gets you Quickened Reached Heal as a level 6 or 7 spell as many times a day as you have level 6, 7, 8 and 9 spell slots without preparing Heal. Can't do much better than that for a healbot late in the game.
Spell Perfection and Preferred Spell probably work almost as well for a cleric as for an arcane caster.
Maybe choose Heal as your chosen spell for both and pick up Quicken and Reach as your other 2 metamagic feats (Preferred requires Heighten). That would allow you to spontaneously swap Heal in for any spell of the same level or higher and Quicken it for free. Add Reach Spell to use it as a ranged touch attack for 1 level higher. You could go a step further and pick Magical Lineage as your trait to use Reach Spell without any adjustment to the spell level. It's not an early game concept (Spell Perfection requires 15 ranks in Spellcraft), but it gets you Quickened Reached Heal as a level 6 or 7 spell as many times a day as you have level 6, 7, 8 and 9 spell slots without preparing Heal. Can't do much better than that for a healbot late in the game.
Very good suggestions. But I wonder how you can quicken that reach heal spell?
Spell perfection states: "Pick one spell which you have the ability to cast. Whenever you cast that spell you may apply any one metamagic feat you have to that spell without affecting its level or casting time, as long as the total modified level of the spell does not use a spell slot above 9th level."Magical lineage states: "Pick one spell when you choose this trait. When you apply metamagic feats to this spell, treat its actual level as 1 lower for determining the spell’s final adjusted level.".
I interpret the trait text that you can only substract the 1 once when you apply metamagic feats. Basically, a 3rd level spell becomes a 2nd level spell, 6th level becomes a 5th level spell etc.
Spell perfection only applies for one feat at the same time for a given spell, so even if you have it for both reach and quicken, it only applies to one of them when used together.
So if you used reach spell on a spell perfected spell, you have in the case of heal:
6 (heal) - 1 (magical lineage: heal) +1 (reach spell) +4 (quicken) = 10 and thus too high to be permissable.
Apparently you are counting the feats iteratively (heal lowered by 1 through the trait, then quicken -> still level 9, thus for free, then count reach). I don't think metamagic works this way, but that you add all of the level increases and decreases at the same time, and that it has to be level 9 or lower at that time... Can anyone clarify on that?
But just quickening or just reaching it this way works fine :-)
You can choose different levels of reach, and each step up in the range chart is +1 level
You can choose different levels of reach, and each step up in the range chart is +1 level
I know, I used it in the example above. I have the issue with the +1 step of reach AND quickening it - all together for free.
Ah, apologies, I misread the math. Unless the cleric class gets it at a lower level, (not gonna look it up right now and honestly doubt it, yep. It no work.
Spell Perfection and Preferred Spell probably work almost as well for a cleric as for an arcane caster.
Maybe choose Heal as your chosen spell for both and pick up Quicken and Reach as your other 2 metamagic feats (Preferred requires Heighten). That would allow you to spontaneously swap Heal in for any spell of the same level or higher and Quicken it for free. Add Reach Spell to use it as a ranged touch attack for 1 level higher. You could go a step further and pick Magical Lineage as your trait to use Reach Spell without any adjustment to the spell level. It's not an early game concept (Spell Perfection requires 15 ranks in Spellcraft), but it gets you Quickened Reached Heal as a level 6 or 7 spell as many times a day as you have level 6, 7, 8 and 9 spell slots without preparing Heal. Can't do much better than that for a healbot late in the game.
Very good suggestions. But I wonder how you can quicken that reach heal spell?
Spell perfection states: "Pick one spell which you have the ability to cast. Whenever you cast that spell you may apply any one metamagic feat you have to that spell without affecting its level or casting time, as long as the total modified level of the spell does not use a spell slot above 9th level."
Magical lineage states: "Pick one spell when you choose this trait. When you apply metamagic feats to this spell, treat its actual level as 1 lower for determining the spell’s final adjusted level.".
I interpret the trait text that you can only substract the 1 once when you apply metamagic feats. Basically, a 3rd level spell becomes a 2nd level spell, 6th level becomes a 5th level spell etc.
Spell perfection only applies for one feat at the same time for a given spell, so even if you have it for both reach and quicken, it only applies to one of them when used together.
So if you used reach spell on a spell perfected spell, you have in the case of heal:
6 (heal) - 1 (magical lineage: heal) +1 (reach spell) +4 (quicken) = 10 and thus too...
Yup, my bad. You're correct.
Still, that's a choice, then, of either a Quickened Heal or a Reached Heal spontaneously. If you have a 3rd metamagic feat besides Heighten you can apply it to the Reached Heal (or apply that instead, or for free instead). Or you can use a Heightened Heal against an undead creature.
In the end a Life Oracle will heal more HP per spell than a cleric, whereas a Cleric will have more healing spells/channels per day. Depending on the revelations selected by the oracle that is
Enhanced Cures (Su): Whenever you cast a cure spell, the maximum number of hit points healed is based on your oracle level, not the limit based on the spell. For example, an 11th-level oracle of life with this revelation may cast cure light wounds to heal 1d8+11 hit points instead of the normal 1d8+5 maximum.
IMO this is the most powerful healing ability available in pathfinder. Its average healing power easily leaves channel energy and other spells behind. Plus you do get channel energy, and its difference to the cleric can be alleviated with a single extra channel feat.
While it is a nice ability, I don't think it compares to the Healing Domain's major power of empowering all healing spells for no cost. The Oracle's enhanced cures will really only be a factor for the level 1 and 2 spells, as most campaigns don't get enough past level 15 to matter, as enhanced cures only removes the artificial cap rather than boosting anything. The healing domain power works for all spell levels.
However, the difference between the healing domain cleric and the life oracle is the end is very minor, as the oracle has an advantage with channel energy.
Well, I have not seen played oracle of life ingame, so I might be wrong with my assessment. I still feel that the baseline bonus of the oracle is worth it. Plus it can spontaneously cast heal, which a cleric cannot, and it can focus solely on charisma which boosts channel energy (I think you refer to that with your last sentence), whereas a cleric has to boost his wisdom.
In the end, both are viable :-)
Well, I have not seen played oracle of life ingame, so I might be wrong with my assessment. I still feel that the baseline bonus of the oracle is worth it. Plus it can spontaneously cast heal, which a cleric cannot, and it can focus solely on charisma which boosts channel energy (I think you refer to that with your last sentence), whereas a cleric has to boost his wisdom.
In the end, both are viable :-)
Well, at the cost of 2 feats clerics CAN spontaneously cast Heal...
Well, at the cost of 2 feats clerics CAN spontaneously cast Heal...Well, I have not seen played oracle of life ingame, so I might be wrong with my assessment. I still feel that the baseline bonus of the oracle is worth it. Plus it can spontaneously cast heal, which a cleric cannot, and it can focus solely on charisma which boosts channel energy (I think you refer to that with your last sentence), whereas a cleric has to boost his wisdom.
In the end, both are viable :-)
Absolutely correct. But if you want to be a dedicated healer, that also implies to me that you want to be able to cast restoration spells, remove poison etc. And the feat tax for that is gonna be a bit heavy compared to the spontaneous casting oracle :-)
I actually used the preferred spell feat (which I think you're referring to) for divine power with one of my clerics. Works wonderfully ;-P