All,
I am curious as to whether a Witch with the Healing Patron and the Healing Hexes can be the primary healer for a group? What if the group also has a Ranger and a Rogue with Use Magic Device? The group size would be 5. Maybe 6?
Edit: can a party survive without the other cleric spells that, say, an adventure path or multifaceted adventure might expect them to have? Esp at higher levels (10+)?
Just curious.
Thanks!
Anyone who can use cure wands can cover primary healing duties.
Ok, but what about other stuff like various Restoration spells, condition/poison removal, raise deads, plane shifts, etc?
Should suffice for their needs. Especially if the party invests in som ewands of cure light wounds that could be used by witch and ranger without rolling and rogue with a successful UMD check.
Yeah, I am just concerned about the Restoration line being unavailable if you dont have the Healing Patron.
Otherwise, the Healing Patron mostly sucks. And with or without it, the Witch gets lots of heal/rez/cure stuff LATE (all cures past 2nd level, symbol of healing, reincarnate, raise dead, pillar of life, heal, resurrection ... all late).
But I would think the Restoration stuff being absent would be rough in particular, so I feel compelled to take the Healing patron. Plus I worry that a witch would feel compelled to keep them all memorized, since they cant spontaneously drop spells to cure.
It seems like a Witch, Rogue, Barbarian, Wizard, Ranger team might have a hard time in a full playthrough on Rise of the Runelords.
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The restoration spells are an imperative in my experience. In fact that is the single resource that I have come to identify a healing character off of. The adventure paths make this even more true. I am in two right not and running RotRL and the party would not have made it without the healer with restoration.
That being said I don't think you need to memorize many healing spells. A wand for inbetween combat, a healing hex for emergency combat healing and a scroll or two of lesser restoration (high levels restoration) and you won't need to memorize them for adventuring days. You can just wait until the day after most times.
If you have restoration, that party will dominate the adventure. If not? then you will likely have casualties.
Yeah.
I wish Patrons never gave duplicate spells, unless it was to switch late access (which level of spell slot the spell occupies) to normal access.
The Restoration parts of the Healing patron are cool. But getting Remove Disease at 6th sucks. Sure, its free, but I have to wait a level. Irritating at best. I wish they would give Cure Serious at 6th, so that it would let you have that "on time" in terms of spell slot use. I would rather get Raise Dead at 10th instead of Cleanse. And then you get Pillar of Life at 12th which is STILL a spell slot too high even though its a grant.
If you compare Healing to other Patrons, its kinda bad. The patrons are uneven. Many are rather bad. Several of them give entirely unavailable spells all or mostly on time, which is how they should all be IMO. But those stupid Restoration spells seem to be a must, so I feel obligated to go with the Healing patron or else go Cleric.
Bleh.
I would say that restoration/condition removal is probably more important then hit point recovery. Hit points can be gotten back a variety of ways, heal skill and rest at low levels, wands with UMD, potions a bunch of items etc, but ability damage, poisons, diseases, negative levels, those things are brutal at mid to higher levels if you cant recover them with spells.
A witch with healing hex and healing patron is abolutely capable of being the primary healer. If you dont have the healing patron though, you will need some way of having access to those condition removal spells particualrly restoration and lesser restoration.
Cool. I guess thats what I will do then. Thanks. :)
Straight HP healing can be covered more or less, but yeah, its the status effect type healing areas that often need more specialized help.
I'm currently playing a Witch for our RotR campaign and i'm doing fine as the party's healer.
I've taken the Hedge Witch archetype which allows me to spontaneously cast cure spells as well, i rather like it :)
To be honest i didn't even notice that I got the spells later, what I had seemed to suffice so far, so i'd say it's viable.
I did pick the Healing patron though :)
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I have played way to many cleric, druids, and oracles. I can for a mater of fact tell you. No caster will be able to cast the number of lesser restorations, or regular restorations to fix a party. Same goes for remove curse, and remove blindness. Any one that can use the following spell completion items can be the main healer of a group. They can have it on there list or have a really good umd.
My divine casters + bards with enough UMD. Carry the full healing supply's. You might not need them but when you do they change the game in your favor.
Wands of Cure Light Wounds ( My current group has one for each of the 4 players that can cast the spell. And we have replaced 3 of them by level 6. )
Wand of lesser restoration ( You should only need one. Some times buy a 2nd later if you run across allot of stat damage. )
Scrolls of Restoration ( One for each member of your group. Until you can cast greater restoration. Then one greater restoration for each. )
Scrolls of Remove Curse ( Two for each member of your group. It is not good to be cursed it is one of the better debuffs. )
Scrolls of Remove Blindness ( Two for each member of your group. )