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Hey folks! Starting a new campaign that requested a healer, and said I could either be level 6 single class or 4/4 multiclass. So I built me an Oradin, with a very generous point buy but no starting magical equipment. Rocking mythril chainmail and an elven curve blade though. Half elf, with following feats:
Ancestral Arms
Fey Foundling
Power Attack
Selective Channeling
Greater Mercy or Beacon of Hope
The party is HUGE, with 10 players at a time, at least 6+ of whom seem to be melee based martials. Since I didn't get to be a Skald, I wanted to make sure my Oradin also had some mass buffs to lay down. Sadly, Oracles don't seem to have a ton of 1st and 2nd level spells for that.
I know the standard Oradin uses the Hospitaler archetype. The extra channels pair really well with the Beacon of Hope feat, which I can snag as my DM allows Chaotic Paladins. On the other hand, the Holy Tactician provides some rather sweet things as well.
Hospitaler:
+ An extra 8 channels a day, which while lower on heal dice can be used for BoH
+ Beacon of Hope provides a higher morale bonus on attack roles than Bless or the Holy Light aura, which frees up a lot of casting options. Also applies to all saves.
+ Fully powered personal smite
+ Channeling may be a more efficient than Lay on Hands thanks to party size.
+ Can be used with Quick Channel to further improve action economy.
+ Maintains base class auras. With saves this high that's less relevant to the Oradin, but allies will appreciate this.
+ Can basically buff once and then hop into the fray.
- Unclear as to how best to level up. Lots of good reasons to stay Pally, but the Oracle will EVENTUALLY get better buff spells.
- Beacon of Hope doesn't apply to damage rolls or AC.
- Quick Channel and BoH eat up feats, and this thing has a lot of competition for those.
Holy Tactician:
+ Less feat intensive.
+ Outflank is a +2 bonus that can stack with EVERYTHING.
+ Can generate extra attacks of opportunity.
+ Eventually can nab the whole party coordinated charge, which does all sorts of stuff.
+ Creates more incentive to focus on taking Paladin levels
+ Grants free movement around the board
+ Can take Warrior of Holy Light to stack with other bonuses.
- Worse action economy. Needs a standard for the teamwork, standard for Holy Light aura, standard for any spells cast... So while it can lead to higher bonuses it takes longer to do so and keeps the Oradin from just smashing heads.
-Bonuses are more situational. If flanking isn't practical, or party gets too spread out, the BoH buff is superior.
-Loses immunities. Don't care that much with saves this good.
- Weal's Champion sorta sucks in comparison to Smite. The bonuses are lower, but the real problem is the duration is so short, especially when multiclassing. I'd only get 2 rounds per use at Pally 4.
-Loses Divine Bond, which I was looking forward to using since I don't think WBL is in play and I would love to add Keen to my curve blade.
What do y'all think? Which archetype should I go with, and which class should I progress?
Just points to bear in mind.
A large part of why the oradin is so effective is being a hit point battery. By focusing on absorbing the damage that is being put on the rest of the party, you maximize action economy and take advantage of the buffs to healing yourself (swift action to heal yourself and +2 healing per die from fey foundling).
That being said, the amount of damage being tossed around in a 10 person party... May be overwhelming. You may have to do more healing than the swift action will cover, which defeats the purpose of doing an Oradin. Their effectiveness comes from doing the majority of their healing via swifts leaving the rest of their actions open to do other things... Namely not being a heal bot.
Another issue is, again due to party size. Channeling. Selective channeling is nice, but with the number of opponents you will be facing to be challenging... Might not keep you from healing opponents. You may find your self moving A LOT to keep from healing opponents, which eats at your actions again.
I really like the Oradin builds, but from what you are saying, it might be an uphill battle to play one in this situation.
It's unfortunate you didn't get to be a skald. They have some delicious party-wide healing with Greater Skald's Vigor, and Celestial Totem + Path of Glory.
If you're going to be a healer paladin in a 6+ melee group, you might like to consider the Sacred Shield archetype. It straight up reduces the amount of damage your melee teammates take by half, and it's not mere damage redirection like Life Bond or Shield Other.
As a general tip to make yourself more resilient, grab a protector familiar via Eldritch Heritage. You're a half elf, so you already have Skill Focus. It will use Bodyguard and Shield Other on you while it sits in your pocket.
Just points to bear in mind.
A large part of why the oradin is so effective is being a hit point battery. By focusing on absorbing the damage that is being put on the rest of the party, you maximize action economy and take advantage of the buffs to healing yourself (swift action to heal yourself and +2 healing per die from fey foundling).
That being said, the amount of damage being tossed around in a 10 person party... May be overwhelming. You may have to do more healing than the swift action will cover, which defeats the purpose of doing an Oradin. Their effectiveness comes from doing the majority of their healing via swifts leaving the rest of their actions open to do other things... Namely not being a heal bot.
Another issue is, again due to party size. Channeling. Selective channeling is nice, but with the number of opponents you will be facing to be challenging... Might not keep you from healing opponents. You may find your self moving A LOT to keep from healing opponents, which eats at your actions again.
I really like the Oradin builds, but from what you are saying, it might be an uphill battle to play one in this situation.
These are very valid concerns, but can I ask what would be MORE efficient if I'm going to going this route? A level 6 pure Life Oracle with souped up Channeling and access to third level spells? Since I don't think the Divine Protection feat is going to be available, going the Oradin route gives me excellent saves and health and BAB. It also gives the option to just use my swift for LOH when that's sufficient, and to Channel PLUS LOH when damage is getting more severe. Otherwise, I am pretty darn good at providing the buffs and damage to end encounters quicker.
Or are you encouraging me to ditch being a healbot at all, and go Bard or something?
It's unfortunate you didn't get to be a skald. They have some delicious party-wide healing with Greater Skald's Vigor, and Celestial Totem + Path of Glory.
If ever there was a party for a Skald...
If you're going to be a healer paladin in a 6+ melee group, you might like to consider the Sacred Shield archetype. It straight up reduces the amount of damage your melee teammates take by half, and it's not mere damage redirection like Life Bond or Shield Other.
That's not a bad suggestion, but I have several concerns with it. It's abilities are heavily proximity based, and I doubt allies be able to stay that concentrated. We could't even flank a large creature without losing the benefit. Also, Holy Shield works better when I can rely on having a magically enhanced shield. Don't think there is a magic mart in this game. I sorta feel like I can help the party more by making them kill things quicker.
As a general tip to make yourself more resilient, grab a protector familiar via Eldritch Heritage. You're a half elf, so you already have Skill Focus. It will use Bodyguard and Shield Other on you while it sits in your pocket..
I actually gave up Skill Focus for Ancestral Arms... but I guess I could use a Greatsword instead of the curve blade. I was actually considering this route, but couldn't decide what feats to drop for it, and I couldn't figure out an efficient route to get a Tumor Familiar or something else with Fast Healing.Thoughts?
Are 3rd party feats allowed? Mystical Healer is really good for healers. It scales with level.
If you're using an elven curved blade for the aesthetic and not for the fact that it's a finesse weapon, try a nodachi. It's a martial weapon with the same damage, crit range, and aesthetic as an elven curved blade. The only difference is that it doesn't have finesse. That means you don't have to spend a feat on weapon proficiency.
Spirit's Gift will let you give your familiar fast healing 1 via the Life spirit.
If you pick Witch Doctor Life Shaman as 4 of your levels, you'll get two more pools of channel energy, and a familiar with fast healing 1 for free. The downside is that you'll be MAD because you'll want 12-14 wisdom.
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I'm going to suggest a different archetype for your Paladin -- Oath of Vengeance.
No seriously... hear me out. Take extra lay on hands feat. What you don't use to heal, you can use to SMITE.
It's an archetype that can seriously heal and seriously dish out damage, and it actually works great as an oradin healbot. There's a ton of flexibility there. The extra channeling pools from hospitaler are nice, but not needed. You're getting enough channeling off the oracle side of your build. Taking down bad guys is even nicer.
With lay on hands and life link, most of your healing is on yourself. If you have room in your build for an extra revelation, energy body's not bad. It gives you good healing and it can't be critted. But all you need is your oracle channels, life link and lay on hands.
I recommend investing in meditation crystals. Convert unused channels each day into extra lay on hands.
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Now, with your ten person party... do you have at least one person dedicated to battlefield control?
We have a party in my home game of 1 ranger, 1 inquisitor, 2 paladins, 1 slayer, 2 non-melee characters and me -- the sorcerer who does battle field control.
While the melee slaughterhouse five do damage, I'm setting up things for them to make life easier -- laying down grease, obscuring mist, glitterdust, black tentacles, snowballs (they're not just a blast, they stagger and can entangle with a rime rod) -- and tilting things so that my party usually wins and hardly takes any damage.
Your oradin will be fine if your party has a skald / bard and some kind of battlefield controller in the mix. With those two characters and savvy play, party damage will be kept to a minimum.
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Another question for you... what will you be doing for your curse? I play a deaf Oradin in PFS, and it's great! I took scrolls of silence spell from the beginning of my oracle levels. I plan to take silence as a spell on my 4th oracle level. I use it to shut down casters. It's awesome. I cast silence on myself in one scenario as a 3rd level character and took down a 6th level demon by myself because it could NOT cast in the silent zone. And that's with no combat feats, just smite.
Hmm
I wasn't trying to discourage being a healbot, so much as point out that if you are going to be a healbot there may be more effective ways to do it. The Oradin was basically created so you didn't have to be a healbot, you had options to do other things like fight or even "tank" essentially.
You are trying to be the healbot which means there are probably better ways to go about it. Life Oracle is probably one of the better ways to do that. Really it is all guesswork at this point because the group is so far outside the norm and things have to be adjusted by the GM to make it function. I can only imagine with a group that size a dedicated healer is the way to go, I don't really have any "good suggestions" due to not having a solid grasp of what the campaign is going to be like. It's pretty much spitballing ideas and seen what pans out sadly.
First session complete! Went Holy Tactician and it worked pretty darn well, if not as well as possible. Outflank generated some extra attacks of opportunity but allies had a harder time flanking than I thought. Weal's Champion was a bit of a dud because half the party was evil and didn't benefit. But we mowed down dozens of enhanced dretches whiles spells rained down on us and took down two balors with divine intervention and some hilarious crits.
Feel like the Hospitaler would have provided more immediate benefits to the party but the Holy Tactician may do more in the long run. Dunno.
They LOVED having the life link, heals and buffs I brought to the table. There also seemed to either be a misrule or a houserule that my positive channel could heal allies and hurt negative outsiders in the same burst. That helped.
Are 3rd party feats allowed? Mystical Healer is really good for healers. It scales with level.
Doubt it, but that is a good feat.
[quote=
Castilonium]If you're using an elven curved blade for the aesthetic and not for the fact that it's a finesse weapon, try a nodachi. It's a martial weapon with the same damage, crit range, and aesthetic as an elven curved blade. The only difference is that it doesn't have finesse. That means you don't have to spend a feat on weapon proficiency.
Spirit's Gift will let you give your familiar fast healing 1 via the Life spirit.
If you pick Witch Doctor Life Shaman as 4 of your levels, you'll get two more pools of channel energy, and a familiar with fast healing 1 for free. The downside is that you'll be MAD because you'll want 12-14 wisdom.
Great call on the Nodachi. The shaman is a very interesting idea. Two channel pools plus prepared casting. My big point of reluctance is that the shaman life link SUCKS. It is way worse than the Oracle's.
Why can't you be a skald?
I don't think the DM knew the class, is a little new to Pathfinder, and I didn't want to push his boundaries for my first session. That said, now that I am getting to know the group I will probably aim for a Skald should the Oradin die.
As for a witch, I don't think it provides what I am looking for here. Too many targets for single target debuff to be my jam, and while another arcane caster never hurts efficiency I am digging leaving the battle field control to our wizard and making the martials fight better and longer.
I'm going to suggest a different archetype for your Paladin -- Oath of Vengeance.
An interesting notion. I do have some reluctance just because of the quantity of enemies. Smiting on bosses is always effective, but might the normal quantity may suffice for those. Non-bosses were thrown in such high numbers that single target smite seems like it would still burn out too fast.
I was also throwing channels out like crazy that fight, and the channels may not get any higher.
There was some battlefield control thanks to a wizard and some other characters dropping scrolls of black tentacles and stuff. More of that would almost certainly not hurt but I dug my role.
I didn't go deaf because I wanted to be able to roleplay this guy as a smarky jerk who is obligated to soak pain for the party but actually hates them all. Went legalistic, and I'm making the party sign medical wavers for using my services. XD
OH MAN, I just realized how crazy the Holy Tactician is with a Skald and Amplified Rage. +6 Strength and Con to anyone adjacent or flanking to anyone else. Bring Skald Vigor and Greater Skald Vigor into play and the healz pretty much take care of themselves.
Taking the War Drummer archetype trades less combat oriented stuff for extra attack bonuses, and free Magic Weapons crafting, which seems very clutch for this magic martless campaign. I can outfit the entire party with Courageous/Furious weapons, and if the weapons are +2 or higher, that is going to to add another point to the strength stuff. Throw some Heroism, Bless, and other Moral boosts on top of that....
It can't get Life Link, but who cares when your entire party is getting fast healed?
Another thing I would suggest is to check out counterspelling. An ounce of prevention can be worth a pound of cure light wound wands.
I used to have a druid that used Improved Counterspell to have flame strikes prevent enemy fireballs and lightning bolts from hurting my party.
But counterspelling like that can be hard if you're a multiclassed spellcaster.
I know how hard it can be to be the only healer in a large party. I play a cleric in a 5th Edition campaign with a party of 6. We have a new barbarian, and he probably increased the hit point total of the party by 25% to 40%. Which is good for everyone, but can be draining of my spell slots.... And 5th Edition has a lot of self-healing built into the system!