Tiefling Healer Witch / Oracle

[tieflingwizard]

So I want to make a character that can be great at healer. The concept is a tiefling Witch (Hedge Witch archetype). But I also want to add an Oracle of Life to the build. I guess the questions are "Can this idea work?" and "How can I make this idea work?".

[Sensten]

depends somewhat on your point buy and what you're looking to do.

I found that the misfortune revelation of the dual cursed oracle is massively useful, both as a means of saving my comrades (failed that roll? try again) and as a way to increase the effectiveness of my hexes (made that roll? try again).

I'm mostly a debuffer with a little battlefield control. And no one has died under my watch (no one, that is, that didn't want to). I did have a 25 point buy though, which made it easier (incidentally, I went straight witch...found I didn't really need the healing hex/hedge witch archtype but ymmv)

Middle-age Aasimar life oracle 4/witch 7
STR 10 DEX 12 CON 14 INT 19(27) WIS 12 CHA 16
Exalted of the Society (+1 channel) by GM Fiat, although I've never used
Fey foundling
Life link, Misfortune, Channel Energy (with aasimar FCB, 3d6 at level 4)
Slumber, Prehensile Hair, evil eye, cackle
Craft Wondrous, Leadership, Improved Familiar

Use life link to take as much damage to yourself and then heal up yourself. Fey foundling makes it that much better. Also extends the use of channel energy when you can spread the damage out a bit.

As long as everyone stay close, you can negate the crits and failed saves with misfortune and heal everyone up after the fight. I never took selective channel cause I only needed to channel once in a battle and I just waited for a mid point were all the bad guys were either dead or at full health so it wouldn't affect them.

With high int, I got tons of skills and my hex DCs stayed competitive. Slumber is like an instant win button against most critters and when I can't or don't want to do that, I have plenty of lovely debuffing spells. My GM hates me sometimes though.

[tieflingwizard]

Interesting ideas, Sensten. I don't have a point buy yet. My primary role is to heal the party. Minor roles are rebuff, buff, and summoning. A tertiary role is damage dealing. Very minor.

[XMorsX]

The ACG Shaman class is a mix of Witch and Oracle; you may find something interesting there.

[Avatar-1]

Why not just go full tiefling Oracle of Life?

[tieflingwizard]

XMorsX wrote:

The ACG Shaman class is a mix of Witch and Oracle; you may find something interesting there.

The Shaman class is very interesting. It does fit in with the concept of a tiefling raised in the wilds possessing mysterious powers. However, it seems to be more inflict spell focus. I don't know. My problem is that the Shaman spell list doesn't have any cure spells or the like. Even the Life Spirit option seems to be light on healing. Let me know if I've overlooked something.

Avatar-1 wrote:

Why not just go full tiefling Oracle of Life?

Because, while I like the Oracle of Life, I think that starting with a Hedge Witch then take levels in Oracle of Life would make the character a more efficient healer. Plus, the concept is to make a tiefling that lived on the fringes of society, dabbling in witchcraft. However, his talents lie in healing.

[Sensten]

Bit of a long post, sorry

A lot of your choices will be based on your group's play style and campaign, but here are some general points.

As a healer, you have three main responsibilities: prevent death in combat, heal damage taken, and heal ability damage. So that's your starting point.

Next, consider the situations in which you'll need to address these responsibilities.
Ideally, healing should be done outside of combat with the occasional emergency save in combat. Life Oracles are great at this, but not much else, so unless your group is suicidal, you'll spend a lot of time feeling pretty useless. Life link makes this especially easy.

Generally, unless your group really is suicidal and/or tactically bereft, death in combat is the result of a failed save/unlucky crit (or two). Misfortune revelation is the single most powerful tool for instant death denial I've ever seen.

Ability damage sucks, and you want your restoration spells asap. So whichever your "main" class is, you want to minimize any delay in getting those spells.

What will you do when you're not healing? If things go well, you shouldn't be healing in combat, so what are you gonna do? You mentioned a bit of everything, which witches can do, though they tend to specialize in debuffing.

Taking levels in witch is also great because it's the only(?) full arcane caster that gets the healing spells you need. It also gets hexes, which increase not only your effectiveness but also your lasting power.

But witch spells/hexes are Int and level based and, like I said, you don't want to delay getting your restoration spells. So if you want to be an effective witch, it needs to be your main class and you need to take the least amount of other classes you can manage.

Since it sounds like you're set on Tiefling, this isn't necessarily a terrible thing. The base tiefling gets Int, Dex, -Cha, but if you're only taking one or two levels of oracle, that's not the end of the world.

There are three Oracle abilities that really stand out, and you can pick them up at level 1. Life link, Channeling, and Misfortune. Since you won't have great charisma, and you won't have many levels in oracle, you only need life link and misfortune. So take one level of Dual Cursed Oracle and pick up misfortune, then take extra revelation for Life Link. Keep in mind, having life link active stablizes anyone that might need it, stops bleed, and basically gives everyone fast healing 5 as long as you still have health.

Your level 1 feat should be fey foundling to increase your healing effectiveness. Since you don't have channel energy, you'll want to take the hedge witch archetype and the healing patron and the healing hex too probably.

You'll want as much Int as you can get. You'll want at least 11 Cha, to cast 1st level Oracle spells. You'll also want a decent amount of Con (14+). After that, it depends on your point buy and preference.

Due to your high Int, you'll have lots of skills. Between your two classes, you get most of the knowledges and the Int to really capitalize on them. I actually ended up only putting 1 in each and got 13 to most of them. You should probably also look into getting a social skill (intimidate fits nicely). After that, you'll have the freedom to fill in whatever holes your party is missing (mine was missing A LOT :| ).

I found mine was pretty flexible trait wise. You might pick up one of the ones that adds extra caster levels to make up for dip in Oracle. Or something that gives you a class skill you don't have and need. There's a couple threads out there on the best traits if you wanted to look through them.

So, on something like a 20pt buy, you might look like this.

Tiefling
Switch Skilled for Wings or Bluff
Switch Resists for Scaled Skin, +1 AC, 5 Fire
Switch Fiendish Sorcery for Tail
FCB: Witch>HP
STR 10 DEX 16 CON 14 INT 18 WIS 10 CHA 12
Reactionary (+2 Init)
Blessed Touch (+1 to all cure spells)

Level 1: Dual cursed Oracle of Life
Fey Foundling, Misfortune
Level 2: Hedgewitch (Healing Patron, Compsognathus or Scorpion Familiar, +4 Init)
Slumber Hex
Level 3: Healing Hex, Extra Revelation: Life Link or Toughness
Level 4: INT +1
Level 5: Extra Hex or Craft Wondrous (or Life link if you took toughness)

At this point just take your favorite hexes. In my group I discovered that we left... a lot of areas uncovered so I ended up taking craft wondrous, leadership, and improved Familiar, but you might just go all in on hexes. You'll be a level behind but as long as you prioritize increasing INT above everything else, your DCs will be competitive, and Misfortune will make it that much harder for critters to save against you. And between Misfortune, Life Link, Healing Hex, and spontaneous heal spells, you'll be fine when it comes to keeping everyone alive. Pick up Blood money and symbol of healing when you get the chance. You can spend your off days making symbols for emergencies for free :)

[tieflingwizard]

So, this character is being used for a Wrath of the Righteous PBP game. As you know, the AP involves mythic paths. What abilities should I go for? I definitely know that for this build, I should go for a dual path Archmage/Hierophant.

[tieflingwizard]

Hey. A question. Since I plan on taking Dual Cursed Oracle of Life at 2nd level, which curses should I take? I was thinking of blackened for one of them. Any thoughts?

[tieflingwizard]

So what curses should I take since this is a one level dip? I was thinking of taking the blackened curse. However, this character is in a Wrath of the Righteous campaign and if I'm right, demons tend to have fire resistance. I was also thinking of Tongues (Celestial), Wrecker (due to the demon theme in the campaign), or Haunted (but would this negate the ability I get from prehensile tail). Any opinions?

Here is my character's alias, if you would like to look.

[Sensten]

Tongues can interfere with debuffing since some of the debuffs are language dependent (I learned this the hard way). If you do take it, make sure your party can all speak the same language so you can talk to them in battle.

Blackened is okay, especially since you won't be making any melee attacks, and fairly thematic. Wrecker would be interesting unless you plan on using wands (I've used a wand or two). Then it can get a little expensive.

Keep in mind that one of your curses won't advance and any curse that gives you spells is useless since you won't have high enough oracle spell level to use them.

I don't know much about Wrath of the Righteous, but here's a breakdown on some of the curses, maybe that will help:

Clouded vision: great if you don't need to see anything past 60 ft. If you're spending a lot of time underground and in close quarters, this would be a good one to advance.

Lame: useful. The -10 to speed isn't that bad, especially since you'll probably end up mounted or flying for any real distance you need to cover. Never being encumbered can be useful for a low str char, and immunity to fatigue is okay in some cases if you advance it.

Legalistic: usefulness depends on how stringently your GM applies the "don't break your word" clause. If he views it as "Don't go back on what you've specifically promised", it's pretty decent. Just don't make a lot of promises. If he views it as "any contradictory action or speech", you could be in trouble.

Deaf: interesting. Silent spell can be very useful, and going last isn't always the worst thing, depending on your group. On the other hand, like tongues, some debuffs are language dependent and I imagine silent spell will interfere with that. Also, if you go this route, put a point in linguistics and pick up "lip reading", if your GM allows it.

Wasted: as long as you're not the "face" it's not terrible. Although the minus to Cha checks may extend to UMD checks, concentration checks for your oracle spells, and other unexpected checks as well. Eventually getting immune to sickened and diseases is nice.

I'd avoid wolfscarred face, haunted, and consumed, as the penalties are far more relevant to your build than the benefits.

[tieflingwizard]

I just noticed something. There's a Misfortune Hex that works just like the Misfortune Revelation except that it becomes more powerful as my witch levels grow. So, why not take a level of normal Oracle of Life? If this is the case, then choosing my curse is much easier.

[Sensten]

Because Oracle's misfortune revelation is an immediate action with no save. It's also something you can use beneficially on party members, since you'd only use it when you know they've missed their save or fumbled or whatever.

[tieflingwizard]

Okay. One level of Dual-Cursed Oracle of Life. Curses will be Blackened and Lame. Sound good?

[tieflingwizard]

So I created this character for a Wrath of the Righteous. I'm going to be dual pathing hierophant and archmage. But I have another question. My GM asked that since I was multi classing a witch and an oracle, if I would be taking Mystic Theurge. Now my question is: should I go with Mystic Theurge?

I mean, I would have to rework my build to have the oracle at level 5. I also hear that Mystic Thuerge is awesome at high levels. But what I'm concerned with is the fact that my class abilities wouldn't level. I originally have it planned as Hedge Witch 19/Dual Cursed Oracle of Life 1.

Opinions?