Bleed reduction

[Yamiten]

Holy vindicator looks like a lot of fun to abuse but their bleed from stigmata seems like damage I could be avoiding. So far these are the only PFS legal ways I have found to mitigate the damage:

Scarrified rager (barbarian) - reduce bleed by 1 for every 3 barbarian levels
Hospitaller (paladin) - immune to bleed at level 11

If anybody knows ways to get bleed reduction (the earlier the better) your input would be most welcome. I'm open to items, classes, feats, and traits as long as they are PFS legal.

[Dafydd]

Well, it is not stopped by healing magic, but it's effects are slowed by it. Specifically, I am thinking of Verminous Hunter with Fast Healing as a 1 level dip. This could give you Fast Healing 1 all day long, reducing the problems of bleeding out until you are level 4 Vindicator (where you bleed 2 and heal 1). If you are going Paladin 4/Hunter 1/Holy Vindicator X (till level 12) you are looking at 3 bleed and have Fast healing 1, with a LARGE pool of hit points to burn through.

[Yamiten]

Dafydd wrote:

Specifically, I am thinking of Verminous Hunter with Fast Healing as a 1 level dip.

Unfortunately the fast healing is limited to 1 minute per day unless I kill off my pet bug.

[Dafydd]

So you can kill the ant and gain the Fast Healing. It is fairly common for Verminous Hunters as the vermin companions are not very strong (some gold nuggets). If you do not want to be that guy, animal companions can die quite easily, especially if you are not doing anything to improve it. You do not need the FH till level 7(when you get stigmata), so a level 6 adventure with an effective level 1 companion is gonna be hard mode if not dead mode anyway. With a decent Wisdom, you can also snag the extended focus feat for a number of additional minutes of Focus = to wis mod. Good way to gain fortification for important battles.

Also you can funnel those extra spell level into Hunter Spells. Arguably more useful spells and more fun too. It also does not need to be a 1 or the other choice. You may split the +1 to whichever class you want at the time. (4 to one - none for the other, or 3 to one - 1 to the other, or 2 to one - 2 to the other)

[Azothath]

In PFS Regeneration should work - so invest in a ring, ioun stone, or wand... amusingly regeneration spell makes you immune to bleed damage, so a cruel GM might have you concentrating to bleed every round and there goes your standard action at low levels... lol.

Scarred Rager would be the way to go within PFS. PFS GMs probably won't dock your bonuses since it's a class function.

I will say that you must bleed in order to get your bonuses, and your bonus is based on your HP loss rate, so (logically) slowing the bleed will lessen your bonuses. I think most (home game) GMs would allow you to lessen your bleed voluntarily and your bonuses would vary with that. In PFS most GMs will not let you vary the damage rate without an FAQ update as there is no rule to lessen the damage or control the blood flow rate (even though it says you can start or stop it by a mental only action, it did not imply fine control RAW). This mindset works for you in the barbarian's case. Hospitallier takes too long to get the bonus, at 12th the barbarian would be ignoring 4 points per round. It's a 3 or 6 level dip in barbarian to get that ability and will affect your divine spellcasting significantly.

You can Heal or Cure the damage, though you will still bleed at the same rate, as the action sequence will be to bleed then cure up. So you don't actually slow the bleed rate with Fast Healing or Curing, you just effectively reduce the hit point loss by the end of the round.

A cheaper way to go would be some ioun stones with level 1 spell store. Have 1 with Infernal Healing and the other with Cure Light so you can cure up the damage on the go. A third with Liberating Command is always useful.