Help making a non-standard "healer"


Advice


In a level 16 game I'm in our Oracle, the one divine caster, has to drop out of the game so that leaves our party in a bit of a quandary as far as filling that niche; as I'm the guy who likes making new characters anyway, I decided to step in and make a new PC.

I know that in combat healing is generally suboptimal, but much of the party is as well; I'm not sure if many in the group has the offensive capabilities required to make the "dead things can't hurt you" strategy viable a lot of the time and even then we're at the point that if we just want to suck on Wands of Cure Light Wounds to get better we'd looking at like 2 a day.

The party consists of:

1. TWF Ranger: Pretty standard optimzed set up, but got a bit screwed on gear due not getting to hand pick his WBL when the character was created at level 14 or 15.

2. Two handing Paladin: Pretty much the standard build, but fairly low optimization with around 20 strength at level 16. He does all right though. Lay on Hands is decent side healing but not really enough to let him sustain the party alone.

3. Blade Bound Magus: Fairly low optimization as well, not really focused on the standard Shock Grasp crit fishing so much as trying to
use sometimes dubiously useful oddball spells.

4. Efreeti bloodline blaster sorcerer: Inexperienced player so ended up with a high focus on fire spells and now things are resisting the hell out of them. No Dazing/Elemental Spell, but will probably change.

The members being replaced:

5. Void school wizard with a bunch of True Names: My old character, the one I'm retiring. Took the the wizard discovery True Name four times for varying purposes (Akhana Aeon, Thandaemon Daemon, Advanced Animated Dream, Arcanotheign), but tried to use them sparingly. Besides that tended to be battle field control or debuffer with Void school's awesome Reveal Weakness.

6. Dual Cursed Time Oracle: Got the Channel Revelation for free to help out with healing needs, so used it in combat when necessary but mostly not. Tended to do buffing as necessary or dropping a timely Heal when one of the melee people got to 1 HP in combat; if not then he was about those debuffs. A fairly well rounded spell/ability list, but primarily support.

With all that in mind, I made a False Priest Sorcerer character who plans on being a controller, but who also has fairly spammable Summon Monster 8 to summon Positive Energy Elementals; DM approved creature, or at least I assume it will be due to his love of them in another game I play with him in where he summons them. I like the concept a lot, but I'm not sure if the DM will go for it due to his strong dislike of pretty much anything off the wall I make. The character.

So now I'm trying to come up with back up concepts that are a little less "wait, you can do what?" should that one not be usable, but I'm drawing a bit of a blank. I thought about maybe going Master Summoner and using lots of those beautiful Positive Energy (and maybe some Negative Energy too) Elementals. Maybe take Summon Evil Monster for Pugwampi spam. That sounds really mechanically solid to me, but at the same time bland. I don't even know how I would really build the actual character feat wise besides the standard summoning buff feats or what I would do with him besides lazily throwing out the same handful of buffs after calling in the elemental/pugwampi swarm.

Anyone have any ideas for characters who could fill a healer niche but without being a cleric (bland) or Oracle (done that quite a bit already)? I suppose there is Shaman, but it just doesn't excite me.


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Are you dead-set against cleric? Because an Evangelist sounds like an awesome addition to the party with so many melee fighters.

I guess to each his own, but I don't really understand the idea of clerics being bland - there are so many cool deities, you can make some really kick-ass and memorable clerics. My favorite character was a cleric (a swashbuckler-style cleric named Lucky Luke) and he was so much fun I've reprised him in multiple campaigns.

I find that clerics in general have much more compelling reasons to be adventuring than most other classes, and more compelling RP goals, which makes them more fun to play.

Like I said, to each his own. But in my book, the only reason why a cleric should be bland is if you pick a really boring god.


Hmmm, that's true about Evangelist. If you went that route how would you build it? At level 16 Spell Perfection is on the table as an option.


An alternative would be mystic theurge. You could go Agathion Aasimar (for summon monster II)

Oracle1/Sorerer5/Mystic Theurge 10. This gets you Oracle CL11/Sorcerer CL15.

By giving up 1 CL, you can gain the benefits of CHA to AC and CMD and max benefit for divine protection


nicholas storm wrote:

An alternative would be mystic theurge. You could go Agathion Aasimar (for summon monster II)

Oracle1/Sorerer5/Mystic Theurge 10. This gets you Oracle CL11/Sorcerer CL15.

By giving up 1 CL, you can gain the benefits of CHA to AC and CMD and max benefit for divine protection

That is a good idea but I doubt the DM would like the use of early entry SLAs because it would be "broken." I doubt any argument I would make would convince him otherwise.


At level 16 you could do 4/4/8 and be a 12th level caster in both, which isn't terrible, but much worse than the approved early entry SLA.


What kind of enemies are you mostly facing?

Spell Perfection to get Persistent Mass Suggestion (cast spontaneously as an evangelist) could be tons of fun both in and out of combat. But, I'm partial to Suggestion, it's such such a flexible spell.

If you fight a lot of things that are immune to mind-affecting, Spell Perfection to get Persistent Destruction could be pretty devastating.

(Also, if your GM allows you to take Quicken Spell-Like Ability then the Luck domain becomes so much more awesome - you can basically roll twice on everything all the time.)


6th level wizard/cleric spell casting isn't bad, but really at this point I'm spoiled by having 8th level spells. I don't know if I want to go back.

Lately we've been fighting a lot of evil outsiders mixed in with undead and mortal spell casters. That mix itself makes me hesitant about focusing on a spell with will negates as undead are immune and the other two have good will saves. As far as Quicken SLA, I believe it can only be taken with SLAs that are based on actual spells; the Luck idea would be quite nice otherwise.

Hmm there is always going Undead Domain to get Enervation and then spontaneously casting it through Preferred Spell. Enervation spam is always fun with Spell Perfection. Again I doubt the DM would like that, but he'd probably live with it.


I believe Quicken SLA can be used for SLAs that aren't based on actual spells, as backed by this FAQ.


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RumpinRufus wrote:
I believe Quicken SLA can be used for SLAs that aren't based on actual spells, as backed by this FAQ.

Hmm I thought there was wording in the Quicken SLA feat that gave it a clear cut restriction, but now that I check again all I see like that is:

"The creature can only select a spell-like ability duplicating a spell with a level less than or equal to 1/2 its caster level (round down) – 4"

The bold part was what I remembered, but now looking at it again with that FAQ in mind I'm unsure.

If I could have been taking Quicken SLA for things like Touch of Luck all this time... Man, what have I been doing with my life? All I can do now is fall on my knees and weep for the wasted years, but also cry tears of happiness as I know now the darkness is behind me and Quickened Touch of Awesome is in my future.


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Okay... so Ranger is high str (but could afford more), Pally is high str (but could afford more), and the Magus is str (maybe?). Sounds like what you want is a Skald.

"But how does a skald heal!?" you ask. Well, he uses a neato pair of feats Skald's Vigor and its greater kin. The skald, awesomely, hands out rage to all its allies (which would buff those strong guys nicely). Skald's Vigor gives you fast healing equal to the Str bonus you hand out... Greater Skald's Vigor hands that bonus to your entire party.

"So what? Fast Healing 6 is lame at 16th level." Maybe it is at level 16... but with some clever use of the teamwork feat Amplified Rage, the Corageous and Furious weapon enchants, Ring of Tactical Precision, etc... We're talking about something more like Fast Healing 10 to the entire party almost every fight you're in.

You'd be not only an *amazing* buffbot for this group (seriously, you are handing out big Str and Con bonuses to everyone) but you'd also heal rather nicely with that fast healing. Hard to beat. Did I mention that you're also effectively a bard and can do all their awesome spell casting tricks? Yeah, it's pretty rad.


heyyon wrote:

Okay... so Ranger is high str (but could afford more), Pally is high str (but could afford more), and the Magus is str (maybe?). Sounds like what you want is a Skald.

"But how does a skald heal!?" you ask. Well, he uses a neato pair of feats Skald's Vigor and its greater kin. The skald, awesomely, hands out rage to all its allies (which would buff those strong guys nicely). Skald's Vigor gives you fast healing equal to the Str bonus you hand out... Greater Skald's Vigor hands that bonus to your entire party.

"So what? Fast Healing 6 is lame at 16th level." Maybe it is at level 16... but with some clever use of the teamwork feat Amplified Rage, the Corageous and Furious weapon enchants, Ring of Tactical Precision, etc... We're talking about something more like Fast Healing 10 to the entire party almost every fight you're in.

You'd be not only an *amazing* buffbot for this group (seriously, you are handing out big Str and Con bonuses to everyone) but you'd also heal rather nicely with that fast healing. Hard to beat. Did I mention that you're also effectively a bard and can do all their awesome spell casting tricks? Yeah, it's pretty rad.

My mind was just completely and utterly blown. My DM just got back to me about my original idea and was iffy about it... if it falls through I'm looking into this.

The Exchange

i would say go board and sword pally/life oracle.

4 levels pally, 5 levels life Oracle. then go holy vindicator.

you progress your oracle casting pool

Oracle revelations go with channel and bond. You use your swift lay on hands to heal your bond damage and you can still be offensive and if you need to heal a lot you have two channel pools that both increase with your Holy vindicator levels.

The cool thing is your only really healing your self you dont have to really spend your turns healing party members so you can use your channels for channel smites.


Four melee characters might be crowding the field a little. Especially if the blaster is looking to cast anything without having to use Selective Spell.


Just keep in mind that Amplified Rage is a teamwork feat. So... you have to make everyone else that wants the +4 increase to take it as well. There's a few tricks to get around that, mostly a 1 level dip into Cavalier for the ability to share it once a day (then you can increase that number of times with feats and what not). Another trick is to get a familiar with the valet archetype. It will share your teamwork feats... so your little familiar gets super angry along with you. Finally, Ring of Tactical Precision can be "charged" with a teamwork feat and handed over to another character. They have that feat so long as they wear that ring. Oh, and it bumps the bonus by +1 for that person.

Amplified Rage only works while next to another person with the feat, which blows up flanking bonuses (but you've got no rogue, soooo). A drawback, certainly, but that valet familiar stays right with you. Best way to do it right there.

Rufus: I can totally see that. Although, at 16th level, there are more and more fights against enormous stuff, so the ability to target them with blasty spells stops being "Fireball the room" and more "Disintegrate their face." Even at that, the evocation school around 6th level spells starts to turn from area effects to "bouncing" effects, which is nice because it takes the party out of the line of fire!

That said, Evangelist is awesome. Lots of buffing, healing, cleric spell list. It's good times.


Full Witch with Healing Hex + Hex Vulnerability spell. First level spell allowing 1/CL extra uses of the hex? Healing problem solved. Greater Healing Hex works faster. Pearls of Power are cheap. Staff with spell is 3200 for 8th level cast for 8 extra uses per spell. With a limit of 10 on the staff, and refill at 1/day, should limit staff usage.

/cevah

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