I may have a bit of a character creation addiction.
I'm starting to think about a back up character for my cleric in a home game. I currently fill the buffer/healer role, as well as face and I'm also the rogues flanking buddy. I'd like to continue in this role, but with a different class.
I'm playing a bard in a PFS game, so I'd like to steer clear of that. I was thinking possibly a battle Oracle, though I'm not dead set on the mystery, or a kinetic chireurgeon (sp?).
The kineticist would make it tougher to fill the face roll, but it seems interesting. I'm open to other classes, so what would you guys pick to fill this roll?
I hadn't, I'll look into that as well.
I want to steer clear of cleric and bard because I'm playing both currently.
I hadn't considered paladin, I never looked at them too much. Does lay on hands and aura make up for the lack of spells enough to be the healer/buffer or is it just the spells on the list allowing wand use?
Why wouldn't you recommend the shaman?
Very, the paladin could be interesting. They always felt pretty restrictive to me. I'll have to consider it though.
I'll steer clear of the shaman, for now at least.
Paladin's don't make for the best support characters. Lay on hands is really efficient when using it on yourself, but otherwise it's a pretty inefficient use of a standard action. Their spell selection is also very, very limited compared to a cleric, Oracle, or even an inquisitor. If you want to play a melee combatant with buffing and healing abilities, you're better off with one of those.
The one thing Paladin's are good at is buffing your teams saves. As long as you can stick with them, those aura bonuses are quite good. If you want to cast divine fervor, however, look elsewhere.
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An interesting one that I noticed when I was building my Mesmerist for PFS is that they can make relatively competent healers. They're CHA based, so can be excellent faces (excellent bluffing, they get +1/2 their mesmerist level to their bluff checks), they have interesting debuffing they can do - they're the only class in the game that can cast mind-effecting effects on mindless creatures/creatures immune to them, as far as I know - and with 3/4 BAB and a d8 HD, they can be quite competent front-liners. My mesmerist has a swashbuckler dip at 1st level to get a bit higher health, as well as getting dex to damage (inspired blade gives you the prereqs). You have 6th level casting, so not quite as good as cleric/bard, but definitely respectable. You can be very good at UMD to use a wand of infernal healing/CLW, which is all that's really needed for HP healing. You have remove curse, blindness/deafness, restoration on your spell list, and you can remove some of the mental status effects with your equivalent of lay on hands. By higher levels you can use it like ~10 times a day, and it acts as break enchantment! On top of that you can use Mesmerist tricks to delay some bad status conditions whist still having the countdown on them going down, or to give a full-round of flanking to your rogue when you're not there. Not a typical healer by any means, but it certainly can work! :)
