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At 3rd level a cleric has lesser restoration and remove paralysis. You'd get lesser restoration at 4th and never get remove paralysis.
At 5th level a cleric has remove disease, remove curse, and remove blindness/deafness. You'd get two of those at 7th and the third at 8th.
At 7th level a cleric has neutralize poison and restoration. You get them at 10th.
At 9th level a cleric gets break enchantment, raise dead, and breath of life. You get two of them at 13th and the other at 14th.
At 11th level a cleric gets heal. You never do.
At 13th level a cleric gets resurrection and greater restoration. You never do.
While this may be true, I can also count on one hand the number of times I've ever had to use Neutralize Poison, Raise Dead, Remove Paralysis, and up until a few months ago even Restoration.
Lesser Restoration, Cure Spells, an odd Gentle Repose, and the Heal Skill tend to be all I need for most issues.
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While this may be true, I can also count on one hand the number of times I've ever had to use Neutralize Poison, Raise Dead, Remove Paralysis, and up until a few months ago even Restoration.
Lesser Restoration, Cure Spells, an odd Gentle Repose, and the Heal Skill tend to be all I need for most issues.
I just had to fix three different ability score drains at the same time. I also had about three or four situations of single ability drains, as well as a curse. Also some diseases. Poison hasn't been a problem since party-wide delay poison became a thing.
Most of my restoration duties involve fixing the mess Blood Money makes. Otherwise I've fixed three negative levels. One was on a paladin we raised and the other two were on myself because of the backlash of a ritual to purify a celestial.
Aside from that all of my healing duties have been HP based.
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Regardless of specific uses for healing/restoration... can we all agree to hold in merciless contempt any move towards an MMO-style system where routinely and ceaselessly patching up many heads-and-torsos worth of HP over the course of a single battle is a required role/part-of-the-grinding-machine? *Shudder*
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Regardless of specific uses for healing/restoration... can we all agree to hold in merciless contempt any move towards an MMO-style system where routinely and ceaselessly patching up many heads-and-torsos worth of HP over the course of a single battle is a required role/part-of-the-grinding-machine? *Shudder*
No. I like playing the role of the healer and Pathfinder's lack of support for this role is one of my biggest issues with it.
Regardless of specific uses for healing/restoration... can we all agree to hold in merciless contempt any move towards an MMO-style system where routinely and ceaselessly patching up many heads-and-torsos worth of HP over the course of a single battle is a required role/part-of-the-grinding-machine? *Shudder*No. I like playing the role of the healer and Pathfinder's lack of support for this role is one of my biggest issues with it.
Well... there's "*a* healer" and there's "*the* healer".
*A* healer: is a versatile and, truly speaking, noble character, who is capable with healing by spell or craft in the right situation. However they are also very capable in at least one other role as well, and use their healing abilities in tandem with other talents to affect the course of battle. Their skill in healing - while it may be impressive - does not define their role, but only a very useful part of it which they may fall back on at the right moment.
*The* healer: is some sad looking workhorse dressed in fantasy caretaker coveralls, with over-the-hill-discount-insurance-salesman eyes. They go about dragging a large, creaky tin canister on wheels that has a rusty foot-pump and a greasy nozzle that sprays both HP, and a lame and improbable narrative.
Well played and selected a Cleric can be a great healer without sacrificing being otherwise effective.
Archetype: Crusader
a bonus feat at 1st level, then again at 5th level and every five levels thereafter taken from combat feats including the abiluty to get feats like Weapon Specialization*. Greater Shield Specialization and Greater Weapon Specialization*.
Traits
Battlefield Surgeon: You're skilled at both dealing and repairing wounds.
Benefit(s) Heal is a class skill for you, and you can use the treat deadly wounds aspect of Heal 1 additional time per creature per day <---most underused application of a skill
Devoted Healer:Raised in the company of skilled healers, you were always encouraged to devote your time and energy to the welfare of others.
Benefit(s): Whenever you take 20 on a Heal check to treat deadly wounds, you restore an additional 1d4 hit points to those you aid. (Take 20 = 1 hp per level+ Wis mod + 1d4) ,<-----Trait synergy
Domain Granted Powers (Healing)
Your touch staves off pain and death, and your healing magic is particularly vital and potent.
Rebuke Death (Sp) You can touch a living creature as a standard action, healing it for 1d4 points of damage plus 1 for every two cleric levels you possess. You can only use this ability on a creature that is below 0 hit points. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.
Feats
Extra Channel, Selective Channeling, Weapon focus (longsword)
Legion’s Blessing (Su) that allows you to cast beneficial spells.
High Wisdom, max out heal skill make use of Heal's Provide long term care and Treat deadly wound uses outside of combat during down time
End result, a solid frontliner who can heal in 3 different ways, can use buffs and combat spells in regular slots since the domain slots are all heals and switches back and forth between strong melee presence and medic in the thick of combat.
I had no intention of dissing anyone who enjoys playing healers, bless your hearts, I wish there were more of you. However, alot of people (including me) find it dull to be the healer, and the problem with PF is someone has to bite the bullet and play that role.
Let's face it, healer is by far the least popular role, that's why there are a million threads that begin with "Aw crap, I drew the short straw and now I have to play the healer". It's just too bad there is such a shortage of interesting classes that can fulfill that role. That's definitely a huge flaw with PF as a whole, because I don't think healers have to be boring by necessity. It's just that all the classes/archetypes Paizo creates to fill that role happen to be dull.
Dedicated healers are suboptimal, and yet that's what many people see clerics as. Last time I played a cleric, I had to reply a great many times to requests of "heal me! heal me!" with "but those dudes dish out way more damage than I can heal, and I can prevent a lot more damage than I can heal with all of my non-healing spells".
Clerics get access to a whole lot of buffs, which are strong, but not amazingly fun. And I tend to view D&D encounters as simple formula that makes buffs futile: the greater the average party strength is, the greater the average encounter challenge will be. In other words, if the party is always getting a ton of buffs every battle, making them really strong, well then your typical DM will adjust his encounters in consequence, making the encounters tougher. I mean, it's kinda part of the job, the way I see it, not many people would find super easy fights entertaining for long. But with this in mind, what's the point of playing a support, if you don't actually enjoy the role, considering that every buff you give is pretty much nulled out by the prepared encounters being made tougher in consequence?
I switched to being a paladin instead after a while, and the last session me and the other paladin did a great job keeping people up (or bringing back KOed enemies). Heck, even better than my cleric would, probably, because with mythic heroes, you can use mythic points to get extra standard actions, but you can't use them to cast more spells per turn. Sure, there were a few moments of "gee, if we had a cleric we could have avoided/negated X", but I had a lot more fun continuing to wreak havoc despite being blinded than I would have been repeatedly casting remove blindness. On a side note, this is something that really sucks in Mythic Adventures: martials can do a thousand actions per turn, but casters only get 1 spell per turn. Need to wait 'till level 9 to get quickened spell, and by then the DC for most fun lvl 1 spells are easily beat by the enemies.
No party should ever need a dedicated healer. It's a bad unfun trope. And by extension, I don't think any party should really need a dedicated support. At least, not in the kind of "I will always cast Mythic Prayer and Mythic Blessings of Fervor in the first two rounds of combat, because all other options pale in comparison" or "I will always start my bard song on the first round, because that's my class' main ability", and so on. A support character who has a diversity of equally useful options can be fun, but if most of the character' actions are predictable and can be prepared against, then it's not. While you know the two-handed fighter will go in and swing at stuff every round, or just about, he has the tactical decisions to take in deciding which enemies to attack, how to play himself, etc. There are no tactical decisions to take when casting Prayer. No rolls to make. You wait a bunch of minutes to get your turn as all the high-ini guys do a bunch of stuff and rolls on their first turn, and when it's finally your time, your turn is resolved in 3 seconds.
Tier 1 is meaningless unless you play an Adventure Path where the enemies are all pre-determined with no regards to party composition. Which I get that some people play those, but I've never played one. I've only tried one pre-made story, years back... Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and everybody at the table thought it sucked as-is. Authors just can't know what the people at your table are looking for, and what kind of party they'll make. Unless you play PFS, it's well within a GM's powers to adjust things even if he does follow an AP.
Situational healing is good and helpful, but in no way requires a dedicated healer. Paladins, Warpriests, and a bunch of other classes can cover that need with either abilities, spell slots, or magic items (wands, potions, etc.).
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I just had to fix three different ability score drains at the same time. I also had about three or four situations of single ability drains, as well as a curse. Also some diseases. Poison hasn't been a problem since party-wide delay poison became a thing.
Yah, a few months back I got hit by a bunch of Lamia for nasty Wis Drain. That's really the first time I can think of in PF I had to get Restorations, and I actually had to by the Spellcasting for it (not just scrolls), since I was the only one that could have even cast it otherwise.
Diseases normally don't even kick in for days after they are gotten, so generally there is not a huge rush to get them cured, (in the sense of in the middle of the dungeon or wilderness), and can typically be cured through time, moderate luck, and Heal Skill boosts.
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I had no intention of dissing anyone who enjoys playing healers, bless your hearts, I wish there were more of you. However, alot of people (including me) find it dull to be the healer, and the problem with PF is someone has to bite the bullet and play that role.
Let's face it, healer is by far the least popular role, that's why there are a million threads that begin with "Aw crap, I drew the short straw and now I have to play the healer". It's just too bad there is such a shortage of interesting classes that can fulfill that role. That's definitely a huge flaw with PF as a whole, because I don't think healers have to be boring by necessity. It's just that all the classes/archetypes Paizo creates to fill that role happen to be dull.
I think that Paizo and Pathfinder are very responsible for this, for a few reasons. While Clerics CAN (and also should) do other things, the mechanics of the game automatically favor pushing them into that role. Things like Channel Energy and Spontaneous Cure spells often mean that RP reasons and I'm not a Band-Aid builds tend to need to give way to doing it anyway or else that player is "being a jerk". Even Channel Energy, despite all logic, is an either/or ability. You can either heal certain targets or do the exact same thing, but harm other targets.
Pathfinder doesn't really offer many (or any significant) ways to be a healer and at the same time also do something interesting. It's generally one or the other. What I mean is, in 4E D&D, they had mechanics that instead of healing a target for 1d8+1, instead was a minor attack, something like 1+Wis bonus damage, that also gave everyone else a +2 to hit that target, and also healed one party member within something like 10ft of the Cleric for 2 HP. It was a lot more fun, because you could still contribute actively and also do minor healing. There are options like Glorious Heat in PF, but they are restricted, later level abilities, and rare.
Unlike basically every other class, all choices for the Cleric are made at level 1, and just unlock other abilities, often way down the road. Even most class related options are something you have to basically start out with, such as Variant Channeling. But, at the same time, Paizo has gone out of their way to also make a lot of other classes that really step on the Cleric's toes, do some of the basic things that the class can do, (and often doing so better), and introduce classes/archetypes and other options that really shove the Cleric out of any real role. Inquisitor, Warpriest, Witch, Shaman, Spiritualist, Oracle, Paladin, Hallowed Necromancer, Undead Master, etc. . . If you think about it, pick any concept you want to do and build it through a Cleric, and there are multiple options that just do it better, give cooler options, bonus Feats, and have less restrictions.
Unlike most other classes, and even casters, the Cleric has very poor synergy with itself, with such things as using WIs for casting, but Cha for Channeling, poor skill options, generally poor Favored Class options, etc. . . All of these things combined go a long way to make the class boring, which is not to say that it can't be fun or interesting, but that it's certainly on the lower end. Now, obviously you can boost this with Role Playing, but that's true for everyone, so not a redeeming feature for this class.
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*The* healer: is some sad looking workhorse dressed in fantasy caretaker coveralls, with over-the-hill-discount-insurance-salesman eyes. They go about dragging a large, creaky tin canister on wheels that has a rusty foot-pump and a greasy nozzle that sprays both HP, and a lame and improbable narrative.
I think that describes at least one of my Star Wars: The Old Republic healers. Crank up the hose and just spray that healing gunk around!
Man, thank goodness healing in Pathfinder (and D&D, GURPS, etc.) is nothing like healing in MMOs! "I spam heal on the tank. I spam heal on the tank. I spam heal on the tank. I resurrect one of the dead DPSrs who got aggro. I go back to spamming heal on the tank, frantically trying to catch up. I throw an AoE heal to top off the rest of the group. I go back to spamming heal on the tank."
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Sometimes that can be fun, though. Not often enough that I'd count on it, but one of the best moments I can remember in Pathfinder was when TOZ was running us through ToEE, (the PF one, not Elemental Evil awesomeness), and almost every single round of the last encounter I was burning through Channel Energy to keep the entire party alive (me too) while the single enemy was devastating us.
It was a unique circumstance that actually made Channeling Energy and being a healbot fun and memorable, but it can happen. I did have other choices, and wasn't force to be the party npc hireling though.
I have liked playing clerics, less so in 3.0, still less in 3.5, and I will not play another in PF.
You can build a cleric to be literally anything, you just can't play it that way. Once the party gets a cleric that is at all competent, everyone magically turns into hothouse flower hyperkillers. I have had the party Sorceror go Melee spec.
Have the healbot be a GMNPC. It doesn't need a personality, just spell slots.
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Sometimes that can be fun, though. Not often enough that I'd count on it, but one of the best moments I can remember in Pathfinder was when TOZ was running us through ToEE, (the PF one, not Elemental Evil awesomeness), and almost every single round of the last encounter I was burning through Channel Energy to keep the entire party alive (me too) while the single enemy was devastating us.
It was a unique circumstance that actually made Channeling Energy and being a healbot fun and memorable, but it can happen. I did have other choices, and wasn't force to be the party npc hireling though.
Yeah, it can be fun for a high-stakes endgame, to kind of know that the party's lives are totally in your hands, and another benefit to PF/D&D over MMOs, is that you don't have to do that every day. It gets old (not that any role in a raid-style encounter doesn't get old, tanks tank, DPSrs DPS, it's pretty much all mash button X as fast as you can). :)
4e attempted to mitigate some of that with per encounter and daily powers, so that you at least got to spend a few rounds doing something other than your optimal damaging (or healing, or damage prevention, etc.) move over and over.
City of Heroes attempted to mix things up by having 'Defenders,' which included some healers, but also some damage mitigation specialists, like Force Field Defenders (that block damage before it happened), or Dark Miasma Defenders (that shrouded allies in 'darkforce' type energy to greatly reduce accuracy of foes, and slightly reduce the energy/force of incoming attacks). Everquest 2 did something similar with Shamen/Mystics/Defilers and their damage-absorbing wards (kind of like False Life, but way more effective). That's always a neat alternative way to go, but would require crazy amounts of fine-tuning, since d20 game has been focused on a 'one true way' of direct hit point healing instead of damage mitigation / avoidance, for some time.
An earth or air kineticist that 'buffed' allies with damage-absorbing masses of earth or 'hard air' could be an interesting way of creating a damage-preventing non-healer, in Pathfinder.
Personally, I think there's a big difference between mechanically effective and fun. Cleric is certainly a powerful class, but I consider them dull in actual play. Maybe that's cause I don't like playing full casters in general.
Ironically, I used to love playing the healer in 4E. The Warlord class in particular was alot of fun to play. I think the difference is that for the Warlord, healing could be done as a side effect of an attack or other action. In PF, healing IS your action. That's why I suspect few people want to play healers in PF. I never saw a 4E group that had problems finding a healer. In fact, I recall playing in groups that had more than one.
Not to start any edition wars, but 4E showed how to make healers interesting: make healing a side effect of an attack or some other action, not your entire turn. Of course 4E had many, many other problems...
Reward your Healer by giving them options not available to your other players ie the ability to pick a 3.5 prestige class like Radiant Servant.
Or the Path of War cleric prestige class Battle Templar which gives some fun options on how to heal w/o being a healbot.
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A game can support someone being THE healer and being an awesome member of the party, so long as it doesn't EXPECT a healer. When the game expects a healer the healer role becomes a boring rote of necessity keeping plebs alive just because you have to because a party without a healer is a dead party.
And honestly, Pathfinder can support that. It requires different tactics and playstyle, but it can be done. Just as the healer can be an awesome member of the party as well.
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I like to do that with either (or both) a basic Reach Cleric or Herald Calller.
A basic Longspear I believe can be used with a banner, so should be okay for Flagbearer. Throw in Combat Reflexes, and a few other Summoning Feats, and you really just want to focus on positioning yourself to get AoOs while your actions revolve around Standard Action Summoning, healing, or buffing.
The Ricerunner Trait can also get you Acrobatics as a class skill to help out too, allowing you to focus on Dex, Wis, and a bit of Con and Cha.
If you want to, you can carry a Banner of the Ancient Kings in your offhand with a light shield and wield a weapon one-handed, using Quick Draw for spellcasting/melee switching. Requests for bandaid-dispensory-work can be met with: "I'm giving you a +5/+5 combat buff and massacring/controlling your enemies while I tank them. If that's not enough for you, talk to me after the battle. Or maybe if you're unconscious and about to bleed out."
I have played a cleric up to 18th level, it is hard to resist turning into a dedicated healer. In many ways I wish the warpriest had been thought of as an alternative to the cleric when the CRB was written. I find it a more interesting class and nearly as good a healer as a cleric.
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Too many fellow players trying to do some really cool thematic moves and getting hit with a critical attack for their efforts. Enough poison being used by the enemy that if it had been real it would have killed everything in the Great Plains. So a lot of times all of my cleric's self buff became cure * wounds. I got to the point where I would prepare raise dead and carry a portable altar in my handy haversack. Without a dedicated healer, there would have been a number of TPKs.
Tell them to use better tactics next time.
The other issue with Clerics is that one of their signature abilities, Channel Energy, is absolutely horrible until very high levels. It takes a standard action and heals jack squat. As if that wasn't bad enough, it heals the bad guys too. What a freaking joke. As a swift action, it would be worth using. As a standard? Please.
Even worse, Clerics have one of the worst selection of archetypes in the game. It would be nice if there were some archetypes that just replaced channeling, but every archetype also replaces domains, and that's a very useful class ability.
The other issue with Clerics is that one of their signature abilities, Channel Energy, is absolutely horrible until very high levels. It takes a standard action and heals jack squat. As if that wasn't bad enough, it heals the bad guys too. What a freaking joke. As a swift action, it would be worth using. As a standard? Please.
Even worse, Clerics have one of the worst selection of archetypes in the game. It would be nice if there were some archetypes that just replaced channeling, but every archetype also replaces domains, and that's a very useful class ability.
Variant Channeling has some nasty debuffs and decent buffs to go along with it.
I don't think you can really call an archetype list that includes Separatist and Evangelist bad.
Cleric is a 9-level caster with 3/4 BAB and Domains. Channel Energy isn't supposed to be some kind of automatic uber-ability that heals the whole party with a handwave. Are you aware of Selective Channeling?
I don't think you can really call an archetype list that includes Separatist and Evangelist bad.
Let's not forget Herald Caller.
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I generally think someone with access to free healing is a good idea. At the least, someone willing to use remaining spell slots at the end of the day to heal.
I like VMC Cleric for that, and I'm working on a druid; because I personally prefer druids to clerics.
I don't think you can really call an archetype list that includes Separatist and Evangelist bad.
Cleric is a 9-level caster with 3/4 BAB and Domains. Channel Energy isn't supposed to be some kind of automatic uber-ability that heals the whole party with a handwave. Are you aware of Selective Channeling?
Channel Energy is a trap, plain and simple. To get anything useful out of it, you have to invest in Charisma, you have to invest in feats, it will basically consume your entire build. After all that, it will still suck. No amount of investment makes channel energy worth having.
That's why I'd love to see an archetype that dumps channeling without also dumping domains. Domains are awesome, no complaints there.
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I don't really like channel energy either. For me it's more, "I'm trying to save slots so I'll just spam this,"
I've wiped away many tears for not being able to dump Charisma.
Channel Energy is a trap, plain and simple. To get anything useful out of it, you have to invest in Charisma, you have to invest in feats, it will basically consume your entire build. After all that, it will still suck. No amount of investment makes channel energy worth having.
That's why I'd love to see an archetype that dumps channeling without also dumping domains. Domains are awesome, no complaints there.
So... you've got a 9-level caster that's well-equipped to fight as well as cast, with an 'awesome' secondary feature, and you're objecting that yet another feature that they get isn't good enough?
I typically don't do much with channeling on a Cleric, because there are a lot of other interesting things to invest in; I have no problem with dumping charisma on a Cleric and trading away multiple levels of channeling with things like Evangelist. That doesn't mean that you can't get a return out of investing in channeling if you go that road. A level 9 Cleric with Selective Channeling can toss 5d6hp on every ally around them; on a four-man party with an Animal Companion, that's healing 25d6 with a standard action. A level 9 Cleric with Selective Channeling and Variant Channel: Ale/Wine can drop the nauseated condition, or the dazed condition with Variant Channel: Rulership. With even some investment in charisma, they'll have a strong enough DC to make that brutally dangerous against a pack of targets.
It seems like there's a common complaint that keeps cropping up lately, where a class or multiclass that can't use every feature with maximum effect, without investing in it, is automatically 'bad'.
Channel Energy is a trap, plain and simple. To get anything useful out of it, you have to invest in Charisma, you have to invest in feats, it will basically consume your entire build. After all that, it will still suck. No amount of investment makes channel energy worth having.
That's why I'd love to see an archetype that dumps channeling without also dumping domains. Domains are awesome, no complaints there.
So... you've got a 9-level caster that's well-equipped to fight as well as cast, with an 'awesome' secondary feature, and you're objecting that yet another feature that they get isn't good enough?
I typically don't do much with channeling on a Cleric, because there are a lot of other interesting things to invest in; I have no problem with dumping charisma on a Cleric and trading away multiple levels of channeling with things like Evangelist. That doesn't mean that you can't get a return out of investing in channeling if you go that road. A level 9 Cleric with Selective Channeling can toss 5d6hp on every ally around them; on a four-man party with an Animal Companion, that's healing 25d6 with a standard action. A level 9 Cleric with Selective Channeling and Variant Channel: Ale/Wine can drop the nauseated condition, or the dazed condition with Variant Channel: Rulership. With even some investment in charisma, they'll have a strong enough DC to make that brutally dangerous against a pack of targets.
It seems like there's a common complaint that keeps cropping up lately, where a class or multiclass that can't use every feature with maximum effect, without investing in it, is automatically 'bad'.
This is something thought did as a new player, that I had to use every lass feature a class gave me. Now I know that some can be ignored!
We've had a few clerics throughout our run of RotRL (book 5 now? Level 13): a player cleric up til around level 3, my cohort cleric from around 7-9, and a player cleric (she always plays clerics, which is great!) from around 10 til 12. We had a paladin from 4 til 9 that filled the healing gaps. The paladin actually seemed better at healing.
A cohort cleric might be good, but the GM for our game has said that he thought it was too much in the end, and he would make us all take the Leadership feat and have a communal cohort if he did it again.
Right now, I'm playing a bard. With the level 12 performance that provides mass cure serious wounds (and removes rage fatigue!) + wands, we do pretty well. We just had to pony up for a wand of lesser restoration, which the druid or me (UMD) can use. He technically has healing spells, though I think he only prepares one or two.
I set my character up as a 'heal battery', so most my spell levels include cure spells, and any spell slots left over at the end of the day get used for healing.
In PBP games, I actually make divine characters pretty often for the specific reason that no one wants to play them. Putting myself in that sweet healer niche increases my chances of getting picked, I think, because I have a 100% success rate with applications.
So, I may be stuck with the "healer" role in our next campaign, and just like alot of people on this thread, I hate Clerics and am not a huge fan of divine full casters in general. I was actually considering playing a melee Spiritualist (either the base class or the Ectoplasmatist archetype) as a non-traditional choice for the healer role.
Assuming I select the Cure/Restoration/Remove X spells for my character, and assuming I have a wand of CLW, do people think that a Spiritualist would have healing enough for a group of 4 PCs?
The witch is also an excellent choice since they get most of the healing and condition removal magics, plus a nice arcane punch and the hex abilities for healing and debuff/etc. The shaman is also a nice route since it's not as I am the smiting god of nature or divine sock puppet trend a lot of druids and clerics go for.
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I mean, I love clerics, too, but the channel ability is pretty lackluster. Not everyone wants to play an assimar, and Versatile Channel drops you down in damage enough that it's not worth it for most campaigns (maybe if you have a dhampir in your party?). The magic item takes up your item slot for increasing Wisdom, so unless your GM allows the item creation rules for combined items have fun using that.
It's nice to have channel around in an emergency, but not worth investing many feats in. I've spent 12 levels (ability score increases, feats, items, traits) investing in it on a 20 PB build and would've been way better off just focusing on spellcasting. I think the only casting-comparable ability tied to channels is Turn Undead - unless you legitimately enjoy spending your turns saving allies who didn't invest enough in defenses, you're better off using spells to end combats and then pulling out your wand to heal them.