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I'm looking to optimize this build around being a lazy healer (heals party in combat well, has extreme action economy). Any advice to that subject is desired. Lastly, there is some concern about this build by my DM as it seems too effective. Yes, I realize that healing in combat is deemed sub-optimal
Race: Human
Class: Spirit Guide Life Oracle 7/Medium 1
Shtick:
Spirit Guide grants me the wandering spirit of a Shaman (Choosing Life), at level 3 I gain a hex (Life Link), at level 7, I gain a second pool of channels.
Trait: Battle Scarred = healing I do from class abilities is increased by one.
Medium: Heirophant = healing I do from class abilities is increased by two.
Feats:
Fey Foundling: Healing done to me is increased by 2 hps / die rolled
Eldritch Heritage (Arcane): Gaining a familiar of my character level -2
Familiar: Toad Protector: (+3 hps). When I take damage I can choose to split it evenly between me and the toad.
At the beginning of the day, I apply the life link to up to 5 party members through my Oracle Life Link.
I then apply the life link to up to 5 party members through the Wandering Spirit Wandering Hex.
Later, when someone is damaged:
0-4 hps, nothing happens.
5-12 hps, they are healed for 8 (5+2+1), while I take 5
13+ hps they are healed for 8 (5+2+1) while I take 5, then they are healed for another 8 (5+2+1) while I take another 5.
Or
0-4 hps, nothing happens.
5-12 hps, they are healed for 8 (5+2+1), while I take 3, toad takes 2
13+ hps they are healed for 8 (5+2+1) while I take 3, toad takes 2, then they are healed for another 8 (5+2+1) while I take another 2, toad takes 3.
....
Basically, I sit around siphoning off damage from the party at an abnormal rate (16 healed per round for each 5 dealt to me and my toad). Occasionally, I cast a healing spell on myself or channel to top me off.
Spells I cast in combat:
level 1-4 murderous command, fear
Level 5-7: Flaming Sphere (burned curse)
IME 8th level characters can take a lot more than 8 hp of damage in a round. A lot more. I don't think this will be so effective as to break the game. It may have the effect of negating the wearing down effect of minor encounters, but then so do wands of cure light wounds.
Channelling once in a while will help a little when such bursts of damage occur. Quick Channel lets you do so as a move action.
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Extreme action economy would be the Pei Zin Life Oracle which basically has Lay On Hands. Combined with Life Link & Fey Foundling, your swift action can be LoH, leaving your Standard Action free to use for offensive or buff spells (also leaves you free for full-round or 1-round casts)
Where is the battle scarred trait from? An AP?
GM Aerondor wrote: Where is the battle scarred trait from? An AP? Is it SCARRED BY WAR? (Healer's Handbook)
Mr charisma. Sorry. Yes scarred by war from healers handbook
Avr. Yes 8 hps/round is not stellar. But as you saw from the above it is actually 16/round without an action. I just turned level 6 and the only encounter which wasn't easy mode for the party was when the boss fight spammed sound burst (stunned locked me so I couldn't drop the links (requires two immediate actions)) Party member had to feed my unconscious body a potion to prevent my demise
Sammy t. The pei zin oracle is not compatible with the spirit guide, which means I'd lose my second life link and my second pool of channels. With the toad familiar trick I mention above. I shouldn't need to heal much. Fey foundling was mentioned in my original post
meyerwilliam wrote: Lastly, there is some concern about this build by my DM as it seems too effective. If your DM has a concern about your passive healing being too effective, consider compromising a smidgen. At least, ask the DM how much they consider reasonable before optimizing further.
To lessen the passive healing, not taking the level in Medium is the quickest thing to take away in a compromise. Getting the oracle level back for 4th level spells is nice. Note: The 4th level spell Communal Protection From Energy can neutralize a LOT of area damage threats very quickly.
To strengthen the healing output, the feat Quicken Channel is a really useful action economy boost, especially with twice the normal channels. Even though you passively heal to an extreme, losing a standard action in combat to heal yourself can be avoided with a Quicken Channel.
You might consider making one of your channeling pools to be variant channeling. In this fashion, you can do a nifty thing with one of the channeling pools and full heal with the other.
Rory, thank you for that feedback. I'm planning on taking quicken channel at level 9. For that, do both channels need to come from the same channel pool. I haven't been able to find a source indicating either way.
I looked into Variant channeling, but since i need to worship Dalenydra for the trait, I couldn't find a variant channeling which looked interesting within that portfolio.
... Do you see any glaring mistakes with the build?
... So far, the DM hasn't asked me to tone it down, he was just concerned that this seemed too good to be true. He was also curious as to if raising the healing value of the life link would also increase the damage dealt to me. In other words, instead of heal 16, take 10 (or 5/5 with toad), it should be heal 16 take 16. <-- this is not sustainable.
Don't forget the shield other spell. Will let you help a high threat target.
I like this build because it makes channel better by hitting more targets.
I with also echo quick channel. Super good.
If your deity wasn't already chosen thanks to your Trait, I'd suggest another channeling feat. Either fateful channel or beacon of hope would be fantastic.
Something you might consider is the feat Bless Equipment. Spending 2 channels to give someone bane vs whatever your fighting is pretty good.
Ectar: Bless Equipment doesn't fit the theme of laziness ... I have to spend a standard to touch their weapon ... that's a lot of work. Plus, if I can touch them, then that means their target can touch me (I don't like being hit).
My spell choices I shared earlier ... the cause fear and murderous command -- I use them more to reposition the enemy (usually causes AoOs) as well as to cause them to disengage from their target. I swapped out cause fear as we don't fight 5hd or less monsters anymore -- if we do, they are not a concern of mine. The Flaming sphere, lets me sit back, and watch the fight while the enemy keeps burning ... i.e. laziness.
I'm thinking of shield other as well, and with the hour/level, it means I won't have to recast (way too much work). Other spells I have are delay poison (same feel) and silence on the tank (the enemy cannot fireball if they can't talk) -- channeling doesn't require talking, so it doesn't affect me.
To work harder at being lazy, look for buff spells with long durations (10 min/level, hour/level, etc.) and cast them well before combat.
Standard spells that I use for this:
1: endure elements (if you're in an environment that needs it)
2: spiritual weapon - cast once, get many attacks. Also: force damage; resist energy eats lots of damage
3: magic vestment to help protect yourself (prob. not till 8th level for the +2 bonus), nap stack (let you get more lazy time faster), sacred bond lets you cast touch healing from a distance (maybe not needed if you're mostly channelling)
4: freedom of movement, magic circle vs. <alignment of enemy>, greater magic weapon on your friends, terrible remorse -- a good upgrade to murderous command
heroism (if you can get it through your patron)
tonyz wrote: To work harder at being lazy, look for buff spells with long durations (10 min/level, hour/level, etc.) and cast them well before combat.
Standard spells that I use for this:
1: endure elements (if you're in an environment that needs it)
2: spiritual weapon - cast once, get many attacks. Also: force damage; resist energy eats lots of damage
3: magic vestment to help protect yourself (prob. not till 8th level for the +2 bonus), nap stack (let you get more lazy time faster), sacred bond lets you cast touch healing from a distance (maybe not needed if you're mostly channelling)
4: freedom of movement, magic circle vs. <alignment of enemy>, greater magic weapon on your friends, terrible remorse -- a good upgrade to murderous command
heroism (if you can get it through your patron)
Spiritual Weapon -- great idea, this way I can set-and-ignore, instead of (sigh) having to use a full MOVE action to reposition the flame sphere. It's exhausting ...
Nap Stack -- this sounds like a great spell for me, better than a handful of lessor restorations -- and for those strange pathfinder scenarios where we are on a time crunch, might be highly beneficial -- thanks!!
Why would terrible remorse be better than murderous command? Terrible remorse (current printing) is 1d8+strength to itself, or become staggered -- while murderous command (properly used) will cause the monster to take a least one AoO (more than 1d8+str)
- Hope I'm not sounding ungrateful -- I'm loving the ideas.
meyerwilliam wrote: Rory, thank you for that feedback. I'm planning on taking quicken channel at level 9. For that, do both channels need to come from the same channel pool. I haven't been able to find a source indicating either way.
I looked into Variant channeling, but since i need to worship Dalenydra for the trait, I couldn't find a variant channeling which looked interesting within that portfolio.
... Do you see any glaring mistakes with the build?
... So far, the DM hasn't asked me to tone it down, he was just concerned that this seemed too good to be true. He was also curious as to if raising the healing value of the life link would also increase the damage dealt to me. In other words, instead of heal 16, take 10 (or 5/5 with toad), it should be heal 16 take 16. <-- this is not sustainable.
The pools are separate pools. Assume that both channels using Quicken Channel must come from the same pool.
Glaring Mistakes? Hmm... I see interpretation potentials to double check with your GM...
Scarred by War says it heals 1 additional point when you heal someone with an ability. That interpretation could mean +1 point per usage of Life Link. Meaning, you'd have to restart Life Link to get an additional point. Similarly, casting a fast healing spell on someone wouldn't give +1 damage healed every round, but once per spell.
I'm not familiar with the medium hierophant power that adds +2 per round to Life Link, but it might be similar to Scarred by War trait above.
Also, it's arguably reasonable that the two life links don't stack. Your GM could rule that only one functions on a character while the other is suppressed (similar to many other effects that don't actively stack).
Other "Lazy Healer" Spell Potentials
1st: Liberating Command - immediate action escape plan to allies grappled
3rd: Communal Slow Poison - gives the party immunity to poison
3rd: Archon's Aura - buff that forces saves or be debuffed
4th: Aura of Doom - buff that forces saves or be shaken
4th: Greater Path of Glory - tremendous group healing post combat, especially if your GM allies +3 hitpoints per round do to it
(I really like Greater Path of Glory around 10th to 12th just because I can hand wave away 50+ damage to the entire party after combat. No need to do the Life Link Olympics, so saves time and paperwork.)
Feat: Flagbearer (and Banner of Ancient Kings) is a no action buff for the party.
I don't really read Life Link as allowing multiple bonds to the same character. Either you have a Life Link up to someone or you don't. Even from different sources, they're clearly still the same ability.
Your GM could also easily rule that Life Link is "fast healing or another similar effects" so hierophant doesn't apply. That's more of a grey area though.
Other than double-dipping Life Link, it looks fine to me. I'll second Shield Other, and point out Watchful Eye for the same effect on a shorter duration at level 1 (which you can take with your Medium spells.) If you're really not doing much with your actions, "I ready to catch Watchful Eye on the first ally in range who's hit" is quite effective.
Protector familiars can be pretty squishy without Improved Evasion, be careful!
I'm really liking the idea of a one level medium dip focused on Hierophant spirit on a Life Oracle. I know you're doing it primarily for the +2 HP on your healing spells and abilities, but everything else you get from the medium dip works well for an oracle, too, especially the spirit surge on Will saves.
Two reasons - terrible remorse is a higher level spell so harder to save against, and also it kicks in every round, whereas murderous command is a one-shot.
Markov Spiked Chain wrote: I don't really read Life Link as allowing multiple bonds to the same character. Either you have a Life Link up to someone or you don't. Even from different sources, they're clearly still the same ability.
Your GM could also easily rule that Life Link is "fast healing or another similar effects" so hierophant doesn't apply. That's more of a grey area though.
Other than double-dipping Life Link, it looks fine to me. I'll second Shield Other, and point out Watchful Eye for the same effect on a shorter duration at level 1 (which you can take with your Medium spells.) If you're really not doing much with your actions, "I ready to catch Watchful Eye on the first ally in range who's hit" is quite effective.
Protector familiars can be pretty squishy without Improved Evasion, be careful!
For double dipping life link ....
If you have two life oracles in the party, can they both life link the same target? I can't imagine why not.
For me, I have two separate pools of life links, so it operates similarly to two separate characters. I'm not sure of any rule which would invalidate that statement,
When a character casts infernal healing on another .... No HPs are healed. Instead it grants the recipient the ability to heal themselves ... Which is why the medium, etc doesn't work, life link however, is definitely not fast healing.
I'll watch out for the protective familiar ... Just remember it'll be life linked as well :)
Lazy healing is great and as a lv16 life oracle I can tell you the damage your going to take adds up super fast. As much as I'd love to say you can be worrying about flaming sphere, the second you start negating 100 damage from everyone in party every turn you become a big target. I would recommend taking the life revelations that let you cast swift cures, channel, and the overhead. Then get the mat components to cast shield other on your allies. A turn for me was often using everyh action I had to both AoE heal and heal myself.
meyerwilliam wrote: Markov Spiked Chain wrote: I don't really read Life Link as allowing multiple bonds to the same character. Either you have a Life Link up to someone or you don't. Even from different sources, they're clearly still the same ability.
Your GM could also easily rule that Life Link is "fast healing or another similar effects" so hierophant doesn't apply. That's more of a grey area though.
Other than double-dipping Life Link, it looks fine to me. I'll second Shield Other, and point out Watchful Eye for the same effect on a shorter duration at level 1 (which you can take with your Medium spells.) If you're really not doing much with your actions, "I ready to catch Watchful Eye on the first ally in range who's hit" is quite effective.
Protector familiars can be pretty squishy without Improved Evasion, be careful!
For double dipping life link ....
If you have two life oracles in the party, can they both life link the same target? I can't imagine why not.
For me, I have two separate pools of life links, so it operates similarly to two separate characters. I'm not sure of any rule which would invalidate that statement,
When a character casts infernal healing on another .... No HPs are healed. Instead it grants the recipient the ability to heal themselves ... Which is why the medium, etc doesn't work, life link however, is definitely not fast healing.
I'll watch out for the protective familiar ... Just remember it'll be life linked as well :) maybe this http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/magic.html#combining-magic- effects
Life link isn't a spell or spell like, it doesn't imitate any other spells. Even if it did, I don't believe there is anything in the staking abilities section that would say that these don't stack. Think of it this way if two people readied a cure spell to be cast if the tank goes unconscious, when the spells go off they'd be simultaneous. Certainly the tank gets both cures as they are instantaneous. Now if they made some metamagic called "lingering spell " and instead of healing 30 hp it heals 30 then 15 then 7 then 3.
If two people cast cure spells they would still get both spells.
So I re-read the description of Life Link to try and sort this out. If two life links work (and I agree that the rules are unclear there), then why do they even have to be from different sources? Is there a reason that any old Life Oracle can't put two Life Links on the same target?
Fromper wrote: So I re-read the description of Life Link to try and sort this out. If two life links work (and I agree that the rules are unclear there), then why do they even have to be from different sources? Is there a reason that any old Life Oracle can't put two Life Links on the same target? No reason why you can't. The problem though is that life link works based on the bonded creature not the bond. So a life link who puts five on the same tank starts his turn. Life link says "yup" and does the heal/harm thing once per bonded creature.
With two (or more) sources of life link, they each check on the bonded creature. So with two it might be
Yes. Yes
Yes no
No no
this is identical to a hospitaler paladin with two sources of channels. Each are governed by their own rules.
In this case, ending the effect is done by a different immediate action
I like the idea here, but have to admit if I were the GM, I'd be hesitant about a life oracle taking a life wandering spirit. Wandering spirit lets a shaman take a second spirit that is different from its primary spirit. Given a Shaman is a hybrid of Oracle and Witch, it is not a big stretch to say a life oracles primary spirit would be life.
This is further reinforced by the hexes that are essentially duplicates of many of the life oracle revelations.
There is a precedent with classes with this types of abilities to not allow abilities with the same name to be taken with each class. E.g. Ninja/rogue abilities with the same name can't be taken twice.
-=-=-=-
On other notes, while I don't see an issue with two life oracles both establishing a life link to the same other character, I think one oracle establishing a double life link is problematic. Especially if you are going to apply the +1 and +2 bonuses separately to each link. I think the magic stacking guidelines are in general clear enough here. You have one effect (life link) that you are trying to apply twice.
GM Aerondor wrote: I like the idea here, but have to admit if I were the GM, I'd be hesitant about a life oracle taking a life wandering spirit. Wandering spirit lets a shaman take a second spirit that is different from its primary spirit. Given a Shaman is a hybrid of Oracle and Witch, it is not a big stretch to say a life oracles primary spirit would be life.
This is further reinforced by the hexes that are essentially duplicates of many of the life oracle revelations.
There is a precedent with classes with this types of abilities to not allow abilities with the same name to be taken with each class. E.g. Ninja/rogue abilities with the same name can't be taken twice.
While this is interesting, is there a rules basis for this?
Pathfinder says that if you multiclass parent/child (oracle and shaman) then redundant abilities do not stack unless explicitly stated to stack. In this case, I am not multiclassing so that rule does not apply.
Ninja/Rogue talents explicitly state that you cannot take a talent with the same name.
The following statements are explicitly covered by FAQ.
A Life Oracle / Cleric can have two pools of channel
A Life Oracle / Cleric / War Priest / Hospitaler Paladin has ... well, lots of different pools of channels.
GM Aerondor wrote: On other notes, while I don't see an issue with two life oracles both establishing a life link to the same other character, I think one oracle establishing a double life link is problematic. Especially if you are going to apply the +1 and +2 bonuses separately to each link. I think the magic stacking guidelines are in general clear enough here. You have one effect (life link) that you are trying to apply twice. If you would allow two life oracles to both establish life links to the same other character, then you are agreeing that multiple life links are not covered by the stacking rules.
If you arbitrarily limit a character with two different pools of life links from linking, how is this supported by the rules?
Lastly, if the untyped +1 and +2 bonuses from different sources (explicitly allowed to stack per pathfinder stacking rules) influence your opinion on multiple life links, you are venturing even further from the rules.
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Quote: The problem though is that life link works based on the bonded creature not the bond. So a life link who puts five on the same tank starts his turn. Life link says "yup" and does the heal/harm thing once per bonded creature. Exactly. Multiple Life Links between the same two targets clearly don't generate multiple healing pulses.
I think that pretty clearly means that having Life Link from two separate abilities works just the same as putting up multiple bonds from the the same Life Link. If you can convince your GM that's how it works, go for it I guess. But I absolutely wouldn't at my table.
Multiple life links wouldn't work at my table either.
Markov Spiked Chain wrote: Quote: The problem though is that life link works based on the bonded creature not the bond. So a life link who puts five on the same tank starts his turn. Life link says "yup" and does the heal/harm thing once per bonded creature. Exactly. Multiple Life Links between the same two targets clearly don't generate multiple healing pulses.
I think that pretty clearly means that having Life Link from two separate abilities works just the same as putting up multiple bonds from the the same Life Link. If you can convince your GM that's how it works, go for it I guess. But I absolutely wouldn't at my table. I like how you quoted half my statement completely reversing its meaning.
My point is that the second life link (from a different source and is active) would pulse
So can you show me the following:
How is life link covered by the stacking rules? As was said above, it does not provide a bonus, nor is it multiple spells of different strengths.
Do you suppose that the second life link (from a different ability or from a different character) is suppressed? If not, how could it fail to activate
Changing examples.
A summoner with a level if oracle has two life link abilities. Would you say he couldn't use both on his eidolon. Or if there was a summoner and an oracle as two different characters.
As far as optimization goes, this would be considered a lot of work for your character, but I built something kinda similar. Basically a healbot. I took life link from the spirit guide oracle hex and and took extra revelation to get the channel ability from life oracle.
Feats
1 Improved initiative
1 Selective Channel
3 Quicken Channel
5 Extra Revelation
7 Extra Revelation
Revelations
1 Energy Body
5 Life link (extra revelation/life oracle)
7 Channel Energy (extra revelation/life oracle)
Sprit guide benefits
Channel Energy (pool number 2)
Life Link
Max out Cha and you have upwards of 14-16 uses of channel energy per day at level 8 assuming a 20 point buy. you can quicken them so you can use channel twice a turn while still having your life link on people.
per person that is 10 (life link) + 8d6 (channels) = on average 38 hp.
I combine this with the Shield Other spell which allows me to split the damage among the party so channel is more effective.
find a way to combine that with your toad shenanigans.
You may not need energy body because its mainly there to mitigate damage youre taking by healing yourself as move actions basically for free, but halfing the damage you take to your toad would probably work too.
You could drop Energy body and extra revelation as well as improved initiative and be able to do your tactics surprsingly well
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Omagi wrote: As far as optimization goes, this would be considered a lot of work for your character, but I built something kinda similar. Basically a healbot. I took life link from the spirit guide oracle hex and and took extra revelation to get the channel ability from life oracle. Yup, same as me
Omagi wrote: Feats
1 Improved initiative
1 Selective Channel
3 Quicken Channel
5 Extra Revelation
7 Extra Revelation
Revelations
1 Energy Body
5 Life link (extra revelation/life oracle)
7 Channel Energy (extra revelation/life oracle)
I went a different way -- with a dex of a 7, I didn't bother with initiative -- after all, until they are damaged, I cannot life link them :)
1 Fey Foundling
Human Selective Channel
3 Extra Revelation : Life link
5 Skill Focus (Knowledge Religion)
7 Eldritch Heritage (Arcane) -- toad protector familiar
9 Quicken Channel (tentative)
Revelations:
1 Channel
3 Hex: Life link, Extra Revelation Life Link
7 Wandering spirit ability: Channel.
Omagi wrote: You may not need energy body because its mainly there to mitigate damage you're taking by healing yourself as move actions basically for free, but halfing the damage you take to your toad would probably work too. Energy body is useful, not for the healing as a move action, but instead for the elemental traits (immunity to stuff), however, there isn't room for me to take it yet.
Yeah, so far -- there haven't been any complaints at the table by the players -- they love feeling invulnerable.
One weakness you may want to consider is AOE effects are extremely painful to any creature that has Shield Other active. So Resist Energy might be a worthwhile spell to get for your toad. Also take into account that if your toad is like in your jacket it gets a +4 to reflex ST due to cover.
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meyerwilliam wrote:
While this is interesting, is there a rules basis for this?
Pathfinder says that if you multiclass parent/child (oracle and shaman) then redundant abilities do not stack unless explicitly stated to stack. In this case, I am not multiclassing so that rule does not apply.
Unless you get it FAQed, I don't think you will get an official ruling on this. I've laid out why I (and I suspect others) would have issues with this.
Paizo's desire to blend classes by allowing archtypes to grab features from one class and put them into another is starting to remind me of the final few years of 3.x where there was a huge amount amount of class dipping and odd class interactions that pushed the rule set beyond what was intended.
If you can find a GM that lets you do this, that is great. I like the idea of the lazy healer immensely. I am not going get into an RAW vs RAI battle here, as they just end up in flame wars with people repeating themselves again and again and not listening to each other. My future silence on the issue doesn't mean I agree with your position on stacking the life links - just that I don't think my arguments will convince you.
i appreciate your response very much. I am hoping for a FAQ as welli
I think I found it.
From the FAQ:
Channel Energy: If I have this ability from more than one class, do they stack?
No—unless an ability specifically says it stacks with similar abilities (such as an assassin's sneak attack), or adds in some way based on the character's total class levels (such as improved uncanny dodge), the abilities don't stack and you have to use them separately. Therefore, cleric channeling doesn't stack with paladin channeling, necromancer channeling, oracle of life channeling, and so on.
Looking at life link
Is it an ability? Yes
Does it say it stacks with itself? No
Then I need to use them separately, per the FAQ
Meaning two sources operate independently.
meyerwilliam wrote: [
I went a different way -- with a dex of a 7, I didn't bother with initiative -- after all, until they are damaged, I cannot life link them :)
Are you sure about that? Or did you mean "the life link cannnot leech the damage" ?
I dont' see a requirement of pain in order to "link" to them. You can link to anything anytime within medium (it seems) range, up to level. So as soon as you get this revelations you can tag your party.... and never disable it.
its got a variety of uses as well... You can sleep undisturbed but if the person on watch gets hurt for more than 5? Well... you get hurt and presumably would wake up aware that someone was being hurt (no clue if you know precisely who or where though).
Life Link (Su): As a standard action, you may create a bond between yourself and another creature. Each round at the start of your turn, if the bonded creature is wounded for 5 or more hit points below its maximum hit points, it heals 5 hit points and you take 5 hit points of damage. You may have one bond active per oracle level. This bond continues until the bonded creature dies, you die, the distance between you and the other creature exceeds medium range, or you end it as an immediate action (if you have multiple bonds active, you may end as many as you want as part of the same immediate action).
Grin, yes, I meant "if there is no damage, then the aspect of life link to heal them if they have 5 or more damage doesn't trigger"
Sorry, my wording was unclear
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