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I need some advice guys.
I have a mystic healer in my party who is having the worst time playing. He basically feels completely superflous and useless, and I really can't find any way to fix it.
So what seems to be the problem?
He's a Priest themed mystic healer, and basically wants to serve as the party healer as we know them from other games, so he took the healing connection. They are currently level 2, so any advice about high level play and what feats to take on level 7 etc. is not going to help. This guy needs help NOW.
Basically he feels that his healing is useless, as he has to wait for everyone to drop below stamina, and even then, they have to drop to almost dead before his healing has any worthwhile effect (paying a resolve point to heal 1-2 hp is not a good deal). And even then, he can only heal them to "half" health. We know and understand how stamina works, and that it's basically a way to not require healers in the party. But it feels like that design decision made the healer redundant.
He currently has 3 spells per day (one of them a heal) so any sort of magic dependence is weak at best. 2 rounds of combat casting spells, and he's out for the day, while the others keep on trucking.
He has a laser pistol and no interest in diving into combat feats to boost his weapons going forward. He want's to be a healer. Not a fighter who is a backup combat medic.
So he has almost no combat ability, and no spells. Healing - his main focus - requires him to wait for most of the combat before everyone is through their stamina before he can do anything, and even then, he needs to wait for them to almost die, and can only heal them to half power. And it only got worse when they leveled from 1 to 2. As now they have twice the amount of stamina, so now he needs to wait even longer before his healing is required.
How do I help this player? He really likes the game, but is darn near to quitting, and just make another character. And I don't think anyone should be forced to make a new character because the character they want to play - as presented in the rules - is useless.
So.. What are we missing? How do we make him the best healer in the galaxy?
We have some house rule ideas, but I'd like to use that as a last resort, so I won't present them here unless we hit a dead end.
Thanks
...And just realized this should probably have been posted under either rules or advice, but darn Space Goblins must have messed with my clicky-pointy-computer-thing.
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Let him heal stamina looks like it would resolve your issues possibly.
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You hit the nail on the head with how they have approached healing. Around half of someone's health is unhealable, as it is stamina. The thing that really complicates things is the players vehemence to just solely healing. if they want to get clever they could pick up Medical Expert and focus in Medicine as well, because magic can only go so far. Also picking up Body Guard and In Harm's Way could be an indirect way of healing in that they get to sacrifice their stamina and hp for allies, which is even more hp battery.
Those are the only options I see.
Let him heal stamina looks like it would resolve your issues possibly.
That's the house rule we've been thinking about. But I'm worried that doing so messes with the whole resolve point/stamina/hp and encounter balance issue. At first glance, it should be fine, but I'm not math savvy enough to discern any unintended complications.
Any spell caster (in SF or PF) is gonna have to use a weapon for their first few levels. It's inevitable. The nice thing is, in Starfinder, you don't need to invest any feats into combat to be adequate. If your player really wants to rely solely on magic, well, he's gonna have to wait a few levels.
One thing that might help immediately is using non-healing spells. The Mystic list has a few buffs and damage spells that might be worth throwing out on the first round of combat. Another thing you as the GM could do is ramp up encounter difficulty a bit. That will burn through your PCs' stamina faster, so his healing will be needed sooner. I've seen how a Mystic can swing the tide of battle at higher CRs, getting a dropped ally back into the fight at as much as 12 hp can be huge.
Healing in SF is a little closer to actual battlefield medicine than standard RPG heal-botting. It's much more of an emergency move, to get people back in the fight in a pinch, than a sustained treatment of every little scratch and dent.
I've been playing "healer" characters off an on in basically every game for over 20 years. It's the type of character I prefer in video games, and it's easily a third of the characters I play in pen and paper. I don't know where this idea started that healers should never do anything but heal, or that everyone has to be at full health all the time, but I really wish that it would die a painful death in a hot fire.
It's almost always a suboptimal tactical choice, and people that try to play that way always end up feeling like used tissue paper at some point, regardless of the game/system. It seemed to happen right away in this game, and I'm sorry your friend had to go through that. It's an insidious and counterproductive meme that treats players of those classes like wands that are only good for one thing.
If it were a friend of mine in my game, I'd have a long discussion about how to play a "healer" and not feel that way. And it involves spending most of combat, most of the time, doing other stuff to keep your party alive and/or defeat the enemy, and only actually healing between combats, or when it's actually desperately needed. You can't just sit there staring at your spell book and casting complete heal every few minutes a la Everquest (and even in that game, that was almost always a suboptimal way to play a Cleric).
In Starfinder, it's not just suboptimal, it's basically impossible (certainly at low levels, anyway).
There aren't any full casters in SF as written. Mystics and Technomancers are essentially hybrid casters. They're more akin to flavored bards than Clerics in PF/other games. Healing is something they can do, but it's not the only thing they can do, even with the Healer connection. I think your houserule idea is fine (I don't think it breaks anything), but I don't think it will fix his problem. At second level, he'll only have like 3 spell slots a day. With maxed stats, he'll have like 5 resolve points for healing channel. Unless he "pulls a wizard" and forces everyone to go to bed after every other combat, he's just not going to have the juice to spend all his actions in every combat healing everyone back up to full health.
If he refuses to do anything other than heal, even with your fix, he's going to spend much of combat twiddling his thumbs while positioning himself. The combats last too long in this game for any of that to work.
Even at later levels, when he may have the juice to do it, it's still not a good idea, he's only ever going to have 4-6 (at most) of his highest level spells, and his lower spells won't do enough healing to overcome the damage being taken each round. You might be able to pull it off if you spend every feat possible on Extra Resolve and use RP for healing channel. But that isn't ideal, and it won't be very much fun, even if the math works.
If you're open to third party material, the Starfarer's Companion has a conversion of PF Clerics that might be "better" for his preferred style of play. But it means bringing back 9th level spellcasting and also bringing back one of the most brokenly overpowered PC classes from PF. But, clerics who spend all their actions healing weren't broken (they were generally weak), so I don't know if it would actually hurt your game.
In real life, combat medics are some of the toughest SoB's on the battlefield.
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I'm going to agree that the Starfinder system really doesn't allow the dedicated healer as a valid party role.
It's also worth noting that Mystic Cure is a touch spell. Healing Channel is also a touch effect if you're using the standard action version. This means it's a good idea to be already standing next to whoever needs healing the most, which is typically your melee specialist.
And if you're going to be there, you might as well pick up heavy armor or advanced melee proficiency (or both) and dish out some punishment yourself while things chew through your stamina layer.
In other words, despite the connection giving you similar talents to the PF life oracle, you play more like a warpriest or even paladin due to system changes.
The only Stamina healer I've found so far is an Envoy. It's rather unfortunate. I can't figure out why Mystics can't heal Stamina.
Another House Rule to consider, particularly compelling with Healing Channel, since it costs an RP, is to let him apply the rules from Steal Life to Healing Channel and/or Mystic Cure and/or Mass Mystic Cure for letting "overhealing" become temporary Hit Points for an hour, letting him heal people before the damage happens, to provide a Stamina shield. That's patently useful, but too expensive to spam all day - instead, he'll use that at the start of combat, to pretend he's a Stamina Healer.
How the hell does he only have 3 L1 spells per day? Did he dump stat Wisdom? Even Wis 12 is enough for 4 L1 spells per day at Mystic 2 (which won't get better until Wis 20, which he can buy at great expense now, if he's got base Wis 18 and is desperate for that extra L1). He shouldn't be dump statting Wisdom, since he wants to be as good as possible at Mystic Cure - yell at him if he has.
What's his secondary stat and L1 feat? He should be spending his time in combat when he's not using his Wisdom score using his other abilities, like dropping smoke grenades or what have you. If his secondary stat is Dex (as Starfinder seems to want to make mandatory for nearly everyone) or Str, he should be looking into an Injection weapon anyway as party healer, which is available in Small Arm, Longarm, and Advanced Melee, including the new Painclaws.
Most of his time in combat should be spent either using his secondary stat, L1 feat, skills, and action economy to provide support (such as the aforementioned smoke grenades, or supplying harrying or covering fire, or whatever), or using Wisdom to sling his unlimited-use cantrips around. He's still low enough level that Daze and Telekinetic Projectile aren't complete wastes of time, and he can use Fatigue to Wisdom Punch people in the EAC - the spell is a cantrip, so it has a lot of downsides, like needing to both hit the target and overcome Fortitude, but it's better than nothing, and if he's still suffering, you could house rule that he can combine the spell with a pulse gauntlet. You could also house rule a Mystic Cure cantrip, healing 0d8 + Wisdom modifier (so just Wisdom modifier).
The realistic alternative is that he either re-rolls as an Envoy, for nonzero Stamina healing, or he multiclasses his Mystic into Envoy; Envoys use their Charisma bonus for their Stamina heal, but well over half their abilities completely disregard their Charisma stat, so he doesn't even need a large Charisma bonus to pick up Envoy buffs, or if he's got high Charisma but doesn't want to spend a lot of time in Envoy, most of them don't interact significantly with your Envoy level, either (the Stamina heal does, though). A 1 or 2-level dip into Envoy gets him Skill Expertise in Sense Motive and probably Medicine; here are the improvisations he can take (1 for a 1-level dip and 2 for a 2-level dip):
Look Alive completely ignores both Charisma and Envoy level, but it doesn't grant any actions the Mystic can take in combat.
Watch Your Step, Get 'Em, and Don't Quit ignore both Charisma and Envoy level, but get better at Envoy 6 (and Envoy 12, for Don't Quit); Don't Quit may be the most interesting to a dedicated healer.
Clever Feint and Dispiriting Taunt ignore Envoy level other than improving at Envoy 6, but make the PC make a skill check with a Charisma skill.
Inspiring Boost and Not In The Face both employ both Envoy level and Charisma - the former directly, to fuel the Stamina heal, and the latter to set the DC on a Will save. Both improve at Envoy 6.
Envoy 3 is probably a bad idea if he's just dipping - that's kind of a lot of dipping to get one of the mostly pretty underwhelming Expertise Talents (the most interesting one would probably be Inspired Medic, since he'd be bailing out of Envoy before Envoy 5, which is when it starts to degrade in performance). If he keeps going, though, lots more options open up, in terms of improvisations that ignore Envoy level and/or Charisma - Duck Under, Focus, and Hurry completely ignore both, while Clever Attack, Quick Dispiriting, and Watch Out all only interact with improving at Envoy 6 or 8.
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The only real comment I can make is he needs to change his expectations for Starfinder.
Healing is a secondary or tertiary thing (at best) in Starfinder. Especially because PCs can heal their stamina with a 10 minute rest. It's just not needed or efficient to focus completely on healing.
Simply put, his idea wont work in Starfinder and he needs to find something else he wants focus on. It's good to have the ability to heal in a pinch, but being focused on healing is even less necessary in Starfinder than it was Pathfinder (and in Pathfinder you largely got by on wands).
It's also worth noting that no class can focus on purely being a spell caster. Starfinder has deliberately nerfed casters so that you simply don't have enough spells per day for that to be your only thing. The technomancer build I have for Starfinder still invested in Longarms and Versatile Specialization because more than half the time I'm going to be shooting my gun.
The problem here is your players expectations for the game don't at all match the mechanics. You could try to band aid the mechanics and make it relevant, but it's probably better to explain to your player that it simply isn't the way the game works.
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Going in to Starfinder especially at low level wanting to be a pocket healer is the problem as much as that sucks to say. The game was built differently. If anything it is a secondary role you can tack on to another concept like a battle priest that is tanky but can spot heal in sticky situations etc.
How the hell does he only have 3 L1 spells per day? Did he dump stat Wisdom? Even Wis 12 is enough for 4 L1 spells per day at Mystic 2 (which won't get better until Wis 20, which he can buy at great expense now, if he's got base Wis 18 and is desperate for that extra L1). He shouldn't be dump statting Wisdom, since he wants to be as good as possible at Mystic Cure - yell at him if he has.
Umm...
The Mystic (I double-checked the CRB and it matches.)
Looking at the chart, a Mystic at level 2 gets 2 1st level spells per day, base. A Mystic with a Wisdom of 18 (the max possible at level 2) gets 1 bonus 1st level spell per day. He should only have 3 1st level spells per day at Mystic 2. I can't figure a way he can have 4 1sts per day until Mystic 3, short of increasing his wis to 20 by spending almost all his money on a personal augmentation mk 1?
In short, what are you on about?
EDIT: That reads way more snarky/condescending than I intended. I'm genuinely trying to figure out if I am missing something. I'm not trying to argue that you're wrong.
How the hell does he only have 3 L1 spells per day? Did he dump stat Wisdom? Even Wis 12 is enough for 4 L1 spells per day at Mystic 2 (which won't get better until Wis 20, which he can buy at great expense now, if he's got base Wis 18 and is desperate for that extra L1). He shouldn't be dump statting Wisdom, since he wants to be as good as possible at Mystic Cure - yell at him if he has.Umm...
The Mystic (I double-checked the CRB and it matches.)
Looking at the chart, a Mystic at level 2 gets 2 1st level spells per day, base. A Mystic with a Wisdom of 18 (the max possible at level 2) gets 1 bonus 1st level spell per day. He should only have 3 1st level spells per day at Mystic 2. I can't figure a way he can have 4 1sts per day until Mystic 3, short of increasing his wis to 20 by spending almost all his money on a personal augmentation mk 1?
In short, what are you on about?
EDIT: That reads way more snarky/condescending than I intended. I'm genuinely trying to figure out if I am missing something. I'm not trying to argue that you're wrong.
No, you're right. I mistook the separate spells known table for spells per day, my bad. :'(
Thank you. Again, sorry for how that read. I was worried I was going crazy or missing something obvious or something.
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The fundamental problem with the desire to main healing in Starfinder is Starfinder was designed so you don't need a main healer (or even a cure light wounds wand spammer).
If you house rule healing stamina with the limited resources of the cleric, you're doing that cleric no favors. Envoy stamina healing works because it doesn't cost them anything - it really is a bonus on top of their other abilities. The cleric is going to have to spend either a resolve point or a spell slot to heal that stamina - which could have been healed completely by the target player after combat at the cost of a single resolve point.
If your cleric is healing in the middle of combat, and only that, he's got a maximum of 8 healing actions over the adventuring day at 2nd level. And once he's used them all, he has no resolve to keep himself alive if he drops. While if he's been healing all the stamina, the other players are going to have full resolve points and see no need to stop.
You would be better off grafting the Envoy Inspiring boost ability onto the class instead of making the mystic be able to heal stamina damage with their current abilities/spells.
You can spend a resolve point on the cleric, healing on average 9 points of stamina, or the target can spend a resolve point to heal all the way up to 16. Lets assume two targets take damage in a fight, to double that to 18.
Look at the total possible stamina healed over the course of an adventuring day, assuming characters with 18 in their primary resolve state.
The stamina healing capacity of a party of 4 with two fighter types (14 stamina) and two hybrid types (12 stamina) is 5 x (14+14+12+12) = 260.
Compare that to a party of 4 that includes a healing connection cleric that can heal stamina and hp. Since he wants to heal in combat, assume he hits 2 targets with each healing channel (2d8 x 2 = 18 on average). He can do that 5 times. 3 Mystic cures for 1d8+4 each averages to 25.5. So 90 + 25.5 = 115.5. The other 3 are 5 x (14+14+12) = 200.
A total of 315.5, for 21% more stamina, but unevenly distributed, as the cleric will run out much faster in terms of stamina.
An envoy on the other hand, assuming they use their Inspiring boost ability twice between rests, gets to use their stamina on themselves as well as their Levelx2+charisma (8 at 2nd level).
Such a party is potentially at 260+80=340 total stamina healed.
Edit:
I will point out, in difficult fights where people are dropping, a Healing Connection Mystic is awesome. At 3rd level, a typical fighter type is going to have 25 hit points, and a hybrid type is going to have 22 hit points. A single healing channel heals on average 18 hit points at that level. Even if the rest of your team is on the ground, dying, you can put them all back up to nearly "half health" with a single turn. A good roll can heal them up to full hit points, while a bad roll is still getting them all off the floor.
The issue is, you can build a Healing Connection Mystic that only does that, and will only shine in those do or die situations, or you can build one that does that and does something else cool to boot, like engage in melee or provide harrying fire times two and what not. Wisp Ally + the cleric taking the Covering Fire action to put a -4 to hit on the enemy every round.
A total of 315.5, for 21% more stamina, but unevenly distributed, as the cleric will run out much faster in terms of stamina.
An envoy on the other hand, assuming they use their Inspiring boost ability twice between rests, gets to use their stamina on themselves as well as their Levelx2+charisma (8 at 2nd level).
Such a party is potentially at 260+80=340 total stamina healed.
The envoy is definitely better at healing stamina, since the party's RP fuels them (they get back their ability to heal the target when the target rests, letting them force the target to pay the associated RP costs of the ability), but don't forget, their stamina healing is spread out to everyone but themselves. The Mystic can heal themselves, and can stack the heals onto 1 target if need be.
But either way, you're right that the envoy's output is so much better, it bears looking at. For second level, the envoy can heal any rested party member for 8 sp, which can happen a maximum of 1 + the target's RP per day, assuming they only spend theirs on resting (manipulatable later when the envoy gets the ability to hand RPs to others). The Mystic's heals average to 8.5 per, and don't have the targeting restrictions, but are sharply limited to 3/day. That's pretty terrible.
What would be far better would be a very weak, SP healing cantrip, perhaps healing 1+Wis Mod SP. That makes the Mystic worse at healing SP quickly than the Envoy, particularly at higher levels, but also able to target themselves, which can be clutch. You'd still need to include the targeting restriction about the target needing to Rest again - Starfinder is built on the assumption that fights bleed RP via the Rest mechanic, so you can't let the PCs have access to truly infinite SP healing.
The issue is, you can build a Healing Connection Mystic that only does that, and will only shine in those do or die situations, or you can build one that does that and does something else cool to boot, like engage in melee or provide harrying fire times two and what not. Wisp Ally + the cleric taking the Covering Fire action to put a -4 to hit on the enemy every round.
I find it a little inscrutable that people are trying to play Mystics like Clerics in Pathfinder, because spellcasters in Starfinder are much more versatile and interesting owing to that bolded phrase in particular.
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I wouldn't let Mystic Cure heal Stamina. I wanted to point out that Mystic Cure (at every level) also lets you transfer any HP to cover damage that you don't heal. So say someone was down 9 hp and your mystic cure heals 5 of that. The Mystic could also chose to transfer 4 of his own hp to his ally to fully heal their HP. Letting him cure Stamina means that he could fully heal up any character's Stamina and HP with a single spell.
I think healing is more powerful in Starfinder than it is in Pathfinder because of that HP transferring ability that mystic cure has and I think the fact that it's limited to only healing HP kind of balances that.
He should have expectations to do other things in combat and there are a lot of options for him. First off, mystics have some great blasts and debuff spells. He can always provide covering fire or harrassing fire. It's hard to get bonuses in Starfinder so I don't think using that puny pistol of his to give the Dosko wielding Soldier a +2 to hit would be a waste of an action. Even without investment it will get easier to pull this off because the DC stays at 15 and doesn't scale with you in level like monster KAC/EACs would. The big thing is that he shouldn't be twiddling thumbs until one of his allies keels over. If he's having trouble contributing its not because his class is weak.
Probably World of Warcraft and its derivatives. They seem to be some of the games that most firmly entrenched the idea of a dedicated healer who does nothing but, though even those games have started to provide alternatives to that model lately.
I never played WoW, but I did play Everquest (and EQ2) and Everquest already had that problem years before WoW came out. I ended up soloing a cleric to almost 60 in EQ because every time I grouped in a pick up group I would get balled out by some jackass that never even played a cleric any time I did anything other than sit there and cast complete heal every 30 seconds.
Not only was that excruciatingly boring, it was a complete waste of my talents and ignored all the other things I could do with the class. That's where I learned to hate the meme.
The rare times I grouped with RL friends in EQ, they were often quite happy when I managed to not only heal them, but also do effective crowd control and occasional DD/debuff.
That's actually where I first learned that this was an expectation of some people for clerics in DnD (and other games), but I never played my DnD clerics that way either. None of my friends that played clerics in DnD played that way. Preventing damage in the first place by killing/disabling the monster faster always seemed like a better plan that trying to heal it afterwards. It certainly seemed like more fun. It was usually the mathematically superior option, anyway.
Sorry, I'm digressing. This thing that seems to persist about "healers" doing nothing but heal-bot all the time is just something I personally find exceptionally annoying. I'll drop it now.
I have a Mystic healer in my group and he is a badass.
Few things about my game though:
1) I crush my group with the difficult fights.
2) Healing spells provoke AOO
3) I give specialization for spells (Full lvl for single target, 1/2 dam for AOE).
4) I allow a caster to use his/her spells slots from high caster stat. An 18 wisdom mystic can use his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th spell slots to cast 1st level spells.
5) Our group is 6th level at the moment. The healer has Mobility, Spell focus, Long Arms, and just got a haste circuit.
My group would never survive without a dedicated healer. That said the healer doesn't just heal.
Round 1. When combat starts he positions himself near the tanks and unloads with his disintegration rifle (d20 dam) until round two.
Round 2. he absorbs 6 of damage off of an ally. As his GM keep in mind how awesome this is your healer is taking what amounts to a full combat blow to keep his group running. It is easy to metagame blow this off as nothing but I play it up to show his toughness. If HP damage is still light he fires again but moves towards which ever persons stamina is close to going/gone.
Round 3. Absorb 6 damage off an ally. Single target heal the person that needs it most.
Round 4. Absorb 6 damage. Move towards the most damaged ally. Smash a badly damaged foe with Mind Thrust.
Round 5 Absorb 6 damage. If things are going south blow a RP and heal everyone 4d8. Otherwise heal himself or a worse off ally.
My group has been on Eox for 3 (Real life) weeks. They were supposed to go into the Eox wastes. However the healer wasn't available last week and they were too scared to attempt the waste without him.
Anyway mostly my suggestion would be as a GM you are letting your players off too easy if they dont need healing. :)
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Yeah, I've that sentiment before. It's a weird attitude to have because clerics in DnD and Pathfinder have always been much more versatile than that. Clerics have always been about wreaking face with a mace in between healing and buffing.
I really like the Healing connection for Mystics and I would argue that it might be the most powerful one. The nice thing about that connection it that it gives you so many ways to heal built in so you can afford to invest in other things.
Another option that comes to mind are some of the implants. The wyrm's breath gland gives you a free breath attack weapon that refreshes when you rest and the save is based off CON. It's fairly affordable and would help him stretch out those spells per day.
I'm with the "some character concepts just don't work so well in some systems, if it bothers you, try another character" crowd. I've run loads of sub-optimal characters trying to fit square pegs in round holes, but it doesn't bother me (too much).
The only thing I can think is have him multiclass with Envoy at Level 2, so he can heal hit points as a Mystic and stamina points as an Envoy. It's not an ideal build, but if it makes him happy, then have fun and see what happens.
You could also homebrew a spell that heals stamina instead of hp. As long as it is a limited resource (read: not a level 0 spell) and doesn't completely overshadow the envoy's ability it shouldn't be game breaking. Your mystic still will need to have other actions to fill combat, but he won't have to feel he's been jipped so much.
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Unfortunately, the "Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a ______!" shtick just doesn't work in Starfinder. You need the "I'm an army doctor! That means I can break every bone in your body while naming them!" outlook.
Your player might consider rebuilding his character, changing to the Ace Pilot theme. Then he would at least have a role to play as a member of the ship's crew.
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Be it duly noted that in point of fact, whenever the crew found themselves subjected to gladiator combat by the will of an alien god, McCoy could actually acquit himself pretty well.
...Edit: I will point out, in difficult fights where people are dropping, a Healing Connection Mystic is awesome. At 3rd level, a typical fighter type is going to have 25 hit points, and a hybrid type is going to have 22 hit points. A single healing channel heals on average 18 hit points at that level. Even if the rest of your team is on the ground, dying, you can put them all back up to nearly "half health" with a single turn. A good roll can heal them up to full hit points, while a bad roll is still getting them all off the floor.
The issue is, you can build a Healing Connection Mystic that only does that, and will only shine in those do or die situations, or you can build one that does that and does something else cool to boot, like engage in melee or provide harrying fire times two and what not. Wisp Ally + the cleric taking the Covering Fire action to put a -4 to hit on the enemy every round.
I have healing connection mystic to do healing channel when needed and I use my spells offensively (usually mind thrust). I also do the shooty thingy.
So healing is only 1 of my things.
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Starfinder deliberately avoided this style of play.
I have a Mystic healer in my group and he is a badass.
I'm a little lost because the things you listed seem like are reading a different book than what I have.
5) Our group is 6th level at the moment. The healer has Mobility, Spell focus, Long Arms, and just got a haste circuit.
At lvl 6 the highest item level you should be able to buy is 7. Haste Circuit is lvl8. So did you throw this rule out? The lvl restriction balances the game. Yeah homebrew some things but this is not one I would do.
I allow a caster to use his/her spells slots from high caster stat. An 18 wisdom mystic can use his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th spell slots to cast 1st level spells.
Allow? They can already do this. But a 6th lvl mystic should only have access to max 2nd lvl spells.
You can cast any mystic spell you know at any time, assuming you have not yet used up your allotment of spells per day for the
spell’s level. You can also cast a spell using a higher-level spell slot. For instance, if you want to cast a 1st-level spell but have used up all your 1st-level spells for the day, you can use a spell from a 2nd-level slot instead if you have one.
2) Healing spells provoke AOO
All Some spells Provoke attacks of opportunity. (Never mind)
3) I give specialization for spells (Full lvl for single target, 1/2 dam for AOE).
You really don't need to do this since spells are still extremely powerful. Doing this is really going to hurt higher levels if you plan on playing for that long.
Round 1. When combat starts he positions himself near the tanks and unloads with his disintegration rifle (d20 dam) until round two.
This rifle sounds awesome. Which book is it in and what page? I can't seem to find it. My lvl 6 characters would love to buy a Disintegration Rifle.
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5) Our group is 6th level at the moment. The healer has Mobility, Spell focus, Long Arms, and just got a haste circuit.At lvl 6 the highest item level you should be able to buy is 7. Haste Circuit is lvl8. So did you throw this rule out? The lvl restriction balances the game. Yeah homebrew some things but this is not one I would do.
This actually isn't homebrew at all.
Rather than meticulously track every arms dealer, contact, guild, and license a character has access to, the game assumes that in typical settlements you can find and purchase anything with an item level no greater than your character level + 1, and at major settlements items up to your character level + 2. The GM can restrict access to some items (even those of an appropriate level) or make items of a higher level available for purchase (possibly at a greatly increased price or in return for a favor done for the seller).
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All spells Provoke attacks of opportunity.
A bunch of starfinder spells dont
From mystic cure: Casting this spell doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity.
Appreciate you two clearing up those two things.
Everyones still shaking out the nuts and bolts while flying the spacecraft.
I have a Mystic healer in my group and he is a badass.I'm a little lost because the things you listed seem like are reading a different book than what I have.
5) Our group is 6th level at the moment. The healer has Mobility, Spell focus, Long Arms, and just got a haste circuit.At lvl 6 the highest item level you should be able to buy is 7. Haste Circuit is lvl8. So did you throw this rule out? The lvl restriction balances the game. Yeah homebrew some things but this is not one I would do.
I allow a caster to use his/her spells slots from high caster stat. An 18 wisdom mystic can use his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th spell slots to cast 1st level spells.Allow? They can already do this. But a 6th lvl mystic should only have access to max 2nd lvl spells.
You can cast any mystic spell you know at any time, assuming you have not yet used up your allotment of spells per day for the
spell’s level. You can also cast a spell using a higher-level spell slot. For instance, if you want to cast a 1st-level spell but have used up all your 1st-level spells for the day, you can use a spell from a 2nd-level slot instead if you have one.2) Healing spells provoke AOO
AllSome spells Provoke attacks of opportunity. (Never mind)3) I give specialization for spells (Full lvl for single target, 1/2 dam for AOE).You really don't need to do this since spells are still extremely powerful. Doing this is really going to hurt higher levels if you plan on playing for that long.
Round 1. When combat starts he positions himself near the tanks and unloads with his disintegration rifle (d20 dam) until round two.This rifle sounds awesome. Which book is it in and what page? I can't seem to find it. My lvl 6 characters would...
1. As mentioned above a level 8 item is fine by the rules. However this item in particular was given as a reward for rescuing someone from the paizo published adventure "Splintered Worlds."
2.You seem to be confused or maybe I didnt explain it very well. If you made a 1st level caster with a high casting stat say for example 18 the extra 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level spell slot you get for the stat can't be used yet as you dont have access to those spells.In my campaign casters can use those slots to cast first level spells.
3. Healing spells dont provoke AOO per the rules. I make it harder on my players.
4. As to my homebrew spell specialization, I appreciate that this is may not work in everyone's campaign. I am content that it will not unbalance things. At high levels Operatives and Soldiers will still be your prime damage dealers. 14d20+20 on a disintegrate spell is just not that much of a difference.
5. Disintegration weapons are in the paizo published adventure "Temple of the Twelve" they start on page 52. The rifle in question is a 6th long arm that does d20 damage.
Hope this helps clear up any confusion.
Another way they could have handled this is giving the Healer Connection a way to either Restore resolve or act as a Resolve battery. A few extra Resolve per day would be useful without being overwhelming.
Thanks for all the feedback.
I've been talking with my mystic player, and while he understands the points you've given about how a healer is supposed to work within the rules, he still feels (as do I) that if the game doesn't support a primary healer, then why do they a) include it as a main feature for a class, and b) don't explain that feature better, as to how that role fits within the overall mechanics of the game.
My player took the priest mystic with healing connection because he wants to be a healer. He doesn't want to be a buff/debuff off-tank combat medic. He wants to be a healer.
And since I don't want to tell anyone that their character concept is useless, I'd much rather fix it, so it works.
So we've decided on the following house rule (feedback appreciated):
When characters take damage, they can decide wether or not to take it as stamina or hp, or a combination. That way, the healer will be able to apply healing sooner, and it won't mess with the resolve point economy.
An additional effect, is that non-lethaldamage only applies to stamina, and when you drop to 0 stamina, you are out cold or winded enough to be unable to fight, until you make a fort save, which restores 1d4 stamina.
(For those who know Fate Core, it's basically like deciding to take stress or consequences).
One thing to note if you have a dedicated healer in the party you can push your combats a bit harder. Normally without a healer you tend to want to avoid HP damage as much as possible so people are taking more breaks and using resolve. With an actual healer they don't need to lean on their stamina as much so can do more encounters or more challenging ones and have better resolve levels to deal with some KO's now and then. Also the healing abilities likely are much more useful later on more so than early levels. Healing stam is fast but healing health damage is pretty slow or expensive without a mystic. Early on people don't have that much HP to begin with so most mystic healing tends to be overkill or overheal in this case. Later on those heals are both more rewarding and more necessary.
Also for a dedicated healer a lot of what you will likely be doing as things go along is curing conditions. A lot of things have various condition effects and mystics are about as good as it gets at curing these.
What about increasing the difficulty of the encounters? Party might not appreciate almost dying each battle, but the healer will feel needed. If not all of the combats, maybe just one or two?
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No, you're right. I mistook the separate spells known table for spells per day, my bad. :'(How the hell does he only have 3 L1 spells per day? Did he dump stat Wisdom? Even Wis 12 is enough for 4 L1 spells per day at Mystic 2 (which won't get better until Wis 20, which he can buy at great expense now, if he's got base Wis 18 and is desperate for that extra L1). He shouldn't be dump statting Wisdom, since he wants to be as good as possible at Mystic Cure - yell at him if he has.Umm...
The Mystic (I double-checked the CRB and it matches.)
Looking at the chart, a Mystic at level 2 gets 2 1st level spells per day, base. A Mystic with a Wisdom of 18 (the max possible at level 2) gets 1 bonus 1st level spell per day. He should only have 3 1st level spells per day at Mystic 2. I can't figure a way he can have 4 1sts per day until Mystic 3, short of increasing his wis to 20 by spending almost all his money on a personal augmentation mk 1?
In short, what are you on about?
EDIT: That reads way more snarky/condescending than I intended. I'm genuinely trying to figure out if I am missing something. I'm not trying to argue that you're wrong.
well he could have a 20 wis if he buys an upgrade
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My player took the priest mystic with healing connection because he wants to be a healer. He doesn't want to be a buff/debuff off-tank combat medic. He wants to be a healer.
And since I don't want to tell anyone that their character concept is useless, I'd much rather fix it, so it works.
Despite my earlier contention about this concept (I still wish it would die in a fire), if that's truly what he wants, I think there should always be options. I personally know people that loved staring at their spell book and casting complete heal every 30 seconds in EQ. I think they're crazy, but luckily the world takes all kinds of people and my opinions don't actually matter.
I think the way you're doing it is going to bog down combat, but I've never played Fate Core, so maybe I'm wrong. Therefore, to fix it, I think the following would be better (or at least, easier to manage for him and you).
1. Do away with stamina as a concept entirely. Everyone gets what is listed for their class (hp+sta+con) as hitpoints.
2. Resolve points can be used between combats in a 10 minute rest to heal hitpoints at the same rate they normally heal stamina (so they won't always take them back up to full health, they'll just heal X amount per RP/10 minute rest).
3. Inspiring boost heals hitpoints at the same rate it normally heals stamina. (In case someone decides to play an Envoy)
4. All mystic spells and abilities are the same.
5. Any healing from any source that goes over current hitpoints acts as temp hitpoints for up to, say, 1 minute (essentially whatever is enough to last through a single combat). This is to keep him from wasting juice healing too early.
I still don't think he's going to get what he wants, really. I honestly don't think he'll ever have the juice to spend all his actions healing. He's probably still going to have to do something else at least some of the time or sit on his hands for half of every combat. But I think that's as close as you can get without bringing Cleric back, and maybe it'll be enough that he can have fun playing what he wants.
By the By. Not for nothing, but the Starfarer's Companion does have a SF port of the PF cleric in it. I think I mentioned it before, but I don't know if you noticed it in all the rest of my condescension (seriously, I'm sorry if it came across that way, I'm trying to be funny, not rude). It's a lot closer to full on healer than anything you're going to be able to do with Mystic. The mystic wasn't designed to be a healer, in the WoW/EQ sense of the word, despite the name of the connection. Cleric has a lot more juice to spend healing and (especially in late game) much closer to actually doing so without wasting actions.
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Ive played many healers in pathfinder, 0% only healed or made an attack most levels. The character can look for ways to mitigate damage. like suppressing fire, smoke grandees, sticky granades, fog spells, resistances, walls, summon other things to get hit (from the alien archive), craft spell gems, healing serums and sedatives.
Players have to find interesting things to do beyond a minor aspect of combat. A character like your player's could run out and stabalize opponents then drag them out of the firefight.
Have them play the character, how does s/he/they/it react and grow? How do they value life and allow your party to take so many? Do you stand by and let others get hurt/killed?
Good Luck!