|
Hello
I'm making a new character for a campaign, I know it's going to be long and without many opportunities to rest to recharge spells.
The character in question I plan to be an oracle with the mystery of life, endurance diehard and fast healer.
The idea is to use life link / shield other and stay behind in combat, since I'm going to take a lot of damage.
We would have economy with the clw wands since each use would cure me much more (5) since I can cure others with my own life.
The downside is, although I'm going to use some channeling (I know they do not work with fast healer) and some spells to heal on myself when necessary. I want to have something to do in combat other than to heal like a madman and even if i have spells they are a limited surce.
For now the idea is to have a good constitution to get use of fast healer and to take all that damage 17 (+2) to start and a regular charisma to channel and cast spells. (20 points build)
What could I do in combat? I dont have feats till level 5 (if starting human) or 7 if I use another race (maybe gnome) and even then i need a feat for selective channel. If i dump int i culd reach 14 in str or dex but the char will be dumb.
One option would be to take a level of Unbrekable fighter (from ultimate combat, not sure if it is allowed) to have both feats free but it will hurt the spellcasting.
I know there is the oradin option but if posible i would like to keep straight oracle.
Books allowed are advanced core and ultimate magic.
Any lead on what could i do?
Pick up a ranged weapon and the feats to go with it.
An Agile Composite Longbow (buff yourself with scrolls of Cat's Grace) + Precise Shot Feat (at minimum) would probably be your best bet. Alternatively, you could get Augmented Summoning Feat and prepare Summon Monster I-IX.
As far as accenting your Caster side of things, consider getting Dreamed Secrets Feat at lvl 13 so you can pick up spells from the Wizard list, also consider going Half-Elf so you can use Paragon Surge spell (free changeable Feat per day), and Mnemonic Vestments so you can cast spontaneously from a scroll each day. You can get really creative with the Mnemonic Vestments + Dreamed Secrets. You could even get 2-3 Disintegrates per day if you wanted to.
Don't worry about getting a high Con, get a High Charisma. It affects how many spells you get per day and it affects your DC's for offensive spells. You can boost your Con with items, like scrolls of Bear Endurance (at least until you can get a Belt of Physical Prowess/Perfection).
For ability score choice, I'd go str 10, dex 14, con 14, int 10, wis 10, cha 18 (16 +2 half-elf).
Or, if you're not worried about your Strength at all, you can go str 7, dex 14, con 14, int 12, wis 12, cha 18 (16 +2 half-elf).
With Paragon Surge, you can essentially gain a free feat per day, so if you think you're going to be casting more that day, you can pick a casty feat, and likewise, if you think you'll be pulling out the bow a lot that day, pick up Deadly Aim or whatever you want. You'll want to prepare multiple castings of Paragon Surge each day because there might be several times you want access to the feat you choose for that day.
Usually healing is best considered one aspect of a support character, but a good support character is going to do more than just healing. Healing is primarily reactive and in the support function is used to make sure the guys on your team can keep dealing damage.
Beyond that support is also usually adding in buffs to increase the damage they do. Spells like bless or prayer are classic examples. Bringing down a foe one round sooner can be worth a lot of healing. So look at your character as a fully ranged support character and not just a healer.
That said, a support character more than any other usually needs a secondary role for when they aren't doing a support action. Most of the time you will want just a round or two of buffs, and unless HP are getting low you don't need to heal until after the fight is done and actions are not so precious.
You also want this secondary role not to be consuming resources that your primary role will need (spell slots in your case.) Usually this means either attacks or something else that can be done over and over again.
Unfortunately, pretty much anything I can think of, including attacking, would require feats and as you noticed you already have quite a few budgeted for.
If it was me, I'd skip the whole diehard, endurance and fast healer plan (or at least delay it until higher levels when I would have more con from a con boosting item) and either put in to some melee ability or something else. I think a Orodin build would work well for this concept, with probably 2 levels of paladin. With that you could fairly easily build either a fairly effective melee or ranged attacker (especially when you had smite active, although that would be a quite limited resource) or you could go for a dazzling display build and be able to debuff enemies (taking a secondary controller roll when you didn't need to perform in your major support role). Swift action lay on hards healing for yourself would be a nice benefit too.
If your primary vision of this character is to be a healer and damage soaker with Life Link and Shield Other, I strongly recommend investing in wands of Cure Light Wounds (for healing out of combat) and Wands of Cure Serious/Critical Wounds (for in-combat emergency heals) so you're not burning your spells too much every fight. To keep yourself alive while Life Linking with multiple party members, you can swiftcast a cure spell, and use a wand of cure serious wounds, and a move action, all in the same round. That's pretty big. You're going to need Die Hard and Fast Healer for those tough fights, but don't become reliant upon it or your DM is going to become reliant upon it as well, just so he can provide your group with a proper challenge.
Honestly, I'd just get a bow, but don't get any feats. You should have a way to damage when you don't want to expend any spells/wands, but investing feats into a ranged weapon gets expensive real quick for an Oracle, because you're feat starved. You'll want things like metamagic feats, spell perfection, dreamed secrets, etc, and investing even into one ranged feat is costly. You can save Paragon Surge for this and choose the ranged feat you'd like each day, or you can simply accent your magic casting with this additional feat as well.
I think an Oradin build with 2 lvls in Paladin would do you well, because your Cha gets applied to saves (huge survivability all around), and you can Smite a target, and you can increase your Hit/AC equal to your Cha vs this target. That's huge survivability in a boss fight with anything evil.
An Agile Composite Longbow (buff yourself with scrolls of Cat's Grace) + Precise Shot Feat (at minimum) would probably be your best bet. Alternatively, you could get Augmented Summoning Feat and prepare Summon Monster I-IX.
While I would gladly welcome the completely broken idea that archers can get Dex-to-Damage with a +1 weapon enchantment, Agile can not be placed of ranged weapons.
Requirement: This special ability can be placed only on melee weapons usable with Weapon Finesse.
Agile weapons are unusually well balanced and responsive. A wielder with the Weapon Finesse feat can choose to apply her Dexterity modifier to damage rolls with an agile weapon in place of her Strength modifier. This modifier to damage is not increased for two-handed weapons, but is still reduced for off-hand weapons.
If you are using Life Link and Shield Other then your actions will be used by healing yourself. You are going to take damage, and a lot of it even if you never get hit directly.
The go to feat for a life Oracle is Fey Foundling. Healing magic works better on you; +2 HP per die rolled. The go to archetype is Pei Zin Practitinor. You give up some class skills to get Lay on Hands.
The optimum race for a life Oracle is Gnome. They get a bonus to Con and Cha. They can also take an alternate race trait that allows them to be healed better (+1 hp per 2 caster levels).
For non-healing actions you can spam Guidance or get a longspear and use the reach to aid another