Has anyone run into a player taking the Godless Healing/Mortal Healing feat chain?
I have a player who is a Summoner with the Divine spell list, but has these feats which I didn't really look at the flavor too close until our last session.
Would it even be possible to get any advantage from Mortal healing if you cast Divine spells?
Mortal Healing says you must follow the laws of Mortality, and the laws of Mortality says for its Anathema: solicit or receive divine or religious aid. And casting divine spells seems to break this rule.
Any thoughts?
Godless Healing requires that you not have a patron deity. This is impossible as a cleric, *deeply* dubious as a witch, and potentially entirely legit for an oracle (who steals their divine power from cosmic dissonance) or Sorceror (who was just born that way, and is channeling the magical power in their own blood).
Mortal Healing requires that you follow the Laws of Mortality. That one's a bit more hard-core. It requires you to disdain all ways of receiving help from or offering devotion to higher powers and/or religions. That's going to make a lot of Oracle concepts kind of dubious, but it shouldn't really be an issue for Divine Sorcerors. Again, it's the "following higher powers" thing that they object to, and there's no particular need for sorcerors to do that.
Thanks for the opinion. In my case it's a summoner (with Angel eidolon) and not a sorcerer, if that changes anything.
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If you search the forums, you'll find plenty of discussion on whether or not these options 'play well with others' in actual play.
Personally, I see them as a minefield of problems at best...
In your case, I can't see a Divine Summoner avoiding the 'solicit or receive divine or religious aid' anathema of the Laws of Mortality as literally every spell they cast sounds like 'Divine Aid' to me...
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In your case, I can't see a Divine Summoner avoiding the 'solicit or receive divine or religious aid' anathema of the Laws of Mortality as literally every spell they cast sounds like 'Divine Aid' to me...
Even having the Angel Eidolon sounds like receiving divine aid.
That said, I'm pretty sure that the balance reason for the anathema is so that you can't double up on the improved Medicine check healing and spell healing.
So if you tweak the anathema to be "receiving divine or religious healing", that would probably be sufficient for keeping things reasonably balanced.
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Mortal Healing turns itself off after receiving any form of divine healing, even if that healing has a decidedly non-deific source.
It seems likely that whatever sort of supernatural energy powers Mortal Healing is just fundamentally incompatible with divine magic, regardless of whether or not a god is involved.
Thanks for the opinion. In my case it's a summoner (with Angel eidolon) and not a sorcerer, if that changes anything.
Ah. I'd misread... and yeah, it changes things. You could conceivably be an angel summoner who doesn't follow a deity (though it would require some real backstory work to sell it at any table I might run). Godless Healing is a "maybe". Mortal Healing is a no-go, though. I'm going to agree with Taja that "an angel who follows me around and helps out in battle" counts as "receive divine aid" pretty much no matter how you slice it, and since you're getting your spells powers through your eidolon, your spells do to.
Now, technically that doesn't stop you. You could be a bad and obstinate Rahadoumite who was constantly violating the anathema of their faith because... reasons. I'd suggest that you RP as being constantly consumed by shame and/or guilt. Is this player RPing as being constantly guilt-wracked and at war with themselves, following a faith that they know they are constantly, dreadfully in violation of? I'm guessing not, given that there was an extended period where you "didn't really look at the flavor too close". If they have anything even remotely resembling a healthy relationship with their Eidolon, then I'd require that they switch the Mortal Healing feat out for something else. If they have any sort of meaningful and also healthy relationship with their Angel's patron, I'd say they should swap out the other as well.
...and if they desperately cling to their feats, and agree to adjust their character accordingly, then they are just handing you plot hooks. They're basically trying to serve two masters at that point, in a pretty real way, and that sort of thing always results in Fun. So... have fun with it.
Thanks for all the opinions. This player tends to look at the mechanics first and not pay attention to the flavor of the feat. I think if I asked him about the laws of Mortality he wouldn't know anything. It was a new option he just took at level-6.
Anyway I'll talk with him before our next session and we'll figure out a compromise. I just wanted to see if there was any sort of consensus out there before I bothered to bring it up, it's not disruptive mechanically, just kind of didn't seem to jive with his character choices.