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balistafreak
2010-07-10, 04:38 PM
The healing available in psionics, as far as I can tell, is pretty terrible. Barring "healing" through PVS, are there any good ways to be a Psionic healer?

Barring that, are there any good ways to heal through feats alone? Draconic Aura: Vigor comes to mind.

Snake-Aes
2010-07-10, 04:46 PM
The life mantle offers a few LoH-like powers, but I do not have any experience with them to tell you how good or bad they are. The level 1 power trades 1 pp for 2 hp as a standard action.

aivanther
2010-07-10, 04:47 PM
Life Mantle: Mend Wounds (complete psioncs). 11 pp for 55 hp seems a bit...off to me though.

Vizzerdrix
2010-07-10, 04:51 PM
I wanna say their is a set of low level powers that can be used to heal in a round about way. I think it was Vigor+ Share pain and repair construct or something. You swap the damage to your crystal

Optimystik
2010-07-10, 04:53 PM
Sangehirn (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040625c) lets you manifest a number of personal range powers on your teammates. They are the quintessential psionic healer.

All you need is a 3-level dip.

tyckspoon
2010-07-10, 05:04 PM
Life Mantle: Mend Wounds (complete psioncs). 11 pp for 55 hp seems a bit...off to me though.

As being too high or too low?

Snake-Aes
2010-07-10, 05:06 PM
As being too high or too low?

it's the same proportion for vigor.

Optimystik
2010-07-10, 05:08 PM
It seems fine to me, as that is the same HP/PP rate that Vigor has. (Ninja'ed)

For 4 additional PP you can extend the healing to everyone within 20 feet of you. Say 9 creatures are around you, that's 495 total HP healed for 15 PP.

tyckspoon
2010-07-10, 05:18 PM
It seems fine to me, as that is the same HP/PP rate that Vigor has. (Ninja'ed)

For 4 additional PP you can extend the healing to everyone within 20 feet of you. Say 9 creatures are around you, that's 495 total HP healed for 15 PP.

Well, yes, obviously- the reason I asked is because its traditional spellcasting competition at the same level is Heal, to which it does not compare well at all. The area effect option is better than Mass Cure X, because those are terrible terrible spells, but Vigorous Circle and definitely Mass Heal remain superior healing abilities. Sangehirn and the Life Mantle make it possible to be a psionic healer; they don't make you good at it.

Optimystik
2010-07-10, 05:28 PM
Well of course magic is better at healing - nobody is disputing that. Psionics is more about internal effects than external ones after all.

Draz74
2010-07-10, 05:55 PM
Stay far, far away from the Touch of Health power in CPsi. Even at Level 1 it's a terribly inefficient use of PP.

A straight Psion can actually do OK just with Empathic Transfer and PVS. Adding in Sangehirn and/or Mend Wounds (either of which makes it feasible to go Ardent instead of Psion) just improves matters.

Will a psionic character ever be as good a healer as a Cleric? No, of course not. But does a party need a healer as good as a Cleric to function? No.

Side note, Draconic Aura (Vigor) is a bit controversial. Dragon Magic doesn't really make it clear whether this particular aura can be grabbed via feat.

The other feat I know of that enables healing is Shape Soulmeld (Lifebond Vestments). Like Empathic Transfer, it heals others by hurting the healer, and therefore combos very nicely with PVS. But it's only really potent if you have some way to get a bunch of essentia. So ... someone who takes levels in the Soul Manifester PrC or uses the Psycarnum Infusion feat.

Prime32
2010-07-10, 06:00 PM
I wanna say their is a set of low level powers that can be used to heal in a round about way. I think it was Vigor+ Share pain and repair construct or something. You swap the damage to your crystalNah, sharing vigor with your psicrystal, then using share pain on it just allows you to soak up lots of damage. If you're a warforged, you can share psionic repair damage with your psicrystal to heal both of you at once (since you're both Constructs), making you very hard to kill.

If you really want a psionic healer, it's not too much of a stretch to adapt psionic repair damage into psionic cure wounds.

Zaq
2010-07-11, 11:59 AM
Barring that, are there any good ways to heal through feats alone? Draconic Aura: Vigor comes to mind.

Martial Study and Martial Stance for the low-level Devoted Spirit healing abilities works very well at the beginning of the game, though it fails to scale well if you don't keep investing in it.

Optimystik
2010-07-11, 01:08 PM
Stay far, far away from the Touch of Health power in CPsi. Even at Level 1 it's a terribly inefficient use of PP.

A straight Psion can actually do OK just with Empathic Transfer and PVS. Adding in Sangehirn and/or Mend Wounds (either of which makes it feasible to go Ardent instead of Psion) just improves matters.

Will a psionic character ever be as good a healer as a Cleric? No, of course not. But does a party need a healer as good as a Cleric to function? No.

Adding to the above; do not go more than 3 levels into Sangehirn - their list is very restricted, but Touch of Health applies to the powers in it no matter how you learn them. So cherry-pick the good stuff like Energy Adaptation and toss the rest.

Terazul
2010-07-11, 01:13 PM
If you're willing to use a bit of 3rd party, there's always Dreamscarred Press's Worldthought Medic (http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/worldthought-medic).

Optimystik
2010-07-11, 01:33 PM
If you're willing to use a bit of 3rd party, there's always Dreamscarred Press's Worldthought Medic (http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/worldthought-medic).

Ehhhhh.

These guys run into the same problem as Healers - too much focus on a very mediocre function. The 3/4 BAB and heavy armor are nice, but 11 powers known is pretty bad. Worse, their list is strangled. They get a little offensive ability (Crisis of Life, Fuse Flesh, and the attack versions of Shared Pain/Empathic Transfer), and Bend Reality to help fill some gaps Limited Wish-style, but ultimately they aren't worth it to me.

They are great NPC classes though (again, like Healers.) A WTM can sit at home on the material plane while the PCs venture say, to the Abyss, and load them down with healing and energy resistance up the wazoo while channel-surfing in his living room. Not only that, but everybody in the network gets interplanar telepathy, with each other as well as with him (better than Status!), and can even manifest powers from each other's heads without touching. This gets pretty huge if an Erudite is in the network.

Gensh
2010-07-11, 04:26 PM
Don't remember the writeup or have a link, but Hyperconscious has a class called psychic chirugeon. It had a healing touch class ability of some sort if I'm not mistaken.

Pechvarry
2010-07-12, 02:58 AM
Why avoid more than 3 levels in Sangehirn? Seems like 5 for fast healing 1 would be great with aforementioned abilities that damage the caster to heal others.

Also, according to that write-up:


: Beginning at 2nd level, a sangehirn gains additional power points per day and access to new powers as if he had also gained a level in whatever manifesting class he belonged to before he added the prestige class. The sangehirn can choose powers from the sangehirn power list below only.
...

If a character had more than one manifesting class before he became a sangehirn, he must decide to which class he adds the new level of sangehirn for the purpose of determining power points per day, powers known, and manifester level.

This seems like some severe contradiction. Playing with the wording, I think maybe I can rationalize "access to new powers" implies access to what level of powers you have, not powers known. Meanwhile, "powers known" in the 2nd quote could, I guess, if I have to, see that as referring to "number of powers known", leaving us with power level and # known as previous class, but this powers list. Ugh. Please tell me I'm wrong and they just botched the Powers Known section (as they did the BAB, slightly).

crazedloon
2010-07-12, 03:49 AM
feats alone include

healing devotion which gives fast healing 1 + 1/5 levels for a minute/day with 1/turn attempt

with some psionic/magic transparency you can also qualify for
touch of healing which allows you to heal 3 hp per round (up to half hp) as long as you have enough pp to manefest a healing power

and a long about way to have full healing (out of combat) again with some transparency needed
mitigate suffering allows you to grant 1 temp ability point (to heal lost ability damage) as temp it is taken first when damage is taken
stigmata allows you to take 2 or more con damage to heal hp= level of target/2 con taken

you can take 2 damage than give yourself 2 temp ability points and rinse and repeat until the team is healed

ryzouken
2010-07-12, 04:33 AM
Body Adjustment/Affinity Field? d12+d12/2pp to you and all within 20ft?

Or, just outsource healing to magic items. Belts of Healing at low levels and at later UMD scrolls/wands of whatever healing you need.

Dip a level of Ur-Priest (sacrilege!) and take Touch of Healing to get everyone to half?

EDIT: and in defense of the Affinity Field, the idea would be to drop Affinity Field, Quicken the Body Adjustment, end turn, use Anticipatory Strike at next init count and dismiss the Field. Lots of healing, no chance for the enemy to take advantage of the field. Late game combo and eats your next turn's worth of actions, but you heal the entire party for upwards of 10d12 hp. You also hemorrhage pp...

Optimystik
2010-07-12, 07:39 AM
Ugh. Please tell me I'm wrong and they just botched the Powers Known section (as they did the BAB, slightly).

Unfortunately, your second interpretation is the right one - powers known as base class (-1 dead level), but from a very limited list.

In other words, a Wilder 10/Sangehirn 10 would get 10 powers known, just like a Wilder 19. The former would just have a much smaller list to choose from.

Does this mean you could end up with all the Sangehirn powers known and still have room for more? Well, yes, just as an Ardent could end up with two mantles that have less than 21 powers between them and be unable to learn more.

But in any case, there's no reason to stick with Sangehirn past 3; Healing Touch applies to the Sangehirn powers regardless of how you learn them, so just pick up the ones you want from your base class or a better PrC. The DR is nice, but if you really want it you can just manifest Biofeedback or something; it's not like they stack anyway.

Draz74
2010-07-12, 12:15 PM
Meh, Sangehirn has enough decent higher-level powers on its list that I can definitely imagine taking it to Level 5 eventually. Cherry-picking its better powers at Levels 4 and 5.

Level 3 is definitely a higher priority, though ... and I can't really imagine it ever being a good idea to go all the way to Sangehirn 10.

Pechvarry
2010-07-12, 01:05 PM
/Begins creation of underwhelming War Mind/Sangehirn.

It's not in the text of Biofeedback or in Sangehirn, but at least in core, DR/- seems to always stack with itself. Seems pretty reasonable for a DM to rule the same with psionics and basically see the Sangehirn DR as "making Biofeedback even better".

Optimystik
2010-07-12, 01:18 PM
/Begins creation of underwhelming War Mind/Sangehirn.

It's not in the text of Biofeedback or in Sangehirn, but at least in core, DR/- seems to always stack with itself. Seems pretty reasonable for a DM to rule the same with psionics and basically see the Sangehirn DR as "making Biofeedback even better".

Unfortunately, DR from multiple sources does not stack. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#damageReduction)


If a creature has damage reduction from more than one source, the two forms of damage reduction do not stack. Instead, the creature gets the benefit of the best damage reduction in a given situation.

subject42
2010-07-12, 01:57 PM
Why avoid more than 3 levels in Sangehirn? Seems like 5 for fast healing 1 would be great with aforementioned abilities that damage the caster to heal others.

You can get fast healing from a few other sources, as well. The best one for the Sangehirn might be the Silthilar (sp?) blood graft that gives you fast healing 2.

Lhurgyof
2010-07-12, 02:01 PM
Egh, healing doesn't make too much sense for psionics, certainly healing others.

okpokalypse
2010-07-12, 02:07 PM
Psionic healers are not only vastly inferior to divine casters, they're pretty much worse off than a 1-feat dip for any arcane caster as well who takes Arcane Disciple (Healing). Bah.

It comes with the territory though. Psionics has a lot of unique stuff that's just more fun. Plus, they get all their energy effects from one Power with snazzy specialties on each type :).