[Pathfinder] GMPC help

[meemaas]

For my upcoming and first campaign, i intend on adding a GMPC to be their healbot. The party i'm gonna have is a rogue, a magus, and a druid who would rather play with her class features than have to worry about healing. All three are fine with the concept of a support healbot, and i'm looking for suggestions on what to build so i'm not stepping on their feet, just keeping them alive and helping them enjoy it. My current concept to support them is a whip wielding tripper oracle of life, dedicated to helping the party live through combat and have an easier time with it. Thanks in advance for any advice you have.

[CommodoreCrunch]

Tripping can be rather powerful in the wrong hands, and you have too much knowledge of the encounters to be anything but the wrong hands. I've seen a trip build GMPC before, and it wasn't pretty. It had to be retired because the GM couldn't stop himself from using "inside" knowledge of the best foes to lockdown. The end result was that he himself made encounters that should have been challenging too easy for the party.

I've found that when a GMPC is necessary, pure, unadulterated healbot is best. Like seriously, do nothing but heal. The more tactics and utility you try to bring into the build, the more you risk winning encounters for the party, and they won't appreciate that.

On the plus side, you can optimize healing pretty well. Touch of Healing and Augment Healing are pretty damn useful feats. Imbued Healing is also nifty.

[Tyndmyr]

For my upcoming and first campaign, i intend on adding a GMPC to be their healbot. The party i'm gonna have is a rogue, a magus, and a druid who would rather play with her class features than have to worry about healing. All three are fine with the concept of a support healbot, and i'm looking for suggestions on what to build so i'm not stepping on their feet, just keeping them alive and helping them enjoy it. My current concept to support them is a whip wielding tripper oracle of life, dedicated to helping the party live through combat and have an easier time with it. Thanks in advance for any advice you have.

Tripper /= support healbot.

Don't make a GMPC. Make a hired healer. Ideally, the healer class(Miniature's Handbook, 3.5). It's a full caster what's great at healing, and not great at other roles. Have one of your PCs run her(ideally one who is easily bored/needs more things to do to keep him out of trouble), and only overrule their use of her if they ask her to do things she's unwilling to do(like obviously suicidal things). Have her negotiate with the party for a minor bit of pay, and just chill in the back and heal.

[meemaas]

The entire party is brand new to the game, and none of them would really be able to handle two characters at once. But i understand what you mean. That idea is out of the window then. I don't plan on doing any 3.5 converts, but sticking with the oracle fully optimized for healing sounds like a plan. I planned on having him devoted to follow one of the party members and more or less following their lead, than anything else.

[PersonMan]

To be fair, you haven't heard from the anti-anti-DM/GMPC people yet. Yes, this comes up a lot. Yes, there are two main 'camps'.

I'd say that what you have planned is pretty good though. If I were you, I'd have a few ideas as to the personality of the healbot, just in case the stereotypical PC tunnel vision kicks in and they do nothing but talk to McHealer all day for some reason.

I've had experience with this - having a DMPC healbot, that is. It worked pretty well. I'd say, as long as you don't stray into fighting the fights for them, etc. it should be fine. A few buffs can never hurt, either. I have yet to find a player who doesn't like to hear 'on his turn, Bob the DMPC uses [buff spell] on [character name]'.

[Tyndmyr]

The entire party is brand new to the game, and none of them would really be able to handle two characters at once. But i understand what you mean. That idea is out of the window then. I don't plan on doing any 3.5 converts, but sticking with the oracle fully optimized for healing sounds like a plan. I planned on having him devoted to follow one of the party members and more or less following their lead, than anything else.

3.5 -> PF converts are terribly easy. You certainly don't HAVE to, of course...a healbot is a healbot, as long as you keep the focus tight, other things don't matter, but the ease of conversion and available material is an advantage of PF.

So long as you have her basically following the direction of a PC, that's fine. They don't need to track her mechanically to exercise narrative control...and that's what the DMPC problem is all about. If the DM is using the DMPC to exert control on the party from within, or as an active role in the players bit of the story, conflict or unhappiness is extremely likely. Who manages the stats...meh. I prefer to have a player do it solely because as DM, I already have a rather ridiculous amount of stats/backstory to manage for NPCs, but that's a logistical detail, not a necessity.

As long as she's a pure healer and basically following party direction, and avoids the spotlight, should be fine. In fairness, many people refer to this as a hireling/etc instead of a DMPC, though.

[pres_man]

First off, don't play the Healer from the Miniatures Handbook. It is a terrible class, it doesn't even heal well.

Instead, either go straight cleric taking the selective channeling feat or go oracle and select only healing, restoring, and removing spells (if you run out of spells of these types to select, take some summon monster and that way you could call help if things started to look bad).

[Tyndmyr]

First off, don't play the Healer from the Miniatures Handbook. It is a terrible class, it doesn't even heal well.

Instead, either go straight cleric taking the selective channeling feat or go oracle and select only healing, restoring, and removing spells (if you run out of spells of these types to select, take some summon monster and that way you could call help if things started to look bad).

Er, it does heal well. It's spell list is limited, yes, and almost everything on it is heal/condition removing oriented*, but it has all the categories of that covered, and it gets several spells at an earlier level than clerics do.

In high op realms, the cleric has the advantage of getting boosts from domains and such, but if you want a solid healer without a lot of tweaking, the healer fills that role very well. Feats like Augment Healing work just as well on the healer as the cleric, too.

*There are notable exceptions, specifically Gate...but the theme is clear.

[pres_man]

Er, it does heal well. It's spell list is limited, yes, and almost everything on it is heal/condition removing oriented*, but it has all the categories of that covered, and it gets several spells at an earlier level than clerics do.

In high op realms, the cleric has the advantage of getting boosts from domains and such, but if you want a solid healer without a lot of tweaking, the healer fills that role very well. Feats like Augment Healing work just as well on the healer as the cleric, too.

*There are notable exceptions, specifically Gate...but the theme is clear.

The fact that it is a prepared caster makes all of that irrelevant. Unless you happen to pick the exact right condition removing and healing spells in the exact right proportions you are going to be lacking.

A cleric did better straight healing since it could use all of its prepared slots to prepare condition removing spells and then spontaneously convert them into cure spells as necessary.

Even better was the Favored Soul, which as a spontaneous caster could pick and choose at the time of casting. The Oracle is the PF version of this class.

Now the Healer would have been a good healer class if it was a spontaneous caster, or if could even just convert to healing spells like a cleric.

Another nice 3.5 class to put in the mix if you are open to multiclassing is the dragon shaman. They can get an ability to heal everyone up to 1/2 their full hps. You can do that then using healing spells from another class to get them full.

[Yora]

If PCs running out of hp is the only problem, then why not just have enemies deal less damage and leave out the NPC entirely?

[Tyndmyr]

The fact that it is a prepared caster makes all of that irrelevant. Unless you happen to pick the exact right condition removing and healing spells in the exact right proportions you are going to be lacking.

Most of the conditional spells can wait till the following morning. Restoration? You've got a day at worst(neg levels). It's no biggie. Remove Curse? If you've prepared one for the day, you've almost certainly got more than enough.

Yora's solution is also fairly elegant. It'll also give them more appreciation for healing if it isn't free on tap whenever they want it.

[pres_man]

Most of the conditional spells can wait till the following morning. Restoration? You've got a day at worst(neg levels). It's no biggie. Remove Curse? If you've prepared one for the day, you've almost certainly got more than enough.

Oh sure, you can wait a day to deal with conditional effects, but again, that just means it is no better than the cleric. You'd think a Healer class would be better, at best it is on equal standing and often it is worse.


Yora's solution is also fairly elegant. It'll also give them more appreciation for healing if it isn't free on tap whenever they want it.

I personally wouldn't characterize it as "elegant" and here is why. If there is a PC healer in the groups, the enemies do a certain level of damage. When there isn't, the enemies start doing less damage. That seems strange from an in game perspective. Why when we had a healer, the orcs always had greataxes, but now that we don't, they only carry handaxes?

[Tyndmyr]

I personally wouldn't characterize it as "elegant" and here is why. If there is a PC healer in the groups, the enemies do a certain level of damage. When there isn't, the enemies start doing less damage. That seems strange from an in game perspective. Why when we had a healer, the orcs always had greataxes, but now that we don't, they only carry handaxes?

It's mostly only because they're noobs. You softpedal things a bit for new players, ease them into the game.

If an experienced group rolled up with no healer, meh. Nothing changes. You've got one more damage dealer or controller or something, so you SHOULD be taking less damage per combat. My friday group is currently in this situation, has been for several levels(and the only healer they ever had was the truenamer), but have been managing quite well.

So, regardless of if you give them a healer or easier encounters...it's to let them get on their feet and understand the system well.

[DrDeth]

Here is something I wrote about DMPCs a little while ago: Confessions of a repentant DMPC running DM
Hi, I have been DMing since around 1975 or so. And, like many of you, I used to run DMPCs. Funny, most of the time, when other DM’s did it, I didn’t much care for it, or even actively hated it. But I never said anything about it to my DM. I did complain to my fellow players and once I even stopped showing up for the games.
Then, I got into a conversation with one of my players, and we’d both been playing in another DM’s game, where that DM ran a DMPC. The other player & I were complaining about this. Then, I thought smugly to myself- “But of course, everyone likes it when *I* run a DMPC…” …then it hit me. No, they didn’t. It was just that I wasn’t obnoxious about it like the guy most of us walked out on.
Then I thought, well, maybe sometimes the party needs another PC Usually a healer)- then I thought about seeing others introduce a NPC, which was roleplayed by the DM during the introduction, then handed over to the players to run- with the DM stepping in if the players got silly or stupid.
I then thought back about the ONE DM I had where we all loved her DMPCs- then realized her DMPCs never did anything- well maybe healed us after battle or said things like “Hmm, I wonder what the Elvish word for “friend” is?”. Sure, she roleplayed, but the party was always her protector, not the other way around, and during combat or adventuring she did almost nothing. In fact many times we had no idea of what class she was- and of course, it didn’t matter. Her DMPC was just a Macguffin.
I then swore off the bad habit forever. Now, if the party needs another PC, I give them a real NPC- as above, one they run.

Now, Op, you can very well do the type of NPC I mentioned above- one that just heals the party after combat, has no combat skills, no classes, no real HP, etc. One that does full defense all the time during combat.

[Tekren]

Adept.

Sure, its silly. A NPC-classed GMPC. But if what you want is a healbot, that is what you do.

I ran a low-op one-shot game a few months ago. Halfling rogue, ranger and barbarian for PCs. I added a human adept named Harry as a healbot, and when he ran out of spells, he said "That's all i know how to do!" He used the 'aid another' action in combat, but didn't really do much. He was a supporting character. He was meant to be.

For some reason, the party named themselves "Harry and the Halfling Heroes". I think that he was the least annoying GMPC ever, but I was behind the screen, and am therefore biased.



... Harry and the Halfling Heroes is a great band name. Just Saying.

[Doug Lampert]

If PCs running out of hp is the only problem, then why not just have enemies deal less damage and leave out the NPC entirely?

Or just give the Druid a magic stick of cure light wounds and forget about it.

HP restoration outside of combat isn't a big deal.

[Andreaz]

For out-of-combat healing, all your needs are answered by wands of Cure Wounds. Preferably Light.
For an actually useful healer class, try the Vitalist (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=222365).

[DrDeth]

Or just give the Druid a magic stick of cure light wounds and forget about it.

HP restoration outside of combat isn't a big deal.

Or Lesser Vigor.