being a healer [build help]

[God Imperror]

Hi! I've been lurking the forums for some time and I would really appreciate some help.

I moved recently and I am going to start playing with a new group they seem to believe that an in combat healer is going to be necessary for the party and since they didn't seem to have loads of optimization I thought that I might play it.

Sources are no problem, although I haven't asked for dragon magazines (so I am counting those out) and the setting is eberron (so no faerun specific stuff).

We are starting at level 10 so that should be plenty of levels to work with. As far as I know the other characters have multiclassed and prced freely so I believe I can min max a little. Luckily flaws are allowed.

I am thinking on a cleric of the sovereign host. With sun and healing domains (casting healing domain spells spontaneously) and with mastery of day and night taking two levels of radiant servant of Pelor the Sovereign Host. That would allow me to do my stuff and drop a maximized empowered cure when necessary. I can also get divine metamagic maximize somewhere since I am going to need to take extra turning for the radiant servant.

Of course that leaves plenty of levels to work with. And I have two ideas for those.

Going into sovereign speaker and taking the feat imbued healing would allow me to give miscellaneous buffs with the heals. I still believe that granting low light vision (sun domain) or temporary hp (healing domain) are useful abilities worth a feat but sovereign speaker would mean more options.

Taking levels in combat medic, it doesn't lose caster levels though it has a two feat tax that is not really useful. Of course combat medic is only five levels long I could take sovereign speaker later.

Atm I am thinking of Cleric 5 / Combat medic 3 / Radiant Servant 2

Feats: Maximize Spell (lvl 1), Divine Metamagic: Maximize (human), Extra turning (flaw), Dodge (flaw), Combat casting (lvl 3), Imbued healing (lvl 6), Mastery of day and night (lvl 9).

So... any thoughts on that? Any better class combination? Any good spells to consider? I am probably going to look at battlefield control or some minor blasting.

[Gwendol]

This looks like a bit over the top healing to me, but then again I don't play at your table.
Mass lesser vigor is more likely to serve your group better than any in-combat healing, in general. Also, looking at ways to make your group perform better is likely going to pay off more than trying to patch them up as you go along. To me it looks like you are taking one of the most powerful and versatile classes in the game and shoehorn it into a single purpose heal-bot.
Instead of figuring out how to provide the best in-combat healing, look at ways to prevent your group to be hurt in the first place. Be that through annihilating the opposition yourself (see ClericZilla), or by buffing your team to the stratosphere, I leave that up to you.

[God Imperror]

While I agree with you my table wants an in combat healer, they seem to believe in evil dice gods that haunt them and kill them. And I am new to the table so I am not going to start a discussion of using clerics.

That's why I tried to build the character above, it still has most of the tricks of a cleric while being a good in combat healer.

So getting over the "do not play" or the "do not use in combat healing" advice any advice?

[Gwendol]

Yes. Don't maximize healing spells, just spontaneously cast them when needed. Pick DMM persist instead, and skip the awful dodge feat for MM extend. Now you can persist e.g. lesser vigor, which will confer the buffs, and work for practically all day on all in your team. While leaving you free to spend your standard actions in combat in a more versatile way. Also, just go straight cleric, or possibly cloistered cleric for more domains (as a cleric you always want more domains).

[only1doug]

Take the reserve healing Feat from Complete Champion: Touch of Healing.
This grants you Healing without using up a spell slot and you can still use the healing spells if the party really need them.

[Khedrac]

Maximised healing spells are great - they mean you know what you are getting so can use the right spell for the job, however if you cast a lot they will eat your higher level spell slots/turn undead attempts really fast.
So - if anyone else in the party ever casts healing spells Sacred Boost can be a better option. Yes its a two-round combo - one round to boost and one to cast a (free) maximised spell, but if there's another healing capable party member they can also be using your boost to drop maximised spells on people - the cleric in a party where I play an arcane heirophant finds it works well.
Probably more important is spell selection. Yes you can spontaneously cast all the Cure X Wounds spells, but often more critical are the ones you cannot spontaneously cast:
Insignia of Healing (lower level than Mass CLW and long range)
Close Wounds (poor healing but it is an immediate action)
Delay Death
Death Ward/Sheltered Vitality
Heal (though the 150 cap hurts)
Mass Heal

If you can work Combat Medic into your build you get to spontaneously cast Heal as well as having fun with the Healign Kickers.
I like the ACF that allows you to spontaneously cast the Rejuvenation spells, they are not often needed, but when needed they are really needed. Lesser Rejuv is probably better from a wand though.

Also another feat to look at is Chain Spell. Consider some of the following:
Chain Delay Death
Chain Sheltered Vitality
Chain Magic Vestment

One final point, I know most of the forum agree that there are usually more important things a healer can be doing in combat that healing people; well I find it depends on the group and optimisation levels. Using the above logic wands of CLW are all the healing you need (for hit points) given sufficient time to use them. In my experience playing Living Greyhawk I started to refuse to bring my 6th level archer (ranger/barbarian/hexblade/OotBI going Occult Slayer and usually main melee fighter by default) to average party level 4 tables if no healer was present - Wands of CLW were simply not enough. Yes the fight may end faster if the cleric (or other "healer") destroys the opponent - that does no good to the fighter (or other) who happens to be dying while he does so. The Healer needs to able to judge what to do when, but keeping someone alive is the most important thing they can do (if good aligned).

I hope some of the above ideas are useful. :smallsmile:

[Khatoblepas]

I rather like the Shadow Sun Ninja as a healer, myself, especially if you take Tomb Tainted Soul. they can deliver Positive energy-typed unarmed strikes, and if you pump up your unarmed strike you can be dealing the equivilant of a heal with every blow. True, you need to alternative between positive and negative, but it's most efficient healing. After all, who can argue with (up to) 160 points of healing almost at will? Most reasonable parties can't.

And not only that, you're also a Swordsage, so you can kick ass as well as heal. Just patch them up after the battle and if they do start complaining, have a positive energy touch prepared to give to them as a swift action.

Cleric is, as always, the superior option (exacerbated by DMM: Persist), but there's no need to hamstring your build in order to be a good healer. Touch of Healing, Persistant Mass Lesser Vigor, etc all leave your hands free for the important business of kicking ass. Archivist also gets Heal as a 5th level spell rather than an 8th (no turn undead though, so you'd have to take a level of Sacred Exorcist for your DMM fun).

[Gwendol]

Yes, but persisting mass vigor (or lesser...) will provide all day fast healing, without having to sacrifice high level spell slots for maximized healing. With fast healing on-going you shouldn't need to maximize healing spells.

[Togo]

There's four kinds of healing.

Healing A is where a party member needs lots of hp, right now, or they're going to die or the party will lose the fight. That's where you use your biggest healing spells. Maximise is an ok option, but consider also ring of mystic healing (MiC), the augment healing feat (CD), and other effects that boost your the effects of existing spells without taking an additional action. Also, since cure spells are some of the best options, you may just want to rely on spontaneous healing for this, rather than learning specific spells.

Healing B is out of combat healing. This happens after the fight, when there's no rush, and several small heals are just as good as one big one. This is where you try and heal as cheaply as possible. Fast healing effects are usually the best for this, particularly lesser vigour, but consider also things that effect multiple people at once, like sacred healing feat (CD), insiginia of healing, and so on..

Altertatively, single wand of lesser vigour will cure 550hp, at a rate of less than 2gp per hp. If you want to rely on wands, make sure you're not the only one buying them - healing items for the whole party should be bought by the whole party. If you don't like charged items, then consider instead getting craft wonderous item (a good idea anyway) and making healing belts (MiC). These don't run out, and everyone can use them.
Faith healing is another good one, although it relies on other characters sharing your religion.

Healing C is emergency healing. This is generally when someone is in trouble and will die without a few extra hp, but the focus is on keeping them alive, not getting them ready for the fight again. Close wounds is the classic spell for this situation, as it works on people who have already taken lethal damage. Various ranged healing effects also cover this.

Healing D is condition removal. This is your blindness, stun, disease, poison fatigue and other conditions, as well as ability damage and drain. My absolute favoruite spell for this is Panacea (SpC), but cure blindness, cure disease, and other spells fall into this category. The big problem is that these conditions are so specific - you can go nuts learning cure blindness every day and then not needing to cast it. Each is sufficiently rare that you might want to consider scrolls. Ability damage can be countered with a wand of lesser restoration - taking such damage is rare, but if you take abilty damage, you often take a lot all at once.

Best prestige class - probably radiant servant (CD). It's Pelor themed, and you get some anti-undead abilities, but the spontaneous maximise ability is probably the most useful.

And yes, make sure you have a lot of other options besides healing. Tracking everyone's hp and keeping them alive is more interesting than it sounds, since you often end up directing tactics as well, but people won't always be hurt. Get a few combat spells for those rare circumstances where you win initiative and noone has been hurt, and then stock up on buff spells and spells that are highly effective in narrow circumstances, because you won't be using them unless you need to.

[God Imperror]

Thanks for all the responses they were really helpful, some comment's though


just go straight cleric

I do like class features why should I go straight cleric? :smallfrown: I might switch to cloistered cleric, I will consult it with the DM. :smallsmile:


Take the reserve healing Feat from Complete Champion: Touch of Healing.

I considered that feat but I fear that since it can only heal up to half total hp it might be not good for combat healing, and I was asked to build for combat healing. I will probably take it some time down the line.


Maximised healing spells are great - they mean you know what you are getting so can use the right spell for the job, however if you cast a lot they will eat your higher level spell slots/turn undead attempts really fast.

I am using mastery of day and night that is a free maximize for every cure spell and every inflict spell that I cast (without prolonging the casting time). The DMM Maximize is for offensive purposes.


So - if anyone else in the party ever casts healing spells Sacred Boost can be a better option. Yes its a two-round combo - one round to boost and one to cast a (free) maximised spell, but if there's another healing capable party member they can also be using your boost to drop maximised spells on people - the cleric in a party where I play an arcane heirophant finds it works well.

No other real caster as far as I know. It is a 5 man party with a tanky knight - crusader, a barbarian, a ranged swift hunter, and an incarnate / psion. As far as I know the psion is not breaking the game and I would rather not break it. I can understand their need of a healer and I don't have a problem myself casting some healing spells in combat.


Probably more important is spell selection. Yes you can spontaneously cast all the Cure X Wounds spells, but often more critical are the ones you cannot spontaneously cast:
Insignia of Healing (lower level than Mass CLW and long range)
Close Wounds (poor healing but it is an immediate action)
Delay Death
Death Ward/Sheltered Vitality
Heal (though the 150 cap hurts)
Mass Heal

If you can work Combat Medic into your build you get to spontaneously cast Heal as well as having fun with the Healign Kickers.
I like the ACF that allows you to spontaneously cast the Rejuvenation spells, they are not often needed, but when needed they are really needed. Lesser Rejuv is probably better from a wand though.

Thanks for the spell recomendations :smallsmile:

I traded my spontaneous cure spells for spontaneously casting spells from the healing domain (that adds heal and mass heal to spontaneous spells, among others). I am probably also going to take the Rejuv ACF.

Atm I can spontaneously cast the following spells. (Note that all the cure spells are empowered and maximized for free)

lvl 1 Cure Light Wounds
lvl 2 Cure Moderate Wounds and Restoration, Lesser
lvl 3 Cure Serious Wounds
lvl 4 Cure Critical Wounds and Restoration
lvl 5 Cure Light Wounds, Mass
lvl 6 Heal
lvl 7 Regenerate and Restoration, Greater
lvl 8 Cure Critical Wounds, Mass
lvl 9 Heal, Mass


Also another feat to look at is Chain Spell. Consider some of the following:
Chain Delay Death
Chain Sheltered Vitality
Chain Magic Vestment

One final point, I know most of the forum agree that there are usually more important things a healer can be doing in combat that healing people; well I find it depends on the group and optimisation levels. Using the above logic wands of CLW are all the healing you need (for hit points) given sufficient time to use them. In my experience playing Living Greyhawk I started to refuse to bring my 6th level archer (ranger/barbarian/hexblade/OotBI going Occult Slayer and usually main melee fighter by default) to average party level 4 tables if no healer was present - Wands of CLW were simply not enough. Yes the fight may end faster if the cleric (or other "healer") destroys the opponent - that does no good to the fighter (or other) who happens to be dying while he does so. The Healer needs to able to judge what to do when, but keeping someone alive is the most important thing they can do (if good aligned).

I hope some of the above ideas are useful. :smallsmile:

I'll look into the chain mm once I see the power/optimization level of the party. For the moment I am probably going to do cleric stuff with status on all the party members and drop a cure spell when necessary, spontaneously cast from the healing domain, empowered (via the radiant servant ability), maximized (via mastery of day and night), imbued (via imbue healing, granting temporary hp) and depending on necessity kicked (via the combat medic). This way I might only have to cast a healing spell or two per combat, and I can do other stuff.

Thanks for the ideas they were really helpful.


Yes, but persisting mass vigor (or lesser...) will provide all day fast healing, without having to sacrifice high level spell slots for maximized healing. With fast healing on-going you shouldn't need to maximize healing spells.

I am not expending higher level spell slots for maximized healing :smallsmile: And mass vigor might prove inferior to maximized healing if the enemies focus on one of the characters and I need a really big heal.


There's four kinds of healing.

Healing A is where a party member needs lots of hp, right now, or they're going to die or the party will lose the fight. That's where you use your biggest healing spells. Maximise is an ok option, but consider also ring of mystic healing (MiC), the augment healing feat (CD), and other effects that boost your the effects of existing spells without taking an additional action. Also, since cure spells are some of the best options, you may just want to rely on spontaneous healing for this, rather than learning specific spells.

Thanks for the ring memo I forgot about it. I am certainly going to rely on spontaneous healing. Augment healing is great, would you take it over Imbue healing?


Healing B is out of combat healing. This happens after the fight, when there's no rush, and several small heals are just as good as one big one. This is where you try and heal as cheaply as possible. Fast healing effects are usually the best for this, particularly lesser vigour, but consider also things that effect multiple people at once, like sacred healing feat (CD), insiginia of healing, and so on..

Altertatively, single wand of lesser vigour will cure 550hp, at a rate of less than 2gp per hp. If you want to rely on wands, make sure you're not the only one buying them - healing items for the whole party should be bought by the whole party. If you don't like charged items, then consider instead getting craft wonderous item (a good idea anyway) and making healing belts (MiC). These don't run out, and everyone can use them.
Faith healing is another good one, although it relies on other characters sharing your religion.

I am considering being a silverbrow human and taking draconic aura (vigor) instead of imbued healing that should give everyone fh 2 up to half their total hp is that a good idea?


Healing D is condition removal. This is your blindness, stun, disease, poison fatigue and other conditions, as well as ability damage and drain. My absolute favoruite spell for this is Panacea (SpC), but cure blindness, cure disease, and other spells fall into this category. The big problem is that these conditions are so specific - you can go nuts learning cure blindness every day and then not needing to cast it. Each is sufficiently rare that you might want to consider scrolls. Ability damage can be countered with a wand of lesser restoration - taking such damage is rare, but if you take abilty damage, you often take a lot all at once.

I am probably going to have a couple of scrolls around for conditions and take the divine restoration ACF to cover the restoration damage.


Best prestige class - probably radiant servant (CD). It's Pelor themed, and you get some anti-undead abilities, but the spontaneous maximise ability is probably the most useful.

I got an OK to being a Radiant Servant of the Sovereign Host so that's the plan. I am only taking two levels though. Most of the spells from the healing domain are cure spells that can be maximized via mastery of day and night so they can be empowered and maximized with only two levels of radiant servant.


And yes, make sure you have a lot of other options besides healing. Tracking everyone's hp and keeping them alive is more interesting than it sounds, since you often end up directing tactics as well, but people won't always be hurt. Get a few combat spells for those rare circumstances where you win initiative and noone has been hurt, and then stock up on buff spells and spells that are highly effective in narrow circumstances, because you won't be using them unless you need to.

I am probably going to focus myself on battlefield control to keep enemies from hurting the squishy characters (once I figure who they are) and some small combat selection.

I am considering two builds at the moment

Silverbrow Human Cloistered Cleric 5 / Combat medic 3 / Radiant Servant of the Sovereign Host 2 with spontaneous healing domain and the sun domain granted power sacrificed for casting restoration spells spontaneously

Feats: Maximize Spell (lvl 1), Divine Metamagic: Maximize (human), Extra turning (flaw), Dodge (flaw), Combat casting (lvl 3), Draconic aura (vigor) (lvl 6), Mastery of day and night (lvl 9).

Silverbrow Human Cloistered Cleric 5 / Radiant Servant of the Sovereign Host 2 / Sovereign Speaker 3 with spontaneous healing domain and the sun domain granted power sacrificed for casting restoration spells spontaneously. And access to knowledge (CC), magic (SS), spell (SS) and celerity (SS) domains. It loses a caster level though.

Feats: Maximize Spell (lvl 1), Divine Metamagic: Maximize (human), Extra turning (flaw), Wordly focus (flaw), Imbue Healing (lvl 3), Draconic aura (vigor) (lvl 6), Mastery of day and night (lvl 9).

[Gwendol]

Looks like you have a nice build laid out, happy gaming!

Edit: so cleric spells aren't considered class features?

[God Imperror]

They are not class features, and as long as you take prcs that still progress spellcasting I don't see why you would bring them up.

BTW the build is almost an exact copy from the first post, changed a feat due to people insisting in out of combat healing.

[Bloodgruve]

Travel Devotion will allow you to get in, heal and get out again in the same round for 10 rounds once a day. Burn turning attempts if you need to do it multiple times a day.

Like a 'spring attack' heal of sorts. Yell "HEAL!" as you're running around the battlefield smacking your allies...

Blood~

[Gwendol]

There is the Healing pool ACF from complete champion that gives you a pool of positive/negative energy to use as needed for the cost of 1 fourth level spell slot. Could be an alternative to maximized healing in order to persist spells instead. Mass Bear's endurance, persisted comes to mind for your group.