[PF] Replacing a Cleric

[Trekkin]

I'm in a Pathfinder campaign with an NPC cleric that neither the GM nor the players really feels like controlling, and we're all in agreement it would be easier to proceed with just the Gunslinger, Wizard, and Sorcerer...except that we need healing. If a bunch of arcane casters wanted to replicate cleric healing, presumably through items, how might they go about it?

[Squirrel_Dude]

Wand of Summon Monster II to summon
small positive energy elemental (3rd party monster)
Wand of Summon monster III to summon
lantern archons for temporary HP, or
silvanshee agations for stabilize.
Wand of Summon monster IV to summon
medium positive energy elemental (3rd party monster)
Wand of Summon Monster V to summon
Bralani Azata for cure serious wounds
Vulpinal Agation for remove disease
large positive energy elemental (3rd party monster)

[Saph]

Wand of Infernal Healing (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/i/infernal-healing) takes care of HP damage.

Just make sure not to get level or ability drained.

[Keneth]

Why do you need healing? Mid-combat, it's almost always inefficient, and post-combat, it's kind of irrelevant. Buy (or craft) a wand of cure light wounds, or even better, a wand of infernal healing. That'll cover all your healing needs in the aftermath of a battle.

Better still, convince the GM to use strain and injury (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jcp6udyHU-cURn5u7MzunsOfrCruk0ywDkvmdVk0fGQ/edit) rules.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Problem with a cure light wounds wand is none of them can use it (unless they have a bard) because they won't have it on their spell list.


Is the strain an injury variant like the vitality and wounds variant in Ultimate Combat?

[BWR]

Use Magic Device (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/skills/useMagicDevice.html#_use-magic-device)

Get wands and scrolls.

[Trekkin]

The problem with UMD is that the Sorcerer didn't take it and my Wizard has abysmal Charisma.

Infernal Healing is a good idea, and certainly takes care of HP damage. We're still stuck if any of us is blinded/paralyzed/etc, though, let alone ability drain and level drain as Saph said.

[BWR]

Force the sorc to dump all skill points in UMD when he levels. Infernal Healing until that time.

[Keneth]

Problem with a cure light wounds wand is none of them can use it (unless they have a bard) because they won't have it on their spell list.

They have a sorcerer and sorcerers get UMD. It should be easy to raise the modifier up to something decent at next level even if they have no skill ranks in it now.


Is the strain an injury variant like the vitality and wounds variant in Ultimate Combat?

You mean Wounds and Vigor. And no, it's not. But it's not entirely different either.


We're still stuck if any of us is blinded/paralyzed/etc, though, let alone ability drain and level drain as Saph said.

While inconvenient, these things only pop up occasionally. You can buy scrolls for emergency cases, but generally it should be fairly easy to find a cleric in a nearby town and request the spell. The fee for getting a spell cast for you is reasonably small.

[Trekkin]

Force the sorc to dump all skill points in UMD when he levels. Infernal Healing until that time.

If I could "force" my fellow players to do anything, the sorcerer wouldn't be taking necromancy spells almost exclusively and trying to raise a skeleton horde as an arcane caster.

[BWR]

What about the gunslinger? If he has a decent Charisma, he could put some ranks in UMD and get cleric items.
But honestly, if your group doesn't want to fix their own problems, that's their choice.
If the sorc wants to be a master of undead and the rest want to ignore healing, let them. If they want to use potions or pay NPCs to heal their injuries, it's their money.

[Trekkin]

What about the gunslinger? If he has a decent Charisma, he could put some ranks in UMD and get cleric items.
But honestly, if your group doesn't want to fix their own problems, that's their choice.
If the sorc wants to be a master of undead and the rest want to ignore healing, let them. If they want to use potions or pay NPCs to heal their injuries, it's their money.

He's a Mysterious Stranger, so he has an excellent Charisma. As for simply letting them, I need them alive and healthy so I have something to hide behind.

And it's not that they want to ignore healing, it's that our current solution is to let the cleric do it, and running the cleric is a burden no one wants. They absolutely want healing.

[BWR]

They want healing but don't want to be bothered to get it?
Sorry, but it seems like sheer laziness. Don't want to play a healer, don't want to bother with building a character that can employ healing, don't want to bring a healer along; you are basically left with heading back into town to do it or buying potions. Infernal Healing can work, if your gang isn't too picky about using evil spells.
Personally, I rule that if neutral characters use evil things like that too much, they end up evil. It goes faster if you know it's evil.

[Trekkin]

It's more that circumstances have changed since we started playing, and we'd rather not keep dragging the healbot along if we don't have to.

Whatever it says about us not personally wanting to run it seems less than relevant to its feasibility, though.

[Squirrel_Dude]

But... Clerics are awesome... Why wouldn't you want to play one?

[Saph]

You don't need a Cleric to restore HP, as long as you're willing to forego in-combat healing. Wands of Infernal Healing and Cure Light Wounds are cheap, and will take care of HP loss.

That said, it's worth bearing in mind that having no Cleric does make the game a lot harder. The real reason Clerics are so good is because they can fix everything that goes wrong with you that isn't HP damage. Scrolls and UMD can make up for it to some degree, but you'll probably want to avoid fighting undead.

[Ravens_cry]

You know, though CLW and IH wands are sweet for healing, I do think in-combat healing is more a necessity than people on this board often claim.
I've been using a witch as a healer, and it usually works so far, though this is low levels. I made a healing Oracle and he also worked quite well, though their downfall was a lack of specific spells. I could have picked my spells better, mind you.

[Keneth]

I do think in-combat healing is more a necessity than people on this board often claim.

Depends on the group. Ideally, in-combat healing is not only unnecessary, but downright wasteful. Ultimately though, D&D is a game of chance, and streaks of bad luck do happen. When a party member is dying on the ground because of a particularly nasty crit, and you've got no way to heal them back to consciousness, you find yourself wanting for a cleric. However this is far more likely to happen at lower levels, so the repercussions for taking off the training wheels, once you gain a few levels, are minimal.

[Ravens_cry]

Maybe, but the ideal is rarely the case. Also, even at higher levels, a fairly built Beatstick monster can smash a character down to negatives in a single set of iteratives, or make another one not survivable.

[Keneth]

Even if that happens, healing the character at that point is a questionable tactic at best.

[Kudaku]

I find that the need for in-combat healing varies from group to group.

Hm... It sounds like you already have a NPC cleric. If you can keep him around "in general" he'll be able to help out a lot with many of the spells that you'll need "occasionally" but not every day. Remove blindness, Restoration and so on.

For downtime HP, Infernal Healing just can't be beat.

So... It kind of sounds like you have a good setup. If you're okay with it, bring along the NPC cleric when you move from town to town but leave him to watch the horses / hang out at the inn / polish the airship while you're out being heroes, and hit him up when you need a Neutralize Poison or the like.

[Soras Teva Gee]

There's always a Handy Haversack stuffed to the brim with Cure Whatever Potions. Make it a custom item even so it just dispenses and keeps potions.

Also a Command Word, Cure Light Wounds item would be 1800 gold.

Tougher break for conditions which is what a healbot is really for.

[137beth]

So no one has UMD? No problem! Have someone (anyone, really, anyone with a CHA of 6 or higher) put 1 skill point into UMD. One, no more, no less. Get a ring which boosts UMD. Nonepic rings can give a boost to a single skill of up to +30. But you don't need +30, you only need to hit a DC of 20 to activate wands, and you can take 10 out of combat. So really, you are looking at getting a +9 bonus on top of your one skill-rank (the class-skill bonus makes up for your charisma penalty if you have Cha 6). This can be afforded for the one-time price of 8100 (4050 if you craft it yourself). There, now you get wands.
You can do even better if you divide the skill bonus between competence bonus (bonus squared times 100) and another bonus type (bonus squared times 200 times 1.5 for similar abilities on the same item). The sweet spot is a +7 competence bonus and a +2 of some other bonus type, for 6100 gold. Done!

Wait a minute...
is Circle Chief one of the payers in this game:smalleek:?

[Trekkin]

Of course not, 137ben. He isn't around anymore.

Incidentally, good point on the math.

[avr]

If the gunslinger has a decent wisdom and some ranks in the heal skill, that might be helpful. Bandages of rapid recovery (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/a-b/bandages-of-rapid-recovery) or a vest of surgery (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/vest-of-surgery) would make it more so.

Edit: and/or healer's gloves (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/e-g/gloves-healer-s).

[JusticeZero]

Doesn't a sorcerer get UMD and use Cha as a casting stat? Invest in wands of cure light wounds. Alternately, pick up some stuff like pearly white spindle ioun stones and pass them around to refill people over time.

[137beth]

Doesn't a sorcerer get UMD and use Cha as a casting stat? Invest in wands of cure light wounds. Alternately, pick up some stuff like pearly white spindle ioun stones and pass them around to refill people over time.

Ah, but the sorcerer doesn't want to get UMD:smalltongue: He just wants to be healed without having to do anything. Hmm...

[Pilo]

Plane shift to the positive energy plan.
Create a intelligent magic item which can cure light wounds 3times per day or better (cost 1200gp).
Pearly White Spindle ioun stone.
...

[BWR]

Pay 2000gp for an at-will Cure Light Wounds stone.

[Trekkin]

Ah, but the sorcerer doesn't want to get UMD:smalltongue: He just wants to be healed without having to do anything. Hmm...

Again, I'm not seeing how this is such a bad thing. So do fighters, rogues, and wizards in the classic four-member party, after all. I don't expect to have to provide my own meatshields or pick my own locks; the martial classes don't expect to have to self-heal and self-buff. We all picked our roles, and our classes, long before it was brought up that the NPC cleric was getting tiresome to run. Truth be told, we had always built it to be replaced when a player was found who wanted to play a divine caster...and that never happened, so things have worn thin.

I'm just not getting where this sense that my fellow players are acting entitled is coming from. Sure the synergy might not be absolutely optimal, but I like being part of a party of beloved characters more than a party of maximally effective characters*. Heck, I'm playing a halfling in an int-based class.

If I ever gave the impression I resent or am somehow put off by the choices of my fellow players, I'm sorry for that. I can't see any real point in trying to blame people for running with concepts they like, even if I personally disagree with them -- especially when no one was aware this problem would pop up later.

* presuming they were somehow mutually exclusive. Usually they aren't, of course.
As for fixing the problem:

I do like the idea of the vest of surgery and the gloves; those will help a lot with the diseases we keep seeing. It sounds like conditions are more of a lost cause, though, although Infernal Healing is definitely going to help -- especially the Greater version. In the past we've run into lucky hits or lucky crits that have seen half the party knocked near or past zero; fast healing would have been perfect then.

[Keneth]

Pay 2000gp for an at-will Cure Light Wounds stone.

I think that's one of those things where GM's discretion is advised, much like the 8000 gp gloves of constant true strike. It's why the guidelines for crafting custom items are only guidelines.

[BWR]

Oh I agree, but it's an idea.

[JusticeZero]

Ah, but the sorcerer doesn't want to get UMD:smalltongue:
Then he'll get a lot of rest waiting for days for natural healing rules to work. Wands and UMD really is the most efficient option here. It isn't crimping anyone's style to burn through a wand while everyone is polishing loot.
Seriously. Just lose the cleric full stop. Don't replace him with any other NPC. There are plenty of ways to patch up available to them.