Sorcerer of Healing

[BowStreetRunner]

This is just theoretical at this point. I'm up to level 14 so far, with 6 more levels to fill.


Race: Silverbrow Human [thanks to Kuulvheysoon for the race and substitution level recommendation]
Classes: Sorcerer 7 / Combat Medic 5 / Paragnostic Apostle 2
Dragonblood Substitution level at 1st for Draconic Heritage (Gold) [for Heal as class skill], 4th for the SLA [applied to one of my domain spells], and 7th for the additional 4 known spells.
Domain Access ACF at 5th for Healing Domain [healing spells and untyped +1 CL on all healing spells].
Feats: Combat Casting, Dodge [these two are prerequisites for Combat Medic], Augment Healing [as RogueDM said, if I'm going to heal, heal like a boss], Touch of Healing [for the out-of-combat healing but also for the additonal +1 competence to CL for conjuratin (healing) spells]
From Paragnostic Apostle, taking Knowledge is Power: Divine Understanding (Healing) [for a +1 untyped bonus to CL for Healing domain spells] and Mind Over Body [for a +1 untyped bonus to CL on conjuration (healing) spells].
I can pick up the spells Hoard Life (4th, RD) and Undying Vigor of the Dragonlords (5th, DM) which are both Conjuration (healing) Sorcerer spells to take further advantage of the Combat Medic class features beside just the domain spells, plus they both interact well with Draconic Heritage.
I'm sure I will pick up some magic items along the way as well. The Armband of Maximized Healing [thanks NevinPL] looks ideal. It will effectively maximize my top three healing spells below Heal.


Another option would have been Rainbow Servant. With a DM that buys the 'text trumps table' rationale for the PrC gaining full caster levels, S 5 / CM 5 might make an interesting entry point. [My DM does not allow this. :smallfrown:]

Sentinel of Bharrai is a bit feat intensive, but it does have a sort of lay on hands ability that might also work with this.

Help me out playground. What else can I do with this? The idea of a Sorcerer being able to partially fill in a healing role has me just a little intrigued.

EDIT: Thanks for all of the great ideas so far.

[Big Fau]

Buy a few sets of Healing Belts and Inquisitor's Bracers and a handful of wands of Lesser Vigor. Pimp-slap people to heal them, and don't use spell slots to do it.

[RogueDM]

Augment Healing feat from Complete Divine. Add +2 points of healing per spell level to any Conjuration [Healing] spell. If you're gonna heal, heal like a boss.

[Kuulvheysoon]

If you can fit in Silverbrow Human instead of regular human, you'll be be able to take the dragonblood sorc ACF and loose your familiar for a free Draconic Heritage, freeing up a feat.

[NevinPL]

Arcane Disciple from Complete Divine can grant you all the necessary healing spells, if you worship some god with healing domain, and it isn't as "painful" as Domain Access.
Ring of Mystic Healing from MIC is nice.
Armband of Maximized Healing (MIC) is even nicer.
Blessed Bandage (MIC) is useful, but probably more on low levels.

[Psyren]

The idea of a Sorcerer being able to partially fill in a healing role has me just a little intrigued.

Pathfinder has the False Priest (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/n-r/razmiran-priest) PrC for sorcerers. This lets them fool people into thinking they are healers - eventually, they become so good at it that they fool the cosmos and actually heal wounds.

[BowStreetRunner]

If you can fit in Silverbrow Human instead of regular human, you'll be be able to take the dragonblood sorc ACF and loose your familiar for a free Draconic Heritage, freeing up a feat.
This definitely works better than straight human. I don't really care about the extra skill point, and the familiar is something I'm happy to give up because it advances off of sorcerer levels and not PrC levels. A Silverbrow Human Dragonblood Sorcerer effectively gets 3 bonus feats including the Draconic Heritage that we already established we need. Very good idea! :smallcool:

Arcane Disciple from Complete Divine can grant you all the necessary healing spells, if you worship some god with healing domain, and it isn't as "painful" as Domain Access.
I'm not sure on this one.

On the one hand we have Domain Access, an ACF from CC available at 5th level that gives you the domain power and effectively replaces one spell slot of each level with the domain spell for that level. It would appear you still cast as a sorcerer for these spells.
On the other hand we have Arcane Disciple, a feat from CD available with 4 ranks each of Knowledge (religion) and Spellcraft that does not give you the domain power but does allow you to cast one domain spell of each level each day, leaving you free to use those slots for other spells if you wish. Wisdom becomes your casting ability for these spells, so you would need a WIS of 19 to cast all 9 domain spells.

Domain Access may still work better here - it does not take a feat or require a high WIS score. The drawback is you do not have the flexibility to cast other spells with those slots. Plus you also get the domain power of +1 CL for all healing spells.

EDIT:

Ring of Mystic Healing from MIC is nice.I had to drop this one, as it is another competence bonus. :smallannoyed:

[Valwyn]

I like the idea. :smalltongue:

An amulet of retributive healing will let you basically twin your healing spells (especially nice when Combat Medic gets you Spontaneous Heal). A hair shirt of suffering let's you cast Cure Serious Wounds 1/day on other people (but not yourself). A shirt of the leech lets you steal healing spells to heal yourself. An amulet of emergency healing can heal either you or an ally for 1d4+1 HP as an immediate action 1/day. An angelhelm lets you cast Cure Critical Wounds (and a few other spells) 1/day. A circlet of solace makes your healing spells give a +5 vs disease, fear, and poison 3/day. If you manage to get Lay on Hands/Wholeness of Body/similar, get a set of caduceus bracers to heal ability damage or remove the dazed, fatigued, or sickened conditions.

There are a few reserve feats that could come in handy: Touch of Healing and Mitigate Suffering. They both add a +1 to your Healing spells (I think they stack with each other, but I'm not sure).

If you go into Sacred Exorcist, there's a few divine feats that either give fast healing or improve your healing spells. If you manage to dip into Contemplative you could get access to another domain.

The Healing Hands skill trick lets you automatically stabilize a character and heal 1d6 HP.

The Healing Commander feat lets you make a rally check to improve an ally's morale when you heal him.

This (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19871786/A_Players_Guide_to_Healing_%28And,_why_you_will_be _Just_Fine_without_a_Cleric_to_heal%29) might give you some ideas.

PS: Can you tell I like healers? :smallbiggrin:

[BowStreetRunner]

So using this build so far I would have a 14th level Sorcerer with 7 healing domain spells per day (going up to 9 by 18th level) plus the use of Heal in any 6th level or higher slot. Each of these would also benefit from a bonus effect (Sanctuary, REF save bonus, or Aid) and be cast at +4 CL. I would also have one healing spell that I could cast as an SLA 3 times per day, and an item that allows me to maximize 3 healing spells per day. With these plus any items I pick up that allow any character to do healing, I think that is a solid base for this concept.

Now the question becomes, what to do with the rest of the levels? By this point I only have a BAB of +6, so I'm not thinking Gish is a realistic secondary role. I still have plenty of other spells available - so blaster or battlefield controller are viable alternatives. And with 6 more levels to fill I can pick up some more abilities to help.

[Alienist]

Augment Healing feat from Complete Divine. Add +2 points of healing per spell level to any Conjuration [Healing] spell. If you're gonna heal, heal like a boss.

Boss level healing in D&D is done with the Truenamer.

[Alienist]

So using this build so far I would have a 14th level Sorcerer with 7 healing domain spells per day (going up to 9 by 18th level) plus the use of Heal in any 6th level or higher slot. Each of these would also benefit from a bonus effect (Sanctuary, REF save bonus, or Aid) and be cast at +4 CL. I would also have one healing spell that I could cast as an SLA 3 times per day, and an item that allows me to maximize 3 healing spells per day. With these plus any items I pick up that allow any character to do healing, I think that is a solid base for this concept.

Now the question becomes, what to do with the rest of the levels? By this point I only have a BAB of +6, so I'm not thinking Gish is a realistic secondary role. I still have plenty of other spells available - so blaster or battlefield controller are viable alternatives. And with 6 more levels to fill I can pick up some more abilities to help.

If you're going to do in combat healing the best thing is for it to not suck extra actions.

Run Prestige Paladin + Battle Blessing past your DM. He/she seems kinda restrictive, but might be amenable to allowing you to cast from a small subset of your spells (the healing ones, or anything on the base paladin's spell list) as a swift.

Alternately, has anyone mentioned this bad boy:

http://dndtools.eu/feats/players-guide-to-eberron--13/mastery-of-day-and-night--1897/

Allows you to insta-maximise your healing spells, without bumping their levels up.

[BowStreetRunner]

Boss level healing in D&D is done with the Truenamer.
Run Prestige Paladin + Battle Blessing past your DM.
The point is to make the sorcerer more versatile. As he would still retain the rest of his casting ability, he could be a blaster or battlefield controller while also partly filling the role of healer.

Mastery of Day and Night sounds very good for an Eberron version of this build.

[Maginomicon]

Take the Divine Sorcery feat (Dragon Magazine #343 page 88) at level 1 and choose the healing domain. You gain the domain's granted power and each day you can add one spell of your choice from the healing domain to your spells known list. Boom, you're now essentially just as effective as a cleric at healing (spontaneously casting Cure Serious Wounds? Yes please!).

[Fouredged Sword]

This is begging for warweaver and a healing hymn bard sidekick. You should be healing everyone 1d8+25 HP with a first level spell slot.

[Valwyn]

For extra spells, I'd say extra actions, mobility, and battlefield control. Healing Touch is a Necromancy [Good!] spell that heals the target of up to 10d6 HP, but inflicts that amount on yourself (BoED). Dispel Evil would let you get into Sacred Exorcist and get Turn Undead.

Is it possible to reverse the Mailman so that instead of shooting Spheres of Anihilation, you deliver healing spells?

If you are neutral (or evil), you could go into Fiend Blooded and get a few free spells. In particular, Healing Sting (Magic of Faerun), Hibernate (Frostburn), and Manifest Life (The Forge of War) could be useful. Healing Sting is similar to Vampiric Touch, but it actually heals you. Hibernate could come in handy for an emergency. Manifest Life lets you steal positive energy and use it to heal yourself or others. There's also Weighed in the Balance (Underdark), but it only worth it if the whole party is True Neutral (or if there are undead around). And of course, Death Ward is also a Necromancy spell. ;)

[Person_Man]

Yeah, definitely look into Warweaver PrC. The ability to cast a single spell and have it effect everyone in your party (within various weird limits) is very potent.

You can also take a look at the Incarnate and/or Soulcaster (Incarnum/Spellcaster Thurge PrC). Incarnate has a number of worthwhile healing and magic synergy tricks (that would take a long time to explain here, but if you're interested, I could go into it).

[Nightraiderx]

Magic of the Land (http://www.realmshelps.net/cgi-bin/featbox.pl?feat=Magic_of_the_Land)

Because healing while you buff is oh so good. and also for dragon blood:

Draconic Vigor (http://www.realmshelps.net/cgi-bin/featbox.pl?feat=Draconic_Vigor)

These coupled with Incarnum's Paladrons and a few points of incarnum and now you can buff and heal or heal yourself while you heal others.

[Prime32]

The Dragonmarked Sorcerer feat from Dragon #351 adds all the spells (minus Siberys) from one dragonmark to your spells known, and also counts as a dragonmark for prereqs (there's some good stuff in the Dragonmarked splat). Halflings, as long as they don't use subraces, have access to the Mark of Healing, granting them cure light wounds, cure serious wounds, heal, lesser restoration, neutralize poison, remove disease and restoration.

[nedz]

Combat Medic (Heroes of Battle p99)
Available at level 6, if you can cast cure light wounds.

Use either the domain casting ACF or the Arcane Disciple feat for this.

[ArqArturo]

Arcane Disciple (Healing) is good. I recommend Apollo for the deity of choice (He's a Chaotic Good version of Pelor :D ).

Also, there's the Stigmata feat from BoED. I'm not so thrilled with this one because you have to lose 1 point of Constitution (temporarily) to give healing per level to a character. Also, you need Nimbus of Light, but in my experience, this feat makes for a great Diplomacy helper, since the feat describes that everyone identifies the one under the nimbus as a representative of Good.