Optimizing Healing as an offense

[paperarmor]

Can it be done? If so what is the best way to go about it?

[questionmark693]

How do you intend to use healing as an offense? Even if you manage to heal yourself so well you never die, you ahve to be able to do the damage to kill your enemy....I suppose you could weaponize healing spells against undead, but otherwise I don't really get what you're trying to do.

[NecessaryWeevil]

I imagine you'll have to clarify your question to receive useful answers. Are you asking about healing effects as bonus effects to an attack (e.g. Devoted Spirit maneuvers from Tome of Battle)? Do you mean optimizing BAB versus undead for delivering touch-range healing spells? Or are you looking for spells/abilities/tactics that can make receiving healing a bad (therefore weaponized) thing?

EDIT: Hmm, semi-swordsaged.

[paperarmor]

I mean the rule that too much positive energy (3* normal hit points) makes a being explode.

[eggynack]

I mean the rule that too much positive energy (3* normal hit points) makes a being explode.
That's not really a rule outside of the positive energy plane. You thus may need to make direct use of the positive energy plane to pull this off, perhaps through a planar bubble of some sort. A planar shepherd (FoE, 105) keyed to the positive energy plane could do it, though at that point you're running a character with infinite other ways to kill someone, so it would make little sense to healsplode them.

[Captnq]

Well, as far as laws go, I can't see why it would be on the books. A misdemeanor at best. It certainly couldn't be a felony. Why would you want to make optimized healing an offence punishable by law is beyond me.

However, if you want to see the work on optimized healing SPELLS, try HERE (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=4829.msg68340#msg68340).

[jiriku]

It could be done. summon monster IV or summon planar ally for a xag-ya, then cast planar bubble on it. Have the xag-ya move to within 10 ft of an opponent and then spike-heal them up to the "pop" threshold before they realize what's happening and move away or kill the summon. The good news is that you only need to exceed the creature's normal hit point total. The bad news is that the save to avoid bursting is just a flat DC 20 Fortitude save -- a low DC for the level at which the combo works. However, the xag-ya itself can heal, and you can use AoE healing to overheal several enemies at once, improving your chances that at least one of them fails. This would work well in combination with effects that deal Constitution damage or inflict negative levels, since they'll both lower the threshold required to force the saves and make the saves more difficult.

Is it powerful? No. Is it stylish? Oh heck yeah.

[Pilo]

If you have access to the planar handbook (p133-134), it is quite easy, there is a temlate vivacious creature, which can be added to the Summon monster spells. Those creature can heal with energy from positive energy plane and have an healing aura with the same drawback.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I mean the rule that too much positive energy (3* normal hit points) makes a being explode.

I thought it was 2x max hit points, so I checked. We were both wrong. It's actually much better than that.


Major positive-dominant planes go even further. A creature on a major positive-dominant plane must make a DC 15 Fortitude save to avoid being blinded for 10 rounds by the brilliance of the surroundings. Simply being on the plane grants fast healing 5 as an extraordinary ability. In addition, those at full hit points gain 5 additional temporary hit points per round. These temporary hit points fade 1d20 rounds after the creature leaves the major positive-dominant plane. However, a creature must make a DC 20 Fortitude save each round that its temporary hit points exceed its normal hit point total. Failing the saving throw results in the creature exploding in a riot of energy, killing it.

So if you can get the basic framework of "healing past max hp" to work, then I guess the best way to do it is combination of an aura of constant round to round healing (even if it's not a large amount) + hefty investment into debuffing enemy fort saves.

[Trundlebug]

Team up with a Hexblade/Blackguard+rest of debuffing build I forget. Maybe even go that build with the template yourself? AFB's so just wasting time I suppose.

[paperarmor]

Wow I do not need to post when sleepy. Still some cool ideas and its good that you only need to get above normal hitpoints. Thanks guys.

[StreamOfTheSky]

So, yeah...it is double. They have to be at max hp to accumulate temp hp, and then when temp hp exceeds max hp, they start having to save. So you do in fact need big burst healing. I would say the ideal for this sort of build is to have a friend (or do it yourself) capable of shredding enemies' Con scores. That kills two birds with one stone. Makes their fort saves lower, and lowers the threshold of healing you have to reach before the save or dies begin. Mountain Tombstone Strike is very high level but notably easy to obtain (no pre-req maneuvers) and does a whopping 2d6 Con damage per round with no save to resist and can be spammed every other round by a Warblade or Swordsage trivially, possibly more often with tricks. Probably the only other good bet is someone built for sheer number of attacks per round with Wounding weapon(s). Shame Wounding is melee-only, it'd go great on a Splitting bow.
Best build for wounding weapons would probably be a Bloodstorm Blade (to full attack with the same thrown weapons) with the entire TWF tree, haste, etc... Since you get what you need by BB level 4, you can retreat back to warblade and still get Mountain Tombstone Strike, too. Allowing you to alternate:
Round 1: MTS
Round 2: Recover maneuvers and full TWF thrown attack at the enemy
Alternatively...it might hinder acquiring MTS, but you do want to keep the actual damage you deal low (just makes the healing harder), so adding Master Thrower is really handy. Palm Throw would let you double the number of wounding weapons (daggers, in this case) you hit with while conveniently removing str from damage. The capstone trick Weak Spot lets you get rid of that pesky str to damage to make touch attacks (I assume the two don't stack, though).

As for the Healer character (yeah...the one above's gotta be dedicated to softening up the foe), if Pathfinder and psionics material is available, the Vitalist would be super awesome for this concept. He can put people into a "network" and then basically divvy up healing from his powers between those in the network as he sees fit, which is great with the "mass healing" type stuff. Just have to get the enemy into your network so you can send the collective weight of healing all his way, and I'm pretty sure they have a power or optional class feature to force an unwilling creature into the network.

[thethird]

My undead monsters love to have a planar emmanation (faith of eberron) linked both to the negative plane and to the positive plane. So enemies gain negative levels and temporary hp, making the overheal a problem. While they themselves just have a pool of temporary hp of nigh infinite.

[Aliek]

Negative levels maybe? Lower saves, lower max hp :smallbiggrin:

Tough lowering CON has the same effect