Recovering without a cleric

[Fuzzy McCoy]

EDIT: I'm not looking for a way to heal hp damage - we've got that pretty well covered. I'm looking to recover from being poisoned, cursed, ability damage, etc.

It's been pretty well established that you don't need a cleric or druid for the purpose of healing HP damage. However, I'm wondering what classes/items/feats/etc can replace cleric/druid for the purpose of recovering from more debuffing status effects. Stuff like being cursed, poisoned, feared, etc.

About our party: We're currently playing partial gestalt, With tier 1 and 2 unable to gestalt, along with some tier 3 (bard, beguiler, dread necro, duskblade). We've just leveled up to 5.

Me: Human Warlock//Mystic Wild Defender Ranger shooting for glaivelock and debuffing
Pixie Rogue - Pixie LA took the first 4 levels of the gestalt, thinking about possibly fighter for now
Human Sorcerer - Blaster sorc with the storm giant bloodline from PF
Half elf Focused Tansmuter/Master specialist - headed for war weaver, banned schools of necro, enchantment, and evocation
Half elf scout//fighter - Interested in the smashy smash

Now obviously we can handle some things - poisons, diseases, and curses (soon). Ability damage can be solved by setting up long term care and things like rod of bodily restoration. For everything else, what can we do?

[DrDeth]

It's been pretty well established that you don't need a cleric or druid for the purpose of healing HP damage.

This is not necessarily true. In many games, in-combat healing is a must do. In other games, not so much.

[JusticeZero]

And this is why I get frustrated when people offer up someone who can replenish HP damage when asked about a healer.

[With a box]

play a wizard and summon/bind/call/gate a angel or some monster that have those
or a bard they have some CXW spells and some dispeller

[Fuzzy McCoy]

This is not necessarily true. In many games, in-combat healing is a must do. In other games, not so much.

To be fair, I didn't say in-combat healing was unnecessary. I just said you don't need a cleric or druid. Bard, mystic ranger, crusader, and others can play the primary HP replenisher just fine.

[Seerow]

This is not necessarily true. In many games, in-combat healing is a must do. In other games, not so much.

I have never seen a character who is actually effective at in combat healing before level 11 (When Heal comes online). This includes Clerics/Druids. In combat healing is something the system is built to actively discourage.

[Phelix-Mu]

I have never seen a character who is actually effective at in combat healing before level 11 (When Heal comes online). This includes Clerics/Druids. In combat healing is something the system is built to actively discourage.

I think the bigger point is that, in lower-op games it's possible for one of the party members to be dedicated to healing during combat without unduly handicapping the party's chance of overcoming encounters. Thanks to the miracle of teamwork, an oft-overlooked op-resource, it's definitely possible for the game to function like that, provided, as noted, the appropriate op-level.

As optimization levels increase, it is much as noted; the numbers just don't support that healing in-combat is good action economy, the single most precious resource in the game.

[Jeff the Green]

I have never seen a character who is actually effective at in combat healing before level 11 (When Heal comes online). This includes Clerics/Druids. In combat healing is something the system is built to actively discourage.

I have, though it involved a bit of minor homebrew (spontaneous, Cha-based Healer with a better list) and a tier-3 campaign. With Mastery of Night and Day, every cure spell is maximized, so you're effectively healing 5.5/CL+Cha, which isn't nearly as good as heal but is enough to significantly offset damage taken by a glass cannon.

Of course, the fact that this required homebrew and a tier-3 campaign does indicate that the general sentiment is fairly accurate.

[Alleine]

I'd check out the Magic Item Compendium. For ability score healing there's the Orb of Mental Renewal and the Rod of Bodily Restoration. Both are fairly cheap at 3,100 gp. One works for Str/Dex/Con, the other for Int/Wis/Cha, and can heal up to 12 points in any given ability, or 6 in all three every day. That would hopefully be enough for most ability damage situations.

You also have a warlock and rogue, two potential UMD users. Scrolls, wands, or eternal wands of the right spells should see you covered without much trouble.

[Petrocorus]

Touch of Healing reserve feat from CC can give a lot of out-of-fight healing, and can be used by a Ranger, a Bard or a Sorcerer.

You also have the Healing Belt, from MIC, one of the favorite of CoDzilla-less party.

Here's some help: Healing Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?55951-A-Player-s-Guide-to-Healing-%28And-why-you-will-be-Just-Fine-without-a-Cleric-to-heal%29).

[Fuzzy McCoy]

Touch of Healing reserve feat from CC can give a lot of out-of-fight healing, and can be used by a Ranger, a Bard or a Sorcerer.

You also have the Healing Belt, from MIC, one of the favorite of CoDzilla-less party.

Here's some help: Healing Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?55951-A-Player-s-Guide-to-Healing-%28And-why-you-will-be-Just-Fine-without-a-Cleric-to-heal%29).

Yep, I'm aware of Healing Belts. Every party member's already got one. What I'm after is healing status conditions - feared, poisoned, etc. I can resort to just buying scrolls of the appropriate spells, but before I do that I want to make sure I'm not missing out on a better way.

[Manly Man]

I have never seen a character who is actually effective at in combat healing before level 11 (When Heal comes online). This includes Clerics/Druids. In combat healing is something the system is built to actively discourage.

I'm... pretty sure that's not entirely the case. Crusaders are pretty much the best for healing, if we're only going for HP damage, and they have the easiest time doing it in battle, since you don't need to fiddle with the DM about whether something is a direct threat or not.

[Faily]

The Antidotes in PHB (gear) makes it easier to make your secondary Fortitude save against Poison. Likewise, a decent Heal skill allows you to use the Heal check on your secondary save rather than rolling yourself.

The Heal skill also allows you to regain lost ability score damage faster with a successful check for Long Term Care.

Book of Vile Darkness provides the feat Venom Immunity (iirc) which, as the name suggests, makes you immune to one type of poison. It's probably possible to make a custom magic item that gives the effect of a Monk's Diamond Body which makes you immune to poison as well.

Spells like Deathward and Sheltered Vitality, as well as the Divine Feat Sacred Vitality, can prevent some of the nastier ability score damage and/or drain. I don't have the books infront of me right now, but if memory serves well, those three should help.

Soulfire enhancement to Armor/Shields makes you immune to Negative Energy effects. (Book of Exalted Deeds)

[Alleine]

The Breath of Waves graft from Magic of Eberron costs 9k and reduces your max hp by 4. In return, you can breathe on someone 1/hour to immediately negate the fatigue, exhaustion, nauseated, paralyzed, sickened, and stunned status effects.

If you don't mind some additional weirdness, the Teeth of Dahlver-Nar for the Tome of Magic has two options which might be useful. Both the tooth for Buer and the tooth for Naberius grant curative spell-like abilities. Neutralize Poison 1/day and Lesser Restoration 3/day respectively. The only problem with these is that you are affected by the sign AND the influence of the vestige the tooth references. This might be a little too strange or awkward to roleplay, since Buer gives you a Satyr's hooves, requires you not to make coup-de-grace attacks, and requires you to make every first attack against most living things deal non-lethal. Naberius changes the sound of your voice and forces you to make impassioned speeches at every opportunity. The penalty for ignoring the influence is a -1 penalty to most rolls.

[LudicSavant]

I have never seen a character who is actually effective at in combat healing before level 11 (When Heal comes online). This includes Clerics/Druids. In combat healing is something the system is built to actively discourage.

If you want to see a character who is highly effective at in-combat healing at low level with very little effort, try an Artificer.

- At level 3, gain access to the Armor Enhancement Infusion. Use it to give people Greater Healing Armor (MIC), healing 3d8+15 hp as a swift or non-action (triggers automatically if a character goes unconscious) twice (for a total of 6d8+30). This is very difficult for most monsters dependent on hp damage to get through at low levels. The downside, of course, is that you generally have to choose the target of the infusion in advance, which makes it a bit more like an ablative defense than a typical reactive heal.

- Also at level 3, craft Healing Belts (MIC) for the entire party for a pittance, allowing any character in your party (or even just throwaway minions with otherwise not-very-valuable actions) to heal for 4d8 (average 18hp) with a standard action touch.

- Carry around wands of restorative spells with low caster levels, taken from spell lists that get those spells early. For example, the Paladin gets Lesser Restoration as a level 1 spell, thus allowing you to get it as a cheap wand which will solve all of your ability damage problems. This goes for pretty much any character with access to UMD, by the way. If you don't have UMD, you can also use Drow House Insignias (from Drow of the Underdark) for cheap, consistent access to spells of up to third level from any class list, usable by any character.

Even with this mass of healing, however, players can still get knocked out by control and burst damage, and healing is only ever one tool in your defensive arsenal.

[Seerow]

If you want to see a character who is highly effective at in-combat healing at low level, try an Artificer.

- At level 3, gain access to the Armor Enhancement Infusion. Use it to give people Greater Healing Armor, healing 3d8+15 hp as a swift or non-action (triggers automatically if a character goes unconscious) twice (for a total of 6d8+30). This is very difficult for most monsters dependent on hp damage to get through at low levels. The downside, of course, is that you generally have to choose the target of the infusion in advance, which makes it a bit more like an ablative defense than a typical reactive heal.

- Also at level 3, craft Healing Belts for the entire party for a pittance, allowing any character in your party (or even just throwaway minions with otherwise not-very-valuable actions) to heal for 4d8 with a standard action touch.

- Carry around wands of restorative spells with low caster levels, taken from spell lists that get those spells early. For example, the Paladin gets Lesser Restoration as a level 1 spell, thus allowing you to get it as a cheap wand which will solve all of your ability damage problems.

Even with this mass of healing, however, players can still get knocked out by control and burst damage, and healing is only ever one tool in your defensive arsenal.

The only bit of that I would consider combat healing is the Greater Healing Armor, which I will admit does sound pretty great up through level 6-8, leaving just a small gap before heal comes online.


That said I'm curious if there are any builds out there that focus on widespread metamagic reductions to make their combat cure abilities much more effective. I mean if you could get an Empowered Maximized Quickened Reach Cure X Wounds with only a net +0 o +1 spell level, you would probably be doing all right. 6th level caster using CLW for ~17 hp as a swift action, or CMW for ~31 hp as a swift action or CSW for ~45 hp as a swift action would be pretty legit.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Some of the dragonmark feats allow you to cure various conditions at will. Mark of the Dauntless for stunned and dazed, Mark of Purity for nauseated and sickened iirc. There's also a feat in ECR that lets you cure negative levels.


That said I'm curious if there are any builds out there that focus on widespread metamagic reductions to make their combat cure abilities much more effective. I mean if you could get an Empowered Maximized Quickened Reach Cure X Wounds with only a net +0 o +1 spell level, you would probably be doing all right. 6th level caster using CLW for ~17 hp as a swift action, or CMW for ~31 hp as a swift action or CSW for ~45 hp as a swift action would be pretty legit.

You'd still need to take hp damage first before any of your optimization kicks in. Even then you could probably use the same spell slot more effectively on BFC and not take any damage at all.

[LudicSavant]

That said I'm curious if there are any builds out there that focus on widespread metamagic reductions to make their combat cure abilities much more effective. I mean if you could get an Empowered Maximized Quickened Reach Cure X Wounds with only a net +0 o +1 spell level, you would probably be doing all right. 6th level caster using CLW for ~17 hp as a swift action, or CMW for ~31 hp as a swift action or CSW for ~45 hp as a swift action would be pretty legit.

Yes, there are builds that can give you access to very cheap metamagic. It's just not usually mentioned alongside healing because the tools that allow you to make such builds tend to also allow you to do far scarier things and are likely to be frowned upon by many groups. I mean, I can actually produce a build which will give you unlimited group healing by level 6, I just don't think that any group would actually want to see that build at the table...

[Jeff the Green]

That said I'm curious if there are any builds out there that focus on widespread metamagic reductions to make their combat cure abilities much more effective. I mean if you could get an Empowered Maximized Quickened Reach Cure X Wounds with only a net +0 o +1 spell level, you would probably be doing all right. 6th level caster using CLW for ~17 hp as a swift action, or CMW for ~31 hp as a swift action or CSW for ~45 hp as a swift action would be pretty legit.

Not exactly a build, but every caster I've played capable of casting revivify (so... one of them) carried around a bunch of unicorn horns to make it a reach spell. Nothing sucks more than having revivify available and needed and be unable to use it because you're not within 25' of your downed ally.

[LudicSavant]

Not exactly a build, but every caster I've played capable of casting revivify (so... one of them) carried around a bunch of unicorn horns to make it a reach spell. Nothing sucks more than having revivify available and needed and be unable to use it because you're not within 25' of your downed ally.

If you feel like "1 round" is too tight a time restriction, consider the spell "Revenance" from the same book as Revivify (Spell Compendium). It may be used on a target which has been dead for up to one round per level, and has the valuable feature of immediately putting them back into the fight. Then, at the end of the spell's generous duration, the target dies again... and can immediately have Revivify cast on her.

[Jeff the Green]

If you feel like "1 round" is too tight a time restriction, consider the spell "Revenance" from the same book as Revivify (Spell Compendium). It may be used on a target which has been dead for up to one round per level, and has the valuable feature of immediately putting them back into the fight. Then, at the end of the spell's generous duration, the target dies again... and can immediately have Revivify cast on her.

Yeah, I know about that one. It's just that I've only played in one game where that wouldn't get me a DMG to the head and that one used incantations (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?254498-3-5-PEACH-Dungeoneer-s-Book-of-Incantations) for resurrection.

[Namfuak]

I'm not sure what the rules about gaining immunity to an effect after it has been applied are, but the Talisman of Undying Fortitude can be useful if you know you will be going up against an effect beforehand. Having the party skillmonkey invest in UMD is never a bad option either.

[Oddman80]

Yes, there are builds that can give you access to very cheap metamagic. It's just not usually mentioned alongside healing because the tools that allow you to make such builds tend to also allow you to do far scarier things and are likely to be frowned upon by many groups. I mean, I can actually produce a build which will give you unlimited group healing by level 6, I just don't think that any group would actually want to see that build at the table...

Please share..... Please?

[Chronos]

I think that Dragon Shaman and Truenamer can, between them, fix up any condition other than Dead. Neither one, however, is all that great an option.

[Fuzzy McCoy]

So it looks like scrolls are the best way to go for some of the more obscure options, long term care/rod/orb for ability damage, and as many immunities as we can reasonably grab. Thanks for helping make sure I wasn't missing something!

[Doctor Awkward]

Neutralize Poison is a 3rd Lever Ranger Spell. You're covered there.

Remove Curse is a 4th level Sorcerer/Wizard spell. You're covered there.

Lesser Restoration is a 1st Level spell for Paladins. A wand will cost you 750 gp, someone need only reliably make a UMD check of 20 to activate it.


That takes care of everything except level drain and hardcore permanent stuff like Feeblemind, level drain, and instant death.

Nearly all fear effects allow Will saves. Everyone except the scout should be fine there.

[Chronos]

Note also that, even if you have a cleric, it's still probably a good idea to keep most of your status-remover spells on scrolls. If you prepare a Remove Curse (say), then on the vast majority of days (those when you don't get cursed), that spell slot is going to be completely useless (not even just less useful, like most suboptimal situational spells). And you don't want to wait to prepare it until you need it, because usually, when you need it, you need it now. If you put it on a scroll, though, you can use it when needed, and if you don't need it, you can save it for another day when you do. Once you do use it, then worry about replacing it (buying a new one or re-scribing it) the next day.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Note also that, even if you have a cleric, it's still probably a good idea to keep most of your status-remover spells on scrolls. If you prepare a Remove Curse (say), then on the vast majority of days (those when you don't get cursed), that spell slot is going to be completely useless (not even just less useful, like most suboptimal situational spells). And you don't want to wait to prepare it until you need it, because usually, when you need it, you need it now. If you put it on a scroll, though, you can use it when needed, and if you don't need it, you can save it for another day when you do. Once you do use it, then worry about replacing it (buying a new one or re-scribing it) the next day.

Remove Curse isn't the best example to use because lots of curses have a minimum CL requirement for removal. It's solid advice for stuff like Cure Device and Neutralize Poison though.

[OldTrees1]

Arcane Disciple(Renewal) = Restorations of various levels