Chaotic Healer

[MCJennings]

So we have someone in our playgroup who is very new to D&D and is more looking to spend time with friends and have fun than anything. He's tried his hand up til now with a Sorcerer, and I've found him to be a very chaotic player... Casting Darkness at the worst times... Fireball in a small room when at 2 HP... You get the idea.

He's decided to try a new character, and I wanted to help him with it. He said he prefers ranged over melee, and wants to be healing and buffing his allies. Due to flavor, he's not wanting to be a bard.

His initial thought was to be a cleric (not knowing of other heal options). Would he still have fun chaotic choices as a cleric? If not, are there any other classes that could? Flavor and fun is more important than optimizing in this case.

As a reference, the rest of the party includes a LG Human Paladin5, NG Gnome Sorcerer5, CG Tibbit Rogue4/SwordSage1, Warforged Psion5(Me).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance

*EDIT* Would favored soul be any better? Druid I'm afraid of being too much paperwork. I honestly don't know the first thing about any of the healers of 3.5- Let alone being fun and flavorful in addition to them.

[ItsThatGuy]

Perhaps your friend should just bite the bullet and be a Bard. Make him/her sing a little and they'll get use to it. Done deal. CHA!!

[WeaselGuy]

Favored Souls are basically to Clerics what Sorcerers are to Wizards. You don't get as many spells, but the ones you do learn you can cast spontaneously. So, if he really wants to be a healer (not the best choice, but you can read other threads as to why) then he can just learn 1 heal spell per level, and then learn other more useful spells. In Heroes of Battle (I think...) there's a prestige class called the Combat Medic. I'll look it up in a few minutes, and give you my 2c worth on it...

[MCJennings]

Perhaps your friend should just bite the bullet and be a Bard. Make him/her sing a little and they'll get use to it. Done deal. CHA!!

Part of why I am not pushing him on bard too much (Outside of that I'm not wanting to be bossy) is that I myself don't have a clue how to build one.

I was just reading elsewhere on another thread someone who used a build for combining a few different things with Bard, but it was so late game I didn't know if any of these concepts could be converted to be used by level 5. I copied it below

The Joker
"Let me show you how I got these spells..."

This build is pretty cheesy, and is the work of a collaborative effort between Malkavon and myself. We use Magical Training to sneakily access Precocious Apprentice. This lets us grab an arcane spell to get us into Exalted Arcanist via Sanctum Spell tricks, which gives us a pair of arcane spells permanently added to our list. At this point we retrain Precocious Apprentice out for Combat Casting and proceed to climb up through War Weaver and Spellguard of Silverymoon, advancing our Favored Soul spellcasting because we are now an arcane spellcaster thanks to Exalted Arcanist.

The build hinges on the fact that Favored Soul has an ACF that allows them to add temp. HP to any spell they cast. This lets all of their buffs be turned into touch spells via Spellguard of Silverymoon 4, and from there we spread them via War Weaver to all of our allies at once. The build squeaks in at 18th level Favored Soul spellcasting, getting 9th level spells and is able to share 6th level spells through the tapestry thanks to Sanctum Spell.

Human Favored Soul 4/Church Inquisitor 1/Exalted Arcanist 1/War Weaver 5
Spellguard of Silverymoon 4/Sacred Exorcist 1/Incantatrix 4

1) Sanctum Spell, Magical Training, Precocious Apprentice (retrained to Combat Casting after 6th), Consecrate Spell
3) Purify Spell
6) Enlarge Spell
9) Extend Spell
12) Persistent Spell
15) Divine Metamagic (Persistent Spell)
17) Repeat Spell
18) Practiced Spellcaster (Favored Soul)
20) Bonus Metamagic Feat"

[Karl Aegis]

What you want is a Sorcerer with an Alternate Class Feature in Complete Champion that allows you to use domain spells as a cleric would. Choose the Healing Domain. Cast Cure Light Wounds, Mass through your Eldritch Tapestry (via War Weaver) to do some actual healing once per day. Bloodlines from Unearthed Arcana allow access to higher level spells cast through your Eldritch Tapestry by increasing your War Weaver level beyond its normal cap.

[ItsThatGuy]

just tell your friend to go Bardcore.... See what I did there. I'm sure your friend won't mind if you ask him to be one.

[goto124]

Worship a Chaotic god.

Do the Healer spells have Lawful alignment requirements? Does the DM insist on keeping those alignment restrictions? How does the DM feel about Chaotic Healers anyway?

[MCJennings]

just tell your friend to go Bardcore.... See what I did there. I'm sure your friend won't mind if you ask him to be one.

He actually has changed his mind and is very excited to play his bard. Now looking them up, I'm finding how to stack buffs onto Inspire Courage and use Dragonfire Inspiration to convert to damage. By level 5, does anyone have any recommendations as to how a bard could heal (other than the obvious Cure light/major Wounds)?

Thank you all for your replies.

[Togath]

Favored Souls are basically to Clerics what Sorcerers are to Wizards. You don't get as many spells, but the ones you do learn you can cast spontaneously. So, if he really wants to be a healer (not the best choice, but you can read other threads as to why) then he can just learn 1 heal spell per level, and then learn other more useful spells. In Heroes of Battle (I think...) there's a prestige class called the Combat Medic. I'll look it up in a few minutes, and give you my 2c worth on it...

Just chiming in, there's also the mystic from the Dragonlance campaign setting, which is technically official material(obscure, yes, but official. I really do wonder why he mystic is so rarely talked about.).

[ItsThatGuy]

I'm glad your friend found his way to the dark side...... and then to the light side..... but now is a universalist much like Luke was for a while using both light and dark side powers. Let there be many chaotic songs in the future. Neutral chaotic bards FTW!!