3.5 cloistered cleric healbot help

[JW86]

A friend is rolling a Cloistered Cleric.

I remember reading some thread here ages ago, which I cannot presently find, which involved going Bard 1/Cleric X, and used a couple of feats including Reach Spell and Chain Spell, to do some impressive party-wide healing.

Although Reach is +2, and Chain is +3, so 1st level heal spell would count as 6th level to chain and reach - so not as efficient as I'd originally believed..

The guy wants to be a healbot, can you help me/help him optimize healing to the max? He really wants ranged healing.

Thanks

[GilesTheCleric]

Your missing ingredient is probably Divine Metamagic the bardic equivalent of Divine Metamagic, uses-of-music-to-MM-levels. It will allow you to reduce the cost of the MM to +0, at the price of spending turns = MM cost + 1. Note you'll need to pick up DMM twice to make it entirely free. If someone knows more about bards than I do (which is little to none), then they can probably point you to why levels in bard would help. I see no reason not to go straight cleric+maybe PrCs to reduce your lost caster levels and thus get to Heal faster.

Depending on your level and the needs at hand, different spells might be useful. At low levels with a willing party, Faith Healing is very good. At later levels, you'll want Heal. Depending on how the GM runs things, asking your party members to have very low con scores will help a little, but if your GM isn't going to attempt to make each encounter take 1/4 of your resources, then this isn't a good idea.

In terms of extras to increase that amount you're healing, adding in small +x/spell level bonuses isn't going to change much -- go for empower spell and maximize spell. Again, you'll probably want DMM if it's not already free. Combat Medic and Radiant Servant of Pelor can help with that. Getting reach means either Reach Spell MM, Archmage, or Hierophant. The latter will lose you a caster level.

You probably already know that in-combat healing is pretty inefficient, so I'll mention that with ToB and I think crusaders you can heal for free at a slow rate, and with Draconic Vigour Aura (from Dragon Shamans) you can heal to half for free. Depending on how far you want to go, picking up Tomb-Tainted Soul or being undead and using Black Sand will also give you "free" fast healing [healing with negative energy can be more efficient than positive energy healing, but requires the cooperation of the party]. I think there's a vestige that gives healing, too, and not just for ability points (though that can be a decent method when coupled with Stigmata). Wands/ Lesser Vigour is also efficient out of combat. *points to sig*

Further, there's a number of magic items that you can pick up; Amulet of Retributive Healing, Amulet of Tears, Belt of Healing, Armband of Maximized Healing, Collar of Healing, Helm of Glorious Recovery, Luminary Tabard, Magic Bedroll, Magic-Eating Armour, Millennial Chainmail, Ring of Mystic Healing, Shirt of the Leech, Vampire Torc, and (Lesser) Metamagic Rods. Most of those are in the MIC.

It might be most efficient to see if you can get your party 50% miss chance at all times, which should reduce the healing you need to do by 50%. Things like Shield Other or shared hp pools can make it easier depending on how you're doing it, too.

[Rebel7284]

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=6887.0

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

It definitely has something to do with the Bard ACF Healing Hymn in Complete Champion, which adds your Perform ranks to the healing done by your spells. This includes low-level heals like Cure Minor Wounds (0-level, touch) and Close Wounds (2nd level, immediate action, close range).

If you're going Bard 1/ Cloistered Cleric X, I would recommend Melodic Casting so you don't stop singing when you cast a spell and can use Perform instead of Concentration. Get Healing Hymn instead of Fascinate, and get Able Learner unless you want to spend two Cleric skill points per level to keep up your Perform ranks. Take Chain Spell and Divine Metamagic: Chain Spell, and use Close Wounds to heal the whole party for 1d4+5+Perform ranks as an immediate action from a 2nd level spell slot. You'll only have one daily use of bardic music, so just keep Healing Hymn going the whole day.

[Zaq]

It definitely has something to do with the Bard ACF Healing Hymn in Complete Champion, which adds your Perform ranks to the healing done by your spells. This includes low-level heals like Cure Minor Wounds (0-level, touch) and Close Wounds (2nd level, immediate action, close range).

It won't work on Cure Minor. Healing Hymn specifies that the person casting the healing spell gets a bonus on the roll based on your Perform ranks. Cure Minor has no roll, so it doesn't get the bonus. Close Wounds is perfectly fine, though.

Note also that Healing Hymn isn't automatic—it takes a standard action to turn it on, and it uses up a use of Bardic Music. With only one level of Bard in the build, you can only do it once per day (unless you take Extra Music or otherwise get a source of additional uses of Bardic Music).

Anyway, if you're looking for ranged healing, Close Wounds is going to be your lowest-level access to it. Reach Spell can turn any touch spell into a ranged touch spell, but it's a +2 metamagic, and even with DMM, that's going to get expensive very quickly, when you consider just how many spells you typically need to burn to make combat healing worthwhile. It takes 3 Turns to add DMM Reach to something, so even with a 16 CHA, you'd only get two uses per day of Reach Spell without Nightsticks, Extra Turning, or other sources of extra Turns.

If you wanted to go a totally different direction, you might look at the Eldritch Disciple PrC from Complete Mage. Its Healing Blast ability lets you spend a Turn as a swift action to turn your Eldritch Blast into healing for a round. Eldritch Blast doesn't scale that quickly (especially since you have to lose at least 3 levels qualifying for Eldritch Disciple), but it might be helpful.

You probably don't want to do this, but if you really want ranged healing from level 1, a Truenamer's Word of Nurturing utterances all have a range of 60 ft out of the box, no effort required. They're healing over time rather than spike healing (they provide fast healing rather than a one-and-done burst), but they're all ranged right from the start. Of course, then you have to put up with being a Truenamer, but if ranged healing is just that important to you, it might be your best source of it.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Note also that Healing Hymn isn't automatic—it takes a standard action to turn it on, and it uses up a use of Bardic Music. With only one level of Bard in the build, you can only do it once per day (unless you take Extra Music or otherwise get a source of additional uses of Bardic Music).

You start using Healing Hymn, it affects all healing spells cast while it's active, you never stop maintaining it because you have Melodic Casting. All you need is a single use of bardic music to have that on all day: "The effect lasts as long as you continue performing and for 5 rounds thereafter."

[Zaq]

You start using Healing Hymn, it affects all healing spells cast while it's active, you never stop maintaining it because you have Melodic Casting. All you need is a single use of bardic music to have that on all day: "The effect lasts as long as you continue performing and for 5 rounds thereafter."

At the cost of a feat, and at the cost of never being able to talk normally. Or eat, for that matter. Even if you're not planning on being the party face (you're more Cleric than Bard, after all), you've basically shut yourself off from conversing with your teammates, let alone NPCs.

I'll accept that in a dungeon environment, you might be able to pull it off through two or three encounters, but assuming that it works all day every day is a heck of a stretch. (And again, feats are precious.)

[Warrnan]

For ranged healing from level 1, druid with spontaneous rejuvenation. Fast healing for 3 rounds to all allies in 30' = spell level sacrificed.

Cleric healing feats.

Mastery of night and day: auto maximize all heals and inflicts with no spell level adjustment.

Imbue healing: healing domain grants temp HP = caster level on all heals. Goes well with cure minor and mass spells.

Augment healing and to a lesser degree magic of the land: +2hp/spell level (MotL requires you to be in nature and roll knowledge nature)

Healing touch: heal allies with less than 50% hp for free. +1 caster level

[Warrnan]

As far as "ranged healing spells", my best recommendations are close wounds and delay death (immune to death by hp damage similar to frenzy berserker minus the kills party members part. Lol.) Both are immediate action. Use close wounds with imbued healing, augment healing, magic of the land and mastery of day and night to get 8hp+(caster level capped at 5hp)+caster level temp HP. This has saved many an adventurer under my protection.

Also, if you have someone who likes tanking, slap shield other on them. Then you can heal yourself. This gives them 50% damage reduction and you can deal with that from anywhere on the battle field.

Delay death is a better version for higher levels. I've seen my paladin friend be negative 100s of hp and survive!

At higher levels metamagic rods of quicken, twin and repeat will double or triple your healing output. Use a rod of chain spell for protection vs evil (no mind control) and greater magic armor. Get the party wizard to chain displacement on the party during dangerous fights for a lovely 50% miss chance. Have arcanists learn greater mirror image to protect themselves as well.

D&d healing is just death prevention. You can patch up to full hp out of combat using less resources. So even if you spend your feats on healing, at least wallop the bad guy with your mace sometimes because dead enemies do zero damage to your friends.

I wouldn't get married to the MMO concept of ranged healing. In d&d it costs so many resources as to make an inefficient strategy (in combat heals) even worse! D&d healers need to run around rouching people. Hahaha.

On second thought a spear would be a little better than a mace for a cleric.

[Warrnan]

As far as the bard idea, just play full bard. Bard9/virtuoso1/sublime chord1/virtuoso2-10 is the gold standard for a bard who has the best spells and is therefore best a healing and buffing.

[Flickerdart]

Your missing ingredient is probably Divine Metamagic the bardic equivalent of Divine Metamagic, uses-of-music-to-MM-levels.
Unfortunately, Metamagic Song doesn't let you cast spells of an effective level that you can't without it. You need Talfirian Song and 8 uses of Bardic Music.

[Uncle Pine]

At the cost of a feat, and at the cost of never being able to talk normally. Or eat, for that matter. Even if you're not planning on being the party face (you're more Cleric than Bard, after all), you've basically shut yourself off from conversing with your teammates, let alone NPCs.

I'll accept that in a dungeon environment, you might be able to pull it off through two or three encounters, but assuming that it works all day every day is a heck of a stretch. (And again, feats are precious.)

Investing in Perform (dance) instead of say, Perform (wind instrument), lets you eat and talk normally while keeping your single Bardic "Music" up all day.

By the way, I greatly suggest to buy a novice Devoted Spirit amulet (keyed to Martial Spirit) to avoid wasting spell slots in out of combat healing. Tome of Battle, p150.

[Banjoman42]

I would recommend bard for 1 to 2 levels and cleric the rest. If they have ranks in UMD, a wand of spectral hand might help. Then as a cleric, you just need divine metamagic and quicken spell to cast the healing spells through the spectral hand as a free action. Just beware of the fact that some may try and hit your spectral hand, and the hp hit might hurt a little. Note that this allows you to deliver a lot of touch spells, not just healing.

[dextercorvia]

It's worth noting that Healing Hymn got some errata, so is probably not worth dipping bard for on a Cleric build. Specifically, the perform ranks are counted in with the caster level, and the total is capped by the CL cap of the spell. Also, the Hymn only lasts a maximum of 2 minutes and requires concentration to maintain:


At the end of the section, add “Healing hymn lasts as long as you concentrate up to a maximum of 2 minutes.”

[Ruethgar]

Party wide healing is easist to achieve as a gnome taking that one Dragon Mag feat(Magical Affinty I think) to switch out your SLAs. Pick a reach, ray extended, ray burst, widen, persist, extend double healing side effect Cure Minor Wounds as one or all of your SLAs(taking Magic in the Blood of one). That gives you a 3/day 60ft aura of 2d4+1 healing as long as you concentrate up to 48hr. If it is ruled that it acts similar enough to Detect Magic and Thoughts then you only need to cast it once per two days and concentrate when you want to heal. It is not targetable, however you could adjust that with chain and split instead of burst.

[dextercorvia]

Party wide healing is easist to achieve as a gnome taking that one Dragon Mag feat(Magical Affinty I think) to switch out your SLAs. Pick a reach, ray extended, ray burst, widen, persist, extend double healing side effect Cure Minor Wounds as one or all of your SLAs(taking Magic in the Blood of one). That gives you a 3/day 60ft aura of 2d4+1 healing as long as you concentrate up to 48hr. If it is ruled that it acts similar enough to Detect Magic and Thoughts then you only need to cast it once per two days and concentrate when you want to heal. It is not targetable, however you could adjust that with chain and split instead of burst.

You have a strange definition of easiest. With no more cheese, and only requiring a single class in a single book, you could be a Crusader with Martial Spirit Stance, or any other character of at least 2nd level with two feats to spare.

[Uncle Pine]

You have a strange definition of easiest. With no more cheese, and only requiring a single class in a single book, you could be a Crusader with Martial Spirit Stance, or any other character of at least 2nd level with two feats to spare.

Or you could spend 3.000 gp on a novice Devoted Spirit amulet if you don't have levels or feats to spare.

[Story]

If you can start at level 5, then DMM Persisted Mass Lesser Vigor is an easy way to get all day healing for the party. And you still have all but one of your spell slots open to actually play instead of just being a healbot.