Healing by Damage

[Ruethgar]

I've been trying to work out a method to heal by damaging with the fewest resources available in 3.5 since most games don't allow me to utilize my vast stores of books.

The Crusader works well enough at low levels, but unless you triple up on healing strikes with Martial Study, you're almost always going to have down time from healing on other maneuvers. True, Martial Spirit Stance keeps you doing some healing as long as you're hitting, but I want something that scales better.

Getting the Wrathful Healing enchant plus a level in the PF Vitalist nets us 50% damage done going to healing and damage can scale very well, but I can't find anything similar in 3.5. Can anyone else think of something similar?

Manifest Life can be manipulated heavily into being your primary shtick, but the cheese involved in doing so is generally frowned upon. Along similar lines, Shared Sacrifice, Healing Touch and Shield Other can be used in conjunction for a fun time and more well rounded than straight Manifest Life, but again dips into PF.

Sculpt Self can of course bypass classes to do the above, but custom item creation is a bit too near homebrew for most DMs to allow, plus Dragon Magazine doesn't have a great track record with DMs.

Anyone have further suggestions on possible methods to heal the party from doing damage?

Edit: Shadow Sun Ninja, thank you WhamBamSam.
Tomb Tainted and negative energy blasts, thank you Hamste.

[elonin]

I remember a club or sap from some edition (might be 2e) that healed some amount of damage. As I recall it was meant as a torture implement. A spell storing sap or whip with cure spells loaded up could do that though.

[D4rkh0rus]

Healing by damage as in Dealing damage, and being healed by said damage? or Healing someone else by dealing damage to them.

If its the latter, Warlock/Ur-priest into Eldritch Disciple, lets you heal with your eldritch blast (ray, claw, glaive) instead of dealing damage.

If its the former, I'll need to check. Not sure if there are any reliable lifesteal tricks, I think most are psionic too.

[WhamBamSam]

Shadow Sun Ninja kinda sorta does this.

Vampiric Touch, Vampiric Blade, Claws of the Vampire and the like will heal you a bit while you hurt someone else. Vampiric Blade on a Tash Monk's Unarmed Strike or Claws of the Vampire on a King of Smack type are among the better ways to go, since it's based on the damage dice. PsyWars are so feat heavy, you might be able to work Martial Spirit in as well.

Might not exactly be what you want, but Mechanatrixes are healed by things that cause electricity damage. They're always fun.

[Jowgen]

Wrathful Healing from Enemies and Allies. It's a +3 WSA, heals you for half the damage you deal. Vampiric (a +2) from MIC heals a d6 per hit.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The Crusader works well enough at low levels, but unless you triple up on healing strikes with Martial Study, you're almost always going to have down time from healing on other maneuvers. True, Martial Spirit Stance keeps you doing some healing as long as you're hitting, but I want something that scales better.
1. One level of Crusader for Martial Spirit and Crusader's Strike. (Plus assorted other melee goodies, especially if you splash it in later in your build)
2. One level of Incarnate for Thereputic Mantle (you can take Shape Soulmeld instead, but you need a handful of essentia) (plus assorted other soulmeld goodies)
3. One feat on Bonus Essentia; possibly a second (or another level or two of Incarnate) for Expanded Soulmeld Capacity.

When first shaped, Thereputic Mantle only gives +1 to your auto-healing... but every point of essentia you stuff in it boosts that by two. As a bonus, it'll boost any other auto-healing stuff you use. 2-4 levels and 0-2 feats that give you lots of other assorted goodies is a fairly low cost if you ask me...

[Hamste]

Get tomb tainted soul, become resistant or immune to cold and then blast yourself with lord of the uttercold spells. Any other negative energy healed allies can get it as well.

[Ruethgar]

I want to be able to heal the party, not just myself. Eldritch Disciple, I like that healing bit, but it is an either or healing or damage not a heal by dealing damage.

Shadow Sun Ninja is an ok way to go about this method of healing, though it suffers the same down time as Manifest Life and a short range. It can be boosted, but a lot of unarmed damage tricks are temporary and may not be considered "base" unarmed damage. Definitely adding to the list though as it is only one resource to get what I wanted it is likely the most compact method. The problem with the vampiric and Wrathful methods is that you can't quickly transfer the healing to the party without alternate source(such as healing touch or the Vitalist healing web).

Thereputic Mantle does nothing for any non-spell-ish effects since the bonus healing is based on spell level. A permissive DM would allow it with maneuvers, but then it also only heals you extra until you can bind it to a chakra all the way at 9th level incarnate meaning it is a poor choice for party healing until then with only the randomly accessed healing of the Crusader and the tiny bit from Martial Spirit.

I could go totemist and just try and get an insane number of attack to make Martial Spirit more worth it I suppose, but that won't scale at higher levels very well as your number of attacks gets outpaced by the amount of health you have and damage you may take(not that healing at high levels is every all that effective anyway).

Tomb tainted would work, especially with that one Profane feat to blast negative energy, but I would rather avoid things that require party expenditure of resources as well.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Thereputic Mantle does nothing for any non-spell-ish effects since the bonus healing is based on spell level. A permissive DM would allow it with maneuvers, but then it also only heals you extra until you can bind it to a chakra all the way at 9th level incarnate meaning it is a poor choice for party healing until then with only the randomly accessed healing of the Crusader and the tiny bit from Martial Spirit
I suspect most DMs would let equivalent spell levels stand, since the "spell or effect" part makes it pretty clear that it's not supposed to be magic-only. As for needing to be a 9th level incarnate to benefit... that's incorrect: the healing boost comes from essentia investment, which does not require it to be bound. But it won't help the party, which I didn't realize that you were trying to do. In that case, I suspect that "make every take tomb-tainted soul and throw out negative energy blasts" is your best bet.

There is another route to efficient healing, though: doing it without using your standard action. Things like the close wounds spell or the Sacred Purification feat can be activated as a swift action to deliver bits of healing (as can a Paladin with Battle Blessing, but you probably won't get enough spells/day to make that useful), while things like the Magic of the Land feat or the Favored Soul's Deity's Favor ACF can add healing to normal buffs. (And alternately, things like Combat Medic and the Imbued Healing feat turn your healing spells into buffs, albeit not the best ones). And if you can grant temporary hit points, that's kind of like pre-healing-- again, no in-combat actions required.

Also, you might find this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?231908-3-x-Compendium-of-Healing) helpful.

[Ruethgar]

Spells are not the only things with spell levels though, SLAs and some Su and even Ex abilities have spell levels and it is fully reasonable(and RAW) to rule that only such abilities are applicable for the bonus healing. I also said that it only heals YOU until it is bound, I didn't say it didn't heal. And I was fairly sure that asking for other methods to heal the PARTY from doing damage in the OP made the intent clear, if not all of the examples being of party healing, obviously I was mistaken.

I appreciate the attempt to provide alternate methods of action efficient healing, but I was looking specifically for healing by doing damage such as with the examples presented in the OP.

[Venger]

Shadow Sun Ninja kinda sorta does this.

That's not perfect. Remember: at the end of your your balance of light and dark ability, you take 1 con dmg for every negative level you dished out. If that get you to 0, you die and turn into an NPC vampire

[ShurikVch]

I want to be able to heal the party, not just myself.Fate Link (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/fateLink.htm)?

[WhamBamSam]

That's not perfect. Remember: at the end of your your balance of light and dark ability, you take 1 con dmg for every negative level you dished out. If that get you to 0, you die and turn into an NPC vampireI was referring to Touch of the Shadow Sun in this particular case. The old Stormguard Warrior healbot was mostly Warblade/Bloodstorm Blade with a little Swordsage and SSN 1, iirc. Might have been a level of Crusader for Martial Spirit too.

I'll agree that going the whole way with SSN and messing around with Balance of Light and Dark is more fun than wise.

[Ruethgar]

Fate Link (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/fateLink.htm)?

If only healing were considered negative damage... could make it work with the Mage Slayer line. Burning Hands cast at CL -3 dealing negative 3d4 damage, that would be cool. Not exactly what I was looking for, but could easily double up on healing.

[Venger]

I was referring to Touch of the Shadow Sun in this particular case. The old Stormguard Warrior healbot was mostly Warblade/Bloodstorm Blade with a little Swordsage and SSN 1, iirc. Might have been a level of Crusader for Martial Spirit too.

I'll agree that going the whole way with SSN and messing around with Balance of Light and Dark is more fun than wise.

oh, okay, I wasn't sure. SSN in general is more fun than wise.

[ShurikVch]

If only healing were considered negative damage... could make it work with the Mage Slayer line. Burning Hands cast at CL -3 dealing negative 3d4 damage, that would be cool. Not exactly what I was looking for, but could easily double up on healing.Share Pain (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/sharePain.htm)?
Glory of the Martyr?

[Ruethgar]

I suppose just splitting damage 50% is the nearest most efficient way to generate this effect then stack self heals. Scales well as long as you can keep yourself up(Crusader with a Legacy Weapon, Stone Power and two Pugilist levels to mitigate damage taken).

[Telonius]

I remember a club or sap from some edition (might be 2e) that healed some amount of damage. As I recall it was meant as a torture implement. A spell storing sap or whip with cure spells loaded up could do that though.

I've heard of the idea as well - at least as far back in 2007-ish (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-42684.html). Apparently there's a "Healing Shiv" in the 8-bit Theater archives somewhere, but I'd have to trawl through thousands of comics to get to that.

[Ruethgar]

Mkay. So it is far from the limited resources I was going for but I like how this build turned out.

Human
Focused Specialist Martial Necromancer 0.5/Spirit Lion City Brawler Dashing Step Barbarian 0.5/Bloodline 3/Level 2/Warblade 1/Jade Phoenix Mage 5/Abjurant Champion 5/JPM 5/Eldritch Knight 2
Flaw: Pathetic Charisma: Enduring Life
Flaw: Pathetic Charisma: Lasting Life
First: Magical Affinity(Whispering Way Sanctum Healing Touch, Whispering Way Shield Other, Whispering Way Shield)
Human: Precocious Apprentice(Whispering Way Manifest Life)
Wizard: Endurance
Barbarian: Two Weapon Fighting, Improved Unarmed Attack, Pounce, +2 AC with charge
Retrain Bloodline: Arcane Manipulation
Retrain Barbarian 1/3: Spell Mastery(Healing Touch, Manifest Life)
Retrain Barbarian 2/3: Sculpt Self(Wrathful Healing)
Second Retrain Barbarian 3/3: Combat Casting
Third: Martial Study(Revitalizing Strike)
Fourth Retrain Warblade: Martial Study(Revitalizing Strike)
Fifth Retrain JPM: Superior Unarmed Strike
Sixth: Circle Kick
Ninth: Martial Study(Revitalizing Strike)
Tenth Retrain: Improved Natural Attack(Unarmed)
Twelfth: Quicken Spell
Fifteenth: Arcane Thesis(Manifest Life)
Eighteenth: Extend Spell
Nineteenth Retrain Eldritch Knight: Empower Spell

This uses the apprentice class rules at level one and retrains away the massive number of armor proficiency feats you get. You don't have the CL to cast Healing Touch or Manifest Life at level one, but you have them as known and can cast them with one bloodline level down. In the mean time you can cast Blade of Blood with your four spells per day as you punch people in the face. Third level with punishing stance your unarmed damage just doubled and you have a back up combat heal for when you're low on spells. By ninth you can fill your readied maneuvers with healing strikes and just Manifest Life for a big hit. Your unarmed damage is scaling with level and you can skip the party healing to just smack everyone within unarmed reach if you want. Wrathful Healing Sculpt Self keeps you going even if you use Healing Touch a bit much. You are low on health and armor until Abjurant Champion, but you could squeeze a few spells in there to take care of a bit of that. The later levels take advantage of your higher level slots to cast your trade mark spell Manifest Life more efficiently, plus Extend Spell to triple up on your abjurations.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I've heard of the idea as well - at least as far back in 2007-ish (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-42684.html). Apparently there's a "Healing Shiv" in the 8-bit Theater archives somewhere, but I'd have to trawl through thousands of comics to get to that.

Allow me. (http://www.nuklearpower.com/2005/07/23/episode-580-sea-gods-are-*******/)One character short after I fixed a typo.

[jiriku]

The energetic healing spell from BoED renders an ally immune to one energy type and heals them 10% of the damage they would have been dealt, until the spell hits its maximum at 30 hp and ends. Combine this with the Augment Healing feat and it will heal 10% +10 hp, so a typical 10d6 fireball would heal 13-14 hp. You'd need to put significant optimization into this; I'm thinking Reach Spell, Chain Spell, maybe some metamagic reducers.

[Darkweave31]

The king of smack build can do it by using a combination of empathic transfer, hostile empathic transfer, and vampiric claws.

[Hamste]

Allow me. (http://www.nuklearpower.com/2005/07/23/episode-580-sea-gods-are-*******/)One character short after I fixed a typo.

The title of that comic contains a word that is removed by the system and so the link does not work. It is comic 580.

[Nihilarian]

Since you mention the Vitalist, you may be interested in the Silver Crane discipline created by the same people for Path of War.

[ShurikVch]

I'm pretty sure I seen in the past some spell which allow to connect several hit point pools together
"Crowning Moment of Awesome" somewhere even mentioned effect of that spell (party was TPKed from the bite of baby Beholder, because they have only 1 hp at the moment), but, unfortunately, it doesn't mentioned the name of the spell, and I couldn't find it despite definitely seen it somewhere else before

Technically, Fusion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/fusion.htm) can do it, but it's not the same thing, and rather high-level too
(And, if we speaking about the high-level, then Affinity Field (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/affinityField.htm) is worth to be mentioned)

[Crazysaneman]

Spell Storing Bow that holds cure X wounds (standard magic item), firing arrows of cure wounds (Arms and Equipment)?