Who else can properly -Restore- a party?

[INoKnowNames]

So, I got into a light-hearted argument with a friend recently, about how everyone need pity whomever the group Clerical equivalent happens to be because said person's pity is what helps put your body back together again after a failed saving throw or critical hit rips it apart some how.

And the resultant conversation got me wondering: What classes are best equipped to fix the party's problems after an encounter? And I mean more than just hit-points (even if that's more important than some are willing to admit); Poisons, Diseases, Removed Body-Parts, Petrification, Ability Damage (and Drain), Negative Levels, Death, and more can be a pretty decent problem in the average low-to-mid op adventuring party...

Obviously, Clerics (particularly using the Spontaneous Divine Caster variant) are the best equipped to deal with all of these and still be relevant, with the Healer, Paladin, and Druid being able to shoulder the burden a bit. Psions/Wilders can at least handle Ability Damage alongside Hitpoint Healing... I was just wondering what other classes are able to fill that role well?

Slightly edited, with emphasis on the actual point of curiosity in the post. I wonder how many others will still miss the point. :smallwink:

[Azoth]

I don't really feel that someone focused on the "healing" role is not necessarily best served by limiting themselves to a particular class. Instead, we have to look at what kind of builds utilizing classes are capable of achieving.

For example, Bards are not great healers, but taking a dip for the ACF Healing Hymn is worth it for a healing focused build. Using a Bardic Performance allows one to heal an additional number of HP= to their ranks in perform. Even at level 1 that turns a Cure Minor Wounds Cantrip from 1HP to 5HP.

Then there are Prestige Classes to consider, such as the Healing Hand of Mishakal, Radiant Servant, Combat Medic, and others that augment or enhance one's ability to heal a number of status effects.

[John Longarrow]

UMD + Scrolls/wands and/or get potions.

Casters who can burn spells to fix up the party (or people who can use N/day items) are cheaper in the long run but are not a requirement.

I've seen parties where most of the healing is done by healing belts and the bard carried a couple goodies for stat damage/blindness/disease/what ever. For that campaign those statuses didn't pop up to often.

In party, if you can get Iron Heart Surge you can fix most of those that affect your yourself.

[INoKnowNames]

Well, no, I doubt one has to limit themselves to any particular base class when one can combine them with prestiges. But, except for spellcasters (and even then not all of them can cover all of the common afflictions and ailments), most classes are going to have a hard time being able to support an entire group in that regard. And even prestige classes don't always immediately help; of the 3 noted, only Combat Medic enables the removal of status effects through Spontaneous castings of Heal, and that's only if you have 6th level slots. The others only bolster one's ability to heal hitpoints, which while important isn't the focus of my curiosity here.

Edit: Gosh darn it, John! Making me regret not quoting Azoth. :smalltongue: Yeah, Archivist, rtificer, and I suppose Wizard (It's been way more than a minute since I've checked the rules on item creation and how difficult it is making scrolls/wands of certain levels of other's classes) could manage it via item creation. Though Iron Heart Surge isn't being counted in this because in (at least what I would consider) a normal party, you can't Iron Heart Surge someone else's sickness away. :smalltongue:

[GilesTheCleric]

Anyone with UMD can do it; even a mundane party can. See the link in my signature for expected costs by doing 100% of healing via wands (spoiler: it's cheap). Some folks have even suggested that making out of combat healing free, except in pressured situations, wouldn't break the game.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Patch-up can be entirely delegated to the party slush-fund. There's items to cover -all- of the things that might need to be undone and, unless the GM is derping around with the default presumptions of cash-movement within the game, acquiring most of them should be pretty trivial.

Worst case, potions of restoration catch -most- of the possibilities. If you're in FR, you can even get potions of heal or regenerate, thanks to the master alchemist PrC in Magic of Faerun. More generically, skull talismans from Frostburn are also uncapped in spell level but cost double. They're all gods-awful expensive for the effect but require no skill at all to use.

That's not to say there aren't far more cost efficient options but the point remains that even a group with no one magically inclined, at all, can have all the necessary effects available.

If the guy who's playing the healer didn't decide to play a healer on his own, you're doing it wrong.

[INoKnowNames]

If the guy who's playing the healer didn't decide to play a healer on his own, you're doing it wrong.

I'm not sure why I want to quote this specifically, but I'd very much like to note this isn't a "Someone in the party -has- to be the Healer" thread. I don't think anyone need to be forced into it, even as I myself adore assuming it (for my own twisted reasons; don't you judge me. :smalltongue: ). Heck, if anything, consider this as aiding in brainstorming ideas for future characters.

I wonder how efficiently one could craft all of the items needed to fix all the bullcrap adventurers have to go through. I've always wanted to build a SA2-Walker type character, a gnome/halfling inventor operating a crazy machine; they'd probably be the type to be able to buid and operate the necessary Wands of Scrolls... Too bad Wands, at least, fall just short of Break Enchantment, Raise Dead, Heal, and Regenerate...

[digiman619]

If you don't mind back-porting it from Pathfinder, the Vitalist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/vitalist) is an interesting psionic healer.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm not sure why I want to quote this specifically, but I'd very much like to note this isn't a "Someone in the party -has- to be the Healer" thread. I don't think anyone need to be forced into it, even as I myself adore assuming it (for my own twisted reasons; don't you judge me. :smalltongue: ). Heck, if anything, consider this as aiding in brainstorming ideas for future characters.

Hey, no judgement from me. If you enjoy it, more power to ya. It's quite possible to be a very skilled and effective healer.


I wonder how efficiently one could craft all of the items needed to fix all the bullcrap adventurers have to go through. I've always wanted to build a SA2-Walker type character, a gnome/halfling inventor operating a crazy machine; they'd probably be the type to be able to buid and operate the necessary Wands of Scrolls... Too bad Wands, at least, fall just short of Break Enchantment, Raise Dead, Heal, and Regenerate...

Crafting is the specialty of the artificer. Nobody does it better. They're also the best at using items so if that's the way you wanna go, an artificer'll get ya done.

That said, an artificer isn't the most effective healer possible. A well built cleric does it better, though the healer class does it pretty well too, if you know what you're doing. Which of them does it better is a toss-up, though the cleric offers way more for the overall package wrt capability outside of putting allies back together.

[Esprit15]

An artificer who makes the party Soulfire Armor and Periapts of Proof Against Poisons.

A cleric who DMM Persists Mass Lesser Vigor.

[Thaneus]

Good combo I am using:
Bard + Healing Hymn + Warweaver 5 + cure moderate wounds -> all party member healed for 2d8+10+17 (skill rank) not on touch but 25 +5ft/2cl (which is 55ft at my level right now) range.
Thats very strong healing for the use of 1 bardic music and 1 2nd slot spell and healing hymn can still be used by you cleric mate or you up to 5 or more rounds

Additionally using Snowsong (Frostburn) for fast healing 1 together with metamagic staff extend for 260 min and the other goodies it gives

[Crake]

Anyone with access to summon monster 7 (preferably a 14th level binder binding zceryll :smalltongue: since they can do it at will on a 5 round cooldown, doable at level 13 with favoured vestige) can summon a movanic deva, which has access to the following SLAs at CL9:

At will—aid, consecrate, continual flame, create food and water, death ward, detect evil, discern lies, prayer, protection from arrows;
3/day—atonement, bless weapon, cure serious wounds, daylight, divination, ethereal jaunt, hallow, holy smite, neutralize poison, plane shift, remove curse, remove disease, remove fear;
1/day—commune, raise dead

As you can see, they are more than capable of producing a decent amount of healing (a total of 3 uses of cure srious wounds totaling 9d8+27 hp heals) removal of poison, curses, disease and even fear, and of course, let's not forget the 1/day raise dead that, if spammable, can raise a whole battlefield of falled soldiers.


Good combo I am using:
Bard + Healing Hymn + Warweaver 5 + cure moderate wounds -> all party member healed for 2d8+10+17 (skill rank) not on touch but 25 +5ft/2cl (which is 55ft at my level right now) range.
Thats very strong healing for the use of 1 bardic music and 1 2nd slot spell and healing hymn can still be used by you cleric mate or you up to 5 or more rounds

Additionally using Snowsong (Frostburn) for fast healing 1 together with metamagic staff extend for 260 min and the other goodies it gives

Healing hymn was errataed to cap the bonus healing to the normal CL cap, so a cure moderate is still capped at +10hp, but it would be really good for spells like mass cure moderate which has a significantly higher cap.

Also a dove's harp from MIC costs a measly 12,000gp and gives all allies within I think a 30ft radius around you fast healing 3 for a minute whenever you use a bardic music, so that's 30hp worth of heals to the whole party for each bardic music you use. Note the healing is in addition to the effect of your bardic music.

[Stealth Marmot]

Paladins actually make pretty good healers since their lay on hands ability gains Mercy bonuses. At 6th level they can use it to remove diseases if they pick that ability (which they probably should). Plus they can Channel Positive Energy. Maybe not quite as good as a cleric, but more than likely good enough.

Honestly, a cure light wounds wand is 50 spells, averaging 5.5 hit points per zap. The total hit points cured by said wand is 275 on average. The wand costs 750 gold. That is Less than 3 GP per hit point cured. On that note, if you can find a paladin version of Lesser Restoration (level 1 spell for a paladin) then you can heal on average 125 ability score damage for 750 gold (6 gp per damage), and I doubt you will face much more than that for most of an adventurer's career. The party will likely face less than that over the first 10 levels.

The group should have to spend less than 10% of their found money on healing this way, even without a dedicated healer. You don't usually need to be topped off, since a rest period will heal some of your hit points. Also, if you have any sort of healer, cleric, paladin, bard with cure light wounds as a known spell, druid who prepared cure light wounds or two, then you can have them dump all their healing when you sleep at night and likely save charges and thus money.

The better question is, who else can heal IN BATTLE?

[KillingAScarab]

And the resultant conversation got me wondering: What classes are best equipped to fix the party's problems after an encounter? And I mean more than just hit-points (even if that's more important than some are willing to admit); Poisons, Diseases, Removed Body-Parts, Petrification, Ability Damage (and Drain), Negative Levels, Death, and more can be a pretty decent problem in the average low-to-mid op adventuring party...

Obviously, Clerics (particularly using the Spontaneous Divine Caster variant) are the best equipped to deal with all of these and still be relevant...As just came up in another recent topic (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?508167-What-conditions-should-a-primary-healer-be-able-to-deal-with), outside of domains I'm not aware of, clerics don't get stone to flesh (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/stoneToFlesh.htm) in 3.X nor in Pathfinder. That seems weird to me and makes me wonder what other conditions one may not be able to remove.

[barakaka]

I found a Healer (Miniatures Handbook) performed spectacularly at around level 4. Probably would have done well enough at mid levels too. Keep a scroll of a healing spell just too high a level for you at all times. Try not to use it, but when the time comes, you'll be thankful you brought it.

With Therapeutic Mantle (Magic of Incarnum) bound to your shoulders, and a few essentia in it, you can increase it by a good amount.

This is a build I was running for a campaign years ago. You might find it useful.
Healer 5/Cleric 1/Radiant Servant Of Pelor 2

domains: sun and water domain
turning attempts: 22

HD: 8,8,6,2,6,7,6,1 + 2/HD = 60

hp: 60
wounds:

feats:
augment healing
touch of healing
mitigate suffering
extra turning
travel devotion

flaws:
poor reflexes
shaky (-2 ranged)


str:8
dex:14
con:14
int:8
wis:16
cha:20

Fort: 11
Ref: 0
Will: 12

Init: 2
BAB: 3

AC: 16 T: 12 FF: 14

skills:
heal - 5
concentration - 5
swim - 2
profession sailor - 2
knowledge religion - 9
knowledge nature - 4

Items:
cloak of charisma +2 (4k)
+2 leather of daylight (7000gp)
amulet of retributive healing (2k)
boots of swift passage (5k)
wand of lesser vigor x 4 (3k)
scroll of revivify x 1 (3375gp)
scroll of cure serious x 4 (1500gp)
scroll of restoration x 2 (750gp)


wand charges: lesser vigor: 29
lessor resto: 48


spells:

Healer (6,6,6,5,4):
0- cure minor x5
1- cure light wounds x6, goodberry x0
2- cure moderate wounds x3, lesser restoration x1
3- close wounds x2, cure serious x2, restoration x1
4- panacea x4

cleric:
0- create water x2, light
1- detect undead x2, obscuring mist



gp: 2225
xp: 29 040/36 000

[gooddragon1]

I don't really feel that someone focused on the "healing" role is not necessarily best served by limiting themselves to a particular class. Instead, we have to look at what kind of builds utilizing classes are capable of achieving.

For example, Bards are not great healers, but taking a dip for the ACF Healing Hymn is worth it for a healing focused build. Using a Bardic Performance allows one to heal an additional number of HP= to their ranks in perform. Even at level 1 that turns a Cure Minor Wounds Cantrip from 1HP to 5HP.

Then there are Prestige Classes to consider, such as the Healing Hand of Mishakal, Radiant Servant, Combat Medic, and others that augment or enhance one's ability to heal a number of status effects.

A 1 level dip in dragon shaman can get you aura of vigor which gives fast healing 1 up to half HP. The reserve feat touch of healing can be taken by anyone with sufficiently high level cure spells.

[SangoProduction]

It just needs one feat: Draconic Aura: Vigor. Then, there's the healing belt for the rest of the way.

[Khedrac]

So many posters ignoring the OP's question:
(Thankfully a lot are addressing this properly.)

And the resultant conversation got me wondering: What classes are best equipped to fix the party's problems after an encounter? And I mean more than just hit-points (even if that's more important than some are willing to admit); Poisons, Diseases, Removed Body-Parts, Petrification, Ability Damage (and Drain), Negative Levels, Death, and more can be a pretty decent problem in the average low-to-mid op adventuring party...

So Bard builds: Yes you get neutralize poison, but your only way of curing diseases is heroes' feast, which is a rather high level option.
That said, heroes' feast is a mass cure disease as well as a poison blocker so if you have access, it is a very good option...
Draconic Aura - non-finisher (it's a good starter to get everyone up to half health, but that is only a starting point).

KillingAScarab made an interesting catch on Petrification not being fixable by most clerics but doesn't break enchantment work?

As for the rest of it, this is where paladins and healers shine - because they get abilities to cure poisons and remove diseases without wasting spell slots or buying a backup scroll. For most diseases they can wait until the next day to memorise the actual spells for other infected people (or use a feast).

For stat damage the reserve feat mitigate suffering is awesome. You can get all stats back to full for 10 minutes (less time spent using the ability) - something probably far more useful than lesser restoration. You can get everyone to full for the next fight, then worry about the problem later.
The text for mitigate suffering says that it only works on stats which have received damage. However it does not state that it cannot recover drained ability points. Thus if the DM is being picky and saying that a stat that has only suffered drain cannot be temporarily fixed, apply damage to the stat, it can then be fixed upto the full normal value (i.e. drain + damage) for 10 minutes through this ability...

[KillingAScarab]

KillingAScarab made an interesting catch on Petrification not being fixable my most clerics but doesn't break enchantment work?I hadn't realized that break enchantment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/breakEnchantment.htm) could possibly do that, but then I looked back at the comic and saw it used for this very purpose in #815 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0815.html). Break enchantment is not just on the cleric list, it is one spell level lower than stone to flesh, works on multiple targets and doesn't endanger them in the process. Well then.

[INoKnowNames]

So, if I've learned anything, it's that some people not only fail OP Spot Checks but also even Ninja ones, that I've been heavily sleeping on the Binder Class and need to consider giving it more respect than I do, and that one of my friends has another reason to keep trying to push Pathfinder up my nose. :smalltongue:

I wonder; the Binder's got that Summon Monster ability, and the Druid has a Unicorn Summon that, while much more limited, isn't bad for a low level summon in terms of spellslot. I wonder what other monsters or animals can be summoned to be able to cover multiple status effects; I've tried searing to see if there are others that have those kinds of SLAs or Spell Slots...

I also swear I remember a thread on one of the old community forums that featured a Paladin healer who had an insanely high amount of lay-on-hands points and the ability to either burn them into status cures because of an item, or can use it to make up for the damage done by Stigmata and use that for massive amounts of healing. God I wish I knew where I read that...

[OldTrees1]

Arcane Disciple(Renewal) + Touch of Healing on an arcane caster gives:
Lesser Restoration(2nd) 1/day
Remove Disease(3rd) 1/day
Reincarnate(4th) 1/day
Greater Restoration(7th) 1/day
& at will healing to half full health

If only the mystic's Restoration domain were applicable to Arcane Disciple :smallfrown:
Remove Fear(1st)
Restoration, Lesser(2nd)
Remove Disease(3rd)
Restoration(4th)
Raise Dead(5th)
Heal(6th)
Restoration, Greater(7th)
Resurrection(8th)
True Resurrection(9th)