Healing Caster

[Stryyke]

I've been playing D&D of some form for 25+ years, but I have never played a healer. I am thinking of building a skill-monkey healer, focus on healer, just for something different. Any advice about monster races, LA 4 or lower, and class combinations that might be interesting? I just don't want to be a boring old "generic cleric" or "generic palidin." The system is 3.5, core plus most common sources. And the DM is pretty good about letting us experiment; so as long as I can provide the source material, and it's reasonably balanced, anything is pretty much open. I'll be starting with 6 class levels.

For now, pixies and pseudodragons are out, simply because we've used them in this campaign already; and they are suppose to be rare.

[Uncle Pine]

The first suggestion is to spend 750 gp/character to give everyone in the party a healing belt. This alone will save more butts than the average healbot Cleric.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I've been playing D&D of some form for 25+ years, but I have never played a healer. I am thinking of building a skill-monkey healer, focus on healer, just for something different. Any advice about monster races, LA 4 or lower, and class combinations that might be interesting? I just don't want to be a boring old "generic cleric" or "generic palidin." The system is 3.5, core plus most common sources. And the DM is pretty good about letting us experiment; so as long as I can provide the source material, and it's reasonably balanced, anything is pretty much open. I'll be starting with 6 class levels.

For now, pixies and pseudodragons are out, simply because we've used them in this campaign already; and they are suppose to be rare.

You're going to get a lot of pushback on this.

--

Healing spells are generally touch range. Were I you, I might think about figuring out how to best deliver those spells. If you can't get into touching range of anyone in your party on your turn, you're not much of a healer, so look at getting yourself access to the basic healing spells, then to movement speeds and movement modes. You need to be able to run, fly, swim and burrow to guarantee you can deliver a key Cure Light Wounds.

You're also going to want to do a lot of book diving looking for spells beyond the basic Cure line.

[Grod_The_Giant]

A Cloistered Cleric with the Trickery and Kobold domains makes a pretty decent divine skillmonkey.

[flappeercraft]

If you can convince your DM, it might be interesting to be a Symbiont Cleric and attach to the BSF and just buff/heal him during the fight. In addition those affect you too due to the Share Spells ability. Actually, if you cast the buffs on yourself you can choose for them to affect your host too. I would reccomend a Psionic Sinew. They don't have LA or are usually playable but if you can convince your DM then it would be definitely good. If the campaign gets to higher levels or become an Ur-Priest instead of a Cleric, then I would reccomend to use Miracle Body Outside Body which would create duplicates of you and your host. Even better, as a Psionic Sinew you have SLA's and give your host an enhancement bonus to strength so that is less cost to Magic items used ans you already work as a decent caster before you even take levels.

[Kantolin]

IMHO, a good way of healing effectively is to have the feats Augment Healing (Complete Divine) and Magic of the Land (Races of the Wild).

The two (one requires a check to accomplish this) both give you a flat bonus on your healing spells. This then tags well with 'healing spells that do their thing every round'.

Level 6 is slightly unfortunate for that, as the first big spell for this schtick is 'Healing Spirit' which is a 4th level spell (and thus level 7, PHB2). Healing Spirit has the advantage that it lets you cast it once, and then diffuse healing around for a chunk of time without you having to do things, adding things like kickers (Imbued healing, Complete Champion for example, or Healing Lorecall the spell from the Spell Compendium) and your bonii like Augment Healing/Magic of the land multiple times with one spell. Darts of Life (Complete Champion) is a 5th level spell that has similar application.

For lower level, the 2nd level spell Close Wounds (Spell Compendium) lets you quickly rescue people who are dying, and with healing feats you can increase the limit to which you can save people.

But either way, in a low to moderate op game, this will help your heals actually /do/ something (before of course the spell heal, which is good on its own).

~~~~~~~~

Now, the second half is 'I don't want to be a generic cleric', which is also quite reasonable. But Clerics are an extremely versatile class, so (with pure cleric) have you tried the following:

- The 'standard' cleric is the frontliner who buffs themselves up with divine favor/power and other self buffs, and wades into combat murdering things. If you haven't done it before it's quite engaging, although if it's what you want to are trying to avoid then let's move on.

- A caster cleric. Clerics have a wide array of offensive spells - focus on those. Be 'a wizard in armour', tank your physical stats. Blind things, put up silence, have your domain give you more offensive spells, Hold Person, Spiritual Weapons, Nauseating breath, yadda. If blasting is your thing, domains can do this, and there are some blasts. But take metamagic feats and the like and focus on your 9th level spells.

- A summoner. Clerics get the full summon monster line, and can use domains to get at some of the summon nature's ally. The latter is particularly interesting since summon monster 4 gets you a unicorn that can /itself/ run around casting healing spells, thus giving you another method of casting healing spells. But take feats that help with summoning, and help manage the battlefield that way (focus on spell like abilities, provide flanking, bodyblock, etc). Plus, Planar Ally is about to hop into the fray (also level 7), which can be used to call an outsider to help you out (for healing, a ton of outsiders can heal or cast as clerics. They also can do plenty of other things).

(....Or a devil or demon, if that's more your alignment)

- An archer. With Zen Archery and their self buffs, Clerics make surprisingly good archers - especially with the magic item compendium having nifty bows for people willing to toss a spell slot at it. Cleric of Ehlonna, perhaps?

There's then multiclassing. Mystic Theurges are less powerful than pure clerics, but can be very fun options with a wide array of spells, and you're one level away from when a 'normal' mystic theurge starts to stand on its own (Also level 7). (You can, of course, take several early-entry tricks to bump the power level up as is appropriate to your group).

Prestige classes can help or augment what you're doing. Thamaturge is nearing being on the table in core, but there are various classes like contemplative or the like which can help, Book of Exalted Deeds stuff, yadda.

Finally, there are a few other classes which may help:

- Druids get a lot of healing spells, and can do a wide array of other things, such as being a bear with a bear or flying around as a hawk or sommat. Intrinsic summon nature's ally is also helpful.

- Spirit Shamans (Complete Divine) are better casters than druids, for the cost of losing out on most of the other nifty druid benefits. Still, they have an array of unusual and interesting class features, and can do a lot with druid spells.

- Shugenja (Complete Divine) are a lower power option, but they do the 'I can heal and blast' simultaneously fairly competently, particularly if you drop air or earth. Having Lightning Bolt and a full healing repertoire with no additional focus is handy.

- Bards are a little slower to go on the healing angle, but are amazing on the buffing angle. They also can go into the War Weaver prestige class, letting them make single target buffs splash, and then if you hop into the Sublime Chord prestige class you can get at /extremely strong/ spells.

- Wizards or Sorcerors can get at healing spells on their list, so if you just want enough healing spells to 'I count as a healer' then you're gold there. Take one of the varied ways of getting at a domain (Arcane Disciple, Complete Champion alternate class feature, yadda) and pick healing or something. They also can hop into War Weaver, which remains a very strong option.

- If Pathfinder content is acceptable, the Vitalist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/vitalist/) is (by far) the most fun healer I have ever played. By far. They can act as 'pure healers', as great buffers, or even as offensive healers depending on which 'method' you select. I can give a lot more help clarifying it (or direct you to more help!), but it's definitely a crazy fun option. And it's a feat away from energy balls, or astral constructs, or whatever it is you want to do.

- The 3.5 version of the Vitalist is the Worldthought Medic (http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/worldthought-medic), and it is also very fun for much of the same reasons; I just don't have the experience with it as I do with Vitalists. It also is just a feat away from doing what you want, due to how psionics works, which is great for fun.

Hopefully some of these help!

[Stryyke]

- If Pathfinder content is acceptable, the Vitalist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/vitalist/) is (by far) the most fun healer I have ever played. By far. They can act as 'pure healers', as great buffers, or even as offensive healers depending on which 'method' you select. I can give a lot more help clarifying it (or direct you to more help!), but it's definitely a crazy fun option. And it's a feat away from energy balls, or astral constructs, or whatever it is you want to do.

- The 3.5 version of the Vitalist is the Worldthought Medic (http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/worldthought-medic), and it is also very fun for much of the same reasons; I just don't have the experience with it as I do with Vitalists. It also is just a feat away from doing what you want, due to how psionics works, which is great for fun.

Hopefully some of these help!

Now that looks interesting. My DM doesn't like Psi very much, but he said he would allow it as long as I use a creature that naturally has psi. I think I read about this in another thread. Eventually you just Psi-connect to all of your other party members, and then you take their damage. Then just use the self-healing options available. Is that about how that works? Because that does sound fun. Could be a tad op, but there is great risk involved. Can you tell me a bit more about this build?

[Grod_The_Giant]

- If Pathfinder content is acceptable, the Vitalist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/vitalist/) is (by far) the most fun healer I have ever played. By far. They can act as 'pure healers', as great buffers, or even as offensive healers depending on which 'method' you select. I can give a lot more help clarifying it (or direct you to more help!), but it's definitely a crazy fun option. And it's a feat away from energy balls, or astral constructs, or whatever it is you want to do.

- The 3.5 version of the Vitalist is the Worldthought Medic (http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/worldthought-medic), and it is also very fun for much of the same reasons; I just don't have the experience with it as I do with Vitalists. It also is just a feat away from doing what you want, due to how psionics works, which is great for fun.
Note that both of these are third party. DSP is good third party, but some DMs might still exclude it.

[Ruethgar]

If you can, Sculpt Self a Double Healing Side Effect Martial Spirit Stance then do any number of flurry builds(Dvati is best for this). As just a healer, 2d4+2 every single time you hit(trip build so you can do the touch attack and melee attack) is pretty significant at the lower levels. It is, however, strongly HP focused. You'll want an Invigorating spell as near at will as you can as well and eventually the other status effects culminating in Heal.

[Vizzerdrix]

The first suggestion is to spend 750 gp/character to give everyone in the party a healing belt. This alone will save more butts than the average healbot Cleric.

:smallconfused::smallconfused::smallconfused: I dont get this. Why should he pay for other peoples equipment?

[Uncle Pine]

:smallconfused::smallconfused::smallconfused: I dont get this. Why should he pay for other peoples equipment?

Of course the best option would be for everyone to shell out 750 gp during character creation and render a healer significantly less necessary, but given the OP's premise this likely didn't happen. Moreover, 3,000 gp (for the standard 4-man party) is small change at most levels.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Now that looks interesting. My DM doesn't like Psi very much, but he said he would allow it as long as I use a creature that naturally has psi. I think I read about this in another thread. Eventually you just Psi-connect to all of your other party members, and then you take their damage. Then just use the self-healing options available. Is that about how that works? Because that does sound fun. Could be a tad op, but there is great risk involved. Can you tell me a bit more about this build?

Vitalist only take damage by using their Transfer Wounds ability (which converts it to Non-Lethal, which is far more manageable than real damage). However, it does let you heal anyone and everyone, at range, regardless of the source of healing. Having one in a party with someone with constant (or nearly constant) Fast Healing means you rarely have to actively heal, since you just shuffle the Fast Healing around to those who need it. That's the main shtick of the Vitalist, healing shuffling.

[Rangô]

I would like to add a different way to build a healer, not sillmonkey bur pretty versatile, a Warlock.
I don't remember where (probabily Complete Champion or Complete Divine) there is a way to turn your Eldritch Blast in a ranged touch cure spell, combined with other cantrips you could heal in mass and forever...

[Ruethgar]

I would like to add a different way to build a healer, not sillmonkey bur pretty versatile, a Warlock.
I don't remember where (probabily Complete Champion or Complete Divine) there is a way to turn your Eldritch Blast in a ranged touch cure spell, combined with other cantrips you could heal in mass and forever...
Eldritch Disciple, Complete Mage. Cleric 3/Warlock 1/Disciple X gets you blasting heals at lvl 4. Technically you could Magical Training Precocious Apprentice into it as lvl 3 or follow the Mystic Theurge test based pre-req for early entry, but Precocious Apprentice is on thin ice for early entry as it is and while it doesn't say the spell has to be arcane, that it requires arcane casting does not work in your favor.

[Uncle Pine]

Eldritch Disciple, Complete Mage. Cleric 3/Warlock 1/Disciple X gets you blasting heals at lvl 4. Technically you could Magical Training Precocious Apprentice into it as lvl 3 or follow the Mystic Theurge test based pre-req for early entry, but Precocious Apprentice is on thin ice for early entry as it is and while it doesn't say the spell has to be arcane, that it requires arcane casting does not work in your favor.

Eldritch Disciple requires 8 ranks in Knowledge (religion), so you aren't getting it before lv 6 outside of skill ranks shenanigans.

EDIT: If not for the skill requirement, you could enter Eldritch Disciple as early as 3rd level with Cleric 1/Warlock 1 and Sanctum Spell.

[Kantolin]

Now that looks interesting. My DM doesn't like Psi very much, but he said he would allow it as long as I use a creature that naturally has psi.

Excellent!


I think I read about this in another thread. Eventually you just Psi-connect to all of your other party members, and then you take their damage.]

It is similar to this, although that's not quite right. I'm going to focus on the vitalist here - much of this can also be extended to the worldthought medic, mind you, so if pathfinder content is not okay things can be scaled down.

And first of all, the golden rule of psionics: You cannot spend more power points than your manifester level. So no, you cannot spend 300 power points in one action, unless you were level 300 to begin with. If you are a level six Vitalist, you can spend at most 6 power points on a single power or ability or whatever. That misunderstanding is a common one and definitely worth mentioning.


First of all, you do indeed connect your group into what is called a collective(Vitalist) or network(Worldthought Medic), provided they are willing and have a wisdom of at least 1. By itself, this lets the vitalist be aware vaguely of the presence of other collective members.

Vitalists then get 'collective healing'. How this works is that if anyone gets any healing, the vitalist can move the healing around the collective to whomever he wants. This is a very neat ability - it means the rogue can drink a potion and heal the wizard, for example. It also means that you don't have to worry about 'overhealing'.

~~~~~~~
Victor the Vitalist gets his party into his collective, and they go out to fight some orcs. Amidst this, Penny the Paladin is severely hurt! It's Ronald the rogue's turn, but everyone's pretty sure that Penny isn't going to make it to her next turn. So Ronald drinks a potion of cure moderate wounds! He rolls very well on the healing. Due to collective healing, Victor redistributes most of the healing to Penny, but also lets Ronald have some of it in case he gets smacked as well.
~~~~~~~

The next advantage of a collective is that you can manifest powers through it. To quote the rules:


If a vitalist power specifies one or more willing targets (or is harmless) and has a range greater than personal, he can manifest this power on a member of his collective regardless of the range of the actual power. He may also manifest any power with the Network descriptor this way, regardless of their actual ranges or targets.


(Vitalists also get a few powers listed in 'medic powers' they can use with this).

So you can use your touch range powers on your friends from quite a distance away, healing them and sharing the healing around as appropriate.

Finally, Vitalists at level 2 get a class feature called 'Spirit of Many'. This enables them to spend one additional power point per target to hit multiple targets with a single power.

So to put these things together, the psionic power 'Expansion' costs 1pp, and for the purpose of this example is basically the spell enlarge person. Due to it being a 'medic power', a Vitalist can use it over their collective, and thus target Francine the Fighter with it. With spirit of many, the Vitalist can spend two more power points, also targetting Ronald the rogue and Carl the cleric with it as well.

(remember, you can't spend more pp than your manifester level)

This makes them very fun buffers and healers.

You then get telepathy amidst your collective at level 3, enabling tactical preparation and planning or simply discussing who is going to say what at the king's dinner, and then at level 5 you get 'Request aid'. I love request aid - it lets other people, on their turns, use a standard action to heal. This costs you power points and is not the most efficient use of them, but it's a great thing if you suddenly need healing. You can also use a feat to make that a swift action, which is great for classes who don't have a lot to do with their swift actions.

(There's also transfer wounds, which heals one target while dealing you subdual damage, and is nifty)

Now, adding to this! Vitalists get 9th level powers, but they get it from an incredibly focused list: Just about everything on your list is for healing or some buffs. But there is a feat called 'Expanded Knowledge', which lets you get a psionic power from any power list up to one level below your max. So if you want to go offensive, getting at Energy Ray is literally one feat away, and will let you leveld6 to your leisure. This is also true if you just see some power you really want.

When you enter the class, you have to select what is called a 'method': Mender, Guardian, and Soulthief.

Menders are for 'more healing'. They heal more with transfer wounds, get cantrips of stabilizing people, and later just can heal better.

Guardians are for buffing. They grant temporary hit points with their transfer wounds, gain a couple buffing abilities, and later can extend buffs they use on people.

Soulthieves are for 'Damaging enemies while you heal'. They get the ability to damage enemies with transfer wounds (healing your allies simultaneously), can use an ability which lets their allies heal a little when they stab things, and later literally can heal their allies whenever they blast enemies with energy balls and stuff (which goes well with taking expanded knowledge to snag a blast ;) )

Overarchingly, they don't heal as directly hard as a similarly focused cleric, but they make up for it by having tons and tons of finesse with it (No overhealing, moving around heals, moving around buffs, request aid, transfer wounds).

It is, sadly, a bit on the more complicated end. Super duper fun, but I dunno if it's the best 'intro to psionics', haha, due to all the stuff to monitor.

If you use the vitalist in a 3.5 game, the only real thing that needs to change IMHO is 'Talents don't get to be infinite'. Most of the rest of the class can then be ported over immediately, and you won't be overwhelming combats or anything with your heals.

(...provided you remember that you cannot spend more power points than your manifester level, since you cannot spend more power points than your manifester level.)

(You cannot spend more power points than your manifester level) :P

[Stryyke]

Overarchingly, they don't heal as directly hard as a similarly focused cleric, but they make up for it by having tons and tons of finesse with it (No overhealing, moving around heals, moving around buffs, request aid, transfer wounds).

It is, sadly, a bit on the more complicated end. Super duper fun, but I dunno if it's the best 'intro to psionics', haha, due to all the stuff to monitor.

If you use the vitalist in a 3.5 game, the only real thing that needs to change IMHO is 'Talents don't get to be infinite'. Most of the rest of the class can then be ported over immediately, and you won't be overwhelming combats or anything with your heals.

(...provided you remember that you cannot spend more power points than your manifester level, since you cannot spend more power points than your manifester level.)

(You cannot spend more power points than your manifester level) :P

Thanks for the crash course. So you are saying that I can spend as many points as I want, right. :smallbiggrin:

[tiercel]

Bard might not be a bad way to go, assuming you aren't dissuaded by the "healing is horrible" pushback.

Obtain Familiar gives you a way to deliver touch spells on the go (plus having a familiar on a skillmonkey is pretty useful anyway, especially for UMD). Since you are talking about the shocking heresy of actually casting healing spells from your spell slots, the Healing Hymn ACF (CC) is "yes, please": +Perform skill ranks to healing spell rolls is tasty (though check to see if your DM knows of/is using the CC errata nerf), and the boost to overnight natural healing is considerable (with one bardic music use and a Heal check of +5, everyone in your party heals 4 hp/level and 4 ability damage per night before any other augmentation).

If you really want to crank your out-of-combat healing, Touch of Healing (CC) gets everyone up to half hp between fights, though its arguable that just burning wands of cure light wounds ( or lesser vigor using UMD ) is an overall cheaper way of dong so.

Plus, you're still a bard, so you can be party-face, buffbot (hello, Inspire Courage optimization), and even go Lyric Thaumaturge/Sublime Chord/whatever if you want to get back to primary caster.

[Fizban]

IMHO, a good way of healing effectively is to have the feats Augment Healing (Complete Divine) and Magic of the Land (Races of the Wild).

The two (one requires a check to accomplish this) both give you a flat bonus on your healing spells. This then tags well with 'healing spells that do their thing every round'.

Level 6 is slightly unfortunate for that, as the first big spell for this schtick is 'Healing Spirit' which is a 4th level spell (and thus level 7, PHB2). Healing Spirit has the advantage that it lets you cast it once, and then diffuse healing around for a chunk of time without you having to do things, adding things like kickers (Imbued healing, Complete Champion for example, or Healing Lorecall the spell from the Spell Compendium) and your bonii like Augment Healing/Magic of the land multiple times with one spell. Darts of Life (Complete Champion) is a 5th level spell that has similar application.

For lower level, the 2nd level spell Close Wounds (Spell Compendium) lets you quickly rescue people who are dying, and with healing feats you can increase the limit to which you can save people.

But either way, in a low to moderate op game, this will help your heals actually /do/ something (before of course the spell heal, which is good on its own).
Magic of the Land is too restrictive and Healing Spirit isn't any good without multiple bonuses (there's the 2nd level Estanna's Stew from BoED, and a couple more from Eberron books that are just cheaper than Healing Spirit). The effects that boost healing are also incredibly vague on when and how often they can apply, since they're never written to properly consider that possibility, so it's up to the DM if you can actually multiply it like you want.

Augment Healing and Imbued Healing [Healing domain] are the two big ones, since they apply on all the spells and Imbued Healing [Healing] adds the target's entire level to the effective amount healed (as a temporary hp buff). Applying both to Close Wounds makes it a serious lifesaver until you can cast Delay Death frequently enough to matter, and when applied to Insignia of Healing (Races of Destiny 3rd, Mass Cure Light eat your heart out) you get a similarly massive boost to the whole party. Neither is as good against energy blasts as reading an action to cast Mass Resist Energy, but it's a long ways better for survival than "Prayer."

That's only the two most efficient feats for in-combat healing, and the more you try to add the less efficient things get. If all you want is between-combat healing, take Touch of Healing reserve and call it good. If you want even more in-combat for less than 6th level spells (and remember you've only got so many 6h level spells even once you've got Heal), then you'll want Maximize spell and Mastery of Day and Night (PgtE), which will maximize all your cure spells for free, but not other spells. Except Healing Circle (Complete Champion), which says it works as if you'd cast the relevant Cure spells each time, so it unambiguously includes Augment Healing, Imbued Healing [Healing], and Mastery of Day and Night on each trigger, for a very efficient amount of healing triggered by whoever needs it.

You'll want a ranged healing option. Divine Ward (PHB2) is the easiest, but costs you yet more feats. If you're tanky it's better to just stay close and use Unicorn Horns (Complete Champion) for emergencies, and/or channel Cure Moderates through Greater Status if you have 4th level slots to spare for it. And of course there's the ranged spells, Insignia of Healing and Channeled Divine Health (PHB2), and the usual Darts of Life.

For items, you can carry a scroll of Soul of Light (Dragon Magic), if you're Good, for basically another Augment Healing plus fatigue removal. From MiC, the Amulet of Retributive Healing can help keep you alive/stretch your healing even further, while the Armband of Maximized healing can boost those non-cure spells if you must.

I also brewed an item based on the Deadwalker's Ring from Complete Mage:
Lightwalker's Ring: This ring of purest silver improves your healing spells. You must wear the ring for at least 24 consecutive hours in order for it to function. Once active it adds +2 per spell level to the healing of any conjuration [healing] spell you cast at your option, up to a maximum of three times per day. This benefit does not stack with Soul of Light or similar spells. Prerequisites: Forge Ring, Soul of Light, creator must be Good. Market Price: 6,000gp

All you really need to be a healer is Augment Healing and Imbued Healing [Healing], that's enough to tip the balance against anything that's not significantly optimized. Without the Healing domain to power that feat it gets a lot more expensive.

[Khedrac]

Once you have worked out how your healing will work (i.e. cleric or whatever) take a good look at Combat Medic (the Heroes of Battle prestige class).
The Healing Kicker effects can seriously mess up your opponents.

Notably the sanctuary effect. Normally sanctuary is a 1st level spell so the DC is 11 + Wis mod - something you don't expect creatures to fail their saves against.
For a Combat Medic 1 the DC is 16 + Wis mod rising to 20+ Wis mod for CM5 - something opponents will often fail their saves against...

[Pugwampy]

If you playing 3.5 rule take healer class and add healing hand prestige class .

If you playing pathfinder Choose priest and add selective channel .


Save your skill points for diplomacy .

[Vizzerdrix]

Of course the best option would be for everyone to shell out 750 gp during character creation and render a healer significantly less necessary, but given the OP's premise this likely didn't happen. Moreover, 3,000 gp (for the standard 4-man party) is small change at most levels.

Yeah, but it sets a precidence. The group may come to expect the healer to keep blowing their wbl to be the hp nanny*. They may come to expect it from every healer type they get in the group. And when most groups start low level and stay low level, 3k isn't that small of a small chunk of change.


*Happened to me on more that one occasion.

[Jack_McSnatch]

Take the actual Healer class from miniatures handbook. It looks kinda fun if you want your focus to be healing and buffing. Augment healing and some devotion feats couldn't hurt

[Fizban]

Once you have worked out how your healing will work (i.e. cleric or whatever) take a good look at Combat Medic (the Heroes of Battle prestige class).
The Healing Kicker effects can seriously mess up your opponents.

Notably the sanctuary effect. Normally sanctuary is a 1st level spell so the DC is 11 + Wis mod - something you don't expect creatures to fail their saves against.
For a Combat Medic 1 the DC is 16 + Wis mod rising to 20+ Wis mod for CM5 - something opponents will often fail their saves against...
Everything but the Sanctuary effect is pretty meh, you even get Evasion- which requires light or no armor, which is a great idea for a combat medic, ha. The "Aid" effect is actually just a flat 13hp, not gained until 10th and quickly overcome by Imbued Healing [Healing], and the class requires two questionable feats to enter. I could see it being useful if for some reason you can't have the Healing domain, like you're making a medic for a church without that domain, but otherwise it's pretty much just the 1 round Sanctuary effect. Decent effect though.

If you playing 3.5 rule take healer class and add healing hand prestige class .

Take the actual Healer class from miniatures handbook.
This is the first time I've ever seen someone actually suggest this. It is a bad idea.

[Matrota]

Something that could actually be quite interesting is playing a lasher from Bastards and Bloodlines. They're dwarf/roper halfbreeds with an LA of +3. Reason I say this is because they can extend their arms up to 20 feet, which allows for using cure spells from a "range," since you need to touch your allies to cast them. Also buffs Con, Str, and Wis, which is pretty sweet.

[Ruethgar]

Eldritch Disciple requires 8 ranks in Knowledge (religion), so you aren't getting it before lv 6 outside of skill ranks shenanigans.

EDIT: If not for the skill requirement, you could enter Eldritch Disciple as early as 3rd level with Cleric 1/Warlock 1 and Sanctum Spell.
I default think of Bloodlines, but for that post I was thinking Laborious Training. So at the quoted Cleric 3/Warlock 1 you have a max Know(Religion) rank of 9. Bloodline 3/Cleric 1/Warlock 1 it is 8 at ECL 2 and you are 0 XP behind by RAW but have a DMG shaped dent in your head.

Earliest would be a shuffled Elf(thematically appropriate if you play up the chaos of whatever the Warlock got his power from). Being able to enter at level 2(though not advancing casting).

Or more reasonably: Cleric(any metamagic domain) 1/Warlock 1
Flaw: Favored
Flaw: Primary Contact
First: Laborious Training
Human: Sanctum Spell

That's a Know: Religion max rank of 8 at lvl 2.

[Pugwampy]

This is the first time I've ever seen someone actually suggest this. It is a bad idea.

In what down syndrome universe is restoring hp a bad idea ?

A dedicated healer is better than any potion or health wand .

Of course a cleric sucks at healing , Clerics are not specialists .
You want to heal your buddies you dont play cleric , you play healer .

[Telonius]

I'm personally playing a Cloistered Cleric/Warlock of Olidammara right now, leading into Eldritch Disciple. It's been a whole lot of fun so far. It's not ever going to be the most powerful combination, but it really meshes with my playstyle (skillmonkeys and scoundrels, generally). My Diplomacy score is through the roof, and I can contribute a bit more offensively than most Mace-wielding Clerics without having to get into melee - which, as a Cloistered Cleric, is a very good thing.

There have been a few levels where I've been dragging behind the rest of the team. Losing a caster level early on meant my healing was delayed. Lack of spells early on has been a real problem. There were a couple of combats where only extremely good tactics and some very, very lucky rolls kept us standing. We're at level 5 now, and some of the good stuff is about to start turning on.

EDIT: Regarding Healer ... the class does have some problems with it. First, you have Wisdom as a casting stat, but Healing Hands (which is really what makes Healer a better healer than Cleric) runs off of Charisma; so you're much more dependent on the stat than standard Clerics. No Turn Undead, so no Divine Metamagic; also none of the additional healing feats like Sacred Boost (which maximizes cure spells at the same-level spell slots) or Sacred Healing (which gives a minor bump to healing given by Cure spells). You also have less versatility. No armor, so regular Cleric has better AC; 4+Int skill points, so Cloistered Cleric has more skills.

[Kantolin]

Of course a cleric sucks at healing , Clerics are not specialists .
You want to heal your buddies you dont play cleric , you play healer .

The one advantage the Healer has over the cleric when it comes to healing is the 'Healing Hands' ability. Presuming our resident Healer has an 18 charisma to go with the high wisdom, that means the Healer gets +4 points of healing over the Cleric.

This is unlikely, as presumably the Healer is putting their higher stat into wisdom so they can cast their spells, and you probably didn't get /two/ 18s (or necessarily even one), and it probably costs you points in things like constitution (so you don't die) or dexterity(to make up for poor armour), but eh.

Here is a list of things the Healer has to lose in order to get that (generously estimating) +4 healing:

- Spontaneous Casting. A Cleric can spontaneously cast healing spells, the Healer cannot. Thus, the Healer must prepare all the healing spells he wants to cast, instead of 'simply having all the healing he needs' (which is the Cleric). This becomes extra critical when it comes to things like buffs, or other curative spells like lesser restoration or the various remove statii - a cleric can prepare one of each 'remove X' to equalize with the Healer, and if you're going into a ghoul den or something the cleric can prepare a giant pile of Remove Paralysises, for example. If you're walking into that same ghoul den, the Healer has to decide if he's prioritizing healing spells or remove paralysis, or something.

- Domains. A cleric gets a pair of domains, which can widen the cleric's spell list. These come with domain abilities, which for someone who wants to heal, could simply include things like the Healing Domain's +1 caster level with healing, narrowing the 'gap' to +3 over the 'I rolled several 18s' Healer. Let alone other useful-for-a-healer things such as the Knowledge Domain to help the party, the Travel Domain for additional movement, Sun domain to pop undead, Magic Domain to get at useful wizard buffs, and then other nifty options for various purposes in core. Out of core, you can snag Planning (extended lesser vigor? Thanks, healbot Cleric!), Time for improved initiative, Undeath for more turning for what you see below, and a slew of other stuff. This is ignoring the actual spells the domain gets you - there is a lot of application for a healbot who can teleport your party places, for example. And then you get things like Imbued Healing, which give you buffs based on your domains - clap someone with a cure light wounds and also give them +level in temporary HP? +Level gets higher than +4 very rapidly.

- Spells. The PHB2 has the spell 'Healing Spirit' for Clerics and not healers, the Complete Champion has the spell Darts of Life and not healers. The Spell Compendium has a slew of healing spells, and while it does have the suggestion of 'Try to add some of these to the healer's list' at the beginning, it's not clear on if this applies to spells that are not of the specific healing subschool - for example, 'Healing Lorecall'. But overall, Clerics have a heck of a lot more healing spells than the Healer, which you can only be certain has the healing spells in its own book - all of which a Cleric /also/ has. In addition, the Cleric has (say) Summon monster and planar ally and other spells on their list - take a domain for summon nature's ally IV, summon a unicorn, have it run around casting cure moderate wounds. Shelter someone who is dying way over there with a wall of stone or something. Cleric spells are way better than Healer spells, both for healing (Cleric gets more of them) and for general defense and support (Healer gets hardly any of these).

- Alternate Class Features. A Cleric can take spontaneous domain, the healing domain, and basically trade out spontaneously casting mass cure light wounds for the ability to spontaneously cast heal, which is an amazing thing to have on your spontaneous cast level. They can trade a domain power for the ability to spontaneously cast restoration. They can get at a Lay on Hands like ability. I haven't even touched on Cloistered Clerics. Clerics have a ton of options to fit your party's needs that the Healer cannot do.

- Turning. By default, this is 'another thing Clerics can do that Healers cannot'. Stepping out of core (and I mean, you gotta step out of core if you're using the Miniatures handbook) gets you access to divine feats, which put just another leg up for Clerics. One of them, for example, is Divine Ward - which lets you cast your healing spells on a warded target at range. If your Cleric's Charisma is 10, you can still at least ward the fighter for emergencies and make sure you aim for them - let alone if you plunk that 18 that the Healer is being assumed to have, or if you take the Planning domain for turning, or whatever. And that's ignoring the plethora of other divine feats that directly help healing, or the plethora of divine feats that help defenses in general, or divine metamagicing out a maximized or quickened healing spell. Or the Cleric's ability to get at various other sources of turning, or turning itself being useful.

- Chassis. A Healer cannot wear metal armour, for no particular reason, and only starts with light armour (and thus not the 'best' light armour in the chain shirt or a mythril breastplate). A cleric can wear heavy armour, or armour of any sort, and gets shields. So the Healer is rather fragile, while the Cleric is quite a bit more sturdy, which is just another notch against the Healer. The Healer does, however, have more skill points than the Cleric - that is a thing! - Unless you go for a Cloistered Cleric, which bumps things in cleric's favor again while still being able to use a chain shirt (plus free knowledge domain). Dead healers do no healing.


So to put all that together, a cleric who takes a couple domains to boost his caster level for conjuration(healing) spells gets a +2 on healing spells, a Healer who puts an 18 into charisma gets a +4. Outside of that, the Cleric gets piles and piles of advantages insofar as 'being a better healer', while also being a better everything else. Heck, the inability to spontaneously cast healing spells alone is obnoxious - a Cleric can toss out a quick cure light wounds to patch someone up instead of a bless, while a Healer needed to have planned on that in advance.

The Healer is inferior to the Cleric because it's really just kind of /bad/ at healing, haha. Let alone 'support in general', but like... purely looking at healing, the Healer is sub par at it.

(Sorry, other people who responded - I'll respond later! This post took more time than I figured :P )

[Khedrac]

The one advantage the Healer has over the cleric when it comes to healing is the 'Healing Hands' ability. Presuming our resident Healer has an 18 charisma to go with the high wisdom, that means the Healer gets +4 points of healing over the Cleric.
Not quite true, in fact that is the least of the advantages a healer has over a cleric!

First, let me say that I agree that a healer is greatly inferior to (most) other classes as a PC.
What they are, is quite a good NPC class as an extra party member controlled either by the DM or as a 2nd character by one player (hmm, they probably would make a useful cohort too).

So, I said they actually have some more advantages, what are they?

Effortless Healing - Casting healing spells does not provoke.
This one is actually a bit annoying because it comes online after it stops being awesome (7th level). At this point one is usually close to auto-success on defensive casting checks anyway.
Cure X Wounds, Mass spells are all one level lower than for clerics.
THis one is quite good when the whole party is taking damage, but lowers the boost from Augement Healing...
Cleanse X
Getting pretty much all the remove effect abilities as a 1/day Su is actually very useful for a healer. Usually these will only hit one character anyway, so if you don't have spare scrolls for emergencies many healing clerics have to carry around 1 or 2 of them in memory just in case (often the first spells converted to healing). When the ability is a 1/day there is no need to memorise unless you know you need it.
The Companion
The default Unicorn is praised for its healing (usually by the same people who rate the higher end healing spells as not good as they don't scale wiht damage taken - but the Unicorn's healing is pretty minimal...) but where is really shines is that constant Magic Circle Against Evil effect - what mind control?
More to the point is the Gynosphinx companion which can use symbol spells (DC22) 1/week. Now that can really change a fight when used by the companion of a 12th level character... Most of the rest of the companions have 7th level cleric or sorceror casting which can only be useful...

So, quite a lot of nice stuff, but very boring to play:
So, not one has been hurt yet? HealBot will munch some popcorn while delaying. Next!
Life can be made a bit more interesting with the right items (hang on, the healer just cast fireball?) but not recommended for primary PCs.

See the healer handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=6849.0) for more info.