Segev
2019-04-02, 12:56 PM
This may not be anything particularly new, but it's new to me and I felt like opening a discussion on it/sharing what I've been toying with in my head.
Vitalists are interesting healers and buffers with a nifty Collective ability that lets them do things at range, shuffle healing about optimally, and let the tanks in the party help even when they're bypassed by using them as hp batteries. (Well, some builds can.) Going Soulthief and Life Leech (a choice in Method and an archetype, which are compatible) gives interesting options for manipulating hp within the Collective.
At first blush, having disposable minions courtesy of a friendly necromancer seems like a wonderful source of hp. Unfortunately, all the good powers for sucking hp out of one person and shoving them into another seem to refuse to let you suck hp out of creatures without Constitution scores. You can give them hp taken from others, but you can't use them as sources. In addition, an interesting design choice made was that, though the Vitalist can redistribute healing as it happens, the healing retains the "energy type" it has from its original target. This means anything causing living creatures to gain hp is positive energy, anything causing undead to regain hp is negative energy, and anything causing constructs to regain hp is "repair." Positive energy hurts undead, even when redirected healing. Similarly, negative energy hurts the living, even when redirected from what was meant to heal undead. (Repair doesn't work on either, only on constructs.)
Equally interestingly, unless the healing source specifies, what seems to determine the energy type is the target. So a Vitalist's Natural Healing power that restores 3 hp to a living creature is positive energy, but is negative energy if he targets undead. (And, thanks to Medic Powers, he can target anybody in his collective with it.)
This means that Natural Healing augmented and replicated across undead, then using the healing-redirection class feature to focus it on something living, becomes a fairly potent damaging power. For 5 pp (2 to augment to 9 hp healing, 2 more to distribute to two more targets), the Vitalist is healing 3 undead for 9 hp each. Redirecting all that "healing" to a living target is 27 automatic damage for 5 pp. At 20th level, it's 330 hp of damage on one target (or split up however he likes, as long as the targets are in the collective).
Note, this also can be done more straight-forwardly as massive healing to the collective, if they're all alive. Or all unalive.
Of course, using this as a weapon requires forcing people into the collective, but the Life Leech gets a feat to do that as a class feature, and the feat exists even for non-Life Leech Vitalists.
Another trick - though this requires 3.PF to the best of my knowledge - would be to force a living target into the collective, and have your necromancer friend have the Destruction Retribution feat that makes his minions explode for 1d6 negative energy in a 5 foot burst per HD of the minion when the minion is destroyed. When a minion dies amidst other minions, that's (minion's HD)d6 per adjacent minion worth of negative energy healing that can be redirected to a living victim forced into the collective. If it's a low-HD (say, 2) minion, the Vitalist could deal 2x(Vitalist Level)+(Wis Mod) to the victim with Drain Life, use that to heal a living ally in the collective, transfer that "healing" to an undead minion (say, 2HD) surrounded by 8 other minions, and then have the 2d6 burst turn into 16d6 negative energy healing to be redirected (as damage!) to the victim from whom he took the original hp. And all it costs, aside from the Vitalist's action, is a low-HD minion belonging to his necromancer ally!
Now, this requires 3.5e feats, unless somebody knows any ways of getting something similar to the Corpsecrafter line (in particular, Destruction Retribution) in PF.
Share Pain + Vigor tricks also get interesting with Vitalists, and may be a way to at least gain some benefit from undead minions. Vigor is 5 temp hp per pp spent, single target (until the Vitalist uses Medic Powers to make it a Network spell that he can duplicate for +1 pp per additional target). Spreading that optimally and then using Share Pain between members can make it have near double effectiveness, unless both are front-liners.
Additionally, the Life Leech's Drain Life can be used to launder Vigor's temp hp into real hp of healing: steal hp from the Vigor-buffed target in your collective (so he takes damage to his temp hp) and heal another collective member for the amount drained. Really not much more effective than Natural Healing, but slightly more pp-efficient, at least.
Any other tricks? For Vitalists or for Vitalists with undead allies? Any way to get something like the Corpsecrafter line of feats in PF?
Vitalists are interesting healers and buffers with a nifty Collective ability that lets them do things at range, shuffle healing about optimally, and let the tanks in the party help even when they're bypassed by using them as hp batteries. (Well, some builds can.) Going Soulthief and Life Leech (a choice in Method and an archetype, which are compatible) gives interesting options for manipulating hp within the Collective.
At first blush, having disposable minions courtesy of a friendly necromancer seems like a wonderful source of hp. Unfortunately, all the good powers for sucking hp out of one person and shoving them into another seem to refuse to let you suck hp out of creatures without Constitution scores. You can give them hp taken from others, but you can't use them as sources. In addition, an interesting design choice made was that, though the Vitalist can redistribute healing as it happens, the healing retains the "energy type" it has from its original target. This means anything causing living creatures to gain hp is positive energy, anything causing undead to regain hp is negative energy, and anything causing constructs to regain hp is "repair." Positive energy hurts undead, even when redirected healing. Similarly, negative energy hurts the living, even when redirected from what was meant to heal undead. (Repair doesn't work on either, only on constructs.)
Equally interestingly, unless the healing source specifies, what seems to determine the energy type is the target. So a Vitalist's Natural Healing power that restores 3 hp to a living creature is positive energy, but is negative energy if he targets undead. (And, thanks to Medic Powers, he can target anybody in his collective with it.)
This means that Natural Healing augmented and replicated across undead, then using the healing-redirection class feature to focus it on something living, becomes a fairly potent damaging power. For 5 pp (2 to augment to 9 hp healing, 2 more to distribute to two more targets), the Vitalist is healing 3 undead for 9 hp each. Redirecting all that "healing" to a living target is 27 automatic damage for 5 pp. At 20th level, it's 330 hp of damage on one target (or split up however he likes, as long as the targets are in the collective).
Note, this also can be done more straight-forwardly as massive healing to the collective, if they're all alive. Or all unalive.
Of course, using this as a weapon requires forcing people into the collective, but the Life Leech gets a feat to do that as a class feature, and the feat exists even for non-Life Leech Vitalists.
Another trick - though this requires 3.PF to the best of my knowledge - would be to force a living target into the collective, and have your necromancer friend have the Destruction Retribution feat that makes his minions explode for 1d6 negative energy in a 5 foot burst per HD of the minion when the minion is destroyed. When a minion dies amidst other minions, that's (minion's HD)d6 per adjacent minion worth of negative energy healing that can be redirected to a living victim forced into the collective. If it's a low-HD (say, 2) minion, the Vitalist could deal 2x(Vitalist Level)+(Wis Mod) to the victim with Drain Life, use that to heal a living ally in the collective, transfer that "healing" to an undead minion (say, 2HD) surrounded by 8 other minions, and then have the 2d6 burst turn into 16d6 negative energy healing to be redirected (as damage!) to the victim from whom he took the original hp. And all it costs, aside from the Vitalist's action, is a low-HD minion belonging to his necromancer ally!
Now, this requires 3.5e feats, unless somebody knows any ways of getting something similar to the Corpsecrafter line (in particular, Destruction Retribution) in PF.
Share Pain + Vigor tricks also get interesting with Vitalists, and may be a way to at least gain some benefit from undead minions. Vigor is 5 temp hp per pp spent, single target (until the Vitalist uses Medic Powers to make it a Network spell that he can duplicate for +1 pp per additional target). Spreading that optimally and then using Share Pain between members can make it have near double effectiveness, unless both are front-liners.
Additionally, the Life Leech's Drain Life can be used to launder Vigor's temp hp into real hp of healing: steal hp from the Vigor-buffed target in your collective (so he takes damage to his temp hp) and heal another collective member for the amount drained. Really not much more effective than Natural Healing, but slightly more pp-efficient, at least.
Any other tricks? For Vitalists or for Vitalists with undead allies? Any way to get something like the Corpsecrafter line of feats in PF?