Scholar class (Spheres in Review)

[SangoProduction]

Preamble: Woo… Just graduated… And now I’m job hunting even harder than ever. Still finding zero luck. On the bright side, it should be easier now since everyone’s being paid to not work.
But as befits a scholar such as myself, I will write a scathing review of the scholar class.

Review (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pWTsBtJk5q3CwAALrnpQP3Qf2NyantEBexjr6_XNYSM/edit?usp=sharing)

Post-Review Analysis:
Wow… I am… I am surprised. I remember being enamored with this class. Although I definitely recognised that it was slow and plodding to play with, and rarely felt like I had many options within the class. But I really thought the class itself was quite good.

I mean… it’s a good dip class. Especially with the doctor archetype to make Alchemy sphere talents simpler to use… but… wow. Wow. I was so speechless at the realization of the class being subpar, that my computer just decided to minimize all windows and let me think. lol.

The stitcher and astrologian archetypes were surprisingly solid. I mostly dismissed them before as lesser Incanters. Still probably mostly true except for single-sphere specialists.

[Hunter Noventa]

I really want to enjoy Scholar too, it's got so many neat tricks, but it really needs an improvement to the base chassis somewhere to be truly worth using. Increased BaB, better scaling on the Flashbangs, something.

It also has a lot of demand on your Martial Focus, so you need to really keep that up. Alchemy can help to an extent, but I've always been a little put off by the...weirdness of that sphere and it's need to re-prepare throughout the day.

[Seerow]

I really want to enjoy Scholar too, it's got so many neat tricks, but it really needs an improvement to the base chassis somewhere to be truly worth using. Increased BaB, better scaling on the Flashbangs, something.

It also has a lot of demand on your Martial Focus, so you need to really keep that up. Alchemy can help to an extent, but I've always been a little put off by the...weirdness of that sphere and it's need to re-prepare throughout the day.

I'd be happy with more talents personally. Half talent progression with half BAB just feels really bad. Like this could be THE class for someone focusing on Nature/Traps/Alchemy/Leadership/Gladiator/Warleader/Scout.... ie all the spheres that use skills instead of BAB.

Instead, it just feels cut off at the knees with a low progression, and encouraged to invest a lot to become a champion class, but there are Champion classes that are better at that. Its class features just don't make up the difference.



I will say that Scholar using their Knacks on a scholar/animal companion can get quite impressive. Genetic Modification, Large Animal Training, and Experimental Evolution gets you a beasty companion that is frankly quite scary between Improved Familiar options you can add on, and getting the combined benefits of familiar and animal companion on one creature, then getting 2-7 evolution points on top of that. Gets spicier as you add in familiar archetypes and the martial companion animal companion archetype.

[Hunter Noventa]

I'd be happy with more talents personally. Half talent progression with half BAB just feels really bad. Like this could be THE class for someone focusing on Nature/Traps/Alchemy/Leadership/Gladiator/Warleader/Scout.... ie all the spheres that use skills instead of BAB.

Instead, it just feels cut off at the knees with a low progression, and encouraged to invest a lot to become a champion class, but there are Champion classes that are better at that. Its class features just don't make up the difference.


Yeah you're basically forced to take the Knacks that give you a bunch of free talents. And they know it since they only let you take that Knack 3 times.

[Seerow]

In other news, reading through the class again Careful Packer is by far my favorite class feature here.

It's just hilarious to imagine the super skinny dude with 5 strength picking up and chucking around boulders and such because he's just that smart that he can do that.

[AsuraKyoko]

First of all, thank you for the review, I appreciate the work you've put in on it.


I really want to enjoy Scholar too, it's got so many neat tricks, but it really needs an improvement to the base chassis somewhere to be truly worth using. Increased BaB, better scaling on the Flashbangs, something.

It also has a lot of demand on your Martial Focus, so you need to really keep that up. Alchemy can help to an extent, but I've always been a little put off by the...weirdness of that sphere and it's need to re-prepare throughout the day.

One thing to note: you can recover your focus as an immediate action whenever a creature fails a save against your flashbang, which, while spending a standard + immediate action to recover your focus isn't great, it does make expending your MF on an explosive material imposition a lot less costly. Alchemy can help provide for the times when your enemies make their saves, so you can keep chucking flashbangs pretty consistently, if you want to. it's probably less good damage-wise than using Lightning Rod, damage wise, but it's alright.

I think that the way to improve the base chassis of the class would be to give it more talents. Giving it 1 talent per level would be really nice, and would go a long way (in my opinion) to bringing it up to snuff. It would also fit the flavor of the class: someone who studies many different techniques and has a lot of tricks in their back pocket.

[Kitsuneymg]

Scholar, even without the doctor archetype, already obviates damage as a threat. The doctor just puts the final nail in that coffin. My 16 con inquisitor routinely had more temp hp than hp. We joked about taking “real damage” the few times that happened. And yes, it was few.

My opinion is that It’s a broken ass pos class I won’t ever allow in a game again. You can’t balance a game breaking class ability by making other abilities useless or annoying to use.

[SangoProduction]

Scholar, even without the doctor archetype, already obviates damage as a threat. The doctor just puts the final nail in that coffin. My 16 con inquisitor routinely had more temp hp than hp. We joked about taking “real damage” the few times that happened. And yes, it was few.

My opinion is that It’s a broken ass pos class I won’t ever allow in a game again. You can’t balance a game breaking class ability by making other abilities useless or annoying to use.

That's more of an issue of Salve being such a good heal than of the class itself. You can just ask the player to not take the temp hp knack.

[Lirya]

That's more of an issue of Salve being such a good heal than of the class itself. You can just ask the player to not take the temp hp knack.

Salve is basically a drop in the bucket compared to the built in healing from advanced medical training, and expert medical training. Advanced and expert medical training also allow you to heal the vast majority of nasty conditions.

[Kaouse]

Scholar, even without the doctor archetype, already obviates damage as a threat. The doctor just puts the final nail in that coffin. My 16 con inquisitor routinely had more temp hp than hp. We joked about taking “real damage” the few times that happened. And yes, it was few.

My opinion is that It’s a broken ass pos class I won’t ever allow in a game again. You can’t balance a game breaking class ability by making other abilities useless or annoying to use.

This game wouldn't have happened to be Giantslayer by any chance, would it?

[Kitsuneymg]

This game wouldn't have happened to be Giantslayer by any chance, would it?

Yes. And yes, Rogar took like 16 points of actual damage the whole campaign. Which is kinda absurd.

My RotRL game has a scholar in it too. Damage just doesn’t matter at all when you can full heal people as a (edit)swift action.

[Galacktic]

Martial Study is quite good actually with the condition of you choosing the Duelist sphere. Because to use the Duelist sphere, all you need to do is perform an attack action - and then, tada. You're at full BAB at all times. My Scholar made pretty heavy use of that!

[Hunter Noventa]

Martial Study is quite good actually with the condition of you choosing the Duelist sphere. Because to use the Duelist sphere, all you need to do is perform an attack action - and then, tada. You're at full BAB at all times. My Scholar made pretty heavy use of that!

I went to look at this...and you're technically correct, the best kind of correct. Won't help you with Alchemy Formulae or Flashbangs (Unless you take Trick Arrow), but it's also compatible with Sniper, Barrage and to a limited extent Fencing and Dual-Wielding.

[Kaouse]

Yes. And yes, Rogar took like 16 points of actual damage the whole campaign. Which is kinda absurd.

My RotRL game has a scholar in it too. Damage just doesn’t matter at all when you can full heal people as a (edit)swift action.

Yeah, sounds about right. As the person who played Scholar in that Giantslayer game I should probably mention that I forcibly made the class pretty INT-sad with a few traits and such, getting Heal off of INT, as well as effectively all social skills. While I would say that my numbers might not be the best example given my nature to optimize, I should also mention that the GM and I actually worked out a nerfed version of Medical Training that was in use since like, level 5 or so. So the amount of hp and temp hp I was granting should actually have been much higher.

I guess my main issue with the Scholar is that it's way, way too much feast or famine. The things it's good at it can become REALLY good at them, while the rest of it's class is kind of lackluster. Material Impositions and Flashbangs are incredibly hamstrung and thus are super clunky to actually use. They don't natively work with Attack Actions AT ALL, and Flashbangs are a far, far cry from it's older brother - the Alchemist Bomb. Material Impositions all take your martial focus (which you will only ever have 1 of until LEVEL 12 AT THE EARLIEST). You can regain your focus if an enemy fails a save against your imposition...but that requires an immediate action. Furthermore, many material impositions require you to actually hit the enemy first, before even giving them a save.

So there are multiple failure points, and a very low chance that you'll do anything worthwhile. At least if you're playing a wizard and the enemy makes their save, you're not forced to spend another turn turtling in total defense before you can even attempt another spell! To say nothing of Wizards having things like Quickened Spell to help on action economy. So effectively, a high level wizard gets 2 spells a round, while a high level Scholar gets... 1 material imposition... every 2 rounds, if his enemies don't fail saves. Oh, and it's not like there's a ton of AoE in most material imposition flashbangs, either, unlike Alchemist Bombs.

On the complete opposite side of terrible Material Impositions and Flashbangs, are the Scholar Knacks...some of which are overpowered. Expert Healer lets you add temp hp to your party for literally hours per level. It feels like an exploit to "heal" people who haven't taken damage yet, but even then, you can inflict 1 point of damage to your party members and heal them for 100 either way. The fact that it lasts as long as it does is pretty silly, IMHO. If it was like, lasting a single minute, it would be more reasonable, IMHO. Then there's the combination of Poisoncraft and Rapid Alchemy that seems to forget that poisons are technically also considered alchemical items...but let's not get into that potential rabbit hole.

Then there are the Scholar Knacks that just straight up give you more talents...these should not exist. The developers knew everyone would be taking Studied Technique as much as possible, and put a restriction on it. But why do it this way? Why not just give the Scholar 1 talent/level to begin with from the start, and save on the feat tax? Then Champions of the Spheres came out and everything exploded to all hell and back when Scholar got Amateur Arcanist and Arcane Studies. So now, they get 3 more Scholar Knacks to grant them 9 more talents...on top of the extra 9 from Studied Technique! Then the Time Sphere Handbook came out with Chronomancy, and they now get an ADDITIONAL 9 more talents. By level 20, a Scholar can have something like 42 total talents. That's kind of freaking crazy unbalanced, and it all could have been avoided if they just gave the Scholar 1 talent/level to begin with and not made Studied Technique a thing, IMHO.

I'm also blaming Studied Technique for why "Extra Scholar Knack" is limited to two, and why most of the other "Extra" feats for Spheres of Might are limited...even though NONE of the "Extra" feats for Spheres of Power are limited.

[AsuraKyoko]

That's a good point about the knacks that give talents. I'm thinking that Scholar should be adjusted a bit, and I feel like the changes are relatively straightforward to at least fix the basics:


Give the class 1 talent/level baseline
Remove the Studied Technique knack, and make the knacks that give magic talents give less (maybe 2, maybe 1, not sure)
Reduce the duration of the temporary HP granted by Expert Healing to maybe 1 minute/level or just a flat 1 minute, so it's a nice boost mid fight, but you can't just run around with double health all day.
Reduce the amount of healing granted by Medical Training, or change the scaling. I haven't seen it in action enough to know how to adjust this, so I'll have to give it a try and see what works and what doesn't.
Make Flashbang recover focus with an immediate action regardless of if the target saves; or make it so that they don't cost the action, and auto-recover focus if the target fails the save.


I'll have to give these changes a try, and see how it goes, but I'm curious to see what the people who have experience with the class think about them. Are they not doing enough? Too much? Not actually addressing the issues appropriately?

[Kitsuneymg]

I guess my main issue with the Scholar is that it's way, way too much feast or famine. The things it's good at it can become REALLY good at them, while the rest of it's class is kind of lackluster. Material Impositions and Flashbangs are incredibly hamstrung and thus are super clunky to actually use. They don't natively work with Attack Actions AT ALL, and Flashbangs are a far, far cry from it's older brother - the Alchemist Bomb. Material Impositions all take your martial focus (which you will only ever have 1 of until LEVEL 12 AT THE EARLIEST). You can regain your focus if an enemy fails a save against your imposition...but that requires an immediate action. Furthermore, many material impositions require you to actually hit the enemy first, before even giving them a save.

Your bit about flash bangs and impositions mirrors my RotRL scholar’s experience too.

I’ll point out that the concept of “smart dude that does books” it kinda already filled in PF, so the class really just seems like “lol, let’s make a combat wizard.” It suffers from its highs being too high and it’s lows being useless.

Frankly, I don’t think the mechanics are worth trying to save. Just like I don’t think PoW is worth trying to fix. The archetype scholar does is already readily playable with far better mechanics that integrate into the game system better. So why try to make yet another wizard? Does scholar actually bring anything new or fun with it? Or does it just take more annoying work to get your casting and full bab alchemy going?


Also. Does Martial Study (equipment) let you get full base attack bonus with your Finesse Weapon appropriate weapon or your Discipline talent granted weapons?

[AsuraKyoko]

I’ll point out that the concept of “smart dude that does books” it kinda already filled in PF, so the class really just seems like “lol, let’s make a combat wizard.” It suffers from its highs being too high and it’s lows being useless.

Frankly, I don’t think the mechanics are worth trying to save. Just like I don’t think PoW is worth trying to fix. The archetype scholar does is already readily playable with far better mechanics that integrate into the game system better. So why try to make yet another wizard? Does scholar actually bring anything new or fun with it? Or does it just take more annoying work to get your casting and full bab alchemy going?


Also. Does Martial Study (equipment) let you get full base attack bonus with your Finesse Weapon appropriate weapon or your Discipline talent granted weapons?

To answer your last question first, Martial Study forbids you from selecting the Equipment sphere, probably for that very reason (which makes sense, in my opinion)

To address your other issue, there are several things that Scholar specifically brings to the table for me, that other classes don't really do, at least as far as I know. However, before I go in depth in that, I feel like I should mention that I happen to really like Path of War, so I don't really think it needs "fixing" or anything like that; I guess that mostly reflects that we want different things out of our games.

Anyways, to me, Scholar isn't a "combat wizard"; they don't study magic from dusty tomes, they study chemistry, alchemy, anatomy, physics, and other things. They are scientists who branch out into different disciplines, with a strong bent on alchemy, but also including medicine, natural sciences, and other things. Going into magic is an option, but it's not an inherent part of the class, and you don't have to go into it if you don't want to. There is plenty of space for more than 1 or 2 "smart dude that does books" classes in the game, just like there is plenty of room for a bunch of different "fighting dude" classes (Fighter, Paladin, Cavalier, Armiger, Blacksmith, Commander, Conscript, Sentinel, etc.). Each of those classes has their own niche, and function in different ways, that's a good thing.

Overall, Scholar is the best fit I've found so far for a doctor class, as opposed to a healer. The difference there being that a healer uses magic to remedy ailments, whereas a doctor does not. Arguably, the Alchemist already covers this niche, but it misses on the flavor I am going for, in my opinion, since the Alchemist uses inherently magical effects. Additionally, for a game that is heavily built on the Spheres system (no Vancian casting at all), Scholar is a natural class for a non-magic support-oriented character.

If you don't like the class, then you don't like it, and that's fine, not everybody has to like everything. That being said, the problems that have been mentioned with the class have been rather self-contained, and thus it can be relatively easily tweaked to address those problems. You said that the highs are too high, and the lows are too low? Well, then we can fix that by bringing the highs down and the lows up. You may not be interested in doing so, but I am, and I'd wager at least some other people are, too.

[Eldaran]

I think you're really sleeping on Expert Healing, it's the most broken ability in Spheres of Might. My level 10 Doctor can hand out an average of 184 temp HP with medical training that lasts 10 hours and is usable 7 times per day per character. Also you can do it in an aoe with Revitalizing Compounds, while still taking an offensive action, or do it as a swift etc. My hitpoints are 67, so I'm getting close to triple my maximum HP as temporary hit points.

Edit: fixed math

[Seerow]

I think you're really sleeping on Expert Healing, it's the most broken ability in Spheres of Might. My level 10 Doctor can hand out an average of 184 temp HP with medical training that lasts 10 hours and is usable 7 times per day per character. Also you can do it in an aoe with Revitalizing Compounds, while still taking an offensive action, or do it as a swift etc. My hitpoints are 67, so I'm getting close to triple my maximum HP as temporary hit points.

Edit: fixed math

I feel like I am missing something major here. Medical Training at level 9 onwards is 3 HP at DC15, plus 3 per point you beat the DC. To hand out 184 hp you'd need to hit basically a DC75 heal check (15 gets you 3 HP, 60 more gets you 180, for 183 total).

So either you have, frankly an unrealistically high bonus.... or I am reading the way medical training works completely wrong. A focused Int SAD character I at level 10 I might expect 13(ranks)+7(int)+6(skill focus)+2(masterwork tool)+2(trait)+5(Expert healing), for +35 to the check. Which admittedly is still like 93 HP a pop which is a huge amount of temp HP to be able to spam in an area. I'm just struggling to come up with the other 90, short of a custom +30 magic item which is I'm pretty sure even if it was available would be outside the wealth for a 10th level character.

[SangoProduction]

Note: Someone pointed out that Extra Scholar Knacks (and most of the Extra [class feature] feats in SoM) have a class level requirement, where SoP Extras just required the class feature.

This is actually an incredible consideration. And a near crippling one at that. Sure, getting 3 feats for 1 feat is degenerate, but getting minor class features, and having your only choice being made for you to match Conscript, who also gets bonus feats or (admittedly generally crappy) class features does suck.

I'll try and update it.

[Kitsuneymg]

I feel like I am missing something major here. Medical Training at level 9 onwards is 3 HP at DC15, plus 3 per point you beat the DC. To hand out 184 hp you'd need to hit basically a DC75 heal check (15 gets you 3 HP, 60 more gets you 180, for 183 total).

So either you have, frankly an unrealistically high bonus.... or I am reading the way medical training works completely wrong. A focused Int SAD character I at level 10 I might expect 13(ranks)+7(int)+6(skill focus)+2(masterwork tool)+2(trait)+5(Expert healing), for +35 to the check. Which admittedly is still like 93 HP a pop which is a huge amount of temp HP to be able to spam in an area. I'm just struggling to come up with the other 90, short of a custom +30 magic item which is I'm pretty sure even if it was available would be outside the wealth for a 10th level character.

There are a lot of things to buff skill checks in sop. Especially since it lasts all day at 10th level. The hermit let’s you swift action self aid for +5 at 10. Divine future is an average of 4.5 Favorable momentum is 3.5. The World let’s you bump up your take 10 by 4 at this point I think. Mind’s Courage with courage spell and you having extreme mood swings is another +5. A +30 item is unreasonable, but a +10 one is easy.

10d10+40 hp is a fighter 10 with 16 con and fcb in hp. And is like 100 hp. So it’s pretty easy to double their hp before a fight even starts. You have to do aoe normal one shot damage to the group to make them even care about hp.

[SangoProduction]

So, two things.
1: I read it as +1 hp per 5 points you beat the DC at level 1. (Pretty sure while skimming over, I just skipped a line, and read the part about healing attribute damage.) That was obviously a horrible misread.

2: You can optimize just about anything and make it broken, if you wanted. Even a Jump build which has absolutely god awful scaling, and only ever works with an entire build dedicated to it.
That's the nature of having an open system. The key to playing in such open systems as D&D and the like is to optimize to your group.
(Yes, that means even healers like me need to branch out of the Life sphere. At least on occasion.)

[Eldaran]

I feel like I am missing something major here. Medical Training at level 9 onwards is 3 HP at DC15, plus 3 per point you beat the DC. To hand out 184 hp you'd need to hit basically a DC75 heal check (15 gets you 3 HP, 60 more gets you 180, for 183 total).

So either you have, frankly an unrealistically high bonus.... or I am reading the way medical training works completely wrong. A focused Int SAD character I at level 10 I might expect 13(ranks)+7(int)+6(skill focus)+2(masterwork tool)+2(trait)+5(Expert healing), for +35 to the check. Which admittedly is still like 93 HP a pop which is a huge amount of temp HP to be able to spam in an area. I'm just struggling to come up with the other 90, short of a custom +30 magic item which is I'm pretty sure even if it was available would be outside the wealth for a 10th level character.

+10 from Aasimar favored class, +10 from Synaptic Mask (psionic item, but you could just as well use Magical Toolkit from SoP), +10 from Medic Satchel (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/apparatuses#toc30), also 10 on the d20 roll was assumed (I said average, but there's plenty of ways to always take 10), plus a few other small bonuses, could easily get tons more from things like Enhance Focus, Empress motif, and some other random SoP stuff. So this could be much higher.

Sure you can optimize anything, but there's nothing even close to this in terms of base Pathfinder or in SoP; you're pretty much completely immune to HP damage which is what like 90% of encounters are designed around. Sure your DM can challenge you other ways, but it still causes a massive distortion in how the game is played because of its strength.

[SangoProduction]

Point being: You, as a player, can choose to take those optimization paths or not to. It's not competitive, and you have said that it was an actively bad part of your game. So... don't do it. Tone it down. I was like that myself, several years ago... Jesus. Almost a decade... I feel old.

Alternatively, you can work with the DM to just rework the ability into something that has no optimization potential. Like that it takes a charge to heal a flat amount per level, regardless of Heal skill.

[AvatarVecna]

The fact that players can choose not to take a broken option doesn't mean the option isn't broken, though. The goal of an optimization guide like this is weighing the options against each other and giving less-informed players an idea of which options are worthwhile, which ones are traps, and which runs ruin the fun. If a caster guide presented Sacred Geometry as a time-wasting bull**** feat that takes too long to use to be realistically useful, the guide is essentially lying to players - people have put in the work creating calculators to make Sacred Geometry simple to solve, and some people have even put in the work to give a full-blown Mathematical Proof that past a certain point, a solution is guaranteed. A caster guide that marks Sacred Geometry as "good, but too clunky to really use" is functionally lying to those that read it.

That being said, perspective is important for readers as well. A scholar 20 dedicating themselves to healing is maybe looking at being able to heal 12000 HP per day for a 5-man band. An Oracle build with similar effort and dedication is looking at 22000 HP per day. The former has extra healing become temp HP for hours, which is easier to arrange ahead of time, but the latter can still do that for rounds/lvl, and can have Life Link up indefinitely, so starting the combat off with a nice free-maximized Mass Cure gives some good cushion for the fight, and Channel from lvl 3 makes mass healing not all that difficult (something the scholar will tend to struggle with). Life Link combos well with Lay On Hands Healer's Way, leaving your standard action free to do something else like attack...or heal people more.

It's easy to say that the Scholar will have other things they can do as well besides healing, but the Oracle will too - particularly as they level up and most of their healing is coming from the Mass Cure spells, they can sleep on the low-level slots for utility and buffs rather than direct healing, and they'll still be far ahead. The fact of the matter is, despite this overwhelmingly absurd amount of healing potential, Oracle is rarely if ever played as such a dedicated healer, because frankly they have better and more fun things to do than play band-aid box.

...so what does it tell you that this is the popular way to play a Scholar?

EDIT: Incidentally, the above can make it look like I'm saying "Expert Healing knack puts Scholar one step below life oracle", and while the final product is certainly at least competing in the same league and forcing oracle to put in effort to hold onto first place...Expert Healing is more supplementary than integral. Having it so that no healing gets wasted is nice, but it's not the core of a Scholar Healer build: that's the alchemy sphere, and more specifically Salve, which got an appropriate top-notch rating. Salve is what gives 12k healing if you put in the effort; Expert Healing just makes sure that absolutely none of it gets wasted - but make no mistake, even if 90% of it is just straight down the drain without Expert Healing, that's still 1200 actual healing for a 5-man band, or 240 healing per character. That's still an absurd amount of healing per day even if most of it is getting wasted.

It's like saying that Life Link+Lay On Hands is what makes Life Oracle OP, as opposed to...you know...the actual casting progression. Like yeah, it's a cool combo that consolidates damage and saves on action economy, but it's not anywhere close to the main reason you're a Healing Build.

Edit: So really that absurd healing is more just available to any SoM character...which is to say, any character with a single spare feat and skill? >.>

[Eldaran]

Sorry, but your math and assumptions are way off. First of all, a Scholar 20 can heal that party for 12k+ a day without using Salve at all, with Salve you're looking at much much more than that, somewhere in the 50k+ range. And that's spending a whole one feat, one talent, and one knack on healing, plus a bunch of items. You still have all your other class features, and you can do an aoe heal for hundreds dozens of times where an Oracle is not getting that many mass heals, and you're doing it while doing an aoe blind, aoe stagger, or what have you, all for just -2 to the DC. This not only makes your actions incredibly efficient, but far more powerful than an Oracle wasting their 9th level slots on mass heal.

But that is all entirely beside the point, because the most important factor is the temporary HP. Healing in combat sucks, if you're doing it more than once a combat, even with throwing a blind on your enemies in there at the same time, you're basically wasting actions. A Scholar doesn't really need to bother, because the amount of temp HP you're going to hand out is almost impossible to breakthrough by any normal metric. Temp HP is incredibly more valuable than healing is, and the fact that it lasts all day for many times a day means you're always going to be maxed out on it.

Look at comparable spells, even the otherwise best source of temp HP is the psionic power Vigor, which gives 5*ML temp HP, so at level 20 a Wilder with some optimization is going to maybe put out 150, and only to themselves, a Vitalist can probably throw out 120ish to the whole party, but they also won't have it up permanently (1min/lvl duration) and the Vitalist is a lot more pigeon holed in what they do. And it doesn't even touch what the Scholar is going to do.

Again, the DM can defeat or house rule any of this by just giving an enemy +50 HD and power attack, or just say you take X damage, but the normal assumptions and function of the game break entirely with this one ability. That's a problem in design, and means it needs to be noted in rating.

[AvatarVecna]

20 ranks, Int +10, class skill +3, skill focus +6, item +30. +69 to Heal and Craft (Alchemy). A bit expensive, and more could be invested, but it hit the funny number so eh.

Assuming Craft (Alchemy) +69 and Int 30, salve is giving a lvl 20 sphere user 10d8+40 healing 20 times per person per day. In a 5-man band, thats 100 uses per day, for total healing 1000d8+4000 (avg 9500).

Assuming it's a Scholar 20, and they have a similar +69 on Heal checks, Medical Training is healing 195 a pop, at 10 uses per person per day, that's 50 uses for total healing of 9750. I will admit my initial reading was that Medical Training was Int/day, not Int/person/day, so it is performing better than I initially gave credit for. This is reaching about 20k, and while I can see places where things cam get pushed further, I'm not seeing it surpass an oraclw putting in effort, ajd certainpy not seeong it reach 50k lile you're talking about. Medical Training can probably reach 12k like you mentioned, but I don't see salve reaching 38k per day without a lot more targets or some absurd Int/skill bonuses. I'm also not seeing the ability to mass-heal hundreds of people dozens of times per day the way you've claimed?

Finally, it's all kind of moot. Any amount of daily healing for a party beyond about 10k is "enough". Anything more than 0 HP ia just as good as anything else - whether you keep people above 0 by providing on the spot gealing, or a giant pile of temp HP, or immunity to damage, is ultimateoy irrelevant. It's like the difference between a build that can deal 1 million DPR and 1 billion DPR: yes, one is 1000x worse, but dead is dead.

Edit: Of course if you can provide such a build then by all means.

[Eldaran]

20 ranks, Int +10, class skill +3, skill focus +6, item +30. +69 to Heal and Craft (Alchemy). A bit expensive, and more could be invested, but it hit the funny number so eh.

Assuming Craft (Alchemy) +69 and Int 30, salve is giving a lvl 20 sphere user 10d8+40 healing 20 times per person per day. In a 5-man band, thats 100 uses per day, for total healing 1000d8+4000 (avg 9500).

Assuming it's a Scholar 20, and they have a similar +69 on Heal checks, Medical Training is healing 195 a pop, at 10 uses per person per day, that's 50 uses for total healing of 9750. I will admit my initial reading was that Medical Training was Int/day, not Int/person/day, so it is performing better than I initially gave credit for. This is reaching about 20k, and while I can see places where things cam get pushed further, I'm not seeing it surpass an oraclw putting in effort, ajd certainpy not seeong it reach 50k lile you're talking about. Medical Training can probably reach 12k like you mentioned, but I don't see salve reaching 38k per day without a lot more targets or some absurd Int/skill bonuses. I'm also not seeing the ability to mass-heal hundreds of people dozens of times per day the way you've claimed?

Finally, it's all kind of moot. Any amount of daily healing for a party beyond about 10k is "enough". Anything more than 0 HP ia just as good as anything else - whether you keep people above 0 by providing on the spot gealing, or a giant pile of temp HP, or immunity to damage, is ultimateoy irrelevant. It's like the difference between a build that can deal 1 million DPR and 1 billion DPR: yes, one is 1000x worse, but dead is dead.

Edit: Of course if you can provide such a build then by all means.

I delineated some of it above, but +20 untyped from Aasimar favored class, +10 circumstance from Medic Satchel, +10 untyped Expert Healing, and 20 ranks, Int +11 (assumes 2 inherent, could be +1 more), class skill +3, skill focus +6, item +30 (which I was only counting a +10) and a 10 on the d20. (120-14)*3=318*5 players*11 per day=17490 then since you have such a busted Heal bonus, you obviously use the Field Medic tradition which for some insane reason lets you use Heal in place of Craft Alchemy so your salves are (120-15)*5 for the increased DC and 4.5*10 for the 10d8=570*5players*21 per day=59850 healing + 17490=77340 healing per day.

This is of course totally irrelevant since using 1 or 2 a day per person gives so many temps that you could just sleep through any combat and still not worry about anyone taking damage. The mass healing comes from Doctor archetype, you throw an aoe formula like Flash Powder with a Salve attached to it, and using your absurd Heal (and therefore Craft Alchemy) the radius is enormous (over 100ft) and you give the whole party 570 temps or healing.

[SangoProduction]

The fact that players can choose not to take a broken option doesn't mean the option isn't broken, though. The goal of an optimization guide like this is weighing the options against each other and giving less-informed players an idea of which options are worthwhile, which ones are traps, and which runs ruin the fun. If a caster guide presented Sacred Geometry as a time-wasting bull**** feat that takes too long to use to be realistically useful, the guide is essentially lying to players - people have put in the work creating calculators to make Sacred Geometry simple to solve, and some people have even put in the work to give a full-blown Mathematical Proof that past a certain point, a solution is guaranteed. A caster guide that marks Sacred Geometry as "good, but too clunky to really use" is functionally lying to those that read it.

Actually, this isn't an optimization guide. It's simply an examination of the abilities to suss out which ones are generally worth your time or not. Although power certainly does play a role in that, my ratings not tied directly to the power, but how often you could probably have a character that uses it.
(Discounting that certain builds always ignore or take something. Since obviously, I have no way to tell how often any given person is going to play a particular build. So I just generally assume they only look at it if it's relevant for their build. Well, there's the base power of the underlying option, like feinting being generally bad so probably not going to find many builds that run it, but still. I guess I could add yet another modifier like [square brackets] which marks it as only being useful for niche builds. Not sure if it's neccesary.)

But that aside, I'm not saying that it is useless. Never have. (Placing words in my mouth isn't... fun.) Even when I first read it over (and mistook it for having 1/5 the scaling it actually does), I still rated it as Good.

What I was addressing was that, someone's experience was substantially negatively impacted because he put a lot of effort into optimizing the ability. The point of what I was saying: "If x hurts, don't do x."

The ability itself is not inherently at that power level.
Just like getting to add 1d10 damage per 10 feet of height you jump is inherently a terrible ratio. But with enough effort, you can use such an ability for effective ubercharging. That doesn't make the this a particularly useful option, because its optimization floor is just as high as its ceiling. You can't just pick it up and have it do... literally anything. DC 40 for 1d10 is a bit nuts.

This does at least have a useful optimization floor, where you can start healing as long as you get above DC 15. You can then go further, however far you want, or however far is needed for your group.