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Person_Man
2008-01-15, 04:09 PM
The Healer base class from the Miniature's Handbook is generally cited as one of the worst classes in D&D. It's basically a nerfed Cleric, with an extremely limited spell list, no Turn Undead ability, light armor, and the poorest possible BAB.

But today while glancing through the book for other material, I noticed two key class features:

1) Spells: Memorized divine spells from a very short, very lousy list, with no offensive ability. But interestingly enough, Healers have one of the best spell progressions in the game. For example, at third level, a Healer gets five 0th level spells, four 1st level spells, and three 2nd level spells, plus bonus spells from Wis. That’s one additional spell per level compared to a Cleric, including the Cleric’s domain spell.

2) Unicorn Companion: At 8th level, the Healer gets a Celestial Unicorn. In addition to the nifty template, the Unicorn gets a host of special abilities right off the bat, like Improved Evasion, Shared Saving Throws, and Shared Spells. As you gain Healer levels, the Unicorn gains new abilities, HD, Str/Dex/Int, etc., similar to a normal Animal Companion. Or you can pick better companions: Lammasu, Gynosphinx, or Water Naga at 12th level. Or an Androsphinx or Couatl at 16th level.

I've always thought that the Healer was worse then the Samurai. But given the very large number of spells per day and a potent companion that it can share spells with, maybe we can get raise the Healer to Monk level?

Specific ideas:

1) Find prestige classes with full caster progression that add domains, to expand the healer's spell list.

2) Find feats that add spells to your spell list.

3) Find useful Reserve feats, since your Healer is likely to always have extra spells compared to other casters in your group.

4) Find anything that improves your companion.

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

Trouvere
2008-01-15, 04:50 PM
A while ago I mentioned using Divine Oracle, Sovereign Speaker and Sacred Exorcist to build a healer as a cleric-with-class-features. Here's a similar build (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=14687589&postcount=32). This one loses too many caster levels, imo, though. I'd not take more than 5 levels of Sovereign Speaker. Sacred Exorcist grants turn undead to power divine metamagic and/or domain spontaneity.

Draz74
2008-01-15, 05:07 PM
maybe we can get raise the Healer to Monk level?


Heh, or even (gasp!) Truenamer level? :smallwink:

Starsinger
2008-01-15, 05:33 PM
2) Unicorn Companion: At 8th level, the Healer gets a Celestial Unicorn. In addition to the nifty template, the Unicorn gets a host of special abilities right off the bat, like Improved Evasion, Shared Saving Throws, and Shared Spells.

Shared spells does get you unlimited Magic Circle against Evil (which cannot be supressed), Detect Evil at will, and the Unicorn can cast 3 more CLW's and 1 more CMWs a day.

marjan
2008-01-15, 05:35 PM
Shared spells does get you unlimited Magic Circle against Evil (which cannot be supressed), Detect Evil at will, and the Unicorn can cast 3 more CLW's and 1 more CMWs a day.

Share spells won't work with spell-like abilities.

Starsinger
2008-01-15, 05:36 PM
Share spells won't work with spell-like abilities.

Really? The Unicorn's Magic Circle is a (Su) does that work?

marjan
2008-01-15, 05:40 PM
Really? The Unicorn's Magic Circle is a (Su) does that work?

It works only on unicorn but it gives anyone within 10ft effects of protection from evil. And unicorn's spell-like abilities are nice addition to casting but the problem is that he doesn't have anything that healer doesn't allready have.

If there is a way to get Zone Of Truth on his list he can get into Church Inquisitor.

Starsinger
2008-01-15, 05:57 PM
At level 7 you can become eligible for the Paragnostic Apsotle prestige class (From Complete Champion). In particular Divine Understanding (Heal), Mind over Body, And Discern Weakness (Undead) are useful. The latter only if you use your huge amount of healing spells to spank undead. Now all this does is make you a better healer.. but it can't hurt.

There's also Contemplative which gets you a domain or two.. but you need a deity for that.

Devils_Advocate
2008-01-15, 06:47 PM
The really annoying thing about Healers, so far as I'm concerned, is that they can't cast cure spells spontaneously. They're already worse than Clerics at pretty much everything else, but this makes them only ambiguously better than clerics at the Healer's specialty. That makes me very sad for the poor Healers. :smallfrown:

So the first thing I'd do for them is to house-rule that they can cast cure spells spontaneously. That way they're at least unambiguously better than Clerics at healing.

In fact, you could just go ahead and let them spontaneously cast any of the spells on their list, changing them from prepared casters to spontaneous casters. One big problem with a lot of afflictions is that they can happen to several members of your party at the same time, which means that having a spell that cures one person of the affliction is of limited use. Which means that those supernatural abilities that let you effectively cast some infrequently needed spell once per day are actually kinda sucky.

So let's just get rid of those in favor of spontaneous casting, so the Healer can just spam as much as is needed of whatever spell is called for. Now the class is a lot more flexible, still not overpowered, and, as an added bonus, it's simpler: No need to worry about spell preparation, no need to keep track of which spells you've cast and which of your 1/day abilities you've used up yet; all you have to track are spell slots. You have a straightforward, well-defined role as the one for whom it is just incredibly easy to keep everybody filled with hit points and free of any icky, nasty penalties, and you're very good at that role, at the price of being poor at doing anything else. That's how the Healer class ought to work.

marjan
2008-01-15, 06:54 PM
So the first thing I'd do for them is to house-rule that they can cast cure spells spontaneously. That way they're at least unambiguously better than Clerics at healing.


There's not much need for that. There is feat Spontaneous Healer that lets you cast cure spells spontaneously wis mod/day.

Magnor Criol
2008-01-15, 07:04 PM
There's not much need for that. There is feat Spontaneous Healer that lets you cast cure spells spontaneously wis mod/day.

But you have to spend a feat on that, and it's more limited than the cleric's innate ability to do this. Thus, they're still not unambiguously better - it's "with some added work, they're better" which considering they're designed to heal and only heal, they should be better at that than anyone else (of an equal level) without any added work.

I agree with D_A's second suggestion to change the healer to a spontaneous caster, as well.

Of course, these are homebrew solutions, and I think the point is really to look for solution in the texts.

Frosty
2008-01-15, 09:34 PM
A while ago I mentioned using Divine Oracle, Sovereign Speaker and Sacred Exorcist

Where are these classes from? I think the Exorcist is C. Divine?

marjan
2008-01-15, 09:45 PM
Where are these classes from? I think the Exorcist is C. Divine?

Sovereign Speaker is from Faiths of Eberron. The other two are from Complete Divine.

Darrin
2008-01-15, 11:57 PM
A while ago I mentioned using Divine Oracle, Sovereign Speaker and Sacred Exorcist to build a healer as a cleric-with-class-features. Here's a similar build (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=14687589&postcount=32). This one loses too many caster levels, imo, though. I'd not take more than 5 levels of Sovereign Speaker. Sacred Exorcist grants turn undead to power divine metamagic and/or domain spontaneity.

One-level dip into Contemplative at ECL 11 will give you access to a domain (Magic is the obvious choice, gives you access to Sor/Wiz scrolls and items). So will Divine Crusader, which has a separate spell progression (hmm... didn't notice that before, 9th level cleric spells without Ur-Priest) but I think it adds all cleric spells to your spell list, although the +7 BAB is really steep.

There's another way to pick up turn undead without Sacred Exorcist. You can pick up turn undead 1/day with two feats: God-Touched and Divine Channeler from Dragon #305.

Another interesting possibility... Magical Training from FRCS gives you three 0-level arcane spells. Combined with Alternative Spell Source from Dragon #325, it doesn't really add much by way of new spells, you now qualify for quite a few more Reserve and Draconic feats than you did before.

A one-level dip into Sorcerer and then taking the feat Divine Sorcery gives you access to one domain ability (Dragon #343, much better, I think, than Arcane Disciple):

http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Divine_Sorcery,Dragon

Combined with Spontaneous Domain and the Customize Domain feats, you might be able to get access to any Sor/Wiz spell as a domain spell (or at least any 1st level Sor/Wiz spell). A Healer 3/Sor 1 with Precocious Apprentice could be an interesting start to a Mystic Theurge build.

As far as PrCs... all of the really great divine full-caster PrCs are FR-specific (Storm Lord, Windwalker). Mystic Wanderer might be good, gives you access to Sor/Wiz spells via Brew Potion.