Quote Originally Posted by Corran View Post
Suggestion: Change the title of the thread to [Insert Name], the superhealer. And have it added in one of the guide threads. It is a good idea and deserves to be there.

For the paladin variant you mentioned (the one that has only 2 levels of warlock), Ioun stone could be a good magic item for an extra casting of aura of vitality per day.

I really liked how you analysed the party optimization, however I think that the cleric build's main advantage is that it removes the need of spending hit dice in short rests. So such a character would be able to push a group going and going (ofc the group must survive the encounters, so I guess what you said applies here). But what I am trying to say, is that if the group is well rounded and optimized around short rest powers, they can keep going for a very long time. For example, while a normal group is expected to fight up to X encounters of appropriate challenge per day, a group with that character and a few others that mostly rely on short rest rechargable powers, would be able to fight a lot more encounters during an adventuring day.
Thanks for the kind words. I'm not really into the newfangled build/guide scene so I really don't feel a need to reify the factoid in an optimization guide, but feel free to do whatever you want with the information. (After all, it's right there in the rules, not something I created, and I have no special claim to the info.)

My observation is that the X encounters per day guidelines are ludicrously easy, to the point where parties can fight essentially infinite numbers of Medium encounters per day, and only Deadly encounters deplete significant resources--but that might be because I instinctively powergame with the mindset I outlined above (trying to nullify entire classes of weaknesses and maximize versatility, with an emphasis on at-will abilities like Sharpshooting/cantrips/Mobile). In short, I agree--it is possible to fight a lot more encounters if you don't rely on long or even short rest powers.