[3.5] Healbot wanted

[Learnedguy]

Alright, so me and some buddies have formed a small gaming group, currently consisting of:

A human beguiler - That's me. Optimized to the max, I'm probably the strongest guy in the gang. I fill the role of the face, skillmonkey and the goddamn Batman

A human necromancer - Not the wizard kind, the worthless homebrew kind. I'm trying to persuade him to make a switch to something that will actually be able to contribute

A half-giant psychic warrior - Who focuses on the warrior part. Likes BIG swords, probably because he's compensating for something. Is our tank and direct damage guy.

We're all in level two right now. The necromancer and the psywarrior are both noobs, but me and the DM are helping them. Anyway, that brings us to the matter at hand, we're getting a new member, who's also completely new. I've suggested that he'd be our healbot, and he has agreed as long as I whip something up for him.

So what should I make him? He'll start in level two like the rest of us, and I'd like to make him something that's very simple to get into. The cleric (and archivist) is too much bookkeeping. Furthermore, I dont want to pidgeonhole him into just healing, as he'd probably find that boring. So some offensive potential would be great as well.

What class to pick? And a suggested build would also be nice

(Also, a sidequestion. What build should I advice the psywarrior to pursue? Basically, he wants to be big, strong and carry a sword. He's also quite fond of killing things)

And oh yeah, no books are banned so feel free to optimize as much you want

[Kantur]

Not optimal I know, but what about a Favoured Soul (CDivine) instead of a Cleric?

Slowly introduces new spells, casts spontaneously so it's just "You can cast any combination of these spells x times a day.", starts off with only a few spells to learn (For example, Cure Light, Bless and Command/Cause Fear for 1st level for a mix of healing, buffing and 'attack' casting).

Get's a few abilities along the way like resistances, a few bonus feats (Weapon Focus and Specialization), Wings...Misses out on Turn Undead, and bizarrely Knowledge (Religion), but I doubt it's going to break the class if one or both are added...

[Kaiyanwang]

Probably optimizers will reproach me, but if your friend want a BIG sword, your DM could hallow Fullblade from Arms&Equipment. It's 2d8. Later you can make the sword in Gold or Platinum (Magic of Faerun) for 3d8. For a 4d8, Monkey Grip (not optimal but it's the biggest sword I can think).

The healer could be a Favored Soul. Split the spell choice between healing and melee, and you coul go well. I think is less bookeeping once the spell is chosen, you have e small amount to choose from.

EDIT: obviously, Favored Souls are favored healers for ninjas

[Prime32]

Healbot: A rogue with maxed ranks in UMD and some wands of cure light wounds. Or a factotum, or some other class with UMD. It's more efficient than a cleric using up spells on it.

If the entire party is undead (or takes the Tomb-Tainted Soul feat), the Dread Necromancer (Heroes of Horror) makes a good healer, since he can deal negative energy damage at will. DNs also don't have to worry about which spells to pick.


Half-giant psychic warrior might want to consider war hulk (Miniatures Handbook), though he will only receive the benefits of the class while using expansion. (Note that he also only receives the drawbacks of the class while enlarged)

[Dyllan]

Another option would be to play a Paladin, and make sure he has a good charisma. He wouldn't have much healing right off, but once he hits level 5, he can take Sacred Healing (Complete Divine version), which allows him to expend a turn attempt to give everybody fast healing 3 for a number of rounds equal to 1 + his charisma modifier. At level 5, a Paladin with a +3 charisma would be able to heal the entire party for 12 points per turn attempt, over 4 rounds, and would have 6 turn attempts a day to use for that. That's 72 health healed, per day per character, just from turn undead attempts. Get him a cloak of charisma or take extra turning to get more milage out of it.

Then there's lay on hands, and if he doesn't mind losing his mount, he could take the Divine Spirit alternate class feature from Dungeonscape to expand his lay on hands further.

He does get spellcasting, but there's a lot less of it than the cleric, so the bookkeeping isn't nearly as severe.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

First, point the Necromancer at the Dread Necro from Heroes of Horror, and have him retrain. Then, point the rest of the party at Tomb-Tainted Soul as their 3rd level feat. Then, let the n00b play whatever he wants.

[Learnedguy]

Alright, so everyone thinks Favored Soul would be a good way to introduce him? That was what I had been expecting, but it's nice to see some confirmation

Also, thanks for the tip about the hallow fullblade and the War hulk. I'll show them to him.

[Prime32]

The Touch of Healing feat is a great help for out-of-combat healing. It takes a while, but you can slowly heal anyone up to half hp.

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

Miniatures handbook introduced the class called 'Healer'. Combo that class and the Augment Healing feat (add CHA bonus to Cure spells) and you have a more than solid healer. Give him/her Craft Wand also, and s/he could make wands of cure herself. They get more powerful healing spells early, and can cure disease, poison, stat damage and drain all by what, 7th level? Maybe earlier? Play it as a race that is small and can fly. It is also a lot more believable than an artificer being a healer. (no offense )



----------------
Now playing: Queensrÿche - Resistance
via FoxyTunes

[Jack_Simth]

You might also consider the Spirit Shaman (Complete Divine). Spontaneous Druid that can trade out it's spells known on a daily basis. If you make a mistake in spell selection, no biggie.

[woodenbandman]

Healbots aren't all that fun to play. I think Favored Soul would be cool, but tell the new guy to not let anyone make him heal them. He heals when he wants to heal, never under any other circumstance.

[Thurbane]

To the OP: wow, sounds like you don't have a whole lot of respect for the other two players...I hope that isn't hurting the game?

Sometimes you should just let people play the characters they want, at least until the get the hang of the game, without trying to force a more optimized build upon them...

[AngelOmnipotent]

A Favoured Soul with the Augment Healing feat is rather powerful as a healbot. At level 10 being able to heal -everyone- with a Cure Light Wounds, Mass for 1d8+20 is very powerful.

Augment Healing (Complete Divine) if you don't know doubles the healing bonus given from caster level. This is irrespective of the bonus caps on the specific spells. So a Cure Light Wounds is limited to 1d8+5, but at level 5 you would heal for 1d8+10 instead with that feat.

[monty]

DMM Persist cleric-type (for other classes, dip a level of Sacred Exorcist for TU). Mass Lesser Vigor = infinite (well, up to 86400 per character) all-day healing.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

As an alternative to Favored Soul...

Spontaneous Cloistered Cleric

Spontaneous variant lets them cast spontaneously off of their list, similar to Favored Soul, only with a larger spell list because they automatically add their domain spells to known. So you grab the Healing domain, which lets you pick up all the cure spells and Heal and Resurrect. The other domain can be to flavor, either picking up a lot of useful spells free or for domain ability or whatever. You also get the Knowledge domain free for being Cloistered Cleric, and add those spells to your spells known list as well.

Then choose spells for your Spells Known that aren't on those lists that you will want. I suggest things like Freedom of Movement, GMW, MV, and Death Ward.

Now here is where you have fun, although it gets a bit complicated for a n00b

Be Chaotic Good and dip one level of Warlock. Now go Eldritch Theurge.

You can:

Blast all day long for when you aren't busy healing/buffing.
Turn the blast into healing for a turn attempt, which you can then chain using a Lesser Invocation
Pop a Circle of Protection Evil around you for a turn attempt
still have all the blasty goodness of a Warlock, as it progresses 10/10 warlock invocations/blas and 9/10 Cleric casting.

[dspeyer]

You might also look at the spontaneous cleric from Unearthed Arcana. It doesn't get the somewhat random special abilities of the favored soul, but it does get its spells (well, domain spells) a level earlier, and it gets turn undead. Also, since it gets domains normally, it qualifies for Radiant Servant without contemplative or other weirdness. It doesn't know healing spells automatically, so take the healing domain.

Other build advice? Take reach spell and dmm(reach spell), so you don't have to take AoOs to heal your comrades. Possibly take split ray or chain spell and its dmm as well, to heal multiple people at once. If you go that route, you may want metamagic school specialization. If you don't mind the sun domain (which isn't too bad) and extra turning (handy for divine metamagic), take radiant servant as soon as possible -- you lose nothing. Unless you can find a wisdom or charisma boost at ecl0, play a human.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

I'm with ShneekeyTheLost, only I have a couple things you might want to look into:

Cloistered Cleric is just gold, all the win of the normal Cleric at the cost of things that can be more than made up for with a single spell. The 2nd and 3rd level spells below turn healing into a no effort task, especially with Divine Metamagic (Persist):

2nd:
Healing Lorecall(CAdv p151)
<Div, VSM(mint leaf), 1StdAct, Personal, 1min/lvl>
– When the caster casts healing spells while this
spell is in effect, the following bonuses apply:
a) the caster may use his/her ranks in Heal as
the caster level of healing spells;
b) if the caster has 5+ ranks in Heal, one of
the following conditions may be removed
from the target of a healing spell: Dazed,
Dazzled, or Fatigued;
c) if the caster has 10+ ranks in Heal, one of
the following conditions may be removed
from the target of a healing spell:
Exhausted, Nauseated, or Sickened (or one
of the conditions listed above).

3rd:
Vigor, Mass Lesser(CDiv p186)(DR324 p103)+
<Conj(heal), VS, 1StdAct, 20’ range, 10rnd + 1rnd per
level (max 25rnds total)>
– One living creature per two Caster levels in a
30’ area gains Fast Healing 1.

With with orisons dedicated to status removal do to HL, he can pretty much do whatever the heck he wants with the rest of the build. It looks a lot more complicated than it is in practice. >_>

[Xuincherguixe]

Heal Bots are not fun.

It would be best to make a character that can heal, but can do a lot more.

... So yeah basically play a Cleric. Or maybe a Druid.

Or any of the many other suggestions.

[Prime32]

Miniatures handbook introduced the class called 'Healer'. Combo that class and the Augment Healing feat (add CHA bonus to Cure spells) and you have a more than solid healer. Give him/her Craft Wand also, and s/he could make wands of cure herself. They get more powerful healing spells early, and can cure disease, poison, stat damage and drain all by what, 7th level? Maybe earlier? Play it as a race that is small and can fly. It is also a lot more believable than an artificer being a healer. (no offense )

Healer is a bottom-tier class. Healing is all it can do, and it can't even do that particularly well.

[monty]

It is also a lot more believable than an artificer being a healer. (no offense )

Hey, don't insult the artificer healer.

[Learnedguy]

To the OP: wow, sounds like you don't have a whole lot of respect for the other two players...I hope that isn't hurting the game?

Sometimes you should just let people play the characters they want, at least until the get the hang of the game, without trying to force a more optimized build upon them...

They are the kind of friend you can make fun off. I've been on the receiving end as well (I was pretty much reduced to laughing stock when one of my character flaws ended with me constantly staring on one of the other player character's tits for the whole of the game, reducing me into a drooling moron for the rest of the game)

Anyway, the necromancer greatly appreciated the Dread Necro, so good call that. The class basically did all he was looking for and then some.

And the healbot was more interested in the spontaneous Cleric than the favored soul, so I'm going to brew one up for him next time.

And the guy with the swords still likes his sword, and he appreciate the spotlight he receives from kicking stuff in the teeth hard and repeatedly.

Basically, we're one big happy dysfunctional family of dungeon crawlers

[Thurbane]

Good to hear that it's working out for your group.

[ericgrau]

As said, he'll have more fun as a cleric so he can fight too.

Since he's new help him pick out his spells. Instead of blowing a weak cure spell or buff just to kill a round, make sure he uses his lower level spells on out of combat buffs (in the morning or in a buff round). That includes self buffs. High level spells can go to healing (spontaneously of course), save-or-dies or inflicts. Status effect removers go on scrolls so he's always ready. Very common ones like dispel magic get prepared. That should be enough to get him going without too much complication, and it leaves plenty of rounds open for fighting.

[Person_Man]

You might also want to hand him a Crusader. They're excellent secondary healers, and pretty much unkillable low level tanks. And if you put all of the maneuvers and stances onto cards (they have them for free on the WotC website) they're actually quite easy to play (although you'll probably want to build it for him).

Every else should just buy a Belt of Healing or whatnot. No reason to stick one player with all the healing duties.

[Chronos]

For a 4d8, Monkey Grip (not optimal but it's the biggest sword I can think).

Monkey Grip does not work that way.

Specifically, the PsiWar is already a half-giant, and therefore has Powerful Build. Powerful Build does not stack with Monkey Grip, and is much better than it anyway.


On the original question, there are tons of different ways to heal HP damage, but that's not all that you need from a healer. You also need someone who can fix up the party when things go wrong other than HP damage: Restoration, Remove Curse, Break Enchantment, etc., and of course Raise Dead. So far as I know, nobody but a divine caster or a psion/wilder can raise dead, and very few classes can handle the other fix-it tasks. Alternately, you can get scrolls of all of the fix-it spells, and get someone with UMD to use them (this isn't too bad, since most of those spells are best kept in scroll form anyway, so you don't waste slots on them when you don't need them). Actually, you ideally want to people able to play fix-it, in case your usual fixer is the one who's gotten broken.

[Kaiyanwang]

Monkey Grip does not work that way.

Specifically, the PsiWar is already a half-giant, and therefore has Powerful Build. Powerful Build does not stack with Monkey Grip, and is much better than it anyway.

Yeah, didn't read half giant. But in that case, we have directly a 3d8 fullblade, 4d8 made of gold..

I'm wrong?