Class suggestion for an Orc healer/caster

[Laharal]

Hi everyone!
My friends and I will soon start a new 3.5 campaign with one our friends who seems quite intense in his plans. We (under no toxin's influence) decided to be an Orc family, all brothers or cousins. I'm wondering what kind of PC class could I use if I wanna be able to heal/support/cast for my group. Take into consideration that we will be neutral or evil... are there classes for evil healers? Some weird gods for a priest?

Thanks to let me know
(Please stay in 3.5 and give me a book reference so I can look it up)

[Johel]

...well, Cleric is a start.
You can still prepare Cure spells.
You just cannot cast them spontanously.

[Sanguine]

I want to say Rogue with maxed out UMD and a Wand of Cure Light Wounds. But depending on the party level that may not be viable.

[RTGoodman]

You could also look into Spirit Shaman (CDiv), which I believe would let you get some healing spells. Cleric is always a good choice, especially for a 'Zilla-style PC. That is, you use your spells to help you destroy stuff, and then heal folks up afterwards.

[tiercel]

Spirit Shaman is an awesome class, alternative to the druid (though arguably less "optimal", it's still pretty good mechanically, especially depending on the prevalence of "spirit" creatures as defined in CDiv, and casting kind of like a sorcerer but being able to change your spells known is actually pretty neat).

One of the main weaknesses of the classes is its split casting stats, one of which is *Charisma*. Now... if you only care about healing, buffing, and summoning, you can afford to dump Charisma if you don't care about your DCs. (And given your spells known per day is pretty small, you will be spamming only a few spells -- spamming heal, buff, and summon is a viable playstyle).

Also, SS is more of a pure caster than druid, so you are less likely to be wading into melee and getting much use out of that orcish Strength bonus.

Of course, standard orcs take a hit to all their mental stats, so pretty much any caster you play as an orc is going to take a bit of a hit that way. This means any orc caster will optimize by buff/heal/summoning and getting into the thick of the brawl themselves, to use their greater Strength. Cleric works just fine here. (Druid too, though your orcish strength won't matter so much when you start spending more and more time in animal form.)

If you are thinking of going more caster, maybe see if you can wheedle your DM into letting you drop the -2 WIs penalty in return for dropping some of the orcish Str bonus. Spamming the vigor line of spells from the druid list is a very efficient way of healing, especially since most D&D healing tends to happen outside of combat.

[Kylarra]

Play as a totemist! You're not "really" a caster, but you're pseudo-castery, and it goes with generic primitive orc flavor

[Roukon]

If high enough level, you could be a Ur-priest from BoVD. Has to be evil and can still cast. Though, divine retribution may be a possibility.

[Laharal]

Thanks for all the input
Question: Yes I thought about cleric but aren't all the good heling spells part of the Pealor (sun god) spells.. (good aligned) ?
Can I still be a good healer without those...? And Can you heal with evil energy?

Thanks ;)

[Sanguine]

Thanks for all the input
Question: Yes I thought about cleric but aren't all the good heling spells part of the Pealor (sun god) spells.. (good aligned) ?
Can I still be a good healer without those...? And Can you heal with evil energy?

Thanks ;)

Healing Spells aren't aligned(don't know what you mean by mentioning Pelor ) and you can only heal Undead with negative energy unless the recipient has the Tomb Tainted Soul feat.

[RTGoodman]

All Clerics have access to all Cleric spells, and there's nothing inherently Good or Evil about healing spells - they're a tool, like almost any other spell.

Take a look at the Cleric Spell List. Any spells that don't have the [Good] descriptor are ones that you can cast without fear of repercussion. The only down-side to being an Evil Cleric is that you can't spontaneously cast healing spells - that is, you have to prepare them in your spell slots. Good-aligned Clerics (and neutral Clerics of Good-aligned deities) can prepare any spells in their slots, and then turn them into a cure wounds spells whenever the feel like it. You, on the other hand, can turn any spell you've prepared into an inflict wounds spell.

[SoD]

Thanks for all the input
Question: Yes I thought about cleric but aren't all the good heling spells part of the Pealor (sun god) spells.. (good aligned) ?
Can I still be a good healer without those...? And Can you heal with evil energy?

Thanks ;)

Well, if you play a XN or XG character, you can spontaneously cast your healing spells, and even if evil, there's a spontaneous healing feat (spontaneously cast a healing spell X times a day where X is your wisdom modifier). If the others are going evil characters, you can still play a CN orcish healer. Maybe say you're a follower of Kord, god of Competition, and your mission in life is to continue striving to be stronger, better, faster, etc. than you were before, to kill tougher and tougher stuff, maybe even keep bits and peices from the strongest creatures you killed. Take every advantage to fight one-on-one, even against your allies (as long as they agree, and you heal them up after). Follows the orcish ideal of 'grah, me smash' and still lets you spontaneously heal.

[fryplink]

While not a pure healer, the dragon shamans healing aura is OK (I think that aura can be applied to not-good dragons), never heals al the way, but half is better than none

maybe a favored soul of a dark god? they can spontaneously cast any of their spells, which is useful.

the problem with playing evil characters is that most evil classes only have self-healing

even *cringes* bards have healing on their list, so if you dont mind being CE bard is ok

The problem with this is that they all rely on CHA which is something orcs lack

[SoD]

The problem with bards is that they all rely on CHA which is something orcs lack

Orcs also lack INT, for wizardry mahem, and WIS for Clericzilla. So they're even no matter what spellcasting class they pick out.

[fryplink]

if your looking for wizardy mayhem, the breath weapon of the dragon shaman does wonders, at least for nuking, and doesnt require INT

its healing with a class feature with evil thats is causing the problem

Shugenja need CHA, but if you be a earth or air SHU...

your best bet is probably UMD and a wand with a cure

[Keldin]

You could be a cleric without a deity and take the healing domain -- IIRC it doesn't require good alignment. If you don't like that option you can take the spontaneous healer feat from CDiv as long as you are not evil (you could be Chaotic Neutral) and that would help.

Being a favored soul of Gruumsh would give you lots of spell slots to cast healing spells.

I know that druids don't have as good a spell progression as clerics do when it comes to healing spells, but they still have some and you could still get that Spontaneous healer feat if you wanted, plus I believe there's an alternative class feature in the Player's Handbook 2 for druids that lets them provide limited fast healing for their allies. The druid also has more skill points that you could put into the heal skill, which isn't much but it's something.

[Laharal]

Wow guys, I read every answer and I must thank you a lot ;)
I was confused about domains and restrictions but you guys helped a lot.
Also, many thanks for the suggestions (classes and feats)

Each time I got a question about DnD, you guys here are always very useful,

Great community ;)

P.s. I'll let you know what happens for the ones who might be interested ;)

[Altima]

>.> <.<

Grey Orc?

[Mongoose87]

Have one of them be the weird half-orc cousin, and use the Pathfinder Half-Orc - no stat penalties.

[Optimystik]

>.> <.<

Grey Orc?

This. Favored class cleric, WIS bonus.

[woodenbandman]

You could be a spontaneous cleric and just learn the cure spells.

[Tempest Fennac]

The only problem with Grey Orcs, http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030301a , is that they have a +1 LA. One solution could be to take normal Orcs and remove the Wis penalty. Alternatively, Shugenjas, which are detailed in Complete Divine, apparently have a variant which lets them use different stats for casting with Earth types using Con (Water types use Wis, Fire uses Int and Air uses Cha). I'm not sure where that variant came from, and the Shugenja stats aren't free online, but that could help if you didn't want to modify Orcs at all.

[Optimystik]

The only problem with Grey Orcs, http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030301a , is that they have a +1 LA. One solution could be to take normal Orcs and remove the Wis penalty. Alternatively, Shugenjas, which are detailed in Complete Divine, apparently have a variant which lets them use different stats for casting with Earth types using Con (Water types use Wis, Fire uses Int and Air uses Cha). I'm not sure where that variant came from, and the Shugenja stats aren't free online, but that could help if you didn't want to modify Orcs at all.

Or he could just buy it off... +1 LA really isn't anything to break a sweat over, imo.

[Blackjackg]

If you go with cleric or favored soul, I recommend the deity Luthic. Luthic the an official Greyhawk orcish goddess of fertility, medicine, and the home. NE, grants the Community, Earth, Evil, Healing and Protection domains. Favored weapon is spiked gauntlet.

[Laharal]

Lots of info ;)

1st where could I find mor info on the grey orcs? (book) are they 3.5? (They don't have it in the Crystelkeep compendium of everything) OMG!

2nd I found my info about Luthic in Faiths and Pantheons and on Crystalkeep for the complete list of domains.

Many thanks again for all the input ;)

[Optimystik]

1st where could I find mor info on the grey orcs? (book) are they 3.5? (They don't have it in the Crystelkeep compendium of everything) OMG!

You're in luck!

[Laharal]

Ok, I saw the link before but I tried to find a 3.5 book.. If you took it from Races of Faerun, so it is 3.0.

MANY THANKS for the link, will help me much.. ;)

Oh and for the ones asking if the 3.0 Grey Orcs are still ok for 3.5, the authors of Player's guide to Faerun adress the previous 3.0 books:

Recent Books: Races of Faerûn and
Unapproachable East anticipated most
of the changes in the v.3.5 revision, and
Underdark actually came out after the
revision of the D&D core rulebooks.
You should be able to use all the material
from these three sourcebooks without diffi
culty, although Chapter 1 of this book
presents some minor updates to regions
and regional feats fi rst released in Races
of Faerûn and Unapproachable East.

Player's guide to Faerun p.5

[Tempest Fennac]

I always thought Buy Back looked needlesly complicated to be honest (my normal approach is to just nerf things down to LA 0). Regarding Grey Orcs, would knocking their movement down to 30' be enough to remove the LA?