Transmute Healer to Vampire Slayer.

[Jarrick]

I'm currently designing a campaign world where the gods are dead, vampires rule 1/3 of the world, Illithids have blotted out the sun with their cloudships, humanity is scattered, and planar incursions left over from the event that caused the extinction of the elves causes nasty things to "cross over" from other planes and cause trouble, leaving the blasted waste of a world a dangerous place to be. Those who draw power from divine sources draw it from celestials, fiends, and other outsiders with less-than-godlike power.

This setting has eliminated all Tier 1 classes and most Tier 2 classes, including favored soul, and used plot to (mostly) justify it (enough for me and my group anyways). As such, I find myself in need of a class that heals. No one has much love for the healer, and their lofty vows arent very practical in this setting, so I was thinking I'd beef them up a little and turn them into undead-hunting warrior-healers, with more magic than a paladin, but less melee prowess.

These are my ideas:

-Use cleric's base attack bonus instead of wizard's.
-Allow them to wear metal armor, proficiency with medium armor as well.
-Proficiency with one martial weapon of their choice.
-Add balance, jump, and tumble to their skill list
-Allow spontaneous casting of Cure spells, like a cleric does.
-Channel positive energy spells through melee weapons like a duskblade.
-Favored Enemy: Undead as a ranger
-No unicorn. The plane of nature/the fey was engulfed by the Far Realm, making nature a dangerous place to be. Replace with paladin's mount.

Does this sound like a decent enough modification? Does it need more? Less? Where would this put it tier-wise? I'm shooting for 4-3. Suggestions? Ideas? Help!

[herrhauptmann]

Why are balance, jump and tumble suddenly class skills? I'm assuming due to books/movies you like that feature vampire slayers, but not sure which ones would seem to justify that.
FE: Undead, not overpowered.
Spontaneous casting: Sounds good. Helps boost them as the healing type as well.
Channeling Positive Energy: I assume you mean just cure spells, which would make them very skilled at slaying undead of all sorts. Though they'd have a tendency to go nova in a long fight where they keep trying their undead smite.

[Jarrick]

The skills were mostly fluff. Its dangerous both in the wastes and on the battlefield, you need to stay on your feet and keep moving.

Edit: Oh, and what I meant was spells with the [healing] descriptor. Is arcane divine channeling Heal spells into melee attacks against undead too much? Should I limit it to "Cure" spells?

[dgnslyr]

Hrm, Ranger with Practiced Spellcaster feat? The four extra caster levels only helps if you're not a full-caster. Unfortunately, you'll fall behind after level 8, unless you can beg your DM that you can take the feat again for another +4 caster level. Sword of the Arcane Order is nice, because it lets you cast wizard spells.

This'll get you:
Full BAB, better than a wizard!
Light armor only, but metal if you so desire, and medium armor isn't much of an upgrade
Proficiency with all martial weapons, not just one!
Jump is on the skill list, and you can get Tumble if you trade Ride for it, but I don't see a way to get Balance, sadly.
Can't spontaneously cast Cure spells, though I think there might be a feat for it.
No spell-channeling either, unfortunately.
Favored Enemy, because you ARE a Ranger.
And an animal companion, is close enough.
If you want, you can trade the Combat Styles for Wildshape as Druid, because Wildshape is made of win.

The big flaw with this plan is caster levels, because you'll fall behind after level 8.

With a bit of modifying, you could use a ranger as the basis for your Vampire Slayer, and I think it makes more sense, considering rangers are supposed to be good at hunting down their favored enemy.

[Jarrick]

The goal was more Healer with vampire/undead-slaying tendencies, but those were some good ideas. I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Vampire Slayer might end up being its own base class, given the nature of this setting, what with the war with the vampire nation having recently drawn to a ceasefire. I already have plans to adapt Dragon Stalker (draconomicon) into Vampire Stalker for a PrC as well.

Healing is the important thing I'm working on now though, since I edited clerics, druids, and favored souls out. I just need to know if the things I came up with would be ok to add in on top of their spells and class features or if anyone had any better ideas or even maybe thought I could get away with adding more. Like I said, aiming for tier 4-3 though.

[herrhauptmann]

Edit: Oh, and what I meant was spells with the [healing] descriptor. Is arcane divine channeling Heal spells into melee attacks against undead too much? Should I limit it to "Cure" spells?

Probably. When you channel these spells, is it along the lines of the Abj Champ, which gives a small boost to attack or damage, per level of spell channeled? Probably not, right? I bet it's just a way of hitting an undead with a cure/heal spell AND a weapon at the same time.
Does the channeled attack allow a save? If not, you're talking something that's pretty much an insta-kill when Heal is used. How much would a Heal spell from a level 10 healer fix? Now imagine that as a no save attack. A regular heal spell without a save from a level 10 cleric would do 100 points, that's enough to destroy a 13 HD vampire with average hitpoints. (average is 12+ 6.5*LVL) Too powerful, especially if you want vampires to be fearsome enemies like Ravenloft used to be (as opposed to a fun night of hackmaster+vampires)

[Jarrick]

It was supposed to be like the Duskblade's Arcane Channeling. I see your point though. I'll limit it to Cure spells. They'd still get a will save for half.

Vampires will come in all flavors and powers. From lowly Vampire Scions (Fang and Fury, 3rd party, slightly adapted) to MM vampire template+. Really strong ones will be custom affairs with unique powers. What's great is that the vampires arent half the problems the human(oid)s face in this setting.