Looking for Advice for a low stat character for healing/support

[Glarnog]

Can you shuffle the stats, or they need to stay in the order you posted?

If you can shuffle them, I would look at Ranges or Rogues as an option. Put that 17 to DEX and one of the 12 to WIS. You'll be hiding and fighting from a distance most of the time, so the low CON should not penalise you much.

If you have to keep them that way, I would look at a Dhampir race character to get a melee attack from that high CON.

Sadly the ability scores can't be shuffled. And the race is locked as base human.

[Garresh]

Man this healing discussion blew up and is derailing. Wanna make a new thread like "What do you define as healing?" or "What qualifies as a healer?" I'm enjoying this but rereading the novel we're writing seems like we should skip to a new thread. Sorry for the noise OP. I do think Moon Druid is still probably your best option though.

[Eldariel]

Okay let's do something a little more concrete, what in your estimation is a good amount of healing for levels 3, 6, 9, 12, 15? I'd accept either a raw number or a percentage of the targets overall HP pool, ideally both.

Your style very much seems to be kill it faster than it can kill you, and based on your other strategy posts I think that's a reasonable assessment. However it doesn't consider things going wrong really (there was unforeseen circumstances, a trap, particularly bad rolls for the party or an early crit for team monster), nor does it really seem rooted in in-character decision but rather raw optimisation.

I'll respond to this since, well, you pretty much summed the earlier discussion up to the bonus action vs. action differential: I find bonus action cost to be very serious since most classes do have important bonus action abilities or are able to acquire them. But of course, that depends again - still, if I'm considering optimality, I wouldn't want to use a bonus action just to heal 1d4+8 points of HP with a level 1 slot.

Since I'm talking about optimisation online, I'm analysing the rules and their products rather than individual characters, which is why I don't really bother with character considerations. Sure, a pacifist might want healing abilities since many of the competing actions are ruled out for a pacifist and thus the relative value of healing options goes up since you don't have as many other options. But a pacifist is obviously not optimal in any scenario: closing out options does not really gain you anything in this game. So it's irrelevant far as my evaluation goes.

Now, the more interesting question, what I would consider good healing on 3, 6, 9, 12, 15. I think that's a good question though it lacks variables; I'd rather think what counts as "good healing" for a certain action cost and a certain spell cost. On 3, you've got 2nd level spells and a d6 character with 14 Con has 20 HP while a d10 character with 16 Con has 31 HP. Further, average DPR for a CR3 is about 23,5 with about a 50% hit rate or maybe 12 damage per round. Thus, assuming encounters are dangerous enough that I want to use resources (let's say at least Hard difficulty so a single CR4 or maybe one CR1 and one CR3), and I want to put an action into the healing ability, I'd want to heal at least the expected DPR for this creature, or 12 points reliably. That way the healing effect would counteract a single turn from the enemy, similar but slightly different from a Shield or Absorb Elements spell (though of course both lack tools against AOE but so does healing). I think this would be a fair level 1ish heal - two heals to cap out a low HP character and 3 to cap out a high HP character. So if Cure Wounds rolled a second d8 on level 1, I'd say that's about fine and I'd consider it about worth using in combat on this level.

Now, however, things get nuts quickly. Like on level 9 (I'll skip 6 to emphasise the difference), the d6 character likely has 16 Con and the d10 character might have an additional HP booster like Hill Dwarf or Tough or whatever, not to mention the potential Aid-spell on level 3-4: this would push them 65 HP for d6 character and 85 for a d10 character, plus potential ~10-15 from Aid (so 75-100). Average CR9 encounterhits for about 59,5 with maybe a 60% chance to hit so the average damage is about 35,7. For a level 4 slot (of which I have 3), I'd probably want to heal 50ish-60ish points: level 4 spell is a significant cost for a Hard encounter, probably more than you need on average, and you only get 3/day. It should be at least two turns from the bad guy. Of course, this runs into the problem of making damage not stick but on the other hand it does make healing effects worth casting.

Then on like level 15, even Heal is largely obsolete: level 15 characters can easily have HP in the mid-150s and CR 15 creatures are easily looking at DPR closer to 100 than 50. If I were looking to use my one-shot 6th or 7th level spell for healing, I either want a lot of riders or damn near full heal to max HP; those slots are precious to the extreme and while Heal is a spell you'll prepare, it's not one you'll lightly cast in combat since it undoes maybe one turn's worth of damage with a spell slot that can often sway entire encounters or just skip them entirely.

[Dork_Forge]

Man this healing discussion blew up and is derailing. Wanna make a new thread like "What do you define as healing?" or "What qualifies as a healer?" I'm enjoying this but rereading the novel we're writing seems like we should skip to a new thread. Sorry for the noise OP. I do think Moon Druid is still probably your best option though.

Excellent suggestion, apologies OP

I'll respond to this since, well, you pretty much summed the earlier discussion up to the bonus action vs. action differential: I find bonus action cost to be very serious since most classes do have important bonus action abilities or are able to acquire them. But of course, that depends again - still, if I'm considering optimality, I wouldn't want to use a bonus action just to heal 1d4+8 points of HP with a level 1 slot.

Since I'm talking about optimisation online, I'm analysing the rules and their products rather than individual characters, which is why I don't really bother with character considerations. Sure, a pacifist might want healing abilities since many of the competing actions are ruled out for a pacifist and thus the relative value of healing options goes up since you don't have as many other options. But a pacifist is obviously not optimal in any scenario: closing out options does not really gain you anything in this game. So it's irrelevant far as my evaluation goes.

Now, the more interesting question, what I would consider good healing on 3, 6, 9, 12, 15. I think that's a good question though it lacks variables; I'd rather think what counts as "good healing" for a certain action cost and a certain spell cost. On 3, you've got 2nd level spells and a d6 character with 14 Con has 20 HP while a d10 character with 16 Con has 31 HP. Further, average DPR for a CR3 is about 23,5 with about a 50% hit rate or maybe 12 damage per round. Thus, assuming encounters are dangerous enough that I want to use resources (let's say at least Hard difficulty so a single CR4 or maybe one CR1 and one CR3), and I want to put an action into the healing ability, I'd want to heal at least the expected DPR for this creature, or 12 points reliably. That way the healing effect would counteract a single turn from the enemy, similar but slightly different from a Shield or Absorb Elements spell (though of course both lack tools against AOE but so does healing). I think this would be a fair level 1ish heal - two heals to cap out a low HP character and 3 to cap out a high HP character. So if Cure Wounds rolled a second d8 on level 1, I'd say that's about fine and I'd consider it about worth using in combat on this level.

Now, however, things get nuts quickly. Like on level 9 (I'll skip 6 to emphasise the difference), the d6 character likely has 16 Con and the d10 character might have an additional HP booster like Hill Dwarf or Tough or whatever, not to mention the potential Aid-spell on level 3-4: this would push them 65 HP for d6 character and 85 for a d10 character, plus potential ~10-15 from Aid (so 75-100). Average CR9 encounterhits for about 59,5 with maybe a 60% chance to hit so the average damage is about 35,7. For a level 4 slot (of which I have 3), I'd probably want to heal 50ish-60ish points: level 4 spell is a significant cost for a Hard encounter, probably more than you need on average, and you only get 3/day. It should be at least two turns from the bad guy. Of course, this runs into the problem of making damage not stick but on the other hand it does make healing effects worth casting.

Then on like level 15, even Heal is largely obsolete: level 15 characters can easily have HP in the mid-150s and CR 15 creatures are easily looking at DPR closer to 100 than 50. If I were looking to use my one-shot 6th or 7th level spell for healing, I either want a lot of riders or damn near full heal to max HP; those slots are precious to the extreme and while Heal is a spell you'll prepare, it's not one you'll lightly cast in combat since it undoes maybe one turn's worth of damage with a spell slot that can often sway entire encounters or just skip them entirely.

I'll reply to this in a separate thread

[follacchioso]

Sadly the ability scores can't be shuffled. And the race is locked as base human.

Damn that makes it very hard to make a decent healing character.

You can't really play a WIS 8 cleric. Favoured Soul or Celestial Warlock are your best options.