Lvl 20, Most-Mass-Heals-per-day 'Healer' build

[X-Codes]

There was another guy who had a lot of great things to say, but he was a dick about saying them. He was called Sunic_Flames, and he got banned.

Is that true? I thought he left of his own accord, when I saw all his posts deleted. How annoying. . .

It was Sunic that deleted everything.  He got mad when people called him on being full of shit as he was writing his guide to IP Proofing.

[Midnight_v]

There was another guy who had a lot of great things to say, but he was a dick about saying them. He was called Sunic_Flames, and he got banned.

Is that true? I thought he left of his own accord, when I saw all his posts deleted. How annoying. . .

It was Sunic that deleted everything.  He got mad when people called him on being full of shit as he was writing his guide to IP Proofing.

Hmm... this would be unfair to get into it. I'll just let it drop.

[JaronK]

Back on topic, one of the primary issues people are getting at is that there are a lot of one round "you're screwed" effects in this game, which make consistent healing a losing game.  Now, maybe your DM is just constantly hitting you with 75% of your party's hitpoints in damage a round and staying there, but in most cases we'd expect to see some Save or Lose effects thrown in, along with the occasional "actually, that was 110% of your hitpoints that round."  As such, just trying to get hitpoints back just won't cut it.

At the very least, consider some ablative minions to take some of these early hits for you.  A solid Disguise check should be able to make undead minions (Animate Dread Warrior, perhaps?) look like your party to take that early 9th level spell barrage, leaving you free to counter attack.  Contingencies area also a very good idea.  Illusions might help as well.  You need to get clear of the early attacks.  Frankly, your DMs style sounds strange to me... if he can fire off multiple Disjunctions then the enemy clearly has 9th level spells.  Why aren't they dropping some kill/maim spells on you, especially if you have no items and thus your saves are quite poor?

JaronK

[Midnight_v]

Save or Lose effects thrown in,

Ya know that was the first thing I wanted to mention to him but he expresses that he's not interested in our theories about it.

 Though, I supposed once you get past the mass heal spam you can you utilize all your OTHER spells for different things... but I'm supposing that it would violate the spirit of what he's trying to do.
Something that did cross my mind is can't you summon things to help in the healing? Unicorns or Celestial Liopleurodon or Whathave you? Without going to the summoners guide I'd be hard pressed to pop off all of them that can signifigantly heal you, non standard outsiders are often described in their entries etc.

[JaronK]

Oh, right, I forgot to mention that about my build.  It can bind Zceryll, which when using its Summon Monster spam abilities can summon one angel/archon critter that I forget the name of (from BoED).  Anyway, one of their high level summon creatures can cast Heal 1/day, Cure Serious Wounds 3/day, and can use a Lay On Hands effect for over 100hp 1/day.  And you can summon one once every 5 rounds, or once every 4 rounds if you dedicate two feats to this trick.  Plus you can start summoning them before the fight starts, and the duration is your Binder level, so you can start a fight with three of these guys ready to heal for you.

JaronK

[X-Codes]

Oh, right, I forgot to mention that about my build.  It can bind Zceryll, which when using its Summon Monster spam abilities can summon one angel/archon critter that I forget the name of (from BoED).  Anyway, one of their high level summon creatures can cast Heal 1/day, Cure Serious Wounds 3/day, and can use a Lay On Hands effect for over 100hp 1/day.  And you can summon one once every 5 rounds, or once every 4 rounds if you dedicate two feats to this trick.  Plus you can start summoning them before the fight starts, and the duration is your Binder level, so you can start a fight with three of these guys ready to heal for you.

JaronK

Ursinal Guardinals have Lay on Hands for a mere 75 HP per day (albeit they get an extra 20 HP of that with Augment Summoning), but have Heal 3 times per day (CL 12th).  They're on the SM IX list.

[bernsten69]

Thank you all for your suggestions.  I recognize the value of other strategies, but there are other members of the party tasked with buffing and mitigation.  My sole role is to be healing, readying actions to heal etc. Gosh this community is sure sensitive.  I guess I won't ask people to stay on topic ever again.  FYI, just because I just started Posting doesn't mean that I haven't been reading posts for a very long time. 

My comment was directed to the idea that if your group does not have substantial healing and always kills the enemies before they get injured, it says more about the lack of difficulty in the encounters, aka GM issues, more than the skill of the players, unless you just happen to be the best gamer in the world.  A group that relies on winning and striking first every time will eventually (or should soon) run into an encounter that they are not prepared for.  I'm sorry, but I don't find God mode d&d enjoyable, and that is what you are describing.  That is why I said what I said.  All too often I see God-mode gamer hijack threads, resulting in responses that do not address the issue posed.

Again. Thank you all for your help.

[X-Codes]

My comment was directed to the idea that if your group does not have substantial healing and always kills the enemies before they get injured, it says more about the lack of difficulty in the encounters, aka GM issues, more than the skill of the players, unless you just happen to be the best gamer in the world.  A group that relies on winning and striking first every time will eventually (or should soon) run into an encounter that they are not prepared for.  I'm sorry, but I don't find God mode d&d enjoyable, and that is what you are describing.  That is why I said what I said.  All too often I see God-mode gamer hijack threads, resulting in responses that do not address the issue posed.

And I'm saying that you have no concept of just what a high-level spell is really capable of.  I saw you talking about how awesome Maximized Meteor Swarms were in another thread, which is just laughable when you consider the fact that Meteor Swarm is the worst blasting spell in the game, and blasting one of the worst spellcasting strategies.  It's not that groups are somehow deficient in Healing, and therefore they have to do more damage.  It's that being reactionary in D&D gets you killed.

[Mooncrow]

Thank you all for your suggestions.  I recognize the value of other strategies, but there are other members of the party tasked with buffing and mitigation.  My sole role is to be healing, readying actions to heal etc. Gosh this community is sure sensitive.  I guess I won't ask people to stay on topic ever again.  FYI, just because I just started Posting doesn't mean that I haven't been reading posts for a very long time. 

My comment was directed to the idea that if your group does not have substantial healing and always kills the enemies before they get injured, it says more about the lack of difficulty in the encounters, aka GM issues, more than the skill of the players, unless you just happen to be the best gamer in the world.  A group that relies on winning and striking first every time will eventually (or should soon) run into an encounter that they are not prepared for.  I'm sorry, but I don't find God mode d&d enjoyable, and that is what you are describing.  That is why I said what I said.  All too often I see God-mode gamer hijack threads, resulting in responses that do not address the issue posed.

Again. Thank you all for your help.

You have a DM that understands what his players want - a high level of difficulty that still allows healers to be useful.  And that's fantastic.  But, just sayin' - it's not really being sensitive to take offense when the other guy comes out asking for help while hurling insults  

[Unbeliever]

Thank you all for your suggestions.  I recognize the value of other strategies, but there are other members of the party tasked with buffing and mitigation.  My sole role is to be healing, readying actions to heal etc. Gosh this community is sure sensitive.  I guess I won't ask people to stay on topic ever again.  FYI, just because I just started Posting doesn't mean that I haven't been reading posts for a very long time. 

My comment was directed to the idea that if your group does not have substantial healing and always kills the enemies before they get injured, it says more about the lack of difficulty in the encounters, aka GM issues, more than the skill of the players, unless you just happen to be the best gamer in the world.  A group that relies on winning and striking first every time will eventually (or should soon) run into an encounter that they are not prepared for.  I'm sorry, but I don't find God mode d&d enjoyable, and that is what you are describing.  That is why I said what I said.  All too often I see God-mode gamer hijack threads, resulting in responses that do not address the issue posed.

Again. Thank you all for your help.

You have a DM that understands what his players want - a high level of difficulty that still allows healers to be useful.  And that's fantastic.  But, just sayin' - it's not really being sensitive to take offense when the other guy comes out asking for help while hurling insults  

Yeah, seriously.  I just skimmed this thread, but when the OP leads with, and I quote:  "(that just means your GM SUCKS)" you can't be all that surprised that you rankle people. 

[JaronK]

Yeah... your DM is intentionally going easy on you in this respect.  He could easily be one shotting you with the same characters that can cast Disjunction.  Even a Maw of Chaos/Solid Fog combo would likely take you guys out.  Multiple Disjunctions in a round means he could be firing off multiples of those.  But that's okay... this is the game style you like, and your DM is giving that to you.  As he should be.

For healing, go with the build I suggested.  X-Codes is right, the guardians will provide all the healing you need (you spend one action every 5 rounds, to get three Heal spells plus some more backup healing cast as needed, in addition to all your other abilities).  That's just about the most potential speed healing possible from a level 20 build without going insane on minions (and since those minions are summonable/dismissable, it's easier to deal with).

JaronK

[awaken DM golem]

Heh ... all a Healy Cleric and Blaster Wizard is missing
is a Sword + Board Fighter/Monk meatshield.


Get Heal over to psi; probably Discipline Erudite but doesn't have to be.
Bestow Power.
Affinity Field.
Psicrystal.
Leadership for another Psi something with Bestow.
Fission.
More extra actions, like Linked + Hustle.
... and/or more cheese.

Synchronicity fits in too  

[X-Codes]

You can also try and manage a portable Energy Transformation Field that casts Mass Heal, and then power it as a Warlock by repeatedly using a 9th-level equivalent Invocation.  That fires off a Mass Heal every round, but you have to use *your* actions to do it.

[awaken DM golem]

There you go, turn it into an (sp) effectively.


Get a small pile of Mooks for it.
They might be weirded out at first, needing a little diplomancy.

[skydragonknight]

Back on topic, one of the primary issues people are getting at is that there are a lot of one round "you're screwed" effects in this game, which make consistent healing a losing game.  Now, maybe your DM is just constantly hitting you with 75% of your party's hitpoints in damage a round and staying there, but in most cases we'd expect to see some Save or Lose effects thrown in, along with the occasional "actually, that was 110% of your hitpoints that round."  As such, just trying to get hitpoints back just won't cut it.

To be fair, Heal does a lot more than heal hitpoint damage. It makes most status restoration spells obsolete. And he did mention Chained Reverence (or whatever that temporary revive spell is) as a part of his plan to mitigate being 1-shotted.

Unfortunately don't have time to look, but would Dweomerkeeper's Supernatural Spell make True Resurrection a Standard Action or is the casting time unaffected?

[Endarire]

A Dweomerkeeper's Supernatural Spell only works on spells of a standard action or less casting time.

And I echo the notion of "be there and win rocket tag or don't show up," since that's how I've played and run such a 3.5 game.

[X-Codes]

Back on topic, one of the primary issues people are getting at is that there are a lot of one round "you're screwed" effects in this game, which make consistent healing a losing game.  Now, maybe your DM is just constantly hitting you with 75% of your party's hitpoints in damage a round and staying there, but in most cases we'd expect to see some Save or Lose effects thrown in, along with the occasional "actually, that was 110% of your hitpoints that round."  As such, just trying to get hitpoints back just won't cut it.

To be fair, Heal does a lot more than heal hitpoint damage. It makes most status restoration spells obsolete. And he did mention Chained Reverence (or whatever that temporary revive spell is) as a part of his plan to mitigate being 1-shotted.

Unfortunately don't have time to look, but would Dweomerkeeper's Supernatural Spell make True Resurrection a Standard Action or is the casting time unaffected?

Revenance/Last Breath is what you do if someone hits the deck.  A simple Heal spell works if you need it.

[JaronK]

So, why is undeath such a bad idea for this party?  They're getting hammered with status debuffs (undead are immune to many) and hitpoint damage (with the right creator, undead can have D12+6 HP/HD, better than you'll get with no magic items anyway).  Why not have one Necromancer or Dread Necromancer in the party and turn the whole group Necropolitan, then use Lifesight to spot ambushes on the way in?

JaronK

[SneeR]

So, why is undeath such a bad idea for this party?  They're getting hammered with status debuffs (undead are immune to many) and hitpoint damage (with the right creator, undead can have D12+6 HP/HD, better than you'll get with no magic items anyway).  Why not have one Necromancer or Dread Necromancer in the party and turn the whole group Necropolitan, then use Lifesight to spot ambushes on the way in?

JaronK

Oh, Jaron. You and your inordinate love of the undead. Get lich-loved already, you! 

But this idea is actually extremely good! If your DM is going to be a jerk and Disjunction everything, then debuff you, just turning undead nullifies much of the pain!

Immunity to effects requiring a Fort Save unless they affect objects, Immunity to poison, no need to sleep, all sorts of great stuff!

[JaronK]

Oh, Jaron. You and your inordinate love of the undead. Get lich-loved already, you! 

But this idea is actually extremely good! If your DM is going to be a jerk and Disjunction everything, then debuff you, just turning undead nullifies much of the pain!

Immunity to effects requiring a Fort Save unless they affect objects, Immunity to poison, no need to sleep, all sorts of great stuff!

I started using Undead a lot precisely because of having to deal with too many low wealth games where you just couldn't get those immunities any other way.  So yeah, I know this works. 

...and yeah, I really like playing Necromancers and undead haunting scouty types now.  It's so much fun!  It's extra fun against DMs like this who throw casters with 9th level spells against you... use Animate Dread Warrior and throw them right back!  Heck, we broke a Shadowrun game with the same concept of "use what the DM throws at us back against him" when we showed up with a medic (who could strip out enemy cyberware) and a vodoo shaman (who could make zombies out of the fallen).  And you can do the same in D&D... whatever he throws against you, take it and throw it right back.

JaronK