Bump it a tier??

[Zesty Gordita]

I'm having a bit of an argument with a friend of mine and neither of us can seem to convince the other of our view. So I bring it to you all, please give me your honest opinion.

Do you think that allowing the Healer class to wear light, and ONLY light, metal armor would bump it up an entire tier? At the moment, all it can wear is light non-metal armor. And why do you think it would/wouldn't?

It's a tier 5 class right now.

 

[kitcik]

No.

 

[emoplato]

Its problems cannot be overcome by simply allowing light metal armor. The main problem with it is that it is a healer without any other real options. The only thing it can do offensively is sick its unicorn at people which maxes at 10 HD. It only has access to a couple of buffs and no built in way to expand the list. A healer should be someone who is quite capable of healing but has other options that can prevent damage(such as a nuclear one). I would actually reserve a Tier 6 just for it because both of the classes down there can beat the snot out of this one.

 

[Dandu]

Healer is tier 5 not because of its armor or weapon proficiencies, but because it can only do one thing, and can't even do that well.

Things like Full BAB, Heavy Armor Proficiency, Martial Weapon Proficiency don't really... well, let's just put it this way: how many tier 1 classes have them?

 

[Shin Okada]

As a start, I'd make it an on the fly caster class just like Warmage or Beguiler. That will at least make it a capable healer.

Still, it is just a pure heal-bot. Maybe good for a cohort. But I wonder how many players actually want to play it.

 

[Zesty Gordita]

My thoughts exactly everyone!

I was asking this because we're playing a partial-gestalt campaign and I thought it'd be sorta fun to play a fighter/healer. Though it won't be so much fun getting my butt kicked in combat because I can only wear (at best) studded leather.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I played a Healer for a 1 shot game, Gave him the Mother Cyst feat and made alot of people scared. Good times.

I agree that Healer should be played as a spontaneous caster, not a prepared caster. That seems to make so much more sense for the flavor of the class.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

If you really want to play a healbot, there's a cleric variant in Dragon 311 called Benevolent. Basically, drop domain access and turn/rebuke undead for tower shield access, 4+Int skill points, and the ability to spontaneously cast not only Cure spells, but also things like the Restoration line along with Heal and Mass Heal. There's also an ability to grant any ally 1 reroll on anything in the next 24 hours and the ability to add a luck mod to any roll equal to the Benevolent's Cha mod, and these two buffs can be used on the same roll.

In short, a party would absolutely love this class. Add in Turn Undead from a prestige class and you're still good to go on DMM: Persist or other such things.