Opinion of Healer Class

[Viktyr Gehrig]

[MENTION=9249]Viktyr Korimir[/MENTION], would it be safe to assume you are unaware of the fact that divine casters do not have to prepare all of their spells at the same time?

I'm aware of that. But the difference between being able to cast the right spell now and having to wait an hour can very easily be 5,000 gp.

Healers can do that just as well as clerics can and their cure spells pack more punch and some are even available at an earlier level than the cleric. Your argument doesn't hold water.

A Healer with a 20 Charisma gets a whole whopping 5 extra hit points per spell. Woo.

Do I even need to mention scrolls?

Ah, yes. Scrolls. Who needs a Healer when you have a Rogue?

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

[MENTION=9249]Viktyr Korimir[/MENTION], would it be safe to assume you are unaware of the fact that divine casters do not have to prepare all of their spells at the same time? A healer isn't forced to guess which spells she needs ahead of time. She can save as many of her spell slots as she wants and prepare them later, as needed.

Actually, that's not the case. Arcane casters can leave slots open, but divine casters have to prepare their spells at the same time every day:

Time of Day

A divine spellcaster chooses and prepares spells ahead of time, just as a wizard does. However, a divine spellcaster does not require a period of rest to prepare spells. Instead, the character chooses a particular part of the day to pray and receive spells. The time is usually associated with some daily event. If some event prevents a character from praying at the proper time, he must do so as soon as possible. If the character does not stop to pray for spells at the first opportunity, he must wait until the next day to prepare spells.

Spell Preparation Time

After resting, a wizard must study her spellbook to prepare any spells that day. If she wants to prepare all her spells, the process takes 1 hour. Preparing some smaller portion of her daily capacity takes a proportionally smaller amount of time, but always at least 15 minutes, the minimum time required to achieve the proper mental state.

If you want to "leave slots open" as a divine caster, that's fine...but you can't prepare anything else in them until your prayer time comes up the next day.

 

[airwalkrr]

[MENTION=9249]Viktyr Korimir[/MENTION], the only spells that clerics can have ready on the fly that healers can't are cure spells. As I pointed out, you rarely need more than a few of those for emergency healing during combat. And they get a number of status-reducing spells for free which lets them deal with virtually any situation on the fly whereas the cleric is the one who has to "guess" since they can't spontaneously cast things like remove paralysis. And 5 points is 5 points. Every little bit helps. And the companion is a bigger factor than you might realize. Not only is it an offensive tool, it can add an extra action to heal in combat. Anyway, its clear we both have our opinions and aren't going to budge. I've seen a healer played from level 1 to 21 though and it was a very effective character for a number of reasons. All we added were some healing-themed spells from other sources, which isn't unreasonable in a campaign where clerics get access to the same stuff. Perhaps you played in a similar campaign with a healer and saw otherwise, but I can't speak to your experience. I'm not going to argue that the healer is a better class than the cleric, because the cleric is clearly more versatile. But the cleric simply is not a better healer than the healer, leastwise not simply because of spontaneous healing.
[MENTION=52073]Eldritch_Lord[/MENTION], you should read a little further in the divine spell preparation rules. It says a divine caster need not prepare all of their spell slots at once. As long as they stop to pray for their initial spell slots at the intended time, they can prepare open slots later. But spells that have already been cast don't count as "open" for this purpose.

Anyway, OP, have you considered whether you really WANT to be a healbot? Some players enjoy that. Others don't. The healer doesn't get to do much aside from keeping fellow players alive. The companion is useful as an offensive tool, but probably not as powerful as a fighting cleric can be, given the time to cast the proper buff spells. Maybe just make the other players aware of the fact that you don't intend to be a full-time medic, and just plan to be able to heal between combats.

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

[MENTION=52073]Eldritch_Lord[/MENTION], you should read a little further in the divine spell preparation rules. It says a divine caster need not prepare all of their spell slots at once. As long as they stop to pray for their initial spell slots at the intended time, they can prepare open slots later. But spells that have already been cast don't count as "open" for this purpose.

Huh, seems you're right; I misread the "abandoned spells" part.