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Some times things are just too much of a fun/stupid combo idea not to try your darnedest not to work out.

What is the best way to make a Cleric that literally only does healing/buffing? Is this even a viable idea, or will it just serve to completely annoy the rest of a group?

The Concept

  • A healing/buffing/restoring centered human Cleric
  • No Archetype, because mostly I just don't care for any of the existing Cleric archetypes
  • I'm looking at the Resurrection and Protection Domains, though I can't find a deity that grants both so that might have to change.
  • Oh yeah, did I mention the twist? She's going to be a pacifist.
  • This means absolutely no damaging spells and no attacking with a weapon. From a roleplay perspective, this will be tons of fun. From a game perspective, I may have just taken one of the best classes and made it nearly useless.

What's On the Table

  • Healing. Lots of healing. Even more healing.

  • Roleplay spells. The more merciful the better. Creating water and food? Oh definitely.

  • Buffing

  • Removing Negative effects. Seriously, lots of this too.

  • Charms. I'd rather do this more as a roleplay perspective (What's better than the enemy you just faced resurrecting you?), but Command, Forbid, Geas, and etc. are all on the table.

  • Basically anything else that can be used mercifully.

What's Useful for the Answer

  1. Feats. I'm having a hard time coming up with useful feats. A lot of spell feats seem to rely on damage dice and I can't tell if they would also effect healing dice. Considering that I don't want to attack either, this leaves me actually low on feats to select.
  2. Spells. Ideas and options for spells are always welcome. The Cleric spell list comes with a ton of ones I know I can use, but inventive ways to use other spells to not hurt is more than welcome.
  3. Personal Experience. If you've done this, or at least something close to this, it's going to help a lot more than speculation. If you had a negative personal experience, I want to hear that too. The goal is to design a healer/support Cleric that doesn't raise ire the first time you don't go up and whack around the enemies.
  4. Multiclassing/Prestige Class options. This is completely optional and not needed. I'm perfectly intending to go with pure Cleric levels, but it goes back to personal experience. If you had an experience with a multiclassed Cleric/X then use it in the answer as well.
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So, depending on your definition, you may not be very much hindered by “pacifism” at all. As I discuss for a divine oracle with similar needs, buffing often is what a spellcaster should do; the “fighting aspects” of the game, as that questioner put it, are usually best left to other characters.

However, I have concerns about what “pacifism” really means to you. It seems to me that, in Pathfinder, you have two choices:

  • merely paying lip service to the idea, while still actively encouraging and enabling violence albeit without personally getting your hands dirty,

  • or else being a significantly disruptive presence at the table, causing significant problems for the other players (and their characters too, but the players are the important part), because you have moved too far away from the things Pathfinder was made to do.

I’ll start my answer off by discussing healing and buffing and charming, as you request, but the meat of my answer is going to be about pacifism and what that means. I do offer an idea for how one might be able to straddle the line between these two and have an effective and authentic pacifist Pathfinder character, but that will depend a great deal on the nature of your campaign.

On healing

Healing, for the most part, is an out-of-combat, as-needed activity. As much as possible, it is most efficient to heal using wands and scrolls, rather than spell slots. Use a wand of a low-level HP-healing spell (cure light wounds, unless you can stomach the [Evil] tag on infernal healing) to top off after battles, and use scrolls of status-effect-healing spells to remove those annoying persistent effects.

In combat, healing is generally emergency-only. The cleric’s ability to spontaneously commute spells to cure spells is more than sufficient to cover this. Even stabilize is often enough at low levels.

At high levels, the heal spell does change this somewhat; unlike every other healing spell in the game, heal is huge and effective even in the middle of combat.

On buffing

Buffing is hugely useful and powerful. In fact, buffing is so good and clerics are so good at it that, depending on your definition (see below), pacficism may be no hindrance at all. For the most part, buffing well is pretty much “be a cleric,” and going into detail on how is beyond the scope of a reasonable answer here. Reading a cleric handbook is your best bet here. The aforementioned Q&A about the buffing divine oracle is also worthwhile, I hope. Ultimately you just have to disregard the aspects that don’t apply to you.

On charming

Charms and compulsions are very effective against certain kinds of enemies, and useless against a lot of others. These are extremely campaign-dependent for how useful they are. In the right campaign, I’d recommend taking a domain that gives you more of them, since the cleric’s usual options (suggestion, command) are one-off effects and to focus on this you’d rather charm and dominate. But in many campaigns these are going to be useless.

Also, again, the definition of pacficism is a big deal here. See below

On pacifism

There are a lot of different ways you could define pacifism. In your question, it seems to be very personal, to the point that it seems almost pointless. “I won’t hurt you— but I will empower my friend here to hurt you really, really badly.” You seem to OK “offensive” buffs, that don’t protect anyone, they just make someone more able to hurt others. That’s an extremely narrow definition of pacifism that doesn’t seem, well, honest – more like you’re deluding yourself into thinking you’re better, more moral, than those who actually get their hands dirty.

A step below this is “I won’t help my friends hurt you, but I will make sure they suffer no injuries while they do so, that nothing you do can stop them from hurting you.” This would be focusing on just healing and defensive buffing – buffs that prevent injuries or status effects, rather than those that directly improve offensive capability. The problem is, this is ultimately not all that different to me, morally. You are actively enabling violence; avoiding personally striking a blow is really just semantics.

Below these is when you are actively trying to avoid violence itself. One way to do that is with mind-affecting magic, but I would argue that forcibly taking control of another person’s mind is a much greater assault than just stabbing them. That’s not pacifism, that’s domination.

But you could avoid that, too; try to genuinely convince people to avoid conflict. At most, a calm emotions spell to keep tempers from getting in the way (though in a lot of cases, both sides have a pretty good right to be angry). This is much more “real” pacifism, but now you run into a different problem: Pathfinder is a game centered around violence. It comes from Dungeons and Dragons, a game that has its roots in pure dungeon-delving and dragon-slaying, and those things are what the rules focus on. The overwhelming majority of the game, between its rules, its narrative, its tone, and its characters, is focused on that. The skills system is underdeveloped and largely uninteresting; the social skills are so poor that the overwhelming majority of groups ignore them entirely and just roleplay social interactions freeform, with ad hoc Bluff, Diplomacy, and/or Intimidate rolls thrown in occasionally.

And not only is Pathfinder bad at the sort of game where you are well and truly a pacifist, but everything about it is telling the other players that this is not the sort of game where pacifism is a thing. Violence is an effective, accepted, and often morally-sanctioned solution to problems in Pathfinder. People show up to a Pathfinder game with this as an expectation. Trying to turn this on its head, eliminate the majority of the game, and sideline the other players’ characters, who are focused on combat because, hey, they’re Pathfinder characters and that’s what Pathfinder’s largely about, is simply rude.

So I think you need to sit down and think what, exactly, you mean by “pacifism,” and you have to either accept that your character is really only paying lip service to the idea, or that this character is going to be disruptive and problematic, and that you need to talk through the issues with the rest of your group (not just the DM). It very well may be that Pathfinder is the wrong system for this character, and you need to either convince everyone to try a system better suited to it, or shelve the character for another game in another system.


All that said, I will acknowledge a way to straddle the line, so to speak. Your character could have heartfelt ideals about pacifism, try to encourage violence-only-as-a-last-resort, and have personal boundaries on what the character is personally willing to do, but believe in the mission enough to support your allies even as they engage in violence.

This is a difficult line to walk, I think; it would be all too easy to slip off one side or the other, becoming a pacifist in name only or else becoming an annoyance at the game table. The character absolutely needs a huge quest, something to justify their support of violent individuals as they engage in violence. This is a character that would be very difficult to justify joining an adventuring party, say in a sandbox game. But in a more directed, epic quest to save the world kind of game, a character can more reasonably and more authentically accept and even support violence while still personally promoting pacifism.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ On your last point, Paizo's Adventure Paths are great places to try the character because some of them (Reign of Winter for example) mandate that your character work toward the story, and others (such as Curse of the Crimson Throne) are designed around the players making characters that are deeply invested in the story's origin and outcome. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ifusaso
    Mar 30, 2017 at 20:02
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Healing

For most adventurers, healing is a chore. For you, healing can be a hobby. By itself, healing will solve few conflicts. If the weight of the deaths caused by your asymmetric assistance weighs heavily on your conscience you will discover providing mercy only to your companions is no longer acceptable. Do not put too much faith in undoing the atrocities of the world, instead put your faith into preventing them.

Traits

The Blessed Touch (faith) trait will make lay on hands, channel energy, and cure spells heal 1 more point of damage.

Feats

The most useful healing feat is Craft Wand. A wand of cure light wounds or infernal healing costs 375 gold to craft. A cure light wounds (caster level 1) wand heals for 50d8+50 damage and costs 1.36 gold per HP healed. An infernal healing wand heals for 500 damage and costs .75 gold per HP healed.

Unusual healing spells

There are spells that take more time to heal, but heal for more total hitpoints. These are useful if you are healing between encounters. They are also difficult to abuse to aid one side to victory over another in conflict.

Infernal healing is a level 1 spell that will heal for 10 hitpoints over one minute. This is more healing on average than a Cure Light Wounds, which only heals for 1d8+1/level (maximum +5).

The fourth level spell healing warmth can heal for a total of 10d8 of damage, used 1d8 at a time. Cure Critical Wounds heals for 4d8+1/level (maximum +20) all on the same target.

Channel Energy

Being able to channel positive energy helps your healing hobby. It depends on charisma for uses per day, but your wisdom will be far more important to your overall success. Channeling energy can provide mercy against the elements or liberation from captivity with some feat investment.


Dominating

There will be problems you won't be able to fix. Stop them with a spell. Your wisdom will be your most important attribute, since it determines the save DC for your spells.

Feats

The two feats in the chain Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus will each increase the save DC for one school of magic by +1. The spells listed below are mostly from the enchantment school.

Heighten Spell and Persistent Spell increase the difficulty of saving against your dominating spells when there isn't a higher level version of the spell. Which one's better depends on how likely the target is to make the save.

Merciful spell will let you use spells with damaging side-effects without fear of causing real harm.

When manipulating people, it's useful to be able to cast spells in the middle of a social situation. A Stilled, Silent spell is extremely difficult to detect, and can change the entire direction of a social encounter. In an extremely social campaign, starting with both metamagic feats and both of Wayang Spellhunter and Magical Lineage you can cast charm person undetected.

Equipment

A Metamagic rod of Persistent Spell can make even your most debilitating spells doubly difficult to resist.

Domains

The 1st level ability from the madness domain makes combatants amenable to your calming commands by lowering their saving throws and attack rolls by half your level. It can also be used to give a companion a big boost on a skill check. The most fitting deities granting madness are the lantern king and Tsukiyo.

Spells

The following spells let you dominate the living.

Command is your basic first level compulsion spell. Compel hostility can be used to protect your allies or create new ones; it's great for solving problems in any low-level urban setting. Touch of truthtelling can dominate social situations, or turn them into conflicts. A well timed charm person can prevent conflict entirely.

Hold person is your basic second level compulsion spell. Owl's wisdom increases the DC of your spells by two. A stilled, silent zone of truth is a no-save divination spell. share language is an early, backwards tongues.

Dispel magic diffuses dangerous situations. Archon's aura reduces the attack and saves of nearby enemies.

Debilitating portent reduces the target's damage dealt by half on a failed save, and has a save DC that scales with caster level.

Clerics miss out on hold monster unless they get it from a domain - usually late. constricting coils is a 5th level hold monster that also helps bludgeon it into submission. charm monster is available from the charm domain; you can get both madness and charm from the lantern king.

Chains of light is a 6th level conjuration spell that paralyzes its target. greater dispel magic is even better than dispel magic was.

Waves of ecstasy is a cone that stuns and staggers. hymn of peace creates an aura in which any hostilities require a successful will save.

Overwhelming presence compels multiple creatures to kneel helpless before you.

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This article deals with healing in D&D 3.5, but there should be enough overlap to make some of it useful in Pathfinder.

As the article demonstrates, most of the party's healing can be taken care of with a few simple items, leaving you free to focus on cranking out the buffs.

It brings up a question though..

You are a pacifist. The others are not. Are you being true to your vow against violence while you assist others in becoming even more adept at the violence they pursue?

An interesting moral quandary to consider, but this is not the place for it.

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I know this is a very old thread, but for others, like myself, who find this in the course of preparing a new character concept for play, I'd like to comment. I apologize for the thread necro.

I think the character you're looking for is an Oradin, 4 or so levels of Oracle, the rest in Paladin. While this is, or can be, a very optimized healer, its archetypes also play right into the theme you were looking for.

I would look at, for Oracle, an archetype made by a 3rd party group, flying pincushion games, the diplomatique.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/oracle/archetypes/oracle-archetypes-flying-pincushion-games/oracle-archetypes-flying-pincushion-games/

This archetype makes pacifism your oracle curse. It forces you to take the Life mystery, which is a no brainer for you in this character anyways. This gives you life links, 1 for each level of Oracle you possess. It also allows you a second Oracle power, which I'd suggest you do positive energy surge. More group healing goodness.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/oracle/mysteries/paizo-oracle-mysteries/life/

For Paladin, I'd take hospitaler.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/paladin/archetypes/paizo-paladin-archetypes/hospitaler/

Again, heal based archetype, known for its charity and desire to heal the less fortunate. Its mercies would be the debuff cleanser you're looking for. Good spells from either Oracle or Paladin, whichever you decide to focus on.

If you're unfamiliar with the Oradin build, this is an optimization guide, even if you're not interested in optimizing, it's worth looking at. The author does excellent work at gathering up, listing, and discussing feats, items, and all options pertaining to your class combination here. You should find at least some information that applies to any question you might have.

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?257365-PF-Oradin-Mini-Guide-Or-How-to-be-a-Healbot-minus-the-bot

To give you a TLDR of the character assuming you arent familiar with the Oradin, you take Fey Foundling at lvl 1, gives you two extra points of healing per healing die every time you're healed. Life links transfer health from you to your damaged teammates that you chose to link to, 5 hp per round per link. No chasing them down to touch them, no actions used. You then heal yourself, adding the benefit of Fey Founding, to make all party healing more efficient. Long term you could look for some sort of regeneration to make this healing free, but that's an optimization thing, and everyone feels differently about that. You focus more on Paladin than Oracle for the Lay on Hands, which you can do of course as a swift action if its on yourself. This allows you to heal the group, heal your self AND be an active participant of whatever is happening in game while you take care of the group's healing needs.

Personally I think this is a fun character to play, and, as the title of the guide suggests, it takes the "heal-botti-ness" out of being the primary healer. Oracle and Paladin allow you to focus more on Chr and be the pacifistic face of the group. Entertaining roleplay possibilities in that. I also enjoy that, in a somewhat optimized character, we're playing its pieces as intended; rather than trying to force several disparate parts to fit together because they make an optimized whole.

Bear in mind, the archetype I suggested for the Oracle is 3rd party, so your DM may disallow it. It isn't that bad to be honest, and it has good flavor, more specifically it has the flavor you're looking for. I'm blessed with a GM who loves flavor over all else, hopefully you are as well. I imagine most GMs would allow it. Even if they don't, you can do the same thing without the archetype.

I hope some of what I presented here is helpful to someone, again, I apologize for the thread necro. I was doing reading on how to make much the same character as the OP mentioned, and I wanted to share what I had found to this point.

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    – YogoZuno
    Aug 7, 2021 at 0:18
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You might like these feats from 3.5e:

Vow of Nonviolence (Book of Exalted Deeds, p. 48): Gives you "may not deal real damage to humanoid targets" as a class feature. You get +4 to save DC of the remaining spells (the ones it's still legal for you to cast). There's also an "annoy your teammates" mechanic, in that if they kill someone defenseless (prisoners?) they get -1 to attack rolls for 1 hour per level.

Vow of Peace (Book of Exalted Deeds, p. 47): Expands the "humanoid targets" restriction from Vow of Nonviolence to all living targets, and gives you some decent defensive effects.

Subdual Substitution [Metamagic]: Converts your spells to do subdual damage instead of normal damage.

Perhaps your DM will let you port these to Pathfinder.

Note that even the most restrictive feats still let you use violence against constructs and undead.

But.

If someone came to me with this character, I would flat-out ban it.

I would worry that they had built a character that wouldn't have enough to do during the combats I wanted to run. I would worry that they would be bored.

I would worry that they'd built a character that wanted to annoy the other characters. For example, maybe every time the other characters tried to form a plan to do something, the pacifist character would object "but violence is wrong! [trollface]" and they'd have to spend half an hour arguing her down. That's not fun for them and it's not fun for me.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I have to admit, the concept of flat out ban over discussion is kind of disconcerting. No discussion about what the player hopes to get out of the character, just flat out ban it. I respect the decision and the reasoning, but its still disconcerting. I do, however fully understand the limits of such a character in fully combat scenarios. The walk ten feet, encounter monsters type of game is not where it belongs. I fully expect at least a 50/50 split of roleplay and encounter. I doubt I'd want to be in a game of the former. \$\endgroup\$
    – Naryna
    Sep 25, 2015 at 18:02
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I can't offer specifics about building your character because the game system has changed so much, but I can respond to (3) - I've done successfully something like this, although with considerably less planning. Also, my examples are mage spells rather than cleric spells, because that's what I had.

Many years ago, I was playing a heavily modified AD&D2 variant that allowed lots of multiclassing, and was playing a mage that focused on all the usual damage spells. Partway through a campaign, after roasting a whole lot of hill giants with some well aimed and high damage fireballs, my character decided that he couldn't stand the bloodshed anymore, turned mostly pacifist, found religion, and multi-classed cleric.

My rules were:

  • Don't cause any bloodshed, or do any magic that does damage (undead and constructed monsters were fair game - this only applied to living beings).

  • It was OK to temporarily incapacitate or immobilize (sleep, web, hold person/monster etc.), but I made it really clear that that wasn't just softening them up for others to butcher - they were considered to be under my protection as long as they were incapacitated.

I think my DM and party were bemused by the whole thing, but everyone went along with it and I think it went pretty well (this was a group of long time friends and I had a very flexible DM) - one thing I found useful (apart from the healing of course) was to focus on lots of utility spells so I could help find ways of us meeting our goals outside of combat, and preferably reducing combat - things like invisibility and flying come to mind. To keep things interesting, it's important to be more than a box of band-aids.

These rules were entirely self enforced, so I still carried a weapon and kept a magic missile or two memorized so I would be of some use against undead.

Definitely talk to the GM before trying anything like this.

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