# Evil cleric and healing?



## Guardianstreet (Apr 1, 2011)

If a cleric picks channel negative energy he can not spontaneously convert the divine spells to cure spells. Is it still possible to have healing spells or is the cleric restricted to inflict spells only?


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## frankthedm (Apr 1, 2011)

He should be able to prepare cure spells.


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## Guardianstreet (Apr 1, 2011)

frankthedm said:


> He should be able to prepare cure spells.




Im some what new to Pathfinder and roleplaying games based on the dungeons and dragons rules. Would you say, by your experience that prepared cure spells is "enough" party healing? Or would the party need another PC in the group that could heal aswell?


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## Scott DeWar (Apr 1, 2011)

He can still cast cure spells if he has them memorized as such. Can you imagine the deception factor if an evil cleric is casting healing one moment then inflict on a particular target the next? or other necromancy spells?



Guardianstreet said:


> Im some what new to Pathfinder and role playing games based on the dungeons and dragons rules. Would you say, by your experience that prepared cure spells is "enough" party healing? Or would the party need another PC in the group that could heal as well?




that would depend on how challenging of an encounter you make.


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## Dingo333 (Apr 1, 2011)

My DM ruled that my inquisitor had to decide between inflict and cure spells to learn (they are spontaneous casters) but your DM may say differently, the rules don't say you can't.
And to be honest, I don't agree with my DM's call anyway


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## Nebten (Apr 1, 2011)

1. There is almost never enough party healing. Sadly, a player usually doesn't want to just heal  another character every round. It really depense on party make-up and how hard the encounters are. If you are new and first time play D&D, I would stay away from evil characters and stick with heroes of good routine.

2. Dingo, that isn't a house rule, that's how the rules state for inquisitors are. They are not the same as clerics, even though they are both divine casters. Inquisitors have a small number of spells they can cast and throughout the day can only cast those spells a certian amount of times. Its the same for Sorc's too.


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## Dingo333 (Apr 1, 2011)

[MENTION=79391]Nebten[/MENTION] I am aware they cant learn every spell, but both the cure and inflicts are on the list of able to learn, my DM said if I took cures I could not learn inflicts as well, even if I still had more spells I could learn (I had a neutral deity, Calistra)


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## Nebten (Apr 1, 2011)

Ahhh I see. That is weird and wrong.


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## Mojo_Rat (Apr 1, 2011)

inquisitors should be able to fill any known spell slots on their list with any spells they want. there is no Rule against  knowing inflict and cure spells.


as far as clerics go they can fill their spells for the day with cure spell they just cannot spontaneously cast them.


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## Friend of the Dork (Apr 1, 2011)

If your DM allows it, there is a feat in Complete Divine that allows a cleric to spontaneously cast healing spells. It requires 1 rank of Heal skill or some such, which of course is worth it. 

In the game I play I have a cleric who channels negative energy and have this feat, but I gave the party an impression that I have limited healing, so they don't nag about it so much. Also we use Vitality/Wounds from UA so healing is mostly reserved for those with Wound damage (max Con score). 

In any case most PC clerics of evil gods (or some neutrals) benefit from this feat, but it is a feat which clerics of course have relatively few of.


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## frankthedm (Apr 2, 2011)

Guardianstreet said:


> Im some what new to Pathfinder and roleplaying games based on the dungeons and dragons rules. Would you say, by your experience that prepared cure spells is "enough" party healing?



No, it will not be enough healing. D20 is about hitting hard and fast and healing needs to be copious to keep up. It is a subtle way of discouraging evil PC clerics. Less subtle is the feat tax of selective changeling if an Evil PC wants to use their channeling without being a lone target or nuking the party.


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## Guardianstreet (Apr 2, 2011)

frankthedm said:


> No, it will not be enough healing. D20 is about hitting hard and fast and healing needs to be copious to keep up. It is a subtle way of discouraging evil PC clerics. Less subtle is the feat tax of selective changeling if an Evil PC wants to use their channeling without being a lone target or nuking the party.




Hm. Wouldnt it be better to just kill the enemies as fast as possible instead of healing al the time? Or would the positive channel "keep up"?


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## frankthedm (Apr 2, 2011)

Guardianstreet said:


> Hm. Wouldnt it be better to just kill the enemies as fast as possible instead of healing al the time? Or would the positive channel "keep up"?



Depends on how hard you can focus fire vs. how hard your foes can do the same. d20 is a race to deal the most damage, but it's the clerics job to keep the party from crossing the 0 HP line. Choosing an evil character means you are willing to let those who trust you die, playing an evil cleric backs that up with mechanics.

Cure spells are normally touch, but many attacks have range. Channeling can be done from a distance.

Plus Positive energy channel heals everyone. Mages probably shouldn't be expected to take hits for the team, unlike 4E, but it still behooves a party with positive channeling available to have the medium HP characters to take a few hits to keep them off whoever usually loses the most HP.


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## Guardianstreet (Apr 2, 2011)

frankthedm said:


> Plus Positive energy channel heals everyone. Mages probably shouldn't be expected to take hits for the team, unlike 4E, but it still behooves a party with positive channeling available to have the medium HP characters to take a few hits to keep them off whoever usually loses the most HP.




Very good post. Thank you. But selective channeling is still important for a good cleric right? I can imagine that the kobolds gladly fail the will save when the cleric channel positive energy.

How would you build a really good healer? Travel and healing domain is something i imagine is very important.


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## frankthedm (Apr 3, 2011)

Guardianstreet said:


> But selective channeling is still important for a good cleric right? I can imagine that the kobolds gladly fail the will save when the cleric channel positive energy



It's a great feat for a positive channeling cleric all right, but as long as the group is focusing on one foe at a time, just one foe should also get the benefit of an unselective channel. An evil cleric without this feat stands a decent chance of nailing half or more of the party if they don't keep minimum safe distance.

Maybe I'm dead wrong, but to me the way energy channeling works screams Positive channeling = PC / Negative Channeling = BBEG.


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