Character Advice

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I am a 1.1 Divine archetype worshipping Illir.

Good! There aren’t enough Illiirite out there in this campaign!

I am one mod away from leveling to 1.2, barring a really bad run. I wield a gladius and wear Lorica. Basically my goal is to have a character that is primarily a healer, but that can somewhat hold his own in combat. I am currently looking at taking the Warrior Priest path, when I get there, though it sounds like I may have to make some changes to make that work, i.e. switch from Initiate of the Gods background to Templar, or somesuch.

As someone who plays a Battle Priest (Initiate of Nier, Annointed Priest) I’d suggest you aim for Templar, personally, as you get a bit more in the way of talents. I assume you have chosen the Divine Archetype to get the healing spells. This has the advantage of getting maximum use out of spells, but not getting Advanced Armour Training does suck for bulk. Taking Templar hurts your casting ability somewhat, but if you are primarily a combat medic, this isn’t that big of a deal overall.

I know that pretty much if you focus in one area, generally another will suffer. I want my healing to be very strong as we generally have two heavy fighters in our party and that is not needed as badly as a healer, but would like my combat to be decent in case ihave to step up there. I also enjoy the ability to heal, thhen attack then heal again, so I am rarely doing nothing waiting for my strain to diminish. Any advice on keeping this working well for now and/or down the road?

As Healing Spells rarely need to attack an opponent’s discipline, you really ONLY need to have enough skill ranks in Arcanum (Cants) to autocast the spell for efficient healing. That said, you want to have a good (at least d8) Charisma and if possible 2-3 ranks in Arcanum at Character creation. If Healing is your bag, then focus on Corpus as your Primary tradition, taking Diety Illiir and Benedictions as your two secondaries to get some more spell variety (Benedictions of the Gods is a great spell!). I’d also focus on getting things like Leadership and maybe Healing Hands to aid in Healing more, but those are secondary options.

Also, I have an avoidance of15 and am really getting exasperated with everything hitting. Are there any good options for increasing my avoidance? I have considered a shield, but have been told that I wold take a penalty to my spellcasting because my hands would be full, and have also considered going with a lighter armor, and losing my AR of 4, but gaining back some of my avoidance. Any thoughts would be great.

Alex Parmelee

Alas, you have come to the bane that is a Divine Archetypes life: Bulk. I had it bad because my Nierite HAS to wear heavy armour, so I ended up using Heirloom (talent) to get an Exceptional set of Armour, which reduces bulk by 1. If you have AR 4, I assume you have Lorica Segmentata or Royal Coryani Lorica Musculata, with a Bulk of 2. If that is so, your non-armour Avoidance would probably be 17, yes? If you get Heirloom armour, you’d get a 16 Avoidance, which still sucks but is not bad. The only other way for a battle-caster to really boost their Avoidance is to ensure you have a better Prowess and Insight as Deadzone said. You are still ‘young’ in the game at only 1.1-1.2, so this avoidance (while not great) is perfectly reasonable for your build. I am at 2.3, and my Nierite only has an avoidance of 19 so I feel your pain

I will correct: You will not be a FULL caster, as you will not know the spells “Unravel the Thread” or “Manipulate Object” if you take this route. Unless you get it from your archetype, Prestidigitation only grants Basic Universal spells, and the two spells mentioned are Advanced and Sustained, respectively.

It’s my personal goal to be under as much strain and recovery as possible, i would bet you would have a good time with mighty swing or sweeping strikes, and that would lend its self to a martial archtype build that was recomended earlier.

I’d still like to see your character build you may have missed some things that might make your character easier to play.

Unless your character really needs the armour for flavour you are probably better off without it as the higher avoidance means that you’ll likely take less damage overall just by not being hit so often. A ranged weapon should also be considered: people often forget that a healers job is to survive to heal the others rather than be a front line fighter, so if you can add some damage without being toe to toe with the bad guys then you’re on to a winner. Although at the end of the day it’s character concept that matters first; it may be that your character has many tales to tell of his lack of luck in combat, his cursed armour of sword attraction and the many scars sustained while clogging the enemy swords with his body. But at least his friends will stick up for him.

I’m on the other side of the AR vs. Avoidance debate. If you have huge Pr and In, and a large shield … then it is indeed possible to get an avoidance that will keep you out of trouble damage wise. On the other hand because we live in a world with a bell curve, if you’re not ahead of it then you’re going to be hit. Sometimes often. A d8 opponent hits a number of 15.5 50% of the time. With 3 ranks he/she/it hits an 18.5 50% of the time. 6 ranks and it hit an avoidance of 21.5 50% of the time. And so on.

Because you re a divine caster you can’t use a shield … unless you want to be Captain America with your shield also as your weapon. There are a few characters doing this.

You presumably have a base avoidance of 17 which drops to 15 due to Bulk penalties for armor. Since almost all bad guys (out the gate) have at least 3 ranks in their attack stat you are going to get hit with most attacks. So investing in 4 AR seems like a good idea to me. Those points of stamina saved add up in a hurry.

Just curious, Scott. What do you consider a “decent” AR as you move up through the Tiers? As for Avoidance I believe encounters increase at at +3/Tier, so you’d need to match that to keep Pace. I may be misremembering.

With a sweep of his…

Hat

Just curious, Scott. What do you consider a trade”decent” AR as you move up through the Tiers? As for Avoidance I believe encounters increase at at +3/Tier, so you’d need to match that to keep Pace. I may be misremembering.

With a sweep of his…

Hat
Most characters can’t/won’t keep up with +3 to each Def a tier.