I was wondering if anyone on here could give me some character advice. I don't have the books to look up everything in terms of paths and abilities (though I hope to soon), so I don't always know what questions to ask of my GM to make my character as effective as I would like. I am a 1.1 Divine archetype worshipping Illir. 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. 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? 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

hey Alex We would be happy to help, but with out seeing how you built your caharcter we are going to have a hard time of it, is there any chance that you could post a link to a form filled PDF of your character or even fill out the character build sheet.

As a side note, if you want to get the books for pretty darn cheap, you should consider backing the new Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/141 ... city-sourc. $50 for the core book and the Codex of Heroes is a great deal, and you can get in on the new book as well.

While we're waiting for more detailed information, I did notice one thing... an Avoidance of 15 is really low. (Really low.) That means that you've either:

A) sacrificed your Prowess and Insight for something else.
B) You're taking non-proficiency and/or Bulk penalties from your armor and equipment.
C) You're doing something wrong, rules-wise.

Avoidance is 12 + Passive Pr + Passive In + Shield Bonus - Bulk. So, in order to have a 15 without any bulk penalties, your passive Prowess and Insight need to be a 1 and a 2. That's very unlikely. My guess is that you're taking large bulk penalties or you're not proficient with your armor. My suggestion is to check those out and see if you can reduce your penalties there.

Mathematically speaking, the use of 2d10 as action dice plus an attribute die cause this system to fall under more of a bell curve that most RPGs. And if your defense (in this case, Avoidance) is below the midpoint of the curve, it becomes increasingly easier to hit you; moreso than in an RPG utilizing a single die for an attack roll. (Conversely, a high defense makes it increasingly difficult to hit. But acquiring a very high defense is not easy.) If you're interested in the math, there are a few posts on this forum where people analyze the numbers.

Scott

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



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.



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.



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

Presuming you are human (or val), you can get there another way that may fit your concept just as well.

Martial (Advanced Armour Training!)
Human (Arcanum + Knowledge (Religion) or Heal)
Initiate of the Gods (free Weapon Mastery I: Gladius)
Step 9 Talents: Prestidigitation, Divine Spell Casting I, Heirloom (Lorica)

Prowess: 5+, Charisma: 6+, Insight: 5+

As long as you get the 3 rank pre-requisite for Prestidigitation, you can be a full caster of Illiir as a Martial.

So you can have:
Melee (Balanced) 3 ranks
Arcanum (Cants) 3 ranks
Heal or Knowledge (Religion) 3 ranks

During Tier I, you can then take either Sword Saint or Holy Champion to qualify for War Priest (which effectively has a Tier II minimum due to the pre-reqs). Martial -> Sword Saint -> War Priest gives you an extra Arcanum rank and a spell through being able to take Rudimentary Prayers (ta) for a quick boost.

Long term issue is only being able to get 2 ranks in Arcanum per Tier (excluding Paths and certain talents), but as a healer, you don't require huge Arcanum to get through enemy defences.

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.

As per the Errata, if both are taken at the same step (Step 9 in this case), you "learn all Tier 1 Universal spells, not just the Base spells".

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.