Should an exalted sorcerer be allowed to heal?

[ForceUser]

Would it break the game if I placed clerical healing spells on an exalted sorcerer's list of spells from which to choose? The adventuring group of which the exalted sorcerer is a part suffers from a complete lack of divine magic--the closest thing they have to a party healer is an artificer with a wand of cure light wounds. Conversely, the group likes crunchy dungeons and PCs tend to die. Obviously, if I let things alone, natural selection will run its course and someone will no doubt roll a healer. It occured to me, though, that healing spells would fit thematically with the PC in question. If I allowed such, however, would that be unfair to a guy in one of my other groups who's running a cleric/wizard/mystic theurge? I ask because consistency of rulings across groups is important to me.

EDIT: Continuing my train of thought...consistency of rulings is important to me because if I let the exalted sorcerer's player do it, I should allow the mytic theurge's player to do it. But wouldn't I, if in doing so, be effectively rendering redundant the reason for taking the MT class in the first place? I guess that's part two of my internal dialogue. Part one is more straightforward--would allowing sorcerers to heal make them overpowered?

 

[Crothian]

Sure, go ahead and do it.

 

[BroccoliRage]

quick question...

does this exalted sorceror class happen to be a class that gets its magic from divine inspiration, like a cleric does? if not, i wouldnt allow him clerical spells. but thats just me. a cleric is the embodiment of "it was not done by me, it was done THROUGH me..."

 

[ForceUser]

quick question...

does this exalted sorceror class happen to be a class that gets its magic from divine inspiration, like a cleric does? if not, i wouldnt allow him clerical spells. but thats just me. a cleric is the embodiment of "it was not done by me, it was done THROUGH me..."

It's not a variant class--an exalted sorcerer is simply a regular sorcerer with an exalted feat from the BoED. Basically, this means that he has gained grace similar to that of a paladin, and is held to a similar standard. His spells are still arcane in nature.

 

[orchid blossom]

When you say Exalted Sorcerer I assume you're talking about stuff from the Book of Exalted Deeds. So this is a character with a strong connection to his/her god.

If you're worried about making the MT redundant, how about giving the sorcerer just a couple healing spells a day? Maybe one cure light and one cure mod or something like that, added on like a clerics domain spell? It wouldn't make them a healer, but more like a triage guy. He can stablize you and get you on your feet, but you're still going to need a dedicated healer to get you up to strength.

I played a sorcerer that had cure minor wounds. (house rule made it possible) You wouldn't believe how often that little cantrip came in handy. She never really healed anyone, but she sure saved a lot of characters lives by stabilizing them when they were in negative hit points.

 

[Stormborn]

I wouldn't do it mainly because I wouldn't want the MT's player to feel like his character's special abilities were being crowded. If that player doesn't really have a problem with it I doubt it will drastically effect the game. An alternate solution might be to create an Exalted Feat that allows the Sorcerer to use a Lay on Hands like ability, which would be entirelly consistant with the exalted nature of the character IMO.

 

[ForceUser]

I wouldn't do it mainly because I wouldn't want the MT's player to feel like his character's special abilities were being crowded.

That's sort of what I was thinking too. I'm just getting tired of watching character after character in the sorcerer's group get themselves killed. Not tired enough to flub die rolls, mind you, but tired enough to consider bending the RAW a little to help them out. Which leads to another question:

Since the purpose of the game is fun, should DMs make allowances for adventure groups that lack, by player choice, key roles or archetypes?

My general philosophy has been "no allowances and let the dice fall where they may," but like I said, I'm beginning to weary of watching PCs die--when I add up all the net level gain + loss in this particular group, they are leveling in reverse!

 

[BroccoliRage]

It's not a variant class--an exalted sorcerer is simply a regular sorcerer with an exalted feat from the BoED. Basically, this means that he has gained grace similar to that of a paladin, and is held to a similar standard. His spells are still arcane in nature.

the reason i asked is because im a 1e player, not a 3e player. the character still sounds like hes undeserving of clerical spells, seeing as spells of a clerical nature are acts of god, like jesus turning water to wine or whatever. i wouldnt allow that character and divine spells unless it was divine intervention (01 on a d%).

but thats a personal opinion.

 

[Jubilee]

I don't really see a problem with making available either all the divine spells or a selection of divine spells to the exalted sorcerer. My understanding from the original post is that the mystic theurge is in a different game, right? I don't see a problem with doing a unique thing in one game that you don't do in another.

Remember, however, that as a sorcerer, this character is limited to only a few spells known (unless you've changed the rules). So, he's not going to get any cleric spells until he gets new spells known, or hits a level when he can switch them out. I also think there are very few sorcerers that would waste many precious spell slots on healing spells and there are also other useful cleric spells that have nothing to do with healing that he might take instead, if you let him go at it wholesale.

Additionally, depending on how you rule, he may not be able to use cleric wands (he's still an arcane caster), although he could probably manage with a bard's version of any divine spells (since they're arcane casters), and he can't use the artificer's wands because they aren't arcane OR divine.

Another thing you could do is as others suggested, let him have access to only the conjuration healing spells (this would still leave room for a cleric for things like restoration, heal, neutralize poison, etc..).

You could also give him the healing domain (although there are ways that the sorcerer could accomplish this on his own if he were so inclined).

Are the players asking for this? Is there any suggestion that the sorcerer wants to be the healing lacky? (some people hate being in that role..)

 

[ForceUser]

but thats a personal opinion.

And thanks for sharing it! That's the point of the thread, after all.

As I said, I think my real bugaboo is that I'm getting tired of watching PCs die in this group. It's hard to run a consistent campaign when the cast of characters is constantly changing.*





*English geek--look at that alliteration!