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How do you handle the Psi-Healer and keep them interesting?
My wife was excited about the Psi-Healer concept and decided to play one, but is finding it difficult to feel useful most of the time. She regularly buffs the party to improve their natural healing and provides healing as needed, but due to her lack of combat skill and the length of time required to trance for most of her psionic abilities, she feels more like an NPC and is beginning to lose interest in the character. This is our first PFRPG campaign and we are all new to the system.
I am running the game (lots of gaming experience, but new to PB games), which is set in the Kingdom of Timiro and the players decided they wanted to register with the Mercenary Guild and do quests based on posted bounties and mercenary contracts.
Do any of you have any suggestions for how to challenge and engage a low-level Psi-Healer PC so that she feels like an active and relevant part of the team?

Thanks for your time and input.

Ways to make hte Psi-Healer useful:
1. they get 2 WP of choice (I don't know what was selected and if those weapons are being used)
2. starting at Level 2 they can select either another Healing Category power OR Physical Category power (which likely will make them more useful in combat)
3. Proper Skill selection in Other/Secondary skills can make them feel more useful (I don't know what was selected, that could be a factor in terms of poor skill selection so they might have to wait until level up)
4. Gear (have them pickup low level magic items)
5. GM may have to play to the class to make them more useful (put them in situations where their power/skills are useful, even if it isn't combat)
6. Use Holistic Medicine Skill's Diagnosis to "pacify" enemies by offering treatment (may not work all the time)
7. Use the Biology Skill to justify "critical hits" since they know biology and would know where to hit to be effective (IMHO) or even called shots

Alternatively you could look for ways to "weaponize" Healing Powers via house rules (drop the trance time requirement, expand what can be done, etc).

As a suggestion for a low-end magic item, what if you include something to reduce the trance times? Or an option to overcome trance times with a greater expenditure of ISP?

Maybe something like

Healer's Rod
The healer's rod is a simple piece of crystal magic whose construction has entered into the standard canon of alchemical magic. When a psi-healer becomes attuned to to a Healer's Rod (requiring them to invest 200 ISP in the rod over the course of ten days), they may use psi-healing psychic powers without a trance time.

Frankly, I think the trance times are too long; they did something like multiply the standard number of actions per minute by about 16, but left trance times in minutes. (1e: 1 action per 1 minute melee round. 2e: 4 actions per 15 second melee round). Furthermore, the Psi-Healer doesn't get access to ANY of the Super Powers, even ones that would make sense for them (like Super Bio-regeneration, Group Mind Block, or, I'd argue, Bio-manipulation)

Actually, there's another option: Start letting her take specific uses of Bio-manipulation as Healing powers. Someone with the Super power can do all of them, but someone might take Bio-Manipulation: Pain as a minor healing power.

Great ideas, guys. I'll try some things out and see if it helps. Thanks again for your suggestions.

Psi-Healers kind of suck. They were passable in 1st Edition and got neutered in 2nd. Trance times make most of their powers impractical for most situations, and their healing is utterly eclipsed by priests (who get to do no-meditation healing touches and miracles) warlocks (who get some cheap resurrection spells), wizards (who don't need no stinking meditation times), and any character with major psionics who chooses healing (who get all their powers, plus a more useful skill-set). Skill-wise, you'd be better off with a scholar, diabolist, or wizard. I've written about this before.

That said, the roleplaying aspects of healers is kind of neat. I like the "even villains don't generally kill them" aspect. Fixing it, though? Oh boy...

First off, I'd throw out almost all meditation time requirements or reduce them to something like one round. They make an already-weak class weaker in order to keep it from performing its primary job during combat. .

Second, I'd give them improved versions of the healing powers, so they can't just be eclipsed in their own game by any nob with major psionics. I'd allow them to reattach limbs with psi-surgery, double their healing touch efficacy or allow it to be done at a distance (with a wispy ectoplasm connection or something so the bad guys know who's doing the healing; makes combat that much more interesting), allow cosmetic surgery, and add an expensive power that grants a small chance at revival/resurrection that increases with level (can only use on each person once).

Third, I'd allow them to create potions/teas with healing/buffing properties, like the druids of Rifts England. In fact, I'd straight-up import the teas, brews, and salves from Rifts: England into the game and replace most of the P.P.E. costs with I.S.P. costs.

Finally, I'd increase their skill bonus for healing skills such that they are the best in the world at it.

This character could heal in combat while still having to deal with the limiting aspect of managing ISP. Mind mages, priests, magic-users, and other psionics couldn't just eclipse it at its own game, and with the herbal medicines, it could bring some versatility by buffing the party against threats. I'd dub this class a doctor and change the background to reflect that this is an educated person and an elite healer.

I'd keep the healer as the puny peasant version of the class, so that doctors could all keep on sneering at the lowlifes who choose to specialize in something and suck so badly at it.

Alternately, if you want an awesome psionic healer that doesn't break canon, give a psionic some crystal healing devices from Island at the Edge of the World.

Wow, Hotrod, that's quite a lot to consider. I like the direction you're headed though, and I'll make some adjustments. Thanks for your contributions!

Well, I like Hotrod's ideas so I'll suggest the flip side. Nerf the abilities of other healing. Make it so that they can basically only heal scrapes and bruises, perhaps only SDC. But you need a REAL healer to get the good stuff.

Also, as a constant magic user player, you do have to get creative with a lot of low level wizards/priests/healers. I always try to be the idea man, coming up with plans and making the character helpful in non-combat situations. The player might not want to do that, but as Hotrod said - "even villians don't kill them". That's one aspect of the trust factor - staying alive. Another could be NPC's trusting the psi-healer more and being more willing to trust, give information or help, or sell items to the psi-healer.

-Vek
"Psi healers, you can trust them a bit. They aren't Mind Mages."

Thanks for the feedback! I made a psionic healing class for Rifts a while back; these ideas were based on my ideas for that class at the time.

Vek's nerfing approach is interesting, too.

I've occasionally wondered about what it might be like to conduct a healer-centric campaign. Vek's idea about the utility of healers as trusted people is a nice point, but I think that healing itself might provide great fodder for hooks, lines, and sinkers in a given adventure. Wars, diseases, accidents, and disasters can all make for great drama and storytelling, hence all those hospital shows on TV.

Hotrod wrote:Thanks for the feedback! I made a psionic healing class for Rifts a while back; these ideas were based on my ideas for that class at the time.

Vek's nerfing approach is interesting, too.

I've occasionally wondered about what it might be like to conduct a healer-centric campaign. Vek's idea about the utility of healers as trusted people is a nice point, but I think that healing itself might provide great fodder for hooks, lines, and sinkers in a given adventure. Wars, diseases, accidents, and disasters can all make for great drama and storytelling, hence all those hospital shows on TV.

I think that's a great idea. I could definitely see the story opportunities in a healer-centric campaign. Once my group has more experience with the system (we've only had 5 sessions so far) I may suggest it and see if I get any bites.
I really love this beautifully flawed, aggravatingly inconsistent rpg. It has a certain maddening charm that I find infectious.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I have removed trance requirements for powers within the healing category for Psi-Healers only, added a small handful of Super Psionic powers as options to choose from at level up, doubled the number of new powers gained at each level from one to two, and included a mechanic for creating salves and such. My wife is very excited about the new possibilities and I am looking forward to seeing how it plays out in game. We both felt that the Psi-Healer was great, conceptually, but in play it has not worked out. Hopefully, these changes will be sufficient to allow the OCC to be a more active force in the story.

One final thought: roleplaying healers is one of the main ways that medical students learn, practice, and test in real life. If you have some legit medical people in your group, it could be interesting to try applying modern medical knowledge with middle-ages tech.

I'm glad you and your wife like the tweaks I made, and I hope you both have fun with the character!

One solution I have had is to remove all the trance times... for healers.
Other psychics need to take time to heal, while healers can heal on the fly.
I also add in various other healer powers from the other books (BTS2 has a healing hypnosis power that is very handy for instance and there are some Qui Gong powers in Rifts China 2 that could be used as well)

The addition of some of the healing toys from Isle at the End of the World and Secrets of the Atlantians are good ideas as well.

I also might go with the idea that only healers can heal HP damage (or that HP damage costs other healers double or some such)

Another idea is to add in some of the various medical skills from the various other books. Acupuncture from Rifts China for instance. Allowing them more basic healing skills wont change them much power wise...but depth wise they become much better healers with the ability to deal with more options.

Priests can only heal every other melee, which is pretty useless for combat.
I play first ed healers (Which were sort of different to psionicists) and they do not have trance times, but I did add trance times to Psychic Diagnosis and Psychic surgery (I stole a few powers from 2nd ed too but put them at higher levels), otherwise without a trance time your healer will figure out that if someone bugs her she can pull his heart out of his chest.
Healing touch is a per action thing so healers are a lot more useful in combat.
Only healers can mend broken bones, priestly healing touch wont but will reduce the healing time required.
Healers also use holistic medicine to make candle that give off debilitating fumes, or properly captured and cultured spore clouds or many other bio weaponry types.

Non-psionic races being able to be the Healer OCC in 1st ed was cool. Anyone know any NPC examples of that in 1st ed world books?

There is a gnome in Baca that is a healer, but gnomes can be healers, just not psionicists.

Old ones book. In timiro kingdom.

Mark Hall wrote:As a suggestion for a low-end magic item, what if you include something to reduce the trance times? Or an option to overcome trance times with a greater expenditure of ISP?

Maybe something like

Healer's Rod
The healer's rod is a simple piece of crystal magic whose construction has entered into the standard canon of alchemical magic. When a psi-healer becomes attuned to to a Healer's Rod (requiring them to invest 200 ISP in the rod over the course of ten days), they may use psi-healing psychic powers without a trance time.

Frankly, I think the trance times are too long; they did something like multiply the standard number of actions per minute by about 16, but left trance times in minutes. (1e: 1 action per 1 minute melee round. 2e: 4 actions per 15 second melee round). Furthermore, the Psi-Healer doesn't get access to ANY of the Super Powers, even ones that would make sense for them (like Super Bio-regeneration, Group Mind Block, or, I'd argue, Bio-manipulation)

Actually, there's another option: Start letting her take specific uses of Bio-manipulation as Healing powers. Someone with the Super power can do all of them, but someone might take Bio-Manipulation: Pain as a minor healing power.

I agree Mark. I hate those Trance times. The only one I agree with is the Psychic Surgery.
Compared to 1st to 2nd edition, Healers got nerf the most. So I never use them.