[douglas]

So, what about the rest of the party? Your ability to heal twice your level for yourself (once you level up) doesn't do anything to help the rest of us, and depending on items for healing gets rather expensive after a while, especially for fast in-combat healing. If it's the idea of being purely a support character that's putting you off, keep in mind that clerics are pretty good at fighting too, especially with how many high ability scores you can get with 40 point buy. If you prefer the sorcerer's style of spellcasting (no advance preparation, but more limited selection), you could go Favored Soul (from Complete Divine) instead without losing much fighting ability and gaining more spells per day.