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About a month or so ago, I started working on the Book of Nine Cheese, which was nine classes that, to me, seemed to have a particular niche ability that's not commonly seen in Pathfinder.
One of these classes was the Medic, which I made mostly because I think the Heal skill is really undervalued. If you're relying on magic or psionic healing, there isn't much need for mundane healing. The medic's goal is to keep her allies in good health, even if she isn't a spellcaster.
The problem: I just can't quite think of any additional abilities for this class. There's a few dead levels. =/
There they go again. The fighter has so many arrows sticking out of him he resembles a pincushion, the wizard’s trying to keep his composure despite the acid burns that cover his body, and the thief’s busy trying to hold her insides in with the one arm that wasn't ruined by combat. But that’s fine. You’re here for them. Under your skilled care, your friends will be up and at them in no time-- at least, until the next battle.
Role: (words about the medic’s role)
Alignment: Any
Hit Die: d6
Class Skills
The medic’s class skills are Acrobatics (Dex), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (local, nature, planes, religion) (Int), Perception (Wis), Profession (Wis), and Sense Motive (Wis).
Skill Ranks Per Level: 4 + Int modifier
Table 6: The Medic
[1/2 BAB, Good Fortitude and Will saves]
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: The medic is proficient with all simple weapons and light armor.
Healing Knack (Ex): At 1st level, the medic gains Skill Focus (Heal) as a bonus feat at 1st level.
Treat Wounds: The medic can only use one treat wounds ability at the end of a combat. If she has more than one ability, she can choose which one to use.
Treat Light Wounds (Ex): At 1st level, the medic can make a DC 20 Heal check at the end of a combat. If the check is successful, the medic can restore 1d8 hit points +1 per medic level (maximum +5) to up to six patients. The medic can choose whether or not to include herself in this treatment. It takes one minute of work to perform this treatment.
Treat Moderate Wounds (Ex): As Treat Light Wounds, except it restores 2d8 hit points +1 per medic level (maximum +10), and it takes three minutes of work to perform this treatment.
Mercy (Su): At 3rd level, and every three levels thereafter, a medic can select one mercy. Each mercy adds an effect to the medic’s Treat Wounds ability. Whenever the medic uses Treat Wounds to heal damage to one or more targets, the target(s) also receive the additional effects from all of the mercies possessed by the medic. A mercy can remove a condition caused by a curse, disease, or poison without curing the affliction. Such conditions return after 1 hour unless the mercy actually removes the affliction that causes the condition.
At 3rd level, the medic can select from the following initial mercies.
Fatigued: The target is no longer fatigued.
Shaken: The target is no longer shaken.
Sickened: The target is no longer sickened.
At 6th level, a medic adds the following mercies to the list of those that can be selected.
Dazed: The target is no longer dazed.
Diseased: The medic's treat wounds ability also acts as remove disease, using the medic's level as the caster level.
Staggered: The target is no longer staggered, unless the target is at exactly 0 hit points.
At 9th level, a medic adds the following mercies to the list of those that can be selected.
Cursed: The medic's treat wounds ability also acts as remove curse, using the medic's level as the caster level.
Exhausted: The target is no longer exhausted. The medic must have the fatigued mercy before selecting this mercy.
Frightened: The target is no longer frightened. The medic must have the shaken mercy before selecting this mercy.
Nauseated: The target is no longer nauseated. The medic must have the sickened mercy before selecting this mercy.
Poisoned: The medic's treat wounds ability also acts as neutralize poison, using the medic's level as the caster level.
At 12th level, a medic adds the following mercies to the list of those that can be selected.
Blinded: The target is no longer blinded.
Deafened: The target is no longer deafened.
Paralyzed: The target is no longer paralyzed.
Stunned: The target is no longer stunned.
These abilities are cumulative. For example, a 12th level medic's treat wounds ability heals up to 4d8+12 points of damage and might also cure fatigued and exhausted conditions as well as removing diseases and neutralizing poisons. Once a condition or spell effect is chosen, it can't be changed.
Treat Serious Wounds (Ex): As Treat Light Wounds, except it requires a DC 25 Heal check, restores 3d8 hit points +1 per medic level (maximum +15), and it takes five minutes of work to perform this treatment.
Treat Critical Wounds (Ex): As Treat Serious Wounds, except it restores 4d8 hit points +1 per medic level (maximum +20), and it takes ten minutes of work to perform this treatment. If the medic includes herself as a patient when using this treatment, she takes a -5 penalty to the Heal check.
Minor Medical Miracle (Ex): At 10th level, the medic can save a character who has reached -Constitution hit points. If the medic can tend to a character who’s been dead for three rounds or less, she can make a DC 30 Heal check. If the check succeeds, the dead character can make a DC 15 Fortitude save to stabilize and be restored to 0 hit points. If either the check or the Fortitude save fail, the character is beyond help.
Medical Miracle (Ex): At 20th level, the medic can save a character who has reached -Constitution hit points. If the medic can tend to a character who’s been dead for three minutes or less, she can make a DC 40 Heal check. If the check succeeds, the dead character can make a DC 20 Fortitude save to stabilize and be restored to 1d6 hit points. If either the check or the Fortitude save fail, the character is beyond help.
Dead Levels: 2, 4, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, and 19. Yeesh.
Okay, I think that you're going about this wrong.
Imagine this scenario. You have a wheel. However the wheel is square. It just doesn't work or at least not well. Instead of improving the wheel you're trying to make a cart that can use the wheel.
Why not just fix the wheel?
Just in case you're not getting what I'm saying: Just create a fix for the heal skill.
As for what you've written it's basically just a paladin with almost everything stripped away and even then it's a worse version of the paladin lay on hands. If you're dead set on a class then come at it from another angle.
Mundane healing done so skillfully it's almost magical is utterly pointless in a setting with easy access to actual, magical healing.
Okay, I think that you're going about this wrong.
Imagine this scenario. You have a wheel. However the wheel is square. It just doesn't work or at least not well. Instead of improving the wheel you're trying to make a cart that can use the wheel.
Why not just fix the wheel?
Just in case you're not getting what I'm saying: Just create a fix for the heal skill.
As for what you've written it's basically just a paladin with almost everything stripped away and even then it's a worse version of the paladin lay on hands. If you're dead set on a class then come at it from another angle.
I agree. At this point I'd rather just play any class that gets cure and buy a few wands. At least then I get to use it more than once after a battle...
I'm gonna be the odd kobold out here and say this doesn't seem half bad. The Medic manages to not be redundant by avoiding labels like "once per day", making him more flexible than the cleric—who, half the time, doesn't even remember to prepare Neutralize Poison. The Medic can help after every combat, reaching more people (and hit points) in a day than the cleric can manage in a week!
The one thing that bugs me, though, is that he's gonna end up a total one-trick pony. He heals. After combat. And does nothing else. During combat, he's got scarce little to do. You need to give him options if he's gonna be viable as more than a prestige class, or a really overpowered NPC class.
At least give him a dove named Archimedes.
EDIT: Also, consider eliminating the roll for his healing and making it averages. He only gets it once per combat. Don't subject him to the pain of rolling a 1.
Alright, here are some ideas for additional (somewhat unbalanced) abilities. I took way too much inspiration from the TF2 character on some of these. I see them as being used like Alchemist Discoveries, or Rogue Talents.
Alright, here are some ideas for additional (somewhat unbalanced) abilities. I took way too much inspiration from the TF2 character on some of these. I see them as being used like Alchemist Discoveries, or Rogue Talents.
The Medic makes a touch attack on the enemy. If successful, they suffer a drawback along the lines of Nauseated, or enemies get a +4 on checks to confirm crits against them, until they get healed.
Extract Poison: The Medic can take poison from a weapon or food and apply it elsewhere. He might even be able to take it from recent victims, curing them.
Extract Disease: At higher levels, the Medic might be able to actually harvest infected tissue and put the "germs" on a weapon, thus creating the chance (25%ish) of the person hit having to make a Fortitude save.
The Medic might develop strong resistances to disease and poison, and, later, conditions.
The Medic can stop someone from taking Bleed damage with a standard action, or himself with a Swift action.
The Medic can make ordinary Heal checks much faster.
The extract poison and disease abilities are very interesting but incredibly situational. How often do you get poisoned or catch a disease (not counting the stuff you get from barmaids)?
The touch attack might be a little much.
The rest of them are very much in line with what Snorb seems to be going for. However a purely defensive or healing class is usually very boring. Remember the Healer from 3.0 and 3.5?
I could see the concept working as a Fighter archetype, but definitely not its own class.
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This is why I originally said "yeah, I don't think a nonmagical healer would work!" =p (that, and too many dead levels.)
Incidentally, Gunsmith, I looked up the Healer class. This is the first time I have ever seen the Healer, and I've been playing D&D for eleven years. (I have heard of it, though, so I guess it was like some kind of bogeyman among my group.)
The extract poison and disease abilities are very interesting but incredibly situational. How often do you get poisoned or catch a disease (not counting the stuff you get from barmaids)?
Good point. These might be lower-level powers, or part of a bigger package.
The touch attack might be a little much.
Eh, there's a cleric domain ability that does something very similar. It's a difficult-to-apply ability easily cured if the enemy has access to any sort of healing.
The rest of them are very much in line with what Snorb seems to be going for. However a purely defensive or healing class is usually very boring. Remember the Healer from 3.0 and 3.5?
I've heard some people had fun with it, actually.
The rest of them are very much in line with what Snorb seems to be going for. However a purely defensive or healing class is usually very boring. Remember the Healer from 3.0 and 3.5?I've heard some people had fun with it, actually.
Like I said, usually people don't have fun with that sort of role. There are those who are perfectly content to play those kind of roles and classes but, in my experience at least, they are few and far between.
That's why I'm not a huge fan of this kind of class. I feel it would be better expressed as an archetype or simply a re-work of the heal skill. It would be less work and less worry over balance.
Okay. First of all:
What is this guy doing in combat? A d6 would tend to imply 1/2 bab progression. That is not a ton of accuracy for you there. Since there is clearly a lot of anatomy knowledge at play here, sneak attack might feel pretty good there, but 1/2 bab leads to no accuracy for that.
I feel like this class might actually be a good template for rouge?
Like take out all the talents and trapfinding, keep the skills and sneak attack. Then boom. That is a class.
Or maybe have this replace spellcasting in an alchemist? I dunno. Right now, this class does not do anything besides heal and even then not as well as a wizard with a bunch of wands of cure light wounds.
Perhaps a way to use Heal in place of an attack roll (with stipulations), using precision and a knowledge of anatomy?
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I'm actually kinda surprised that my craptacular nonmagical healer class got this much attention!
Anyway, the entire genesis of this class is, hilariously/weirdly enough, the Buck Rogers XXVc roleplaying game-- specifically, the Genesis version of Countdown to Doomsday, where one of the available character classes was, indeed, Medic. (The pen and paper version of XXVc, incidentally, says that a party from XXVc can easily kick the living crap out of an AD&D 2e party, despite using the almost exact same rules, so your mileage may vary.)
The XXVc Medic was quite literally the only person who could restore hit points (after combat, which is where I kinda cribbed the mechanic from.) One of the medics in my playthrough of the Genesis game, despite having AD&D's equivalent of the poor BAB progression, actually kills people better than one of the warriors in the group (mostly because I let the game run one combat on autopilot, and said warrior tried to use a frag grenade as a melee weapon. Let's just say that he killed the guy he hit with it, and leave it at that.)
My own issue with the medic, dead levels aside, is this: What does the medic, this Pathfinder with the combat might of a lowly sorcerer or wizard, skilled in the healing arts, actually do in combat? Even a sorcerer or wizard has ways of helping to kill opponents.
I do like some of the ideas in the thread so far, and I'll try to see where they can fit the best.
I'm actually kinda surprised that my craptacular nonmagical healer class got this much attention!
Healing is kind of a popcorn topic - but less so than alignment, fighter, monks, paladins, rogues, tiers, etc. The word itself draws attention.
Yeah. Pretty much.
The "heal after combat" mechanic is a little hard to deal with too. Can you keep a cage full of rats, let one out, kill it, and then heal?
It is sort of an odd thing. What you would like to do is only be able to heal damage from the last fight you were in. However, no one wants to keep track of that. In a way, the project is doomed to failure unless you want to get some kind of magical conceit in (and sort of limit it to uses per day or something).
Maybe they could just heal 1d12+wis every hour treating someone starting at lv 2? Multiply it all by x2 at level 4 and then x3 at level 6 and so on.Then let him treat multiple allies at once eventually. I think resource-less healing with a caveat (needing an hour or so of down time) is not such a stupid idea given how cheap level 1 cure light wounds wands are.
If you can find a copy of the Investigator playtest, maybe use that as the base? Like you could use your inspiration points to effectively cast heal spells and call it an "inspired fix". Take out the talents and I think everything fits together quite well.
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The "heal after combat" mechanic is a little hard to deal with too. Can you keep a cage full of rats, let one out, kill it, and then heal?
No. No you can not, and if your character actually tries the Bag O' Rats strategy, he deserves to be in one of the obituary threads with the cause of death "Tried to exploit the rat sack one too many times, throat torn out by rat." =p
...I should probably add one of those "pick on something your own CR" rules like the gunslinger has to Treat Wounds.
It is sort of an odd thing. What you would like to do is only be able to heal damage from the last fight you were in. However, no one wants to keep track of that. In a way, the project is doomed to failure unless you want to get some kind of magical conceit in (and sort of limit it to uses per day or something).
Nah, it's less "all the damage from last fight" and more "the one hit point you lost in this fight when the goblin stabbed you in the foot, and about eight hit points you lost last fight when Skullcrusher Kiljarian tried to cave your helmet in while you were still wearing it." It could be much, much worse. It could be like Shadowrun Returns's healing, where Heal only repaired the very last injury you took (so if you take 45 damage from an unlucky assault rifle critical, and get grazed by an Ares Predator shot for 3 damage, you're not getting as much health back as you'd like!)
The intent, really, is to take some of the slack off the cleric so he can use the almighty godly powers he (allegedly) has instead of burning all his prepared spells on Cure Wounds. (I say it that way because the group I game with thinks that's all clerics do, apparently.)
Maybe they could just heal 1d12+wis every hour treating someone starting at lv 2? Multiply it all by x2 at level 4 and then x3 at level 6 and so on.Then let him treat multiple allies at once eventually. I think resource-less healing with a caveat (needing an hour or so of down time) is not such a stupid idea given how cheap level 1 cure light wounds wands are.
This sounds something like 13th Age. I do loves me some 13th Age, so I'll have to check how Heal worked in that again.
DISCLAIMER: Cure Light Wounds are cheap, but Lesser Vigor wands are more cost-effective!
If you can find a copy of the Investigator playtest, maybe use that as the base? Like you could use your inspiration points to effectively cast heal spells and call it an "inspired fix". Take out the talents and I think everything fits together quite well.
I have the Advanced Class Guide playtest, actually! Love the arcanist! Under the impression that the investigator's inspiration points should scale either like d20 Modern's action points (roll more d6s as you gain levels) or Fifth Edition's fighter superiority dice (roll larger dice as you gain levels.) I should probably mention that on the Investigator thread.
.....Hmm. Maybe, just maybe, something inspiration-esque could fuel Treat Wounds. Maybe.
Stay tuned.