Feats to aid divine-magic-less game...

[Greatfrito]

Okay, I'm starting up a campaign in a custom setting that has no divine or arcane magic... just psionics. Now the problem with this (just a little bit less than if it were just arcane magic) is that healing is all but unheard of, though some characters will have full access to it, but only in relation to themselves.

To remedy all of this, and to make it fair for those characters that don't wanna sink at least 3 levels into a psionic class (those fighters, barbarians, and rogues out there), I've come up with three feats that I may or may not use. It's late, and I don't trust my judgement now, so I'll look them over with a fresh start tomorrow. Anyways, please take a look, and make any comments or changes deemed necessary.

Willpower Healing [General]
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You can regain health through force of will alone.

Prerequisites: Base Will Save +2

Benefits: Once per day, you may take a standard action to concentrate and heal yourself of wounds. You roll one dice of the same type as your hit dice (if you have mutliple hit dice types, use the largest), so, if you are a barbarian, you heal yourself of 1d12 damage.

If your character level is 7 or greater, you roll two dice instead of one. At 13th level this increases again, to 3 dice, and at 19th level you may roll 4 dice. This ability may still only be used once per day.

Extra Willpower Healing [General]
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You can regain health more than once per day with pure Willpower.

Prerequisites: Base Will Save +2, Character Level 5+.

Benefits: You can use the Force of Will ability two additional times during the day. You do not heal more damage with a single use, but can use it multiple times.

Improved Willpower Healing [General]
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You can regain more health via pure willpower.

Prerequisites: Base Will Save +2, Character Level 3rd+.

Benefits: When you use the Force of Will ability, you roll an additional dice for healing (so 2dx at 3rd-6th level, or 3dx for 7th-12th level, and so on). You do not gain extra uses per day of the ability, but you heal more damage.

 

[Greybar]

I like... *Yoink*. I think matching it to the characters hit die type is a nice touch.

For the second two, did you mean to reference "Force of Will" or "Willpower Healing".

Another aspect you may already be using is boosting up the Heal skill as mentioned in some other threads, a common variant being that a successful Heal roll returns hitpoints equal to the number of ranks in Heal. Usable once/combat or somesuch.

Yet another idea would be to base a feat off of the monk's self-healing class ability:

Wholeness of Body (Su): At 7th level or higher, a monk can heal her own wounds. She can heal a number of hit points of damage equal to twice her current monk level each day, and she can spread this healing out among several uses.

john

 

[jerichothebard]

This is a pretty good power - in some ways equivilant to a first level (or better!) spell.

Have you considered making making Iron Will a prereq?

 

[Greatfrito]

Greybar: Yes, I did mean to reference the Willpower Healing, not Force of Will (that was the original name of the feat before I found out that it had already been taken in the XPH).

The idea of spreading it out over a day is nice, but it lets the character pretty much stabalize themselves at will (I should add in that you don't have to be concious to use this ability). And the two enhancing feats should have Willpower Healing as a requirement.

jerichothebard: Hmm... I did, but I thought that it might not be fair to some of the less feat-intensive classes (such as Rogue, or Barbarian) that may want to take these. Remember, there will be no divine healing, and (barring the creation of a psionic healer class... which I really loathe to do) very little healing in general. I may tie something to the Heal skill, but that too is likely to just be a feat. Matter of fact, it'll go something like this:

Adept Healer
You are very adept at healing with mundane supplies.

Prerequisites: Wis 13+, 4 ranks Heal

Benefits: You can provide almost supernatural healing with normal supplies. You can heal a number of hit points equal to double your ranks in the Heal skill + your Wisdom modifier each day (2*[Heal ranks + Wis Mod]), and can spread this healing among any number of uses. However, if you use this ability to heal yourself, you spend 2 points of your daily allotment of healing to heal one point of damage to yourself. (For example, a 6th level Fighter with 4-1/2 ranks in the Heal skill and a wisdom of 14 can heal a maximum of 12 points a day, and can split its use on 4 points each for his two allies - using 8 total points - and then 2 points on himself, if he'd like - using 4 more total points - in one day).

Normal: You cannot provide actual healing with the Heal skill, other than by aiding natural healing.

 

[dvvega]

Do you really need feats at all?

The heal skill allows you to stabilise people. The Rapid Healing feat allows you to heal faster than normal.

The psionic people can Auto-Stabilise and use psionic powers to heal themselves.

If what you're after is immediate healing then the alchemical healing salve heals 1d6 hit points for 50gp.

The feats you are proposing will essentially make the fact that Divine magic doesn't exist not as important.

I guess it depends on your campaign idea. Are you trying to make it very clear that the divine is non-existant, or are you saying "look divine magic doesn't exist but evolution has catered for it".

 

[Khaalis]

Do you have access to the Unearthed Arcana? If so, you might want to look at some of the options presented there, such as Reserve. There are some very good low-magic ideas for healing there.

I like what you designed for feats, but why penalize the players twice? You removed divine power, and thus healing. You say you dont want to force them into taking levels in Psi to gain healing, but you want to make them sink up to 3 of their preciously few feats for healing? I dont quite see the balance. I would rather take class levels to gain the ability to heal than give up 3 of my 7 or 8 feats.

Personally, if I wanted to allow some form of mitigated healing, I would use a UA increased healing alternative, or I would make non-magical alchemical healing more prevalent, either through a cheaper price on the Healing Salve or even allowing Healing Potions and Keoghtom's (sp) Ointment to made by the use of the Craft (Alchemy) skill (but at same GP price and XP cost).

JMHO and ramblings on it.