Healer feat change

ZenBear · Jun 17, 2019

I’m trying to think of interesting ways to make the Healer feat more relevant in the later levels. I’ve considered higher quality healer kits to add more d6s, as well as incorporating various flora that can be scavenged to remedy conditions or provide buffs.

A new idea I just thought of would be to eliminate the healing portion of the feat altogether, keeping the 1 hp stabilize action, and instead allow a use of a kit charge during a short rest to maximize hit dice recovery. This obsoletes the Durable feat, but I never see anyone take that anyway.

Thoughts?

cbwjm · Jun 17, 2019

I think your first idea is the better one but that's mainly because the one with hit dice could be rendered useless after a couple of particularly grueling battles when hit dice are used up.

You could make +1/+2/+3 healer kits with each + adding an additional d6.

Edit: actually, rather than +s, it might be better to use the same terminology as healing potions.

FrogReaver · Jun 17, 2019

Let the feat restore 25% of max hp + con mod. Limit use to once per day per ally.

Xeviat · Jun 17, 2019

Allow the feat to use potions and improve them?

DND_Reborn · Jun 18, 2019

ZenBear said:
I’m trying to think of interesting ways to make the Healer feat more relevant in the later levels. I’ve considered higher quality healer kits to add more d6s, as well as incorporating various flora that can be scavenged to remedy conditions or provide buffs.

A new idea I just thought of would be to eliminate the healing portion of the feat altogether, keeping the 1 hp stabilize action, and instead allow a use of a kit charge during a short rest to maximize hit dice recovery. This obsoletes the Durable feat, but I never see anyone take that anyway.

Thoughts?

I am curious why you think the Healer Feat is irrelevant at higher levels?

By my estimate, you can use it up to three times a day on each party member, and with a party 15th-level characters your average use is over 22 hit points per character, or more than 67 hit points per day. If you have four party members you can heal, that amounts to an average of 270 hit points a day... for a feat.

In case you're interested, that is equal to about 38 potions of healing, every day, for less than two healing kits.

If the problem is that it doesn't restore enough in a single shot, I think maybe that is by design and at higher levels you should be looking for alternatives to healing via the Healer feat.

All that being said, I think adding more options to what the feat can do ins't a bad idea, but otherwise I fail to see how it lacks relevancy at higher levels.

Ashrym · Jun 18, 2019

I'm also curious why you think the healer feat needs more relevance. If you are seeing players take it that's generally a sign that it has value. The fact you never see anyone taking Durable would indicate it would be the one to review.

ZenBear · Jun 18, 2019

Well to be honest, I’ve always considered it a fantastic feat, but also that it seems to massively drop in value at higher levels. Now that I’m really thinking about it and hearing from y’all, I realize my analysis might be wrong. That being said, the players in my new campaign are pretty adamant that the feat is bad, and the one of them that is brand new to the game was considering it until the others shot the idea down. So, taking advice from here and another forum I posted on, I’ve decided to change the healing value to Xd6+(2xProficiency)+HD, where Xd6 is dependent on the quality of the healer’s kit. This way it doesn’t get any better at low levels when it’s super effective, but maintains its punch later on. I don’t think this is a game breaking buff, and it seems to have satisfied the party. I’ll adjust the difficulty of encounters if it ends up OP.

cbwjm · Jun 18, 2019

I just had a look at the feat, it does scale with level since it heals 1d6+4+the targets max number of hit dice which for players is their character level which means it's a healthy amount of healing for a single charge of a healer kit. I've been thinking all this time that it just healed 1d6+4 hit points.

DND_Reborn · Jun 18, 2019

ZenBear said:
Well to be honest, I’ve always considered it a fantastic feat, but also that it seems to massively drop in value at higher levels. Now that I’m really thinking about it and hearing from y’all, I realize my analysis might be wrong. That being said, the players in my new campaign are pretty adamant that the feat is bad, and the one of them that is brand new to the game was considering it until the others shot the idea down. So, taking advice from here and another forum I posted on, I’ve decided to change the healing value to Xd6+(2xProficiency)+HD, where Xd6 is dependent on the quality of the healer’s kit. This way it doesn’t get any better at low levels when it’s super effective, but maintains its punch later on. I don’t think this is a game breaking buff, and it seems to have satisfied the party. I’ll adjust the difficulty of encounters if it ends up OP.

Well, I suppose it depends a lot on how much healing your party needs and how your encounters are run. At our table, that would be OP, but it might work for yours. You might want each "use" of the healer's kit to add 1d6 and then with 2x proficiency bonus? Either way, it is a very cheap way to get a lot of healing, even if it is limited to 3 times a day.

I would definitely encourage your players to look at how much this feat can heal and how cheap it is to do it. Is the problem also needing large amounts of healing mid-battle?

Anyway, I'm curious as to how it works out so let us know, ok?