Healing Wizard

[Nikosandros]

Another player is joining my 13th Age group and he wishes to create a sort of techno-wizard who uses ancient artifacts (read gadgets) to produce spells. He inquired if it would be possible to have some healing power. I'm inclined to grant it, both because it fits nicely with his back-story and because, with just one cleric and 7 characters, more healing is certainly useful for the party.

What do you think about swapping a wizard talent for the heal spell? Too cheap?

 

[NinjaPaladin]

I'd allow it. Frankly, if the player cares enough to lose one of his (generally very good) wizard talents, I'd let him pick up Heal as a 1/battle (as opposed to 2/battle for clerics) and use one of his Wizard spell slots (if he wishes) to cast a thematically appropriate Cleric spell of the same level (Cure Wounds, Mighty Healing, or Resurrection, for example). That's slightly more generous than the Paladin or Ranger "Get a Cleric Spell" talents (which don't include Heal unless you take a feat), but since the player won't be casting any Cleric spell, but specifically just the healing ones, I wouldn't make him take the feat.

 

[Unwise]

In the past, when giving healing abilities outside of classes that could normally do it, I would check if the other players are OK with it. I would especially check with the cleric in case he feels it is stepping on his classes toes. Normally what I found is that people were more than happy for a teammate to have healing abilities, even if they were not overly balanced. Class balance sort of matters less with leader style abilities, as they just make other people more effective.

 

[Blue]

13th Age seems to be more about being permissive and what works at your table. It even mentions at the start of the class session that it's possible to swap and grab a talent from another class if it works for the table. As Unwise said, as long as the players are cool, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Rel]

Maybe it could be their One Unique Thing?