D&D 5E Looking for Peer Review/Constructive Criticism on Homebrew D&D Class: Medic

[DeJoker]

Okay that makes for a viable reason -- and sorry forgot about the fact that you auto-completely heal after a Long Rest

Again I would state that while aesthetically what you are creating is a character that does not use magic what you are doing mechanically is creating another "magic system" that is not called magic and uses slightly different rules. With that said I would examine the Cleric and see how you might apply what they do to this new Medic class because frankly you are just creating another type of Cleric. To be absolutely clear, you are wrestling more with the semantics of the words you are using rather than dealing with the game mechanics. Once you start there you will have a better base to build from and can build something that is balanced against the other classes because well you are using one of those classes as your base template - so sort of like building a sub-class but not

 

[Christopher Siow]

I was using the Cleric as a reference for this and the Artificer for scaling references. I totally get what you mean that this is sort of a Non-Magical "Magic" system since the amount of heals you get is 2 x (Medic Class Level). That was my friend's idea and he pointed out how what I made was similar to the Sorcerer. The outline is there but which sub-class you choose (Combat Medic or Alchemical Medic) ultimately changes how they fight and function. As for the issue of whether or not it's balanced against other classes, that's why I've been posting this to various websites to see if people can submit their thoughts/feedback.

 

[DeJoker]

Yeah well having done this numerous times what I generally do is pick a base class to work from then list out all the things they get in a spreadsheet and a few columns over I start the process of exchanging certain items for certain other items. The Medic has Focus its called a Med Kit which costs money to replenish and you could use that as a mechanic for "recoverying their spells" instead of having them recharge after a long rest. Of course you then have to build in some kind of limiter so that they do not double their abilities by say buying 2 Med Kits and carrying both of them with them. I have not looked at the class, all that closely but how does it stack up to the 3 classes you mentioned. If it looks and acts more like the Sorcerer why not line it up and see where the differences fall and figure out how balanced it looks from that point. Personally I would probably do a bit of cross-referencing comparing it to those other two classes to see how it stacks up to all three just to be thorough then you are left with just play testing it. In that vein it is best to error on the side of conservativeness as giving a player something more is generally a lot easier than taking something away.

And as for the "spells" well you could build a list that is more inline with using medical supplies I mean you could do a lot more than just heal someone drugs are such an interesting tool

 

[Christopher Siow]

There are poisons, status effects and other things available to the Alchemical Medic which would help with your last point. As for the limiter, remedies go inert after 24 hours so you can only prepare 2 x (Class Level). So if you're a level 1 medic, you can prepare 2 remedies for the next 24 hours before you have to prepare new ones. As you level and can prepare new remedies, you can mix and match what kind of remedies you want to make so long as it does not exceed the prepared remedy limit.

 

[DeJoker]

Well sounds like you have done your homework on this are there any particular sticking points that you feel might not be balanced. I do not have the time to review the entire class as a whole as that would require me to basically redo the process that you went through to build it -- granted it would be streamlined since you already have the items outlined but still that is a good measure of time because I have had to do something very similar recently for a Pathfinder game I am running.

 

[Christopher Siow]

eh, the most updated and streamlined version is on another forum site.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?536687-Custom-Class-The-Medic

I'll have to update the Google Doc once I can get to it. But I feel I've got a good handle on it.