New Rogue Archetype: The Physician (Expert in Medieval Medicine)

[Storm!]

I like Chirurgeon and actually considered that as a name of either the class, or an alternate name of the bonesetting feature. I decided it was kind of a mouthful and I like Phycisian, as it strikes a good balance as being a word most people would understand now while still being more or less used at the time.

 

[choryukami]

I feel like Cant for a Physician would be Medical Jargon that they could communicate with other doctors about medical conditions, but nobody else understands them. Just reflavor it.

 

[Redthistle]

Just revisited this thread after receiving notice of an additional post, and I'm still very impressed with both the Physician archetype and the Plague Doctor background. Kudos to Storm! and empireofchaos.

Choryukami, your suggestion for adapting the Cant feature also makes good sense, although "jargon" may be too modern a term for the feature. Maybe "Healer's Cant"?

 

[GrissTheGnome]

I like this a lot, but please do not listen to anybody who says this path is over powered, it is severely the opposite.

There is the thing a lot of people do looking at Spec's they look at it by itself, and not with the moving parts of the other class abilities. Which given a lot of paths are made on their own and not looking at other class features, I am certainly guilty of that. Also people look at features at where they play at, which is typically low level. But this is a path, it is asking you to give up A LOT of combat utility, which say what you will, D&D is a combat engine. You can do with it what you will, but the rules and focus of the majority of game mechanics are about fighting things. So allow me to explain the bar that EVERY Rogue path needs to be aware of.

Damage Build Level 20 Rogue

Sneak Attack 10d6 - Dex +5. Average dice on a d6 = 3.5

Assassinate, advantage on attacks, and Crit in the surprise round.
Death Strike - a level 17 make a con save (DC should be 19), or take double damage.

So a level 20 Death strike with a short sword is ((22 x 3.5) +5) x2 aka 164 damage on the surprise round.

I hear you now, so thats the surprise round, not all enemies will be surprised. Allow me to introduce you to Expertise (double proficiency bonus), and Reliable Talent (If you roll 1-9 on a skill you roll 10). Which takes that same rogues MINIMUM Stealth roll to 27. An Ancient Gold Dragon has perception of +17, which means it's average roll is 27. The problem is the dragon can roll a 1 to 9, which means that 45% of the time a Rogue can sneak up on a Dragon without rolling.

So that is the bar, a rogue that has extremely good odds of doing 164 damage in the Surprise round, EVERY combat, EVERY time. So saying that throwing out the odd heal for 1d4+Wis is "overpowered" is stupid. Your asking a rogue to give up doing a ton of damage, to throw out minor heals that won't matter at that level.

 

[GrissTheGnome]

Also I'm not saying that all spec's need to be built to be on par with "the best" spec in a class. But you have to remember your asking a player to play your spec, when they could take "the best" you should make the option attractive. In this case your asking a player to give up damage ability to heal, the heals they should throw out, should actually be worth giving up rolling 22d6.

Doctor of Physic - is good don't change a thing, I like it a lot!

Bone Setting - I wish this could be a different stat but I get it Medicine is a Wisdom skill, it's unfortunate but true.

Bloodletting - Also good, situational it depends a lot on what sort of monsters are in your campaign. But not all abilities can be S-Tier.

Alchemy - this feature is also just fine honestly. By the time your that level the savings aren't going to be all that great anyway comparatively. Unless your DM is evil, in which case this could be a life saver.

Faith Healing - this needs a complete rework, compared to the bar in my previous post this isn't great. The problem with high level D&D is your either gonna make a save or you won't. Advantage probably won't matter. Asking a player who isn't proficient in a save to roll twice won't matter often. Most high level saves are either trivial, or the player needs to roll a 15+

Suggestions. Steal a page from Final Fantasy Tactics, and allow them to "throw potions" like the Chemist class. You might toss this in earlier. But allowing this healer to be able to throw potions with a standard action and as a bonus action, means they can toss out some pretty good heals.