PrC: Black Healer (needs balancing)

[seasong]

While other people are doing that, seasong, who do you visualize prestiging into this class?

Do you mean from a character concept standpoint, or from an ability balance standpoint?

For the latter, right now, I don't think anyone will. The abilities don't quite feel right, and the class doesn't feel "beefy" enough. Fixing it may mean a cleric's BAB, or better hit points (actually, I kind of like the idea of high hit points - fits in with the fast healing and defense stuff), or it may mean some special buffing abilities.

It's not done yet.

For the former, on the other hand, I see a devoted herbalist, or a fighter-healer. I'm still working this out, too - I have a lovely quest structure, but I'm still working on what the quest gets you .

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Do you mean from a character concept standpoint, or from an ability balance standpoint?

...

For the former, on the other hand, I see a devoted herbalist, or a fighter-healer. I'm still working this out, too - I have a lovely quest structure, but I'm still working on what the quest gets you .

I was thinking from a character concept standpoint. Once you're there, it helps to figure out which abilities make sense.

How do you visualize doing a devoted herbalist in D&D3? Rogue? Expert? Wizard? Cleric?

If you want to go fighter-healer (and what's that mean, exactly? Fighter/Cleric? Fighter with healing skills?), then I think you need the Cleric BAB progression. It's not terribly in-concept to have a high BAB, I know, but if it's to be a PC-played class...

 

[Shadow64]

I think i may yoink this idea. This class would fit in very well in a low magic world. In my opinion this would be an excellent PrC for a ranger, an expert maybe even a witch in such a world. It is not as focused as many of the PrCs (meaning it's not tailored for a specific class as far as i can see), but still very cool, great to make a character have more flavor.

EDIT:
I might add a Knowledge(Herbalism) or something like it to the the class skills. After all, they need to know what kind of plants to find and use. Potentially they could find a more potent version of a plant, or know when they best time to pick it is, thus adding to their heal checks. Just an idea.

 

[Frostmarrow]

It's good. I like it. In fact it's very good! I hope I'll see this in Class-Acts Dragon Magazine.

 

[seasong]

Made a few edits:
- Re-organized the flavor text flow a bit, clarified a few pieces.
- Added Know (Plant Lore) and Know (Physiology). Still need to make those useful.
- Cleric BAB (was Wizard BAB).

A few changes I'm considering:
- A few more Heal Skill abilities, w/Plant Lore & Physiology.
- Replace some of the abilities with an ability selection. These will be listed as "Medical Secrets".
- Beef the inflict aspect of the class; black healers can play dirty.
- Beef the hit points of the class to d10.
- Radical: A template option, per incognito, at lvl 5 and 10 the character gains some weirder abilities... and disabilities.

 

[seasong]

Mike Sullivan: The Heal skill covers both surgical and herbal skills, so "devoted herbalist" would refer to someone who both learned and used that skill. For the fighter-healer, I would see that as a soldier-turned-medic on the field of battle, or a peasant's hero who swaps levels of warrior and healer back and forth while wandering the countryside, doing good deeds and beating bad guys up.

As for the BAB progression... It doesn't make sense for a wizard to have any BAB progression at all, so I don't mind giving the black healer a cleric's BAB (see edits, above).

Shadow64: Low magic exactly describes it . Although I would like it to balance well with a normal magic setting, the PrC itself doesn't use much magic, just lore and a tiny bit of life force.

For the herb-thang, yeah, good idea! I'm working on a way to make those useful now.

Frostmarrow: Does Dragon Magazine put out special issues with classes, or something? (sorry, I don't get the magazine, so I don't know it very well). And how many pages is a Class Act, usually?

 

[Shadow64]

For the herb-thang, yeah, good idea! I'm working on a way to make those useful now.

I was thinking about this, and what could be done would be to simply allow the character to add their knowledge (plant lore) or their knowledge (physiology) ranks to their heal checks, with a cap of either their total levels as a black healer or total levels of black healer + 5.

Something for flavor:
Part of the ceremony is that the person must give themself to the swamp. To be blunt, they must kill themself.

Either they can drown themselves, for which She has a small pond/bog which they must submerge themselves in. The pond just deep enough that someones nose is almost breaking the surface. Or they can bleed themselves onto the soil of the swamp (cutting their wrists, performing hari kari (sp?), etc.).

In essence, She is asking the person to give up their fear of death (which she has found a great deal of people fear). If they pass the test (ie - they kill themselves) She binds Herself into them, either by the water in their lungs, or she places the bled corpse into the water and refills their veins with the swamp water. The new-born Black Healer returns to life, probably with a little bit of stat damage (I wouldn't make them loose a level, but maybe rough up their CON and STR a bit, which they can recover.). Their eyes are now black (or brown, or green, whatever) and for the rest of their considerably longer life if they are cut they will bleed swampwater.

That is where they get their whole heal/harm thing. They are masters of life (because they can heal) and are also master of death, because they have faced His (or Her) dark face of their own free will.

I dunno - just a thought. That's what I plan on using if someone ever wants to use this in my campaign. I've always been big on ceremony for a great deal of the PrCs and try to get it into my players heads that they must earn the PrC and that they should be honored if they do make it into the PrC.

 

[seasong]

Deleted: I've posted the revision in the first post.

 

[Technik4]

Criticism

First a couple questions:
A) Is lay on hands/inflict w/ hands based on ranks or total bonus?

B) Why do you have stat restrictions for a prc? Do you think a low-self esteem yet extremely knowledgable druid wouldnt make it as a black healer? What about a bumbling ranger? Ok, I agree with the ranger, but a better way might be ranks in Wilderness Lore, after all you have to navigate through a swamp (and it may take a few days to find the lair) and you wouldnt want someone who would get lost.

C) Why isnt profession (or even just profession (herbalist) on the class skill list?

Ok, I see this class as underpowered, but teeming with flavor. As far as who would take it? I'd say multi-class barbarians, rangers, and druids, possibly some extremely devoted clerics (to weird gods). And heres why its underpowered (based on who I think would take it):

1) Mutli-Classed Barbarians - barbarians are into the mysticism thing, and being suspicious of civilized things in general lends them to searching out "her". However, they give up hp, bab, and barb stuff. Naturally, any way you slice it theyre giving up barb stuff, but the black healer seems like a (generally) suspicious person, maybe uncanny dodge? The heal skill ranks make it difficult for a barb to enter, but a multi-barb might be able to.

2) Rangers - This appeals to rangers a la wilderness thing, they lose out on spells, a little bab, animal companions, and favored enemy. Nothing you can do about most of that stuff, but have you considered a beast or maybe magical beast companion (which must come from terrain: swamp or underground)? You could let druid or ranger levels stack for the HD of the companion.

3) Druids- This seems like the most likely class to take this prc. They have a healthy respect for nature, try to preserve some sense of balance (as black healers try to heal/save some group of people), and most of the progressions are exactly the same. If you wish to avoid spells, making a companion fo some kind (not necessarily animal, but I wouldnt go better than abberation, beast, or magical beast) seems like a good way to keep the abilities you want while powering them up. As earlier suggested perhaps allowing druid to turn into abberations, beasts, or magical beasts at higher levels (without adding additional wildshapes) could be an interesting lure for druids. For non-druids, allow them to wildshape as a druid 1/day. This would make a good higher level ability, imo.

4) Clerics (the weird devoted kind that take things like ooze-master) - The nice thing about clerics is they are almost always happy as long as they get nifty abilities and spells. Oh wait, no spells. I can see a cleric bouncing a couple levels of this prc, but there would have to be something pretty tantalizing near the end for them to give up 10 levels of spellcasting. Of course, the black healer is constantly drawing on life energy (a form of magic) so maybe you could increase their caster level for the purpose of making magic items? This might appease the truly fanatical clerics who may otherwise not go for it because of no spell progression.

Those are my suggestions based on who might take it, here are some general suggestions.

Fear Resistance should eventually become Fear Immunity.

I dislike Fast Healing. I dont think there is a single magic item which gives this ability, and even the spells that resemble it are very high level. I would advocate Acid Resistance or even Damage Reduction (for those potential barbs) before Fast Healing.

Overall there is not much that affects combat. Fast Healing is about the only ability that would come into play, the rest is all roleplaying and minor bonuses. If you have a heavy roleplaying game, this class may already be balanced, but if your campaign is more hack n slash, dont expect anyone to jump at this class. I like it a lot, but my suggestions were geared towards making it more "3rd ed" and less original.

To sum up: It needs more abilities that are geared towards being more productive/increase survivability during combat. Uncanny Dodge, a Special companion, Acid Resistance, and replacing Fast Healing with Damage Reduction are some of my suggestions. Im not saying incorperate them all, but feel free to use any if you think they fit the concept.

Technik

 

[Mike Sullivan]

I like the revision, seasong. And I particularly like the optional stuff -- good toolbox for lower or higher fantasy games.

If you decide that Technik4's concerns about combat prowess are well-founded, how about poison use/manufacturing ability? I forget, is that considered purely evil in D&D3? (If so: Bah.) If it's not, it seems in-flavour and easily customizeable to the level of combat prowess needed.