Hi all! I'm attempting to make a half-healer barbarian subclass, and while I have a pretty strong idea of what features I want and how I want it to play, I could use some feedback on all that (and especially the math behind it). I'm okay if it's a bit underpowered, but especially want to make sure I didn't do something weird and create something wildly overpowered. I've mocked up what I have so far here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/255231-path-of-the-herbalist. Flavor text is still extremely WIP, but the mechanics I'm playing with are worked out there now.
BACKGROUND
I started playing D&D a few months ago, and have in my group two people I used to work with at a "natural health guru" place. It was a terrible work environment, and our boss was a grifter scamming sick people, and I would very much like to make him as a playable D&D character. My original concept was making him as a Celestial Warlock with the Charlatan background (with the idea being that he was a con artist who sold his soul for real healing powers), but... our boss was also an extremely angry man prone to flying into fits of rage, which I would VERY much like to reflect mechanically. Barbarian is the obvious choice for that, but there's really no way to get Barbarians to play nice with healers, so... I'm attempting to make a new barbarian subclass that's a half-healer. Albeit a wonky healer, since, y'know, the guy I'm basing it off of was a fraud. Please note that if you're into non-science based medicine, that's cool--I'm not really interested in debating that here. I have a LOT of problems with it, but if it helps just note I'm basing this off a very specific "natural health" guy who was absolutely a fraud, and not an indictment of the entire field.
CONCEPT
So, here's the main concepts I'm playing with:
The main "healing" ability should only be giving temporary hit points, since the "healing" this class gives isn't "real" in the way traditional healing archetypes are. So, first class feature is Healing Touch, which gives temporary hit points as a bonus action while you're raging (so you're able to use it during combat while still rage attacking, but not be able to load up all your party with temporary HP before entering combat).
Tie a lot of the abilities to Nature skill--you're a natural healer, you know a lot about nature, and some about medicine. And then mechanically, this made the most sense to tie an ability modifier to that'd scale as you level up, since barbarians shouldn't be putting any ASIs into INT / WIS / CHA. And more importantly, I don't want the character to be intelligent or wise, but do need them to know a lot about nature...
Have a secondary healing ability that would mainly be used out of combat (can't be used while raging), can potentially heal actual hit points, but also potentially backfire.
Have a poisoning option. Want to tie this to the same limited use pool as the actual-hp healing pool, as in both cases it's representative of you using up your store of herbs.
So, main gameplay loop is usual Barbarian rage-attacking, giving out temporary hit points to your fellow front line fighters, and then trying to patch up your party after combat, (hopefully) mostly successfully.
LEVEL PROGRESSION
Level 3
Herbal Expertise You gain proficiency in the Medicine skill and with herbalism kits. You gain expertise in the Nature skill. If you don't have a herbalist kit, add one to your Inventory.
Healing Touch You have a pool of d6 equal to your Nature skill modifier + your Proficiency bonus. While raging, as a bonus action, you can spend up to 2 dice from the pool to give a creature you can touch temporary hit points equal to that roll + your Proficiency bonus.
The value of the dice in your pool increase to d8s when you reach barbarian level 6, d10s at barbarian level 10, and d12s at barbarian level 14.
This pool resets when you finish a short or long rest.
Level 6
Improved Herbalism Kit As you've learned more about the traditional healing practices of your tribe, you've expanded the number and kinds of natural medicine you stock in your herbalist kit. These natural medicines are packaged up into packets, which you have a number of equal to your Barbarian class level.
As an action, you can give a packet from your Herbalism Kit to another creature within 5ft. Decide what effect that packet has. The creature who has it can use an action to activate that effect. The potency of the natural medicine fades after 24 hours, removing the effect from the packet.
During a rest, you can regain spent packets by scrounging the area around you for plants with medicinal properties. Make a Nature check against a difficulty level determined by your DM based on how much natural life is around you--a sterile, clean environment should have a much higher difficulty level than one full of plant life--even if that plant life is just poisonous mushrooms. Even dangerous plants can be used as medicine, if you know what you're doing--and you (mostly) do. If you succeed, you regain a number of packets equal to your Nature skill modifier on a long rest, and half that amount (rounded down) on a short rest.
If you lose your Herbalist kit, you lose all the packets you currently have. You can replace your Herbalist kit during a rest.
You cannot use or distribute natural medicine packets while you're raging. None of the effects of your natural medicine packets can effect undead or constructs.
Natural Medicines At 6th level, you've learned more about herbal healing, and have begun stocking more potent plants in your herbalist kit. These have the chance to be more effective, restoring hit points instead of just temporary hit points, but also potentially harmful--eating the wrong mushroom can be incredibly dangerous!
As an action, you can administer a packet of natural medicine to one creature you can touch. Have the target roll 3d6, and you roll a Medicine check. If the target's roll is lower than your Medicine check, they gain hit points equal to their roll. If the target's roll is higher than your medicine check, they instead take poison damage equal to the difference between your rolls.
Alternatively, you can expend a packet to attempt to remove from the target either one condition (choose from Blinded, Deafened, Incapacitated, Paralyzed or Poisoned), or one level of Exhaustion, or to cure the target of one disease. Have the target roll 3d6, and you roll a medicine check. If the target's roll is lower than your medicine check, they are cured of their condition. If the target's roll is higher than your medicine check, they instead take poison damage equal to the difference between your rolls.
Level 10
Poison Resistance At level 10, you've learned enough about poisonous plants (and possibly accidentally ingested enough of them) that you've built up a resistance to poison damage.
Natural Poisons As you become more practiced with natural remedies, you've also learned how to create poisons out of them. After all, the dose makes the medicine (or the poison).
You can use an action to use two packets of natural medicine to coat a weapon with poison. On the first attack that hits with this weapon, have the target make a Constitution saving throw against a DC equal to your Nature modifier + 5. If the target succeeds, they take additional poison damage equal to your Nature modifier. If the target fails, they take additional poison damage equal to your Nature modifier, and have the Poisoned condition. They may make a Constitution saving throw with disadvantage at the beginning of their turn against a DC equal to your Nature modifier + 5 to remove this condition.
Alternatively, you can use two packets of natural medicine to poison one bit of food or water. Choose one Condition (either Blinded, Deafened, Incapacitated, Paralyzed or Poisoned): If a creature consumes the poisoned item, it must make a Constitution saving throwa gainst a DC equal to your Nature modifier + 5. If it fails, the creature gains that Condition.
Level 14
Improved Healing Touch While using Healing Touch, if you roll a 1 or 2 on a healing pool dice, you can reroll that die and must use the new roll, even if the new roll is a 1 or a 2.
Placebo Effect You've become adept with the traditional healing practices of your people--however, these practices are increasingly divergent from what outsiders consider healing, and many have become suspicious that a lot of what you're doing isn't real healing at all.
You can spend ten minutes practicing natural preventative medicine on up to six creatures. Have each of these creatures make a Medicine check, with the DC set to your Nature + Deception modifiers. If they fail, they gain temporary hit points equal to your Barbarian level + your Nature skill modifier. If they succeed, they gain temporary hit points equal to your Medicine skill modifier. If the creature is from the same cultural background as you, have them make this roll with disadvantage.
You can use this ability once per short or long rest.
This ability does not affect undead or constructs.
Aaaand that's where I'm at right now. Please let me know what you think / how you'd improve it / what I broke because I'm bad at math. Thanks!
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Hi all! I'm attempting to make a half-healer barbarian subclass, and while I have a pretty strong idea of what features I want and how I want it to play, I could use some feedback on all that (and especially the math behind it). I'm okay if it's a bit underpowered, but especially want to make sure I didn't do something weird and create something wildly overpowered. I've mocked up what I have so far here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/255231-path-of-the-herbalist. Flavor text is still extremely WIP, but the mechanics I'm playing with are worked out there now.
BACKGROUND
I started playing D&D a few months ago, and have in my group two people I used to work with at a "natural health guru" place. It was a terrible work environment, and our boss was a grifter scamming sick people, and I would very much like to make him as a playable D&D character. My original concept was making him as a Celestial Warlock with the Charlatan background (with the idea being that he was a con artist who sold his soul for real healing powers), but... our boss was also an extremely angry man prone to flying into fits of rage, which I would VERY much like to reflect mechanically. Barbarian is the obvious choice for that, but there's really no way to get Barbarians to play nice with healers, so... I'm attempting to make a new barbarian subclass that's a half-healer. Albeit a wonky healer, since, y'know, the guy I'm basing it off of was a fraud. Please note that if you're into non-science based medicine, that's cool--I'm not really interested in debating that here. I have a LOT of problems with it, but if it helps just note I'm basing this off a very specific "natural health" guy who was absolutely a fraud, and not an indictment of the entire field.
CONCEPT
So, here's the main concepts I'm playing with:
So, main gameplay loop is usual Barbarian rage-attacking, giving out temporary hit points to your fellow front line fighters, and then trying to patch up your party after combat, (hopefully) mostly successfully.
LEVEL PROGRESSION
Level 3
You gain proficiency in the Medicine skill and with herbalism kits. You gain expertise in the Nature skill. If you don't have a herbalist kit, add one to your Inventory.
Healing Touch
You have a pool of d6 equal to your Nature skill modifier + your Proficiency bonus. While raging, as a bonus action, you can spend up to 2 dice from the pool to give a creature you can touch temporary hit points equal to that roll + your Proficiency bonus.
The value of the dice in your pool increase to d8s when you reach barbarian level 6, d10s at barbarian level 10, and d12s at barbarian level 14.
This pool resets when you finish a short or long rest.
Level 6
Improved Herbalism Kit
As you've learned more about the traditional healing practices of your tribe, you've expanded the number and kinds of natural medicine you stock in your herbalist kit. These natural medicines are packaged up into packets, which you have a number of equal to your Barbarian class level.
As an action, you can give a packet from your Herbalism Kit to another creature within 5ft. Decide what effect that packet has. The creature who has it can use an action to activate that effect. The potency of the natural medicine fades after 24 hours, removing the effect from the packet.
During a rest, you can regain spent packets by scrounging the area around you for plants with medicinal properties. Make a Nature check against a difficulty level determined by your DM based on how much natural life is around you--a sterile, clean environment should have a much higher difficulty level than one full of plant life--even if that plant life is just poisonous mushrooms. Even dangerous plants can be used as medicine, if you know what you're doing--and you (mostly) do. If you succeed, you regain a number of packets equal to your Nature skill modifier on a long rest, and half that amount (rounded down) on a short rest.
If you lose your Herbalist kit, you lose all the packets you currently have. You can replace your Herbalist kit during a rest.
You cannot use or distribute natural medicine packets while you're raging. None of the effects of your natural medicine packets can effect undead or constructs.
Natural Medicines
At 6th level, you've learned more about herbal healing, and have begun stocking more potent plants in your herbalist kit. These have the chance to be more effective, restoring hit points instead of just temporary hit points, but also potentially harmful--eating the wrong mushroom can be incredibly dangerous!
As an action, you can administer a packet of natural medicine to one creature you can touch. Have the target roll 3d6, and you roll a Medicine check. If the target's roll is lower than your Medicine check, they gain hit points equal to their roll. If the target's roll is higher than your medicine check, they instead take poison damage equal to the difference between your rolls.
Alternatively, you can expend a packet to attempt to remove from the target either one condition (choose from Blinded, Deafened, Incapacitated, Paralyzed or Poisoned), or one level of Exhaustion, or to cure the target of one disease. Have the target roll 3d6, and you roll a medicine check. If the target's roll is lower than your medicine check, they are cured of their condition. If the target's roll is higher than your medicine check, they instead take poison damage equal to the difference between your rolls.
Level 10
At level 10, you've learned enough about poisonous plants (and possibly accidentally ingested enough of them) that you've built up a resistance to poison damage.
Natural Poisons
As you become more practiced with natural remedies, you've also learned how to create poisons out of them. After all, the dose makes the medicine (or the poison).
You can use an action to use two packets of natural medicine to coat a weapon with poison. On the first attack that hits with this weapon, have the target make a Constitution saving throw against a DC equal to your Nature modifier + 5. If the target succeeds, they take additional poison damage equal to your Nature modifier. If the target fails, they take additional poison damage equal to your Nature modifier, and have the Poisoned condition. They may make a Constitution saving throw with disadvantage at the beginning of their turn against a DC equal to your Nature modifier + 5 to remove this condition.
Alternatively, you can use two packets of natural medicine to poison one bit of food or water. Choose one Condition (either Blinded, Deafened, Incapacitated, Paralyzed or Poisoned): If a creature consumes the poisoned item, it must make a Constitution saving throwa gainst a DC equal to your Nature modifier + 5. If it fails, the creature gains that Condition.
Level 14
While using Healing Touch, if you roll a 1 or 2 on a healing pool dice, you can reroll that die and must use the new roll, even if the new roll is a 1 or a 2.
Placebo Effect
You've become adept with the traditional healing practices of your people--however, these practices are increasingly divergent from what outsiders consider healing, and many have become suspicious that a lot of what you're doing isn't real healing at all.
You can spend ten minutes practicing natural preventative medicine on up to six creatures. Have each of these creatures make a Medicine check, with the DC set to your Nature + Deception modifiers. If they fail, they gain temporary hit points equal to your Barbarian level + your Nature skill modifier. If they succeed, they gain temporary hit points equal to your Medicine skill modifier. If the creature is from the same cultural background as you, have them make this roll with disadvantage.
You can use this ability once per short or long rest.
This ability does not affect undead or constructs.
Aaaand that's where I'm at right now. Please let me know what you think / how you'd improve it / what I broke because I'm bad at math. Thanks!