I am proud to say that last night I was able to finish and publish the first artificer homebrew subclass on DnDBeyond. I've had this goal for a few months now and to see it realized makes me feel amazing. Without further ado here is my newest homebrew subclass, The Doctor. Please check it out if you have time and give it an add or an upvote if you like what you see. If you have any feedback for me I would love to hear it. Thank you Rob76 for taking your time and reminding me to add in a feedback request.
Having a read through....and I know you haven't asked for opinion/feedback but I thought I'd give it anyway....
DOCTORS BAG:
In and of itself its ok but when you combine it with the rest of the class abilities it seems a bit too good, probably nothing in the grand scheme of things but I can't quite put my finger on what is giving me pause for thought on this one, maybe make it recharge d4 uses and have a 1 in 20 chances of it becoming a mundane bag if you use all the charges/uses (like a magic wand)....the replacement bag though should require a Long Rest to cobble together and at least 100gp worth of material components just to reflect it is something magnificent you have.
ROADSIDE SURGEON:
The ability might need something...admittedly the DC gets quite high quite quickly for reattaching a limb but if done within an hour or four of it being severed (and given you already have an ability to add your Int + Wis modifiers to medicine checks), then that is a very strong ability, it mimics a 7th level spell for the mere cost of 3 uses of a healers kit, also bear in mind a healers kit has a 5gp price listed in the PHB and each one could be used to reattach 3 limbs so it is a very cheap regenerate ability, I think at least the Artificer needs to get a level of exhaustion from having to work through a long rest/8 hour long operation (maybe even an additional Cons save after the op is complete to avoid a 2nd level of exhaustion) to reattach it and it also uses up 10 uses of the healers kit and the patient and the artificer do not regain any HP/cannot spend any Hit Dice during the operation, we're talking major surgery here not magic.
DND MD:
hmmm....this is a lot of healing and better than a life domain cleric, by comparison a level 17 life domain cleric casting a level 1 cure wounds (ignoring spellcasting ability mod part) heals 11 Hp (8 for the spell +3 for other domain abilities) to the injured party and the artificer heals 18-25hp (1d8+1 per artificer level). I picked level 17 as the example as that is the capstone ability for life domain clerics, at level 5 when this artificer ability is gained then the same example would be 4-11hp for the life domain cleric and 6-13hp for the artificer so you do out perform the life domain. My opinion would be to grant the Healer Feat instead as it is more in keeping with the use of the Doctors Bag to accomplish healing but still gives you that extra boost to healing damage, also potentially switch DND MD and Roadside Surgeon around in the level order so you would then gain this at level 3 and Roadside Surgeon at level 5.
CADUCEUS:
I like the dodge/dash/help bit it gives the class a bit more of an urgent combat medic image (running form one injured person to the next through a hail of arrows), I might switch the ability around a little bit. Have it like the rogue cunning action with the caveat that you can only use Dash/Dodge/Help as a bonus action if you use your movement to move towards an injured ally on the same turn and then leave out the bit about having to cast a healing spell at the start of your turn.
The temp HP section also seems a bit high, getting spell level + double your Int modifier is high, I'd suggest going for something like "if you cast a healing spell of 1st level or higher the artificer gains the benefit of a False life spell as if cast at half the level of the healing spell (min level 1)" so that way if you cast a level 3, 4 or 5 healing spell you'd get a level 2 false life spell, cast a level 1 or 2 spell get a level 1 false life and this then also gives you a duration that those points remain for.
MEDICAL MONARCH:
Oh boy, it is a niche ability but the saving in money is immense! Bear in mind the Healers Kit cost is 5gp for 10 uses and this ability lets the artificer use all 10 uses of the kit to completely remove the material cost of a Raise Dead spell (5gp Healers Kit vs 1000gp Diamond). It might be better to say you can expend 10 uses of a healers kit and make a Dc15 Medicine check to revivify (as per the spell) a creature that has died. Then you have the steady increase in effectiveness of your doctors bag, it starts off stabilizing unconscious people, increases to also healing them and the finale is resuscitating them from the dead. It's still an immense saving in cost (revivify is a 300gp diamond consumed component) but you've got a time frame that you can bring them back from the dead by limiting it to a revivify instead of raise dead.
First off, thank you for taking your time to check out my HB. I'm sorry for the late response as I was dealing with things at work. Providing feedback was seriously awesome of you and reminded me that in my haste making this post I hadn't actually mentioned anything about feedback. I have some responses so I will just go in order as well.
Doctor's Bag:
I believe you may have interpreted this as being some sort of magic item. I think that is my fault but it still works either way. Doctor's Bag is a class feature which allows the artificer to replenish their current stock of healer's kits. You do not get to just manifest new bags whenever you want. I believe the problem here arises when I use the phrase "Each day at dawn". I will be changing this line to read "after a long rest". This is meant to be a point in time where you tinker with the supplies you have and refill your stock. You may make a new bag ONLY if you have 0 bags at the moment. A player may try to abuse this but as we both know HKs only cost 5gp anyway.
Roadside Surgeon:
You are correct in that this ability makes a 7th level spell rather easy and cheap however the DC does get high quickly and there is only one roll. If you fail once boom arm gone, no retry. This ability requires major down time which if you are in a scenario where people are losing limbs you most likely will not have much ability to take a long rest anyway. I do agree however that the Doctor in question should have repercussions for performing this during a long rest and I'm thinking that 1 level of exhaustion is fair but I would not take away healing or other regenerative abilities. I do plan to lower the recharge of Doctors Bag to 1d4 + 2.
Side note on Healer's kit economy:
I agree the 3 charges of a 5gp kit is low to do this but I counter that this is a very niche ability that only Doctors would be able to do. If I raise the requirements for the player to use a whole healer's kit or multiple, the only thing that will happen is very annoying stockpiling or the player will just switch to cleric where the problems are much simpler. I would rather leave the cost where it is for now and leave room for the DM to manage the economy. In my games that I have played in healing potions are common but expensive but healer's kits have been cheap yet rare and hard to manage. I believe that in the end the current economy will work out.
DND MD:
It is a lot of healing and it is reliable. The trademark of experience which this class is meant to represent. The balance between this and LC can be found in the spell slot economy. By the time you get this feature at 5th level the Artificer has 4-1st level spells and 2-2nd level spells. The cleric has 1 more 2nd level and 2 more 3rd level spells. The cleric has access to much more powerful spells already and at a greater range. The Doctor will burn through these quickly. At 17th level clerics have 1 more 5th level but also have 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells. As a half caster the Doctor needed the bump here in order to be able to compete with the LC. If a DM sees this as being too much I would say that adding half your artificer level to spells should be a sufficient nerf to keep the class in line.
Caduceus:
In the bonus action part of this feature you recommended a buff but I honestly feel like it is better to force the Doctor into a healing role to be able to access the bonus actions. They don't have the endurance of divine healing and as such will burn through supplies quickly. Forcing a healing action gets the economy moving and keeps the player worried about running out of spells.
I agree the temp HP it is too high. I will be lowering the temporary HP to "spell level + Intelligence modifier". Double INT is too good. I do still like this feature to allow the Doctor to be closer to the front of a fight. I think the False life economy here could be good but gets way too complicated too quickly. I feel that lowering the temp HP should be enough.
Medical Monarch:
As explained in the notes on HK economy, I did want this feature to require piles of HKs but it just becomes cumbersome and annoying. I do however like the idea of making this apply only to Revivify but you don't even get Raise Dead with this class until 17th level anyway and it is only 1 5th level spell slot. I will have to think about this a bit more but in the mean time I do plan to make the Healer's Kit count for 50gp per charge instead of 100gp. You have to remember here that is not just a 5gp bag to a Doctor, it is the Doctor himself that makes it worth 50gp per charge.
Little finger destroyed the houses of Stark, Baratheon, Frey, and Lannister with a pen (quill) and paper. These things are only 2cp and a silver in the PHB
In conclusion I definitely see some areas I can improve and I appreciate your feedback as well. I will post here as soon as I make the next update which I do not have a time frame for. I am changing the post to ask for feedback. Thank you again for your time. You are awesome to do this. I really can't thank you enough.
Reading ti through I still feel Roadside Surgeon and DND MD abilities should be flipped round, comparing it to real world equivalents (which I shouldn't do but it helps put things into a process of abilities):
Healers Kit lets you stabilize unconscious people (basic First Aid training which real world only takes about a days worth of training)
level 3: DND MD a logical increase in your medicinal training (its your Para Medic/EMT/Emergency Room Doctor which is 4-11 years worth of training) and personally I'd still do it as gaining the Healer Feat to keep in line with the the whole using Healers Kit theme
level 5: Roadside Surgeon then jumps you to being able to surgically reattach severed limbs which is a big jump in ability (real world taking 8-16 years of training). But I would still have reservations in having an ability like this in my game, without having some other repercussions/recovery rules in place for the patient. I'm ok with magic regrowing a limb but when its a case of "Monday 9am: arm gets severed, Monday: 12 Noon visit Artificer, Monday 10pm: Arm is back and all working normally go back to work Tuesday Morning" it gets a bit of a stretch...but that me...
Other thing to consider with Roadside Surgeon is: Can you only reattach the limb that was originally severed? Or can you reattach any appropriate limb from a donor? So if a human lost an arm and it was not recoverable, could you take a limb form a dead/dying/willing/unwilling elf and attach their arm to the human?
EDIT...if reference to your spoiler, you are forgetting that in addition to the quill and ink there was copious bribes, diplomatic "events" at Little Fingers establishments, general skullduggery and Machiavelli level machinations which all cost a lot more money.
DND MD: I want to avoid giving away feats in classes as they tend to make it easier to just use an ASI instead. Those ASI's should be a hard decision, the player should really have to rack their brain to weigh +2 to INT vs Healer or Tough feats. I do have a class on here called the Divergent Ranger which only gets feats as class features, but that was mostly to indulge my players ravenous hunger for feats. The Healer feat fits perfectly and so does the Field Medic feat, the players want these and I believe they should have to make some hard decisions to get them.
Roadside surgeon is a very niche ability that is situational at best in early levels and becomes far more powerful at later levels. If you get an arm lopped off you have the next day to put it back, if you fail the check then you can't try again. The only way around this would be if it were put in a Bag of Colding right away but hey, magic items. You can only put the original arm back on, if this continues to pop up as a case sensitive issue I will update the writing in the class, for now I leave it ambiguous for the DM to decide. This is not like the Hand of Vecna, where you just lop your arm off and press the hand against your bleeding stump. There is work being done here but I really wouldn't get too caught up in making this super realistic. Remember you can have 1hp and go to sleep for a mere 8hrs and wake up at max hp.I actually work in healthcare and this class was inspired by my own experiences in the healthcare world, making this 100% realistic would make this class far less fun.
I admit this class could have people foaming at the mouth for a gritty realism game with Dr.Zedd and it sounds great to me too. If you give me a list of ideas I would love to work on a sister version of this class called "Gritty • Doctor". These classes would be able to live side by side and allow people to choose how intense the rules are for their Doctor.
Ya point taken. What I was trying to imply was that the right person can turn a mundane item into something that shake the foundations of the world.
Hey there, SkillCheck here,
I am proud to say that last night I was able to finish and publish the first artificer homebrew subclass on DnDBeyond. I've had this goal for a few months now and to see it realized makes me feel amazing. Without further ado here is my newest homebrew subclass, The Doctor. Please check it out if you have time and give it an add or an upvote if you like what you see. If you have any feedback for me I would love to hear it. Thank you Rob76 for taking your time and reminding me to add in a feedback request.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/304768-doctor
Dungeon Master for Heroes of Agarra
I have a growing library of Homebrew: Subclasses | Races | Feats | Items
You check out my newest Homebrew: Doctor - The Survey Corps - Order of the Shadow Master
Having a read through....and I know you haven't asked for opinion/feedback but I thought I'd give it anyway....
DOCTORS BAG:
In and of itself its ok but when you combine it with the rest of the class abilities it seems a bit too good, probably nothing in the grand scheme of things but I can't quite put my finger on what is giving me pause for thought on this one, maybe make it recharge d4 uses and have a 1 in 20 chances of it becoming a mundane bag if you use all the charges/uses (like a magic wand)....the replacement bag though should require a Long Rest to cobble together and at least 100gp worth of material components just to reflect it is something magnificent you have.
ROADSIDE SURGEON:
The ability might need something...admittedly the DC gets quite high quite quickly for reattaching a limb but if done within an hour or four of it being severed (and given you already have an ability to add your Int + Wis modifiers to medicine checks), then that is a very strong ability, it mimics a 7th level spell for the mere cost of 3 uses of a healers kit, also bear in mind a healers kit has a 5gp price listed in the PHB and each one could be used to reattach 3 limbs so it is a very cheap regenerate ability, I think at least the Artificer needs to get a level of exhaustion from having to work through a long rest/8 hour long operation (maybe even an additional Cons save after the op is complete to avoid a 2nd level of exhaustion) to reattach it and it also uses up 10 uses of the healers kit and the patient and the artificer do not regain any HP/cannot spend any Hit Dice during the operation, we're talking major surgery here not magic.
DND MD:
hmmm....this is a lot of healing and better than a life domain cleric, by comparison a level 17 life domain cleric casting a level 1 cure wounds (ignoring spellcasting ability mod part) heals 11 Hp (8 for the spell +3 for other domain abilities) to the injured party and the artificer heals 18-25hp (1d8+1 per artificer level). I picked level 17 as the example as that is the capstone ability for life domain clerics, at level 5 when this artificer ability is gained then the same example would be 4-11hp for the life domain cleric and 6-13hp for the artificer so you do out perform the life domain. My opinion would be to grant the Healer Feat instead as it is more in keeping with the use of the Doctors Bag to accomplish healing but still gives you that extra boost to healing damage, also potentially switch DND MD and Roadside Surgeon around in the level order so you would then gain this at level 3 and Roadside Surgeon at level 5.
CADUCEUS:
I like the dodge/dash/help bit it gives the class a bit more of an urgent combat medic image (running form one injured person to the next through a hail of arrows), I might switch the ability around a little bit. Have it like the rogue cunning action with the caveat that you can only use Dash/Dodge/Help as a bonus action if you use your movement to move towards an injured ally on the same turn and then leave out the bit about having to cast a healing spell at the start of your turn.
The temp HP section also seems a bit high, getting spell level + double your Int modifier is high, I'd suggest going for something like "if you cast a healing spell of 1st level or higher the artificer gains the benefit of a False life spell as if cast at half the level of the healing spell (min level 1)" so that way if you cast a level 3, 4 or 5 healing spell you'd get a level 2 false life spell, cast a level 1 or 2 spell get a level 1 false life and this then also gives you a duration that those points remain for.
MEDICAL MONARCH:
Oh boy, it is a niche ability but the saving in money is immense! Bear in mind the Healers Kit cost is 5gp for 10 uses and this ability lets the artificer use all 10 uses of the kit to completely remove the material cost of a Raise Dead spell (5gp Healers Kit vs 1000gp Diamond). It might be better to say you can expend 10 uses of a healers kit and make a Dc15 Medicine check to revivify (as per the spell) a creature that has died. Then you have the steady increase in effectiveness of your doctors bag, it starts off stabilizing unconscious people, increases to also healing them and the finale is resuscitating them from the dead. It's still an immense saving in cost (revivify is a 300gp diamond consumed component) but you've got a time frame that you can bring them back from the dead by limiting it to a revivify instead of raise dead.
So those were my thoughts,
Hey Rob76,
First off, thank you for taking your time to check out my HB. I'm sorry for the late response as I was dealing with things at work. Providing feedback was seriously awesome of you and reminded me that in my haste making this post I hadn't actually mentioned anything about feedback. I have some responses so I will just go in order as well.
Doctor's Bag:
I believe you may have interpreted this as being some sort of magic item. I think that is my fault but it still works either way. Doctor's Bag is a class feature which allows the artificer to replenish their current stock of healer's kits. You do not get to just manifest new bags whenever you want. I believe the problem here arises when I use the phrase "Each day at dawn". I will be changing this line to read "after a long rest". This is meant to be a point in time where you tinker with the supplies you have and refill your stock. You may make a new bag ONLY if you have 0 bags at the moment. A player may try to abuse this but as we both know HKs only cost 5gp anyway.
Roadside Surgeon:
You are correct in that this ability makes a 7th level spell rather easy and cheap however the DC does get high quickly and there is only one roll. If you fail once boom arm gone, no retry. This ability requires major down time which if you are in a scenario where people are losing limbs you most likely will not have much ability to take a long rest anyway. I do agree however that the Doctor in question should have repercussions for performing this during a long rest and I'm thinking that 1 level of exhaustion is fair but I would not take away healing or other regenerative abilities. I do plan to lower the recharge of Doctors Bag to 1d4 + 2.
Side note on Healer's kit economy:
I agree the 3 charges of a 5gp kit is low to do this but I counter that this is a very niche ability that only Doctors would be able to do. If I raise the requirements for the player to use a whole healer's kit or multiple, the only thing that will happen is very annoying stockpiling or the player will just switch to cleric where the problems are much simpler. I would rather leave the cost where it is for now and leave room for the DM to manage the economy. In my games that I have played in healing potions are common but expensive but healer's kits have been cheap yet rare and hard to manage. I believe that in the end the current economy will work out.
DND MD:
It is a lot of healing and it is reliable. The trademark of experience which this class is meant to represent. The balance between this and LC can be found in the spell slot economy. By the time you get this feature at 5th level the Artificer has 4-1st level spells and 2-2nd level spells. The cleric has 1 more 2nd level and 2 more 3rd level spells. The cleric has access to much more powerful spells already and at a greater range. The Doctor will burn through these quickly. At 17th level clerics have 1 more 5th level but also have 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells. As a half caster the Doctor needed the bump here in order to be able to compete with the LC. If a DM sees this as being too much I would say that adding half your artificer level to spells should be a sufficient nerf to keep the class in line.
Caduceus:
In the bonus action part of this feature you recommended a buff but I honestly feel like it is better to force the Doctor into a healing role to be able to access the bonus actions. They don't have the endurance of divine healing and as such will burn through supplies quickly. Forcing a healing action gets the economy moving and keeps the player worried about running out of spells.
I agree the temp HP it is too high. I will be lowering the temporary HP to "spell level + Intelligence modifier". Double INT is too good. I do still like this feature to allow the Doctor to be closer to the front of a fight. I think the False life economy here could be good but gets way too complicated too quickly. I feel that lowering the temp HP should be enough.
Medical Monarch:
As explained in the notes on HK economy, I did want this feature to require piles of HKs but it just becomes cumbersome and annoying. I do however like the idea of making this apply only to Revivify but you don't even get Raise Dead with this class until 17th level anyway and it is only 1 5th level spell slot. I will have to think about this a bit more but in the mean time I do plan to make the Healer's Kit count for 50gp per charge instead of 100gp. You have to remember here that is not just a 5gp bag to a Doctor, it is the Doctor himself that makes it worth 50gp per charge.
Little finger destroyed the houses of Stark, Baratheon, Frey, and Lannister with a pen (quill) and paper. These things are only 2cp and a silver in the PHB
In conclusion I definitely see some areas I can improve and I appreciate your feedback as well. I will post here as soon as I make the next update which I do not have a time frame for. I am changing the post to ask for feedback. Thank you again for your time. You are awesome to do this. I really can't thank you enough.
Cheers, SkillCheck
Dungeon Master for Heroes of Agarra
I have a growing library of Homebrew: Subclasses | Races | Feats | Items
You check out my newest Homebrew: Doctor - The Survey Corps - Order of the Shadow Master
1.2 is now live with some minor balance changes and a few typo fixes. Enjoy and remember to add the new version and upvote if you like it!
https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/304768-doctor
Dungeon Master for Heroes of Agarra
I have a growing library of Homebrew: Subclasses | Races | Feats | Items
You check out my newest Homebrew: Doctor - The Survey Corps - Order of the Shadow Master
Reading ti through I still feel Roadside Surgeon and DND MD abilities should be flipped round, comparing it to real world equivalents (which I shouldn't do but it helps put things into a process of abilities):
Healers Kit lets you stabilize unconscious people (basic First Aid training which real world only takes about a days worth of training)
level 3: DND MD a logical increase in your medicinal training (its your Para Medic/EMT/Emergency Room Doctor which is 4-11 years worth of training) and personally I'd still do it as gaining the Healer Feat to keep in line with the the whole using Healers Kit theme
level 5: Roadside Surgeon then jumps you to being able to surgically reattach severed limbs which is a big jump in ability (real world taking 8-16 years of training). But I would still have reservations in having an ability like this in my game, without having some other repercussions/recovery rules in place for the patient. I'm ok with magic regrowing a limb but when its a case of "Monday 9am: arm gets severed, Monday: 12 Noon visit Artificer, Monday 10pm: Arm is back and all working normally go back to work Tuesday Morning" it gets a bit of a stretch...but that me...
Other thing to consider with Roadside Surgeon is: Can you only reattach the limb that was originally severed? Or can you reattach any appropriate limb from a donor? So if a human lost an arm and it was not recoverable, could you take a limb form a dead/dying/willing/unwilling elf and attach their arm to the human?
EDIT...if reference to your spoiler, you are forgetting that in addition to the quill and ink there was copious bribes, diplomatic "events" at Little Fingers establishments, general skullduggery and Machiavelli level machinations which all cost a lot more money.
Hey Rob,
DND MD: I want to avoid giving away feats in classes as they tend to make it easier to just use an ASI instead. Those ASI's should be a hard decision, the player should really have to rack their brain to weigh +2 to INT vs Healer or Tough feats. I do have a class on here called the Divergent Ranger which only gets feats as class features, but that was mostly to indulge my players ravenous hunger for feats. The Healer feat fits perfectly and so does the Field Medic feat, the players want these and I believe they should have to make some hard decisions to get them.
Roadside surgeon is a very niche ability that is situational at best in early levels and becomes far more powerful at later levels. If you get an arm lopped off you have the next day to put it back, if you fail the check then you can't try again. The only way around this would be if it were put in a Bag of Colding right away but hey, magic items. You can only put the original arm back on, if this continues to pop up as a case sensitive issue I will update the writing in the class, for now I leave it ambiguous for the DM to decide. This is not like the Hand of Vecna, where you just lop your arm off and press the hand against your bleeding stump. There is work being done here but I really wouldn't get too caught up in making this super realistic. Remember you can have 1hp and go to sleep for a mere 8hrs and wake up at max hp.I actually work in healthcare and this class was inspired by my own experiences in the healthcare world, making this 100% realistic would make this class far less fun.
I admit this class could have people foaming at the mouth for a gritty realism game with Dr.Zedd and it sounds great to me too. If you give me a list of ideas I would love to work on a sister version of this class called "Gritty • Doctor". These classes would be able to live side by side and allow people to choose how intense the rules are for their Doctor.
Ya point taken. What I was trying to imply was that the right person can turn a mundane item into something that shake the foundations of the world.
Cheers, SkillCheck.
Dungeon Master for Heroes of Agarra
I have a growing library of Homebrew: Subclasses | Races | Feats | Items
You check out my newest Homebrew: Doctor - The Survey Corps - Order of the Shadow Master