I've been playing with a character with the Healer feat and have to say it's pretty great too. Being able to re-roll 1s on healing spells has made a big difference. But even more useful is the Battle Medic part of the feat.
For the low cost of 1 action and a 5 sp healers kit use, you can treat an ally and let them spend a Hit Dice to heal. They get to add your proficiency bonus, and reroll ones. And the part that has turned out to be the most exciting is how much TIME it saves.
If no one needs a short rest, but you have some injured friends and don't want to waste spells or potions, you can spend all those Hit Dice. As long as you stay stocked up on kits, you can patch up a whole party in under a minute. No more worrying about finding a safe place to rest, or pushing too hard. There is still a balanced limit in the number of Hit Dice a character has, but it let's you make them more effective, and keeps the party moving. Another feat I highly recommend as both useful and well designed.
The main about the new healer feat is that it works for classes that already have healing options, the 5E one was odd in that it really didn't give classes that could already heal anything extra. It is still probably going to do basically nothing for Paladin tho and it really doesn't scale that well. When you're healing an average of 2+1d10 at level 1 then 6+1d10 at level 17... you get a massive +4 healing, which isn't really scaling. The healer feat from the 1st play test will still be useful for out of battle healing, since it's something but realistically it needed more for it to be "battle" healing. Like a number of hit die up to proficiency bonus +medicine skill would have been better, in my opinion.
Obviously the other part with rolling 1s will scale but that is basically a boon for just clerics and druids, if you want to be a non-magic battlefield medic it doesn't give you that much, just less chance of healing for PB+1.
at low levels i really hate that it uses up a hit die. yeah, it's nice that you can reroll 1's and keep moving, but the fighter, monk, and warlock are still going to want their downtime soon. if the DM can't pencil in time for a long rest, then you end up taking short rests that don't heal anyone. wheee.
i'd prefer if, instead of using up hit dice, the feat was giving out temporary hit points. some painkillers to go with that bandage just to get you back on your feet, not a replacement for actual care. reapplication could lead to exhaustion.
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Hot take: temporary hit points suck. They just suck. You can't build them up, and they can't get someone off of death saves. Telling your players that the mundane CLS feat can't actually be used to heal or, y'know...combat life-save is a great way of ensuring nobody ever takes Healer ever again.
Let the CLS feat be the CLS feat. Is it a substitute for high-level healing magic, no. It's never going to be. That doesn't make it useless, and if you have no hit dice left for a short rest then maybe it's a sign you're pushing too hard and need to back off a while.
I agree with Yurei on temp HP. I don't think they totally suck, and I'm always grateful to have them. But there are way too many ways to get them, and they don't stack.
The Healer feat is the most useful 1st level feat in our playtesting (with Alert a close second.) It comes in handy all the time. Think of it as free castings of Cure Wounds. You get a free spell slot for every member of your party, multiplied by their level. A first level character in a party of 4 gets to cast Cure Wounds 4 times a day for 20 silver. A fifth level character in a party of 4 can cast Cure Wounds TWENTY times a day almost completely for free.
That's better scaling than almost any feat out there. And unlike Cure Wounds, it actually heals more for characters with higher HP, because it's based on their hit dice. It's better than a short rest use of hit dice, because of the bonuses.
We have used it in combat to pick up fallen friends. A fighter can't use their hit dice when they are unconscious. But your Healer can. We have used it out of combat to make a short rest take mere seconds and keep going. In a dungeon crawl, it's common to get in a fight where everyone takes 5-10 damage. Not enough to completely stop, but enough to worry about the next fight. Instead of pushing further and taking a risk, or sitting in a room for an hour, you just let everyone spend a hit die and keep going. And because you are adding your proficiency bonus and re-rolling 1s, it benefits you to use it even if you are taking a short rest.
The hit dice requirement is a good limit. Without it, the feat would be massively overpowered. The feat makes spending those hit dice almost always yield better results. You can spend them faster, get more HP, and use them when unconscious. It boosts a common element of resource management, and keeps the game moving.
as for temporary hit points, the kit without the feat is still there to save lives. you can keep the reroll 1's thing. all i'm saying is that if the feat is adding on healing of only just one hit die's worth and healing it instantly by non-magical means, this feels better represented by temporary hp. my perspective on the value of that may be warped, i recognize as i've been playing nothing but low level stuff lately. at level 1 or 2 hit dice seem overly precious and even a few temp hp can seem really valuable. it's already been noted that this feat doesn't really scale well for higher levels so i thought i'd address it from the perspective of the levels it seemed to be aimed at.
regarding removing the hit dice requirement, sure it could be overpowered. more likely it just would attract the "once per rest" verbiage of the current Healer feat. my thought with temp hp was exactly that it wouldn't stack and wouldn't require the verbiage (although it should probably be added since many people forget the no stacking thing).
as for temporary hit points, the kit without the feat is still there to save lives. you can keep the reroll 1's thing. all i'm saying is that if the feat is adding on healing of only just one hit die's worth and healing it instantly by non-magical means, this feels better represented by temporary hp. my perspective on the value of that may be warped, i recognize as i've been playing nothing but low level stuff lately. at level 1 or 2 hit dice seem overly precious and even a few temp hp can seem really valuable. it's already been noted that this feat doesn't really scale well for higher levels so i thought i'd address it from the perspective of the levels it seemed to be aimed at.
regarding removing the hit dice requirement, sure it could be overpowered. more likely it just would attract the "once per rest" verbiage of the current Healer feat. my thought with temp hp was exactly that it wouldn't stack and wouldn't require the verbiage (although it should probably be added since many people forget the no stacking thing).
Yeah I definitely understand. My favorite levels of play are below level 10. And at 1st level in actual play, the Healer feat was pretty limited. It was kind of just a nice bonus to the natural healing, and saved an hour of rest. You were going to spend those hit dice anyways. At least this way you didn't have to rest, and you got more out of them. And I will admit that it's our Bard that has the feat, so the part about rerolling 1s on all healing gets more use than a non-spellcaster would get. It has been VERY useful for that, turning a lot of dud heals into good ones.
Temporary HP isn't awful, but it also can't be used to pick up a downed character. The Healer feat can. We've used it in the middle of tough fights when all of our spell slots are spent and potions gone.
I think it scales very well too. Sure, the proficiency bonus doesn't go up a lot. But the uses per day skyrockets as the hit dice pool of the party grows. At 5th level, the party is running through Wave Echo Cave with no healing except this feat so far, and they still have a lot of hit dice left. From about level 3 onward, you can conserve most of your spell slots for other spells. I think it scales much better than things like Savage Attacker, or the well loved Magic Initiate even.
I do see what you're saying. Some temp HP might be nice. And the healers kit can save a life. But at low levels, getting someone up to almost full health is even better. And saving the party from so many short rests is well worth the feat alone. I'm trying not to think about it from a standpoint of what is being spent (hit dice), but how it improves the results of something you are using them for anyways. It offers a lot of flexibility and just keeps getting better with each level.
i only just realized the UA healer feat does not include the 1hp for stabilizing!! it would take two actions to crash-cart someone back into the fight. ((edit: any amount of healing from 0hp brings someone back to consciousness. somehow my brain decided healing non-magically was slower and more procedural than wave-a-wand healing. nope.)) maybe it's time to lay some things out...
Healer's Kit - 10 uses, expend one use of Healer's Kit to stabilize a 0hp character (no Medicine check) Healer Feat (5e) - a.) when you stabilize with Healer's Kit, they gain 1hp for free. b.) expend one use to heal 1d6+4+maxHD (where maxHD = the number of max hit dice the wounded creature has access to). creature cannot be healed again this way before a short or long rest. Healer Feat (UA) - a.) expend one use of Healer's Kit to heal. wounded creature expends one HD (hit die). healer rolls that HD and adds healer's proficiency bonus to determine number of hit points healed. b.) when healer rolls dice to heal, they may reroll once any die that showed a 1.
Yes that's all true. I still feel that getting a downed character up to an average of around 6-10 HP with one action is far more useful than 1 HP. At least you could possibly survive another hit before dropping again. And I feel that being able to heal any number of hit dice out of combat, in just a few seconds, is better than one time per rest.
But I'm not comparing new feats to old ones anyway. I'm only looking at how they function in general, and how they work in context of the future edition. This one has turned out to be a favorite.
I played a 2014 thief(mc dip) healer and I have to say it won't work as well with this new version.
It went from a separate resource pool to a shared one. And the 1hp boots worked really well for situations where party hp got mis-balanced early in the day(traps, harzards, falls). At least when using 1hp refreshing every one could continue to participate (if your watching for outright kill damage)
Basically I hate not having a non-caster healing option the new version isn't quite enough for that. Instead it's allowing short rest mechanisms to be manipulated.
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I've been playing with a character with the Healer feat and have to say it's pretty great too. Being able to re-roll 1s on healing spells has made a big difference. But even more useful is the Battle Medic part of the feat.
For the low cost of 1 action and a 5 sp healers kit use, you can treat an ally and let them spend a Hit Dice to heal. They get to add your proficiency bonus, and reroll ones. And the part that has turned out to be the most exciting is how much TIME it saves.
If no one needs a short rest, but you have some injured friends and don't want to waste spells or potions, you can spend all those Hit Dice. As long as you stay stocked up on kits, you can patch up a whole party in under a minute. No more worrying about finding a safe place to rest, or pushing too hard. There is still a balanced limit in the number of Hit Dice a character has, but it let's you make them more effective, and keeps the party moving. Another feat I highly recommend as both useful and well designed.
The main about the new healer feat is that it works for classes that already have healing options, the 5E one was odd in that it really didn't give classes that could already heal anything extra. It is still probably going to do basically nothing for Paladin tho and it really doesn't scale that well. When you're healing an average of 2+1d10 at level 1 then 6+1d10 at level 17... you get a massive +4 healing, which isn't really scaling. The healer feat from the 1st play test will still be useful for out of battle healing, since it's something but realistically it needed more for it to be "battle" healing. Like a number of hit die up to proficiency bonus +medicine skill would have been better, in my opinion.
Obviously the other part with rolling 1s will scale but that is basically a boon for just clerics and druids, if you want to be a non-magic battlefield medic it doesn't give you that much, just less chance of healing for PB+1.
at low levels i really hate that it uses up a hit die. yeah, it's nice that you can reroll 1's and keep moving, but the fighter, monk, and warlock are still going to want their downtime soon. if the DM can't pencil in time for a long rest, then you end up taking short rests that don't heal anyone. wheee.
i'd prefer if, instead of using up hit dice, the feat was giving out temporary hit points. some painkillers to go with that bandage just to get you back on your feet, not a replacement for actual care. reapplication could lead to exhaustion.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Hot take: temporary hit points suck. They just suck. You can't build them up, and they can't get someone off of death saves. Telling your players that the mundane CLS feat can't actually be used to heal or, y'know...combat life-save is a great way of ensuring nobody ever takes Healer ever again.
Let the CLS feat be the CLS feat. Is it a substitute for high-level healing magic, no. It's never going to be. That doesn't make it useless, and if you have no hit dice left for a short rest then maybe it's a sign you're pushing too hard and need to back off a while.
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I agree with Yurei on temp HP. I don't think they totally suck, and I'm always grateful to have them. But there are way too many ways to get them, and they don't stack.
The Healer feat is the most useful 1st level feat in our playtesting (with Alert a close second.) It comes in handy all the time. Think of it as free castings of Cure Wounds. You get a free spell slot for every member of your party, multiplied by their level. A first level character in a party of 4 gets to cast Cure Wounds 4 times a day for 20 silver. A fifth level character in a party of 4 can cast Cure Wounds TWENTY times a day almost completely for free.
That's better scaling than almost any feat out there. And unlike Cure Wounds, it actually heals more for characters with higher HP, because it's based on their hit dice. It's better than a short rest use of hit dice, because of the bonuses.
We have used it in combat to pick up fallen friends. A fighter can't use their hit dice when they are unconscious. But your Healer can. We have used it out of combat to make a short rest take mere seconds and keep going. In a dungeon crawl, it's common to get in a fight where everyone takes 5-10 damage. Not enough to completely stop, but enough to worry about the next fight. Instead of pushing further and taking a risk, or sitting in a room for an hour, you just let everyone spend a hit die and keep going. And because you are adding your proficiency bonus and re-rolling 1s, it benefits you to use it even if you are taking a short rest.
The hit dice requirement is a good limit. Without it, the feat would be massively overpowered. The feat makes spending those hit dice almost always yield better results. You can spend them faster, get more HP, and use them when unconscious. It boosts a common element of resource management, and keeps the game moving.
as for temporary hit points, the kit without the feat is still there to save lives. you can keep the reroll 1's thing. all i'm saying is that if the feat is adding on healing of only just one hit die's worth and healing it instantly by non-magical means, this feels better represented by temporary hp. my perspective on the value of that may be warped, i recognize as i've been playing nothing but low level stuff lately. at level 1 or 2 hit dice seem overly precious and even a few temp hp can seem really valuable. it's already been noted that this feat doesn't really scale well for higher levels so i thought i'd address it from the perspective of the levels it seemed to be aimed at.
regarding removing the hit dice requirement, sure it could be overpowered. more likely it just would attract the "once per rest" verbiage of the current Healer feat. my thought with temp hp was exactly that it wouldn't stack and wouldn't require the verbiage (although it should probably be added since many people forget the no stacking thing).
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Yeah I definitely understand. My favorite levels of play are below level 10. And at 1st level in actual play, the Healer feat was pretty limited. It was kind of just a nice bonus to the natural healing, and saved an hour of rest. You were going to spend those hit dice anyways. At least this way you didn't have to rest, and you got more out of them. And I will admit that it's our Bard that has the feat, so the part about rerolling 1s on all healing gets more use than a non-spellcaster would get. It has been VERY useful for that, turning a lot of dud heals into good ones.
Temporary HP isn't awful, but it also can't be used to pick up a downed character. The Healer feat can. We've used it in the middle of tough fights when all of our spell slots are spent and potions gone.
I think it scales very well too. Sure, the proficiency bonus doesn't go up a lot. But the uses per day skyrockets as the hit dice pool of the party grows. At 5th level, the party is running through Wave Echo Cave with no healing except this feat so far, and they still have a lot of hit dice left. From about level 3 onward, you can conserve most of your spell slots for other spells. I think it scales much better than things like Savage Attacker, or the well loved Magic Initiate even.
I do see what you're saying. Some temp HP might be nice. And the healers kit can save a life. But at low levels, getting someone up to almost full health is even better. And saving the party from so many short rests is well worth the feat alone. I'm trying not to think about it from a standpoint of what is being spent (hit dice), but how it improves the results of something you are using them for anyways. It offers a lot of flexibility and just keeps getting better with each level.
i only just realized the UA healer feat does not include the 1hp for stabilizing!!
it would take two actions to crash-cart someone back into the fight.((edit: any amount of healing from 0hp brings someone back to consciousness. somehow my brain decided healing non-magically was slower and more procedural than wave-a-wand healing. nope.)) maybe it's time to lay some things out...Healer's Kit - 10 uses, expend one use of Healer's Kit to stabilize a 0hp character (no Medicine check)
Healer Feat (5e) - a.) when you stabilize with Healer's Kit, they gain 1hp for free. b.) expend one use to heal 1d6+4+maxHD (where maxHD = the number of max hit dice the wounded creature has access to). creature cannot be healed again this way before a short or long rest.
Healer Feat (UA) - a.) expend one use of Healer's Kit to heal. wounded creature expends one HD (hit die). healer rolls that HD and adds healer's proficiency bonus to determine number of hit points healed. b.) when healer rolls dice to heal, they may reroll once any die that showed a 1.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Yes that's all true. I still feel that getting a downed character up to an average of around 6-10 HP with one action is far more useful than 1 HP. At least you could possibly survive another hit before dropping again. And I feel that being able to heal any number of hit dice out of combat, in just a few seconds, is better than one time per rest.
But I'm not comparing new feats to old ones anyway. I'm only looking at how they function in general, and how they work in context of the future edition. This one has turned out to be a favorite.
I played a 2014 thief(mc dip) healer and I have to say it won't work as well with this new version.
It went from a separate resource pool to a shared one. And the 1hp boots worked really well for situations where party hp got mis-balanced early in the day(traps, harzards, falls). At least when using 1hp refreshing every one could continue to participate (if your watching for outright kill damage)
Basically I hate not having a non-caster healing option the new version isn't quite enough for that. Instead it's allowing short rest mechanisms to be manipulated.