I’ve been building a character concept around a psionic mage. All things telekinetic and mind altering. I saw that the artificer’s initiate feat allows a Wizard to take the Spare the dying cantrip and cure wounds, while still using Intellect as their casting stat.
Staying on theme is more important than having the character be able to heal. I was thinking along the lines of justifying it as the character alters the targets mind to stimulate the bodies natural ability to prolong life (clotting agents or adrenaline release?). That might work for Spare the dying, but I’m unsure how I can theme closing wounds.
I don’t expect the character would use anything above a 3rd level cure wounds. So severe wounds aren’t going to be stitching themselves together miraculously.
How would you justify this kind of minor healing potential in terms of their psionic powers?
It depends what you consider damage to represent in D&D.
Losing hit-points surely can't mean major physical damage like deep cuts that bleed profusely etc., or it would make no sense that you can simply shake it off with a short or long rest without rolling any Medicine checks, using a healer's kit and the like. On that basis I tend to think of "wounds" as being minor cuts, scrapes etc. at most, and that hit-points more generally represent your ability to fight-on in spite of pain, fatigue etc.
When you think about it, in a sword fight without armour, it only takes one good strike to kill, so most such fights aren't going to be two opponents chopping away at each other like felling trees until one bleeds to death. I prefer to think of it more like hit-points are representing your ability to keep evading that killing blow; eventually you'll be too worn down to do it, and that's when you end up in the "bleeding to death from a potentially fatal wound" state of being on zero hit-points.
On that basis I'd actually argue that your problem is the other way around, as cure wounds can be explained as helping a target to remain alert, ignore its pain/general fatigue etc., but that spare the dying is harder to explain as you're actually stabilising a dying creature. That said, spare the dying is a cantrip that I wouldn't recommend taking; while it's only a cantrip, anybody can stabilise using an easy Medicine Check, or you can use a Healer's Kit to make it automatic. This means spare the dying is only really giving you the convenience of not carrying and restocking the kit, but it's highly situational as you need an ally to go down, for there to not be something better to do like finishing off the enemy, or using cure wounds to bring them back into the fight (i.e- they were only knocked unconscious and you forced them to recover).
Also I should say for completeness' sake, but what you're describing isn't psionic in the D&D sense, you maybe mean regular psychic; psionic magic in D&D is magic that originates from the caster's mind (not the target's) so the effects are just like any other magic, but coming from some innate ability without having to manipulate The Weave as arcane casters do, call upon divine aid as Clerics/Paladins do, and so-on. But if "all in the target's head" is the theme you like, then 100% go for it! 😉
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I’ve been building a character concept around a psionic mage. All things telekinetic and mind altering. I saw that the artificer’s initiate feat allows a Wizard to take the Spare the dying cantrip and cure wounds, while still using Intellect as their casting stat.
Staying on theme is more important than having the character be able to heal. I was thinking along the lines of justifying it as the character alters the targets mind to stimulate the bodies natural ability to prolong life (clotting agents or adrenaline release?). That might work for Spare the dying, but I’m unsure how I can theme closing wounds.
I don’t expect the character would use anything above a 3rd level cure wounds. So severe wounds aren’t going to be stitching themselves together miraculously.
How would you justify this kind of minor healing potential in terms of their psionic powers?
It depends what you consider damage to represent in D&D.
Losing hit-points surely can't mean major physical damage like deep cuts that bleed profusely etc., or it would make no sense that you can simply shake it off with a short or long rest without rolling any Medicine checks, using a healer's kit and the like. On that basis I tend to think of "wounds" as being minor cuts, scrapes etc. at most, and that hit-points more generally represent your ability to fight-on in spite of pain, fatigue etc.
When you think about it, in a sword fight without armour, it only takes one good strike to kill, so most such fights aren't going to be two opponents chopping away at each other like felling trees until one bleeds to death. I prefer to think of it more like hit-points are representing your ability to keep evading that killing blow; eventually you'll be too worn down to do it, and that's when you end up in the "bleeding to death from a potentially fatal wound" state of being on zero hit-points.
On that basis I'd actually argue that your problem is the other way around, as cure wounds can be explained as helping a target to remain alert, ignore its pain/general fatigue etc., but that spare the dying is harder to explain as you're actually stabilising a dying creature. That said, spare the dying is a cantrip that I wouldn't recommend taking; while it's only a cantrip, anybody can stabilise using an easy Medicine Check, or you can use a Healer's Kit to make it automatic. This means spare the dying is only really giving you the convenience of not carrying and restocking the kit, but it's highly situational as you need an ally to go down, for there to not be something better to do like finishing off the enemy, or using cure wounds to bring them back into the fight (i.e- they were only knocked unconscious and you forced them to recover).
Also I should say for completeness' sake, but what you're describing isn't psionic in the D&D sense, you maybe mean regular psychic; psionic magic in D&D is magic that originates from the caster's mind (not the target's) so the effects are just like any other magic, but coming from some innate ability without having to manipulate The Weave as arcane casters do, call upon divine aid as Clerics/Paladins do, and so-on. But if "all in the target's head" is the theme you like, then 100% go for it! 😉
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Ah yeah I’m probably getting my terms mixed up. I was considering a multiclass with the Soulknife rogue. They have psionic power and psychic blades.