Healer

When you take this Feat, you gain 1 level of proficiency in both the Nature skill and the Medicine skill. If you’re already proficient with one or both of those when you take this feat, you become Expert. If you’re already Expert, you become a Master. If you’re already a Master, you get to select a new skill to become proficient in.   There are two aspects to being a Healer: One, using medicinal supplies to patch people up. Two, the ability to resupply yourself in the wilds.   Medicine – A successful Medicine (Wisdom) Check allows you to stabilize a dying companion, or to diagnose an illness. Nature (Intelligence) – Measures your ability to recall lore about terrain, plants, and animals, the weather, and natural cycles. In terms of Healing, here’s what you can do:   Unskilled:

• You may bandage and stabilize an unconscious, bleeding out, or dying creature by making a DC 5 Wisdom check with a reduced die and at Disadvantage. Anything beyond that is so far over your head you’ll wind up doing more harm than good. This requires one use of the medical supplies in your Medicine Bag.

Proficient:

• As above, but when you stabilize such a creature, that creature gains 1 hit point—if the unconscious character is negative HP they’ll be slightly less so (moving from -3 to -2, for example), but if at exactly 0 then there won’t be any notable change, since at that point, you’re working on Body Damage, but still that’s 1 point of ten needed! (Note: If your Proficiency Modifier + your Wisdom modifier is 5+ I don’t see any reason to bother with the die roll here). This still draws down your stock of medical supplies by 1.
• You may set broken bones without needing a die roll. A properly set bone heals in half the time (4 weeks, as opposed to 8) and won’t result in any ill side effects (loss of mobility). This requires two uses of the medical supplies in your Medicine Bag.
• You may detect and correctly identify any non-magical diseases or poisons that your patient may be suffering from. To do this, you make a Wisdom check vs. whatever DC your DM applies to the poison or disease in question, adding your Proficiency Modifier and your Wisdom Modifier. Beat the roll and gain the intel. If you beat the roll by 4+ you are also able to slow the progression of the poison or disease by (1 day * Your Proficiency Modifier)—it basically presses pause on the condition. This requires one use of the medical supplies in your Medicine Bag.
• Emergency Field Medicine (this is identical to the Ranger’s Fieldcraft ability). You may create basic salves and healing ointments from your stock of supplies, creating a poultice to be applied to wounds. The application of such a poultice restores d4+1 hit points to the recipient. This requires one use of the medical supplies in your Medicine Bag. A creature may only be the recipient of one such poultice per rest. To be eligible to receive another, that creature must complete either a short or a long rest.

Expertise: You get all of the advantages described above, but…

• Your Proficiency Modifier is doubled for all checks
• When you use Medical Supplies to slow the progression of poison or disease, the duration is (1 week * Double your Proficiency Modifier)
• Your Emergency Field Medicine poultices restore 2d6+2 hit points
• Surgery: This is a significant undertaking that requires at least an hour of the Healer’s time. It restores a number of hit points equal to 4d6 + (Double Your Proficiency Modifier + Recipient’s Level) in hit points. The healer may only perform one major surgery per day. He must complete a long rest before using this aspect of the skill again. A surgical procedure requires 3 uses of supplies from your Medicine Bag.

Mastery: You get all the benefits described above, but…

• Any time you make an ability check, you do so with an improved die, in addition to the Doubled Proficiency Modifier
• If you beat the check to identify a poison or a disease by 6+, you can outright cure it but curing each poison or disease the target is affected by requires 2 uses of the supplies in your Medicine Bag.
• You roll all healing for your healing poultices applied via Emergency Field Medicine with advantage and with an improved die (so, 2d8+2, with Advantage)
• You roll all healing for your Surgical Procedures with advantage and with an improved die (so, 4d8 + (double your Proficiency Modifier + Recipient Level), and with Advantage), and when the target completes his next long rest, he will reduce his exhaustion level by 2, or get back 2 temporarily lost ability points (normally, a long rest only reduces 1 level of exhaustion or restores 1 temporarily lost ability point). Additionally, a Master Surgeon may perform extensive operations like this twice before needing a long rest, but the procedures must be performed on different individuals.

Note: You can perform a surgical procedure on yourself if you wish! Doing so, however, will reduce your healing dice by one step. After all, if you’re trying to operate on yourself, you’re unlikely to be in a position to do your best work.   In terms of keeping yourself re-supplied in the field, using your Nature check, you can go foraging in the wilds for supplies. The single biggest impediment to finding what you need is the season of the year. In the winter months, it can be hard to find much of anything of value. It gets easier in the spring, is a relatively simple matter in the summer, and begins to get more difficult again when fall rolls around. Consult the chart below. The numbers indicate how many “uses” you can recharge your Medicine Bag with.   A foraging attempt takes at least 1 hour, and prep time for the herbs takes 1 hour per use you restore to your Medicine Bag, so actually finding the materials you need is far less time consuming than prepping them for use. Even so, if you’re in the wilds, it’s nice to know you can usually put your hands on raw materials to help you ply your trade.

Die Roll	Spring	Summer	Autumn	Winter
1-13	Nothing	Nothing	Nothing	Nothing
14-15	Nothing	1	Nothing	Nothing
16-17	1	2	1	Nothing
18-23	2	3	2	1
24-25	3	4	3	2
26+	4	5	4	3

When rolling on the chart above, your die roll is modified based on your level of proficiency with the Nature skill.

• Unskilled: Roll with a reduced die and at Disadvantage.
• Proficient: Standard roll, adding your proficiency modifier and your Intelligence modifier.
• Expertise: Double your Proficiency Modifier and add this to your Intelligence modifier.
• Mastery: Double your Proficiency Modifier, add this to your Intelligence modifier, and roll with an improved die.

Finally, note that non-magical Healing is “agnostic” since it doesn’t draw on the well of Divine power, which means that its use is never a sin.   Note that it’s of little to no benefit to take both Healing and Field Medicine. Healing can ultimately “do more” and provide for more healing, but Field Craft gives you a different set of skills, so it depends on what you’re after (both ultimately cost 4AP to reach the highest levels of healing—mastery in the Healing Skill or Advanced Field Medicine in Field Craft. Ultimately, it depends on what kind of character you want to build—note too that a character with Field Craft can help keep a Healer’s Medicine Bag stocked!