Help with a non-magical healer.

[Xanedan]

I haven't played D&D since the days of 2E, and that was entirely beer and pretzel type play, but have recently bought up almost every 4E source book I could order/preorder being recently blessed with decent disposable income and a large amount of free time.

I've heard tell of a weekly 3.5E game running at a nearby community center and will probably try to get myself into the game. Problem is I have 4E books, and 2E experience leaving me entirely clueless about the nuances of 3E.

So I'm reading what I can to help create a character, but it's not really my style to play anything terribly supernatural, wishing rather to create a persona similar to myself but in a far more fantastical world.

I had this silly idea in my head about creating a non-magical healer who used bandages and alchemy skills for out of combat healing.

I gather there are a great many skills to boost to make yourself an effective alchemist/medic but alchemy seems ostensibly linked to magical classes which just doesn't work with the flavor of the character. Craft: Alchemy, Heal, Knowledge: Nature, Survival, and moderate BAB seem to be the goal.

For this reason ranger seems an obvious choice. It has spells, but a fairly small pool and I guess I can live with that.

My question (Yes! There is a question in all this.): is there a nice feat tree, or obscure PRC that will focus my character more towards effective healing using the skill "heal" or making/using potions more effectively?

[Keld Denar]

Short Answer

No.


Long answer

If you are looking for a non-magical healer, check out the Crusader from Tome of Battle. Its a martial character that beats people up in an inspiring way that allows tired warriors to keep fighting. Basically, moral based healing as opposed to positive energy spell based healing. Plus, they are crazy fun to play.

[Tempest Fennac]

I agree about Crusaders being good. Dragon Shamans can do this to a degree, but they are probably too supernatural for your tastes (page 150 of http://crystalkeep.com/d20/rules/DnD...asses-Base.pdf ). I suppose another option is to ask the DM about being able to make potions and ointments from herbs and other ingredients, but this would all need to be homebrewed.

[Xanedan]

I'm not really one to impose upon someone who would be doing me a favor by teaching me to play anyhow, so I'll likely just do more research into the crusader class.

I'll probably just toss out a lot of fluff as opposed to basing my core mechanics around potion making and such. Thank you both for your help.

[woodenbandman]

I'm not really one to impose upon someone who would be doing me a favor by teaching me to play anyhow, so I'll likely just do more research into the crusader class.

I'll probably just toss out a lot of fluff as opposed to basing my core mechanics around potion making and such. Thank you both for your help.

Well, no, that won't work. The crusader class is extremely martial based, and its way of healing is to hurt other people.

It's a very very daunting class, but the Artificer is what you want. It can make any magic item, including potions, but it doesn't actually cast magic. You'll be a kind of magical handyman in that you can do anything given enough time. You can make a character that is very successful as the party crafter as long as the DM can provide you with downtime, and if that's a problem, you can do a quick search for help on how to get a portable craft station. This is against your character concept a bit, but alas, you can't really do it any other way.

As an artificer I can tell you that you will want to spend your healing resources on making wands of lesser vigor, which heal 15 hit points per use, but over a minute and a half. If you use them in combat, not useful. Out of combat, very useful.

Flavor-wise the artificer is pretty much what you don't want, but mechanically it is very sound(understatement of the century). Ask your DM if you can substitute the UMD checks to make stuff with relevant craft skills, if you want make it more in line with your flavor. Activation of the items would be tricky to adjudicate, but if you have a party rogue or bard, it's no biggy. Warlocks are also good for activating your items.

As a fairly new player, the Artificer is extremely hard to get into. The infusions are especially confusing. If you can find a few things that work and use those often, that's great for you. You can do a lot of cool things with artificer, such as make weapons and armor better, make wands and staves have more charges/imbue them with metamagic, and generally win. If you do this in order to destroy the game, it's very easy, but it seems like for your purposes, the artificer will lend itself to your character very well. It's a bit hard to remove the eberron flavor, though.