Make Heal checks great again! (feat)

[rferries]

For campaigns where the DM doesn't like readily-available magical healing.

Mystic Healer
Prerequisites
Cha 12 or Wis 12

Benefit
You add your Cha bonus to your Heal checks. Additionally, you gain a +6 bonus to Heal checks made to treat magical poisons, diseases, and afflictions. This bonus does not apply to emulating spells as described below.

When you use the Heal skill provide long-term care to a patient, that patient may recover from ability drain as though it were ability damage. Additionally, such patients may substitute your Heal check for their Fortitude save results when making saving throws to remove negative levels.

While providing long-term care to a patient you may attempt to cure magical diseases and afflictions (such as mummy rot and lycanthropy) that would otherwise require specific spells to remove. You must make separate Heal checks for each spell to be emulated (DC = 20 + spell level), in addition to the standard check to provide long-term care. Your effective caster level for emulated spells is equal to your character level. On a successful check you are considered to have emulated a spell solely for the purpose of overcoming the affliction in question, and as such the patient doesn’t receive any other benefits of the spell; e.g. a successful Heal check made to emulate a heal spell for a feebleminded patient would cure the patient’s mind but not restore any lost hit points or negate any other conditions such as poison or ability damage.

[jqavins]

Not sure how I feel about a non-magical feat doing a magic job; when the DM makes magical healiing harder to come by it's because s/he wants these things to be hard to heal. And, it's magic, darn it, it should take magic to counter. I think. I'm not so sure.

I do think that if you're going to allow the non-magical heal checks to heal magical effects then it should be en epic (small 'e') accomplishment, so I think the DC is way too low. You give it as 15 + spell level, but in the first sentencee you give a +6 on this, so effectively it's only 9 + spell level, so with several skill ranks and a good Cha one could take often 10. I think the DC should be at least 15 + spell level without a bonus, and maybe even 20 + spell level.

[Westhart]

Not sure how I feel about a non-magical feat doing a magic job; when the DM makes magical healiing harder to come by it's because s/he wants these things to be hard to heal. And, it's magic, darn it, it should take magic to counter. I think. I'm not so sure.

I do think that if you're going to allow the non-magical heal checks to heal magical effects then it should be en epic (small 'e') accomplishment, so I think the DC is way too low. You give it as 15 + spell level, but in the first sentencee you give a +6 on this, so effectively it's only 9 + spell level, so with a good Cha one could take sometimes 10. I think the DC should be at least 15 + spell level without a bonus, and maybe even 20 + spell level.

As far as DC's go he has an excellent point, with maxed heal, and we will say a +0 for wisdom/charisma they could take 10 to get up to 9th level spells at 5th level (10+8 ranks +6 from feat=24)

[rferries]

Not sure how I feel about a non-magical feat doing a magic job; when the DM makes magical healiing harder to come by it's because s/he wants these things to be hard to heal. And, it's magic, darn it, it should take magic to counter. I think. I'm not so sure.

I do think that if you're going to allow the non-magical heal checks to heal magical effects then it should be en epic (small 'e') accomplishment, so I think the DC is way too low. You give it as 15 + spell level, but in the first sentencee you give a +6 on this, so effectively it's only 9 + spell level, so with several skill ranks and a good Cha one could take often 10. I think the DC should be at least 15 + spell level without a bonus, and maybe even 20 + spell level.

As far as DC's go he has an excellent point, with maxed heal, and we will say a +0 for wisdom/charisma they could take 10 to get up to 9th level spells at 5th level (10+8 ranks +6 from feat=24)

Salient points! The +6 bonus no loner applies to emulating spells, and I've bumped up the DC to 20 + spell level.

[Westhart]

Salient points! The +6 bonus no loner applies to emulating spells, and I've bumped up the DC to 20 + spell level.

This looks better, after all they still have to get 19 between skills and ability scores for a 9th