Base Requirements

• Races: Any
• Sub-Classes: Any
• Ability Requirements: Intuition 12
• Alignments: Non-Evil
• Starting Cash: By class

Weapon Proficiencies

• Weapon Slots: -2 slots
• Bonus Weapon Proficiencies: Knife
• Required Weapon Proficiencies: none
• Allowed Weapons: By class, plus Short Blades
• Allowed Armors: By class

Non-Weapon Proficiencies:

• Non-weapon Slots: By class
• Available Categories: By class, plus Academic
• Bonus Non-weapon Proficiencies: Anatomy, Arcanology, Diagnostics, Healing
• Required Proficiencies: none
• Recommended Proficiencies: Alchemy, Ancient History, Animal Handling, Brewing, Cooking, Debate, Fire-building, Forgery, Grooming, Hypnotism, Literacy, Local History, Modern Languages, Pharmacy, Prayer, Psychology, Rejuvenation, Religion, Rope Use, Spellcraft, Venom Handling, Weaving
• Forbidden Proficiencies: Blind-Fighting, Bowyer/Fletcher, Dirty Fighting, Street Fighting, Weaponsmithing, Wild Fighting

Overview: The healer is a character dedicated to the health and well-being of all human, demi-human, and humanoid patients. She may do this in service to a deity, in empathy over the plight of the suffering, or simply as a professional who does what she has been trained to do. There are religious orders who support schools for Healers, but the majority received one-on-one training from another Healer.

Healers serve as doctors and surgeons of no modest skill. Healers are well versed in folk treatments and herbal medicines. They are also founts of information, gathering much of knowledge at the bedsides of the sick and dying. Often healers can advise one on the best course of action; certainly they are eager to do so.

Healers gain their knowledge after years of extensive study and research. While there are healers who focus solely on the mundane arts of medicine, the majority of healers in a fantasy setting wield some form of curative magic. Healers are quite common among priests of all flavors, paladins, and psionicists (especially psychometabolists).

Some less scrupulous healers will go to great lengths to improve their skills. While their oaths prevent them from harming the living, they have no such qualms about the already deceased. They dissect and experiment upon cadavers, even going so far as to hire grave-robbers to bypass laws against the exhumation and mutilation of the dead.

Description: Healers, regardless of origin, are usually identified by the red-and-white striped robes they wear. In areas where such clothing is impractical (such as adventuring in a dungeon), the healer will still usually wear an armband, tabard, or other accessory bearing the red-and-white striped design to designate their status as a neutral medic and (theoretically) a non-combatant. A Healer wearing her distinctive red-and-white striped robe is welcome almost everywhere, even on a battlefield, as both sides count on Healers to care for their wounded.

Role-Playing: Healers are the country doctors, surgeons, and Red Cross of the Realms. Some move about quite a bit in order to spread their talents across a greater area. They work to prevent or contain plagues, deal with insane individuals, and alleviate suffering as much as possible. Although highly respected by the common citizenry, a Healer is not immune to hardships. Those Healers who do not wear the red-and-white distinctive robes, for whatever reason, are not recognized as Healers and will generally be treated like everyone else. Similarly, a non-Healer who wears the Healer’s robes will soon be asked to provide medical services. If she cannot do so, she may be stripped of the robes and may even be considered a criminal for her imposture.

A candidate Healer undergoes rigorous training in a variety of demanding courses, including herbalism, anatomy, and diagnostics. After completing her academic studies, she must spend at least a year as an apprentice to an experienced medical practitioner. Because of the length of her training, a candidate rarely becomes a 1st-level Healer before she reaches her early-to-mid twenties.

A Healer assumes the role of a medic whether at home or in the field with an adventuring party. She brews antidotes for poisons, sets broken bones, applies poultices to festering wounds, and stays up all night with ailing mounts. In her free time, the Healer experiments with new treatments, develops new diagnostic techniques, and compiles notes of past cases to share with other healers.

Special Abilities:

• As Healers are well respected by most human, demihuman, and humanoid cultures, a Healer is granted a +1 bonus to all NPC reaction rolls if she wears the Healer’s robes. In addition, so long as the healer is wearing her robes, most humanoid enemies will allow the healer to leave unharmed from any conflict (or at worst capture her alive).
• Healers are experts with a scalpel. They gain a free weapon proficiency with the Knife at 1st level (this is typically the only proficiency a non-warrior Healer begins with), and may use any weapon from the Short Blades group, regardless of class restrictions. At 6th level, the healer automatically becomes specialized with the Knife (this costs no additional weapon proficiency slots).
• Healers gain a +2 bonus on all Diagnostics and Healing proficiency checks. A successful Healing proficiency check allows the Healer to restore 1d4 points of damage if he reaches a creature within 3 rounds of it being wounded (instead of 1d3 within 1 round). Patients resting under their care recover damage at the accelerated rate of 4hp per day. The healing rate is slowed to 1hp per day if the patient engages in strenuous activity such as adventuring. A single Healer can care for up to 12 patients in this fashion. When treating poisons or diseases (even those of a magical nature), their patients are entitled to a second saving throw with a +4 bonus to resist the affliction.
• The Healer has the ability to divine the cause and time of death by thoroughly examining a corpse. This involves careful dissection which takes 1d6x10 minutes, minus 1 minute per level. The Healer has a base 60% chance of success, plus 2% per level (max 95%), of learning the specific reason and approximate time of death.
• Any spell or psionic power that the Healer uses which cures hit point damage heals an additional +1 hit point per die (or 1 extra hit point if the amount healed is not random).

Special Disadvantages:

• A wizard Healer (including spellcasting rogues) must take both the Lifeshielder’s Path and the Lifemender’s Path as one of their paths known at 1st level. These are not bonus paths. In addition, they may not have Necromancy as one of their forbidden schools.
• A psionicist Healer must take Psychometabolism as their primary discipline at 1st level.
• Once per year, a Healer must suspend all normal activities and spend 1d4+1 consecutive weeks at a university, hospital, monastery, or any other institution that offers medical training. During this period, the Healer refreshes her skills. Failure to comply results in the loss of all special benefits listed above.
• All Healers must take a magically binding oath to heal all individuals with no biases, even if the creatures in question are defeated enemies. A Healer wearing her robes is also compelled to never harm another human, humanoid, or demi-human except in self defense (yet another reason that a healer may choose not to wear the robes when adventuring). If a Healer breaks one of these oaths, she will be affected as if by a geas spell until she atones in a suitable manner.

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