Medicine Man

Base Requirements

  • Races: Any
  • Sub-Classes: Shaman
  • Ability Requirements: Knowledge 9
  • Alignments: Good
  • Starting Cash: 2d4 gp

Weapon Proficiencies

  • Weapon Slots: By class
  • Bonus Weapon Proficiencies: none
  • Required Weapon Proficiencies: Axe (any one)
  • Allowed Weapons: By class
  • Allowed Armors: By class

Non-Weapon Proficiencies:

  • Non-weapon Slots: By class
  • Available Categories: By class
  • Bonus Non-weapon Proficiencies: Burial Customs, Healing
  • Required Proficiencies: none
  • Recommended Proficiencies: Animal Handling, Animal Rending, Animal Training, Brewing, Bulwark, Ceremony, Folklore, Foraging, Herbalism, Horde Summoning, Hunting, Land-based Riding, Leadership, Leatherworking, Mediation, Prayer, Religion, Sacred Legends, Storytelling, Survival, Teaching, Tracking.
  • Forbidden Proficiencies: none

Priest Spheres: These replace the standard spheres for the priest’s class.

  • Major: All, Creation, Healing, Necromantic, Wards
  • Minor: Charm, Guardian, Protection

Overview: Though a skilled healer, the Medicine Man (or Medicine Woman) has responsibilities beyond curing the sick and ministering to the wounded. He or she also serves as a counselor, teacher, and spiritual advisor, using gentle words and supernatural forces to promote the people’s well-being.

Description: The Medicine Man usually wears leather armor that covers most of his body (a full tunic, leggings tied at the waist and ankle, arm bands reaching from the wrist to the elbow). His armor may be dyed bright colors or decorated with animal products (porcupine quills, pheasant feathers, bear claws). A Medicine Man sometimes shaves the hair from his head, leaving a long lock hanging between the shoulders or a single strip running from the forehead to the back of the neck.

Role-Playing: The Medicine Man assumes the role of caretaker for any group with whom he aligns. He gathers healing herbs for the wounded, stays up through the night with the sick, and presides over funeral rites for the dead. While the concerns of outworld companions may be beyond his understanding, he is quick to lend a sympathetic ear. Despite his crude manner, many find his mere presence a source of comfort.

The Medicine Man is unusually reflective for a barbarian, spending hours brooding over the cruelty of life or his failure to heal to someone in his care. On the battlefield, he fights fiercely and selflessly, risking his life to aid endangered companions.

Special Abilities:

  • The medicine man starts with a free suit of Leather Armor, a stone-headed axe (one he is proficient with), and a medicine belt (see below) in addition to his starting funds.
  • Destroy Disease: This ability allows a Medicine Man to instantly cure a diseased or poisoned victim (other than himself) by transforming the debilitation into a physical entity. A Medicine Man may use this ability to destroy one disease per week for every five levels of experience. The Medicine Man places his hands on the victim, then makes a save vs. death magic. If the save fails, nothing happens; the victim continues to suffer. If the save succeeds, the victim is cured, as if affected by a cure disease or neutralize poison spell; the curing occurs immediately, and the victim recovers all hit points lost as a result of the disease or poison.
    The disease or poison then manifests as an undulating black blob, vaguely skull-shaped, hovering about five feet in front of the Medicine Man. No one but the Medicine Man can see the entity or affect it in any way. The entity can’t attack or move, but if the Medicine Man attempts to escape, the entity remains with him. The Medicine Man has two rounds to destroy the entity. The entity has 1d4+1 hp and AC 10. It’s vulnerable to all physical attacks from the Medicine Man, but is 100% resistant to magic. If reduced to 0 hp, it disappears. If the Medicine Man fails to destroy the entity in two rounds, it is absorbed into the Medicine Man’s body; the Medicine Man immediately becomes affected by the same disease or poison as the victim he cured. A Medicine Man can’t use his destroy disease ability on himself, though he may benefit from any other method of healing.
  • Once per month, a Medicine Man can create a medicine belt that grants special protection to any wearer, including the Medicine Man. To create a medicine belt, the Medicine Man must spend a full day in his homeland terrain gathering the components (including the skin from a small animal, a few herbs, and the tooth from a creature that died from natural causes), then a second day putting it together. When it‘s complete, he makes a saving throw vs. death magic. If the save fails, the belt has no special properties; the Medicine Man can try again next month. If the save succeeds, the belt grants the wearer one of the following properties (determined randomly). A medicine belt loses its magical properties in 1d4+1 weeks.
d6 roll Medicine Belt Properties
1 +1 bonus to Armor Class
2 +2 bonus to Armor Class
3 +2 bonus on saves vs. spells
4 Wearer heals at 2x the normal rate.
5 Wearer is immune to all natural diseases and poisons.
6 +1 bonus on all saving throws

Special Disadvantages:

  • A Medicine Man cannot turn undead.
  • Whenever a Medicine Man encounters the corpse of a humanoid-including those that he or his companions have killed-he must administer last rites. The alignment of the corpse is irrelevant; Medicine Men believe that all spirits get a second chance in the afterlife. Last rites consist of placing a small portion of food near the corpse (so the spirit has something to eat on his way to the afterlife), a brief prayer (lasting no more than a round), and a helpful piece of advice, chosen by the Medicine Man. If a Medicine Man fails to perform last rites for all corpses he encounters in a given day, he may not cast spells for the following 24 hours.
    The DM may suspend this penalty in unusual circumstances (the corpse sinks in quicksand before the Medicine Man gets to it, or a dangerous monster guards the corpse). If faced with an inordinate number of corpses—on a battlefield, in an infirmary, during a plague—the Medicine Man fulfills his obligation if he performs rites for a select two or three (determined by the DM). A Medicine Man is not obligated to perform last rites for skeletal remains or undead creatures.

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Medicine Man

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