[Dreamscarred Press] Presents: The MEDIC!

[Elricaltovilla]

Blood Transfusion (Su): Starting at 1st level, the sanguinist gains the ability to drain the lifeblood of a creature, store that vitality and transfer it elsewhere. Once per round, when the sanguinist makes a successful attack with an unarmed strike or natural attack, she can drain a number of additional hit points from her target equal to her initiation modifier. These hit points are stored in the sanguinist’s blood reserve. Any unarmed strike or natural attack modified by her blood transfusion ability is treated as a magic weapon. At 10th level, the sanguinist can drain hit points with every unarmed strike or natural attack she makes. In order to use her blood transfusion ability, the sanguinist must deal lethal damage to the target. If the target’s current hit points are less than the sanguinist’s initiation modifier, she cannot transfer that additional damage to her blood reserve as healing.

The bolded section of the ability calls out that the Sanguinist "drains" hit points equal to his initiation modifier on a successful hit. It does not call out that it is bonus damage, or that it is even really damage to begin with. Draining Wis mod HP from an enemy seems a completely separate effect that just requires a successful unarmed strike/natural attack that is designated to attempt to inflict lethal damage in order to be triggered.

Current wording makes it sound like:

1) Roll to hit with unarmed strike (doing lethal damage)

2) Confirm the attack hit

3) Deal Damage as normal for the attack

4) Drain Wis mod HP from enemy to add to blood pool.

In its current wording it seems like splitting the difference between ability damage and ability drain, but applied to HP instead of stats.

It is additional damage. Clearing that misconception up is part of the update for medic I'm working on.

[Azoth]

It is additional damage. Clearing that misconception up is part of the update for medic I'm working on.

Okay, thanks for clearing that up. I am a bit sad to see the damage go, but it does put my damage back closer to normal levels.

[Novawurmson]

I want to give some feedback (and play potentially play one in a campaign starting over the next couple weeks), but if there's a big update coming soon, I'll hold off . Excited for this, though! Always good to have more options for thematically big and important party roles that tend not to have much support.

[Elricaltovilla]

New medic update is released. Some of the notable changes:

1. Triage hit point healing lowered at low and mid levels.
2. Expertise gained at 1st (x2), 2nd and even levels. Expertise prerequisites changed to match.
3. Cura te Ipsum comes online at level 3
4. Resuscitation comes online at 9th level
5. New class feature Greater Resuscitation added at 17th level.
6. Base Medic starts with Tempest Gale instead of Piercing Thunder. Ambu-lancer trades Tempest Gale for Piercing Thunder.
7. Archetype trades have been altered to match new scaling for Expertise and other class features.
8. Sanguinist gets level instead of BAB for GUS progression.
9. Blood Transfusion's extra damage mechanic clarified.
10. Sanguinist now trades Cura te ipsum for new feature: Pain's gain.
11. Unnatural vitality's wording has been fixed to prevent abuse and maintain status as DPR booster.
12. Witch doctor's Thaumaturgic Medicine has been rescaled to go from 1-9th level spells instead of a custom list of 1-6. New list includes all healing spells plus a whitelist of additional spells detailed in the entry.
13. Plague doctor feat has been altered to be less finnicky.

That should be everything.

[MilleniaAntares]

The changes are rather good!

[Novawurmson]

Oh, well. I was not expecting it to be that quick. Making a level 4 cleric for playtesting now.

[Elricaltovilla]

Oh, well. I was not expecting it to be that quick. Making a level 4 cleric for playtesting now.

I did announce that the rework was happening over two weeks ago.

[Novawurmson]

Spoiler: Accidental doublepost. Deleted previous comment.

Show

I did announce that the rework was happening over two weeks ago.

Yeah, but I didn't really take a look at the medic until yesterday. So it's fast for me!

Guardian of Life comes before Improved Triage, even though Improved Triage is gained at 6 and GoL is gained at 5.

If she does so, the medic recovers a number of expended maneuvers equal to her medic initiation modifier.

Is the "minimum 2" still standard?

Suggested Medic's Expertises:

Extended Recovery: When you spend a full round action to recover maneuvers, you gain temporary hit points to all allies within 60ft. (instead of 30ft.).

Guard Thyself: Whenever you initiate a strike, your Cura te Ipsum lasts for 1 minute or until you make a Reflex or Will save. The medic must be at least 4th level and have the Cura te Ipsum class feature to select this ability.

- - -

Overall, I really like the class and I'm looking forward to playing it :D

Edit: Just to provide more direct feedback, the class is short, sweet, and knows what it wants to do. It's a very tight, clean package with no excess fat, but it's still got some sizzle.

[Elricaltovilla]

Spoiler: Accidental doublepost. Deleted previous comment.

Show

Yeah, but I didn't really take a look at the medic until yesterday. So it's fast for me!

Guardian of Life comes before Improved Triage, even though Improved Triage is gained at 6 and GoL is gained at 5.



Is the "minimum 2" still standard?

Suggested Medic's Expertises:

Extended Recovery: When you spend a full round action to recover maneuvers, you gain temporary hit points to all allies within 60ft. (instead of 30ft.).

Guard Thyself: Whenever you initiate a strike, your Cura te Ipsum lasts for 1 minute or until you make a Reflex or Will save. The medic must be at least 4th level and have the Cura te Ipsum class feature to select this ability.

- - -

Overall, I really like the class and I'm looking forward to playing it :D

I fixed some of those things you caught, thank you. Guard Thyself is pretty good, but extended recovery covers too much area I feel. 30 ft. is already a significant portion of most battle maps.

Edit: Just to provide more direct feedback, the class is short, sweet, and knows what it wants to do. It's a very tight, clean package with no excess fat, but it's still got some sizzle.

Great, now I'm hungry . I'm glad you're enjoying it.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Class looks interesting. A bit odd that there's nothing to deal with bleed damage, though if you're maxing heal you can just use Heal to do that, with reduced action economy. Also, I personally find it a bit vexing that the Sanguinist's Unnatural Vitality only works with poisons dealing ability damage, since I'm a fan of the Unchained disease/poison rules, neither of which deal ability damage. In addition, there are some diseases that resist being cured; does that bypass them?

[Elricaltovilla]

Class looks interesting. A bit odd that there's nothing to deal with bleed damage, though if you're maxing heal you can just use Heal to do that, with reduced action economy. Also, I personally find it a bit vexing that the Sanguinist's Unnatural Vitality only works with poisons dealing ability damage, since I'm a fan of the Unchained disease/poison rules, neither of which deal ability damage.

Unnatural Vitality was always intended to be a DPR increase to fit with the Sanguinist's status as the DPR archetype for the medic. That aside though, there's a very specific reason that limitation was implemented: Drow poison. The increased save DC for poisons from Unnatural Vitality turned a modest DPR increase/combo with steel serpent into a 95% chance to put nearly any creature not immune to poison out of commission completely. It sucks, but that's the way things are.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I guess the GM would adjudicate that they work with the disease/poison track systems if they are using that in their game. Otherwise that ability, besides the immunities, would be 100% pointless with that ruleset.

[Azoth]

I am a little sad to see the adjustment to Unnatural Vitality, but understand it.

I do have a question involving a different subset of similar items to poisons and diseases. Does Unnatural Vitality interact with drugs?

They are called out to being similar to poisons, but not all are classified as such. Most are just alchemical items. Only a few of them carry a secondary tag identifying them as poisons.

[Elricaltovilla]

I am a little sad to see the adjustment to Unnatural Vitality, but understand it.

I do have a question involving a different subset of similar items to poisons and diseases. Does Unnatural Vitality interact with drugs?

They are called out to being similar to poisons, but not all are classified as such. Most are just alchemical items. Only a few of them carry a secondary tag identifying them as poisons.

Based on my research, drugs are not considered poisons unless they specify otherwise. As such, Unnatural Vitality would not provide immunity to drugs nor would it allow you to remove drugs from the target of your blood transfusion or triage.

[Azoth]

Based on my research, drugs are not considered poisons unless they specify otherwise. As such, Unnatural Vitality would not provide immunity to drugs nor would it allow you to remove drugs from the target of your blood transfusion or triage.

Understandably so, I was curious if we could get an expertise or feat to allow an interaction with them. I know they are a rarely used section of items by most, but I kind of feel like if any class was going to gain a mechanical interaction with drugs it would be the medic.

Currently, the Triage and Blood Transfusion of a Sanguinist can remove someone's addiction to a drug, since addiction is a disease. Just realized that one from rereading the drug section.

[Elricaltovilla]

Understandably so, I was curious if we could get an expertise or feat to allow an interaction with them. I know they are a rarely used section of items by most, but I kind of feel like if any class was going to gain a mechanical interaction with drugs it would be the medic.

Currently, the Triage and Blood Transfusion of a Sanguinist can remove someone's addiction to a drug, since addiction is a disease. Just realized that one from rereading the drug section.

I'll have to read up on the drug rules before I say for sure. The only thing I'm really familiar with from those rules is the horrors of water balloons filled with opium. But I think it's at least worth a look.

[Elricaltovilla]

I'm taking the opportunity to bring something to public attention. It was pointed out to me that I made an error, or rather failed to correct an existing error, with the witch doctor's magical assistance ability.

In the alpha stages of the Medic, they could use triage as an immediate action. I removed this for some fairly obvious (I think) balance reasons, but failed to catch that the witch doctor archetype retained that wording. In any case, the witch doctor's wording has been fixed so that Magical Assistance is strictly swift action only. My apologies for the mistake.

[Swaoeaeieu]

i may be reading it wrong, but the triage and medic's expertise text state that you can aply one expertise to your triage. The texts sometimes refer to the ''normal amount of expertises you can aply'' but i cant see anything mentioning increasing that number. Would it be easier to just state it as ''the one expertise you can aply''?

or am i not seeing something?

[Azoth]

i may be reading it wrong, but the triage and medic's expertise text state that you can aply one expertise to your triage. The texts sometimes refer to the ''normal amount of expertises you can aply'' but i cant see anything mentioning increasing that number. Would it be easier to just state it as ''the one expertise you can aply''?

or am i not seeing something?

At levels 5, 10, and 15 the medic can apply an additional expertise effect to his triage. So 2 at lvl5, 3 at lvl10, 4 at lvl15 A normal medic can at lvl20 apply all known expertise to a use of triage.

Those marked as "does not count against the normal amount of expertise you can apply" do not count against that increasing number of expertise a medic can apply to his use of triage.

[Swaoeaeieu]

At levels 5, 10, and 15 the medic can apply an additional expertise effect to his triage. So 2 at lvl5, 3 at lvl10, 4 at lvl15 A normal medic can at lvl20 apply all known expertise to a use of triage.

Those marked as "does not count against the normal amount of expertise you can apply" do not count against that increasing number of expertise a medic can apply to his use of triage.

oh right! stupid mee. improved triage! totally read over that.

[Elricaltovilla]

oh right! stupid mee. improved triage! totally read over that.

Yes, improved triage details how many expertise you can apply to your triage. Should I see if I can squeeze the numbers (2 expertise, 3 expertise, etc.) into the table? You're not the first person to ask that question.

[Swaoeaeieu]

Yes, improved triage details how many expertise you can apply to your triage. Should I see if I can squeeze the numbers (2 expertise, 3 expertise, etc.) into the table? You're not the first person to ask that question.

in the table, or in the triage main text, instead of the normal amount of expertises something like the amount of expertises according to your improved triage. just a reminder that the number increases.
you could say its just my fault for not reading the medic completely, but if others have the same issue a little bit extra reminder might be nice.

[Elricaltovilla]

I've updated the wording of the medic's resuscitation ability. The intent of the original ability was to provide a larger window in which the medic could revive dead allies so that the medic could focus on fighting off enemies and (hopefully) still revive the ally later after it was safe. Since the ability wasn't being used in such a way, I decided to make it more closely match the breath of life spell. The new wording reads:

Resuscitation (Ex): Starting at 9th level, the medic’s ability to treat severe wounds allows her to bring allies back from the very brink of death. The medic can use her triage ability to heal allies that have died within 1 round. If the healed creature's hit point total is at a negative amount less than its Constitution score, it comes back to life and stabilizes at its new hit point total. If the creature's hit point total is at a negative amount equal to or greater than its Constitution score, the creature remains dead. Creatures slain by death effects cannot be saved by resuscitation.

EDIT:
Added a new feat to the document as well:

Nemean Lion
Prerequisites: Martial Power, two Golden Lion maneuvers known, two Iron Tortoise maneuvers known
Benefit: Whenever you use the Martial Power feat while maintaining a Golden Lion or Iron Tortoise stance, you also gain damage reduction/– equal to your highest initiation modifier until the start of your next turn.

I'll be keeping an eye on this feat as it might be a little too tanky, but I'm looking forward to your feedback.

[Deadkitten]

I could see it working as DR equal to "highest maneuver level known" if you feel like it's too much of an issue.

[Doc_Maynot]

Oh, hey. New favorite class. No longer will I have to play Warder/Vitalists

[Elricaltovilla]

I could see it working as DR equal to "highest maneuver level known" if you feel like it's too much of an issue.

What I was thinking was to have the feat give you a choice between DR and temp HP. The DR is better if you're taking a lot of physical attacks, while the temp hp handles single attacks better and protects against energy damage as well. But I'm not sure that's needed yet, so I'm going to do some more testing.

Oh, hey. New favorite class. No longer will I have to play Warder/Vitalists

Glad you like it. Let me know if you have any specific feedback.

[Doc_Maynot]

Glad you like it. Let me know if you have any specific feedback.

I'll run it as a NPC encounter and see if anything comes up. But as I see it, it uses my usual disciplines, has health sense and otherwise seems that it'll work as an awesome martial support. Which I typically go vitalist/warder to do.

[Swaoeaeieu]

so funny thing happend today after i tried out my angel of mercy sanguinist medic for the first time today. i forgot to get enough maneuvers that give more then one attack. wich meant i didnt really get much chances to fill up my hp pool. and with all my partymembers losing a lot of health i kept running around healing people with maneuvers and giving temp hit points, but my triage didnt do much.

so for all you sanguinists out there, dont forget to be offensive, or else you wont do much healing.

[Doc_Maynot]

Oh, just now saw the April Release too. Now I have to make a (War Soul/Armored Blade) Soulknife/Daring Hero too. Gah, why must DSP give me so many cool things, it's not even my birthday.

[Elricaltovilla]

Oh, just now saw the April Release too. Now I have to make a (War Soul/Armored Blade) Soulknife/Daring Hero too. Gah, why must DSP give me so many cool things, it's not even my birthday.

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