New Rogue Archetype: Chirurgeon (D&D 5e)

The earliest studies of healing required the robbing of graves and little mortal knowledge has ever advanced without being wrenched bodily from a universe ill-desiring to yield it.

Sometimes a chirurgeon starts as a humble product of the streets who seeks the knowledge to heal and help those they care about in whatever way they can. More often, they begin as one of the learned who finds themselves skulking in the shadows performing whatever deeds are necessary to further their knowledge. Shunned in higher society of most "civilized" places where magical healing is available, chirurgeons are considered little better than ghouls. Seen as butchers and mocked as would be necromancers lacking the true power of magic, they still flourish wherever the poor and desperate exist. After all, when you need a healer and can't afford the "donations" asked by a temple, some questions aren't worth asking.

Chirurgeons will join adventuring parties for the same reason any other scholar might; in search of knowledge, glory, or for more personal motivations. Perhaps starting adventurers simply needed someone who could patch them together and found that their resources were sufficient to hire a chirurgeon out of their laboratory and into pursuit of greater fortune. Perhaps a soul who would otherwise have spent a life taking decided instead to try their hand at giving back. Regardless, even if their companions fall never to rise again, it simply means the chirurgeon will have new subjects with which to further their understanding of the myriad living forms.

Chirurgeon Summary

Rogue Level; Feature

3rd; Able Healer, Bonus Proficiencies, Chirurgeon's Kit, Chirurgery, Infusions

9^th; Anatomy and Physiology, Resuscitation

13^th; Chirurgic Restoration, Plague Doctor, Revivification

17^th; Parthenogenesis

Able Healer

Starting at 3rd level you have a broad knowledge of living forms. You know how injured those around you are, and have the ability to restore others health in several ways.

Further, any time you stabilize a dying creature you may spend one of your Hit Dice. The target gains a number of hit points equal to the roll.

Alternatively, as an action, you can tend a creature. Spend one of your Hit Die and restore a number of hit points to the roll of that die plus the subject's maximum number of Hit Die.

Finally, if you restore hit points to a creature using a healer's kit they gain an additional number of hit points equal to your herbalism bonus (see Bonus Proficiencies, below).

Bonus Proficiencies

When you choose this archetype at 3rd level you gain proficiency with the Medicine skill and with either herbalists’ or poisoners’ kits. You may replace your proficiency with thieves' tools with proficiency with an herbalists’ kit or poisoners' kit if you choose. You may replace one or both of your previously selected Expertise skills with these new skills or tools.

You gain special bonuses for the type of tools you have, are proficient with, and have Expertise with.

·        You have a medic bonus equal to your Wisdom modifier. Further enhancements come from the Medicine skill.

·        If you possess an herbalists’ kit you gain an herbalism bonus equal to your Wisdom modifier.

·        If you possess a poisoners' kit you also have a poisons bonus equal to your Intelligence modifier.

If you are proficient with a kit your proficiency bonus is added to the appropriate bonus. If you have applied expertise to that proficiency, twice your proficiency bonus is added instead. If the 11^th level Rogue ability Reliable Talent would apply to your use of the kit you add an additional +6.

Chirurgeon's Kit

At 3^rd level you gain a chirurgeon's kit. This is treated as a healer's kit for all purposes, except that at the end of a short or long rest you can add a use to your chirurgeon's kit as long as it remains in your possession. Your chirurgeon's kit cannot have more than 10 uses at a time. If you lose your chirurgeon's kit you cannot create infusions or use any other ability which requires your chirurgeon's kit. Replacing this kit costs 50 gp.

Basic Infusions

Starting at 3^rd level you gain the ability to make infusions. At the end of a long rest you can create an infusion instead of recharging your chirurgeon's kit if you have the proper equipment. All infusions require your chirurgeon's kit.
If you have an herbalist's kit, and proficiency with that kit, you can create healing infusions. Any subject which drinks a healing infusion regains 2d4 plus your herbalism bonus hit points.

With a poisoner's kit, and proficiency with that kit, you can create a single dose of poison. Those exposed to it suffer the poisoned status effect and are unable to regain hit points if they fail a Constitution save. These effects persists for one hour. The DC is based on the delivery mechanism of the poison; Inhaled (DC 8), Contact (DC 10), Injury (DC 13), Ingested (DC 17). Your poisons bonus is added to each DC.

Regardless of the type of infusion, if not used it loses its effectiveness after 24 hours. You can create two infusions at 9th, 3 at 13th, and 4 at 17th level in the rogue class.

Chirurgery

Starting at 3rd level, as long as you have your chirurgeon's kit you can tend one subject during a short or long rest. If you do so, at the end of the rest you can remove one condition effecting that target. This condition can be blinded, deafened, paralyzed, or poisoned.

If the subject has none of these effects at the start of the rest you can provide them a boon. You can either choose to provide them an enhancement, as the Enhance Ability spell, or give them a measure of added vitality. This added vitality grants temporary hit points equal to one of your Hit Die plus your medic bonus. Either type of boon expires at the end of their next long rest.

Anatomy and Physiology

At 9th level you have developed a profound understanding of the body and the physical systems needed to keep an organism alive. This allows you to better care for yourself and provide greater healing to others. Turned against an enemy this knowledge can be devastating. All of your Hit Dice provided by the Rogue class become d10s and your Sneak Attack die become d8s.

Resuscitation

You know how fragile the spark of life in a living creature is, and by 9^th level you can not-so-gently fan it back to life. If you can reach a creature within a minute of its death you can, as an action, use your chirurgeon's kit to restore it to life with 1 hit point. The subject gains a level of exhaustion for their ordeal and suffers a -4 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks. Every time the subject finishes a long rest the penalty is reduced by 1 until it disappears. This ability does not cure disease, poison, curses, or restore missing body parts. It also cannot return to life a creature that has died of old age, one which has been animated as undead, nor, obviously, one that died of exhaustion.

Plague Doctor

At 13th level you are deeply familiar with plagues and toxins. This grants you advantage on saves against to disease and poison, and resistance against poison damage. Once you reach 17^th level you are immune to disease, poison, and poison damage.

Moreover, your studies allow you the skill to grow and use disease to bring low your enemies. You prepare these diseases in place of one or more of the infusions from the Chirurgeon's Kit ability. Doing so requires a poisoner's kit and proficiency with that tool. The base DC for the disease is determined by the type of exposure required; Inhaled (DC 8), Contact (DC 10), Injury (DC 13), Ingested (DC 17). Your poisons bonus is added to each DC. Each infusion produced with this ability may cause any one of the diseases listed under the Contagion spell.
Once a subject is exposed to the disease, they begin making a Constitution save once per round at the end of their turn. If the target succeeds on three saving throws they throw off the disease. If they first fail three of these saving throws, the disease's effects take hold and the creature stops making these saves. The disease will last for 7 days, inflicting the effects appropriate to the selected disease, unless otherwise cured. This is a natural disease, and any effect that removes a disease or otherwise ameliorates a disease's effects apply to it.

Revivification

Your ability to restore those who have perished develops further at 13th level. With a minute's work, the expenditure of a use from your chirurgeon's kit, and the use of a Hit Die you can return creature to life so long as it has not been animated as undead nor dead for more than 10 minutes when the process starts. This ability neutralizes any poisons and cures nonmagical diseases that affected the creature at the time it died. It does not, however, remove magical diseases, curses, or similar effects. If these aren't removed prior to their revivification they take effect when the creature returns to life. During the process all mortal wounds are closed and body parts which are severed but not missing are restored. This ability does not restore missing body parts so, if the creature is lacking body parts or organs integral for its survival - its head, for instance - the attempt automatically fails. This type of restoration is an ordeal. The target gains a level of exhaustion and suffers a -4 penalty to all attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks. Every time the subject finishes a long rest the penalty is reduced by 1 until it disappears.

If this ability is used on a subject that has been dead for more than 10 minutes but less than 10 days it imbues the target with a foul mimicry of life raising it as an undead creature. The subject becomes a zombie, gaining +1 Strength, +2 Constitution, but suffering -6 Intelligence, -4 Wisdom, and -4 Charisma. They gain Undead Fortitude, making them immune to poison damage and unable to be poisoned; darkvision out to 60'; and are no longer able to speak, though they still understands the languages they did in life. This zombie is not under your control.

Chirurgic Restoration

At 13th level your ability to patch your companions together without magic is truly a wonder. With a minute’s work you can expend a use from your chirurgeon's kit and a Hit Die to restore hit points to a target. They regain hit points equal to your medic bonus for each Rogue level you have. Further, if they have severed body members (fingers, legs, tails, etc), you have the missing part, and it has not been severed for more than a day those parts are restored. Restoring entirely lost body parts can be done as a downtime action requiring 3 days.

Parthenogenesis

With proficiency and access to both poisoners' and herbalists' kits, as well as the character's chirurgeons' kit, at 17^th level a chirurgeon has all the tools necessary to unlock the secrets of reproducing life itself. Acting on this requires a vessel worth at least 2,000 gp that has a sealable lid and is large enough to hold a Medium creature and several dozen gallons of extra reagents and liquids.

Using reagents costing at least 1,000 gp and at least 1 cubic inch of flesh from the subject you can grow an inert duplicate of a creature as a safeguard against their death. Beginning the process requires 1 hour of work, but the clone forms and grows to full size and maturity over 120 days. You can also choose to have the clone be a younger version of the same creature, but this does not reduce the time required. Once complete it remains inert and endures indefinitely as long as the vessel remains undisturbed.

At any time after the clone matures, if the original creature dies or is already dead its soul transfers to the clone, provided that the soul is free and willing to return. The clone is physically identical to the original and has the same personality, memories, and abilities, but none of the original’s equipment. The original creature’s physical remains, if they still exist, become inert and cannot thereafter be restored to life, since the creature’s soul is elsewhere.

If the vessel is prematurely disturbed the clone is destroyed.

~~*~~

So... remember I said that I thought you could do a Rogue-based non-magical healer? There you go. It may be a little dark here and there... but that's the historical accuracy seeping through, right? It's definitely got a steampunk-necromancer a la "Frankenstein" vibe going. Mua, ha ha ha...

There's a lot here. Making a healer that's interesting to play requires a number of moving parts. There have to be active things to do, which is what makes them fun. Meanwhile, balance requires limits on both those active things and the healing so they're not doing everything... All of this is probably a large part of why so much healing comes from magic; because it's easy. There's a level of balancing and hand waving that's baked into spells because they have a clear scaling mechanism in levels and, aside from cantrips, they've got limited uses per day.

In fact, I've stolen several of the abilities straight from spells. The fact that it doesn't come with the native balancing that drop and play spells get required some tweaking. Most of that was covered nicely by the limitations being "non-magical" suggested. However, universally it required individual abilities be multi-paragraph explorations rather than the single paragraph that most of the Rogue class's ability entries are.

The result feels a little bit like a Christmas tree, hung with everything I could think of, to the point there are clearly three sub-branches even within what is already an archetype. However, as part of that theft of spells, I did some work with just using a spellcasting boilerplate and spell selection. This quickly showed me that replacing the abilities I transmuted them from simply hides how much spellcasting classes all look the same way, but offload and hide it in spell text.

One thing that did make me pause was that when I transmuted Revivify and Resurrection. They specifically lost their expensive material components. This version has nastier side effects to limit their short-term reusability. Resurrection even got slashed from a "back to town" thing to an "after the fight" thing, while Revivify may still be in the midst of combat. I suspect the material cost of the spells is designed to be a "death penalty" or gold sink, so I'm not sure I want to really either apply too heavily to balance. Especially since if this class is used as a primary healer it's still going to be fairly weak compared to a cleric or even paladin. This is doubly true as the vast majority of the chirurgeon's actual healing comes from its 3rd-level abilities and are tied to healers' kits, Hit Dice, and a limited number of infusions. Higher level abilities are mostly focused on restoring life and curing conditions.

One of the first things I did was wrestle with the Healer feat. The second version of the Able Healer ability simply granted that feat. (The first had accidentally done all the same things...) I've tried to make the feat interesting enough for a player to have a desire to integrate it into the character without being an absolute requirement.

Meanwhile, the idea for the chirurgeon's kit came relatively late in the design. Everything up to that point simply referred to healer's kits. However, that was either obviously abusable by just rotating healer's kits around to get the free refills and never spend money or a huge gold sink which just made the archetype even less appealing than a Cleric. The idea of a specific doctor's bag type kit just struck me and I suddenly saw it as a separate type of kit that could simply be used as a healer's kit. Either late brilliance or long term idiocy on my part.

Edit;
So, I've started putting some of my posts up on the DM's Guild, If you want to see cleaned up versions that get updates, throw a few pennies in the hat and take home a PDF.