Hermit Discovery/Feat/Life Cleric Alternate Feature (P.E.A.C.H.) = I want critique

[DracoDei]

Wiki-like cross-indexing: A spell I posted a while back that I designed specifically for its synergy with this ability. More specifically, it gets cast on the person using this ability to make up for them missing a short rest.

Because Florence Nightingale was famous for a good reason...

To head off a knee-jerk comment (carefully considered comments along these lines still welcome!):
I know that 5e isn't big on pre-requisites for things, but here I feel it is especially thematic and suspension-of-disbelief-preserving.

Due to the feedback that people gave below this should probably not be a Hermit Discovery. There were also fluff objections to the Life Cleric alternate feature thing, but YMMV.

FEAT:
Hands of the Healer:
Pre-requisite: Proficiency in Medicine.

You may give up all benefits of a given short or long rest to intensively tend to the wounds of up to 6 other creatures. You CAN'T tend to yourself in this way.
With a Short Rest: They roll twice the dice and add constitution modifier as normal (for each die actually rolled) for each die per hd spent (they can spend half a hitdie to roll a single die with constitution modifier).

(Alternate version if this is too strong as post #6 of this thread posits: Add your wisdom modifier to each odd number hit-die a character rolls during a given rest. Thus the 1st, 3rd, 5th, etc. dice rolled increase this bonus while the 2nd, 4th, 6th etc do not.)

With a Long Rest: The targets recover all hitdice rather than half their maximum.

Spoiler: Older Ideas (Does anyone think I should revisit consideration of these?)

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Your Wisdom score increases by 1.

Total bonus to Medicine checks as the pre-requisite rather than Proficiency.

Number of patients being equal to Wisdom Modifier (Minimum 1).

Instead of being a feat, it could be a Hermit Discovery, and/or For Life Clerics, they could replace their 1st level feature "Disciple of Life"... or perhaps move "Disciple of Life" to 6th level where it would replace "Blessed Healer". Would this be a significant downgrade?

Spoiler: Those two domain abilities reproduced for your convenience.

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Disciple of Life
Also starting at 1st level, your healing spells are more effective. Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell's level.

Blessed Healer
Beginning at 6th level, the healing spells you cast on others heal you as well. When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher that restores hit points to a creature other than you, you regain hit points equal to 2 + the spell's level.

Now, this might not fit for an actual "Hermit", but it certainly could for one re-flavored as the village healer.

So, how well would this fit into each of the three roles I described (Feat, Discovery, and Life Cleric alternate feature)?

[Composer99]

[...]

Hands of the Healer:
Pre-requisite: +2 or higher modifier to Wisdom(Medicine) checks.
You may give up benefits of a short rest or long rest to intensively tend to the wounds of a number of others up to your charisma modifier (minimum 1).
With a Short Rest: Roll twice the dice and add constitution modifier as normal for each die per hd spent (they can spend half a hitdie to roll a single die with constutition modifier).
With a Long Rest: The targets recover all hitdice rather than half their maximum.

Both benefits can effect a number of creatures equal to your Wisdom Modifier allies (minimum 1).
((Question to readers: Should this be flat 6 to put it on parity with "Mass" spells?))

[...]

So, how well would this fit into each of the three roles I described (Feat, Discovery, and Life Cleric alternate feature)?

Prerequisites
So, I assume the prerequisite would apply only if this is a feat? Prerequisites for background or class features seem odd. And in any event clerics are going to have a high Wisdom, although hermits might not.

As far as the prerequisite goes, I think proficiency in the Medicine skill makes more sense than a specific net modifier: the ability seems to flow naturally from an especial amount of training in Medicine specifically - or at least, that's how it seems to me.

Short Rest Benefit
A "spend half a Hit Die" effect just rubs me the wrong way. I think it would just be better to leave that out and stick with getting to roll two Hit Dice for each Hit Die expended.

Long Rest Benefit
This seems fine.

Number of Targets
It appears that early on you can affect a number of creatures, up to a number equal to your Charisma modifier, and then at the end of the feature you can affect a number of creatures, up to a number equal to your Wisdom modifier? (For what it's worth, I agree with using Wisdom for this purpose.)

Balance with Mass Healing Spells
I don't believe you need to have a cap of 6 creatures to match the mass healing spells, as such, but it's not a problem, to my mind, if you do adopt such a cap.

Fitting Into Features
So we're looking at fitting this into one of three possible features:
(1) A replacement for Life Cleric features
(2) A replacement for the Hermit feature
(3) A new feat

Out of these three, I think the feat is the best option. Especially in conjunction with a prerequisite of proficiency in Medicine, it has the feel of "this is something anyone with sufficient training could potentially do, but needs that extra bit of talent/experience/practice to really get the hang of", as represented by the expenditure of a build resource.

This strikes me as being too powerful as a replacement for a background feature, and Cleric domain features ought to feel, in part, as gifts bestowed upon the cleric by virtue of the power of their deity. This doesn't quite have that feel, at least not to me, where "your healing magic that you get because deity is even better because deity" does. For clerics of non-deific entities, if they exist in a setting, the same principle applies, while for clerics of more nebulous concepts or impersonal forces, it isn't quite as important a consideration, but I daresay "your healing magic that you get because power of your devotion is even better because of what it is you are devoted to" is still more apt.

[JNAProductions]

Echoing the suggestion to have this just be a feat.

It most definitely should NOT be a Hermit Discovery.

[DracoDei]

Short version:
Feat it is, with Medicine as the pre-requisite.
I presume I should keep the +1 Wisdom?

Prerequisites
So, I assume the prerequisite would apply only if this is a feat? Prerequisites for background or class features seem odd. And in any event clerics are going to have a high Wisdom, although hermits might not.

If you think I would avoid a mechanic just because it was odd, you must not know me very well.

As far as the prerequisite goes, I think proficiency in the Medicine skill makes more sense than a specific net modifier: the ability seems to flow naturally from an especial amount of training in Medicine specifically - or at least, that's how it seems to me.

Okay, I'll change that. I may or may not put in a note about the other possibilities since "Many advisors maketh for victory."

Short Rest Benefit
A "spend half a Hit Die" effect just rubs me the wrong way. I think it would just be better to leave that out and stick with getting to roll two Hit Dice for each Hit Die expended.

Yeah, I've shown this on Discord and one of the people said the same thing.

I understand the desire to keep things simple and not have the players feel like something is "going to waste" if they don't use the feat another time if there is a half-die left over. The countering issue is that at low levels when the number of hit-dice that can be rolled in a given day is fewer, being able to split it into more portions could be necessary to make the feat worth taking. Or at least that is what I think? Do people agree?

Long Rest Benefit
This seems fine.

Good to know.
For a cleric it would require a rest-period of longer than 16, but less than ~32-48 hours for this option to be workable while still regaining any spells they cast. Seems pretty niche to me actually. Of course, me being me, I'm not going to remove it just because it will rarely come up. It is flavorful if nothing else.

Number of Targets
It appears that early on you can affect a number of creatures, up to a number equal to your Charisma modifier, and then at the end of the feature you can affect a number of creatures, up to a number equal to your Wisdom modifier? (For what it's worth, I agree with using Wisdom for this purpose.)

Was supposed to be Wisdom for this all along, just missed one of the two places the change was needed. I've now removed the redundancy and made sure it was correct.

The fact a change was needed in the first place was because I was copy-pasting and (insufficiently) editing from a rough draft of the 5e version of my Grace-Gift class (might be a while, if ever, before that is posted). Grace-Gift is a charisma-based class.

Balance with Mass Healing Spells
I don't believe you need to have a cap of 6 creatures to match the mass healing spells, as such, but it's not a problem, to my mind, if you do adopt such a cap.

Well it does power it up, but depending on the GM using this feat may be a risky choice (especially if the spell I linked is NOT allowed). Theoretically a GM can even adjust the availability of two hour break times to balance this.

Fitting Into Features
So we're looking at fitting this into one of three possible features:
(1) A replacement for Life Cleric features
(2) A replacement for the Hermit feature
(3) A new feat

Well, I WAS open to "some combination of all three".

Out of these three, I think the feat is the best option. Especially in conjunction with a prerequisite of proficiency in Medicine, it has the feel of "this is something anyone with sufficient training could potentially do, but needs that extra bit of talent/experience/practice to really get the hang of", as represented by the expenditure of a build resource.

This strikes me as being too powerful as a replacement for a background feature, and Cleric domain features ought to feel, in part, as gifts bestowed upon the cleric by virtue of the power of their deity. This doesn't quite have that feel, at least not to me, where "your healing magic that you get because deity is even better because deity" does. For clerics of non-deific entities, if they exist in a setting, the same principle applies, while for clerics of more nebulous concepts or impersonal forces, it isn't quite as important a consideration, but I daresay "your healing magic that you get because power of your devotion is even better because of what it is you are devoted to" is still more apt.

Hmmm...
Very well then!

Echoing the suggestion to have this just be a feat.

It most definitely should NOT be a Hermit Discovery.

Okay!

However, just out of curiousity, is that a power-level issue, a thematic one, or both?

[JNAProductions]

Both.

Or, rather, one of each.

For the Hermit Discovery, it's far too powerful.
For the Life Cleric feature, it'd probably be fine to replace an existing feature, though not as an addition. But it just feels kinda wonky.

[Amechra]

OK, let's see...

I'd personally change the prerequisite to just being proficiency in Wisdom(Medicine), leave the cap at six creatures, and drop the bonus to Wisdom - note that both Healer and Inspiring Leader aren't half-feats, and they're much weaker when it comes to throwing around healing.

The "skip a short rest to boost the value of everyone else's hit-dice" is both really cool and really open to abuse. There are a few classes (Cleric, Rogue, and Sorcerer come to mind) who don't recover anything other than hit-points on a short rest, and they also happen to be classes that don't have to get into melee to do their thing. As a result, they'd be able to use this ability at pretty much every short rest. It's also way better than the Bard's Song of Rest, which is the closest comparable ability. On the other hand, the long-rest ability is probably never going to be used, especially since the short-rest ability makes spending hit-dice so efficient, and because it'd be competing with things like "recovering spells".