DnD One Healer Feat Guide

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The Healer feat was one of my favorites in 5th Edition, and I feel like one of the more underrated feats. This is also an interesting one because this is a feat that was heavily overhauled from the 5th Ed version but it’s not an automatic boost or nerf. It lost some juice but gained some in other areas, making it a transformed feat that is definitely worth a look.

The DnD One Healer Feat allows a player to use a Healer’s Kit to heal injured or unconscious teammates by having them use their hit dice and to reroll any 1 on dice rolled from a healing spell and to use the new roll instead.

This gives the ability to make non-healers or spellcasters with limited healing ability much stronger as healers, especially at lower level. In some ways the mechanics of this are better in DnD One, but in other ways it’s a nerf.

So how does this stack up to the 5E healer feat and is it worth taking in the new system?

Let’s dive in and find out!

first aid healing kit
The healer feat opens up options for a team short on the traditional Cleric options.

Healer Feat DnD One Review

The best way to break down a feat is to check out the exact wording.

From Unearthed Arcana:

1st-Level Feat

Prerequisite: None

Repeatable: No

You have the training and intuition to administer first aid and other care effectively, granting you the following benefits:

Battle Medic. If you have a Healer’s Kit, you can expend one use of it and tend to a creature within 5 feet of you as an Action. That creature can expend one of its Hit Dice, and you then roll that die. The creature regains a number of Hit Points equal to the roll plus your Proficiency Bonus.

Healing Rerolls. Whenever you roll a die to determine the number of Hit Points you restore with a spell or with this feat’s Battle Medic benefit, you can reroll the die if it rolls a 1, and you must use the new roll.

Unearthed Arcana, Character Origins

Let’s dig deeper into DnD One’s updated Healer Feat and break down each benefit individually.

Benefit #1: Battle Medic – You may spend an action (and one healing kit use) to tend a creature within 5 feet so it can give you one of it’s hit dice that you then roll for healing, giving the creature that roll plus your proficiency bonus.

Solid benefit. The stronger the creature, the more healing potential here is. The added proficiency bonus means even during a “disastrous” heal the creature is getting at least 3 hit points even at low levels since 1+2=3, and don’t forget you get to re-roll that one to try to do better. At higher levels the growing proficiency bonus gives even more hit points.

What I like most about this is that the creature doesn’t have to be unconscious to receive healing. Whether they are standing and wounded or unconscious, the healing and treatment is the same which is a great way to simplify things and make the healer feat even more useful – especially at low to mid levels.

Benefit #2: Healing Rerolls – Whenever you roll a die for a healing spell OR from the Battle Medic benefit of the feat you may reroll the die if it’s a 1 and then you must use the new die roll (even if the reroll is also a 1).

Rerolling 1’s is always a nice boost. Being able to do that when using the healing kit is excellent and makes this feat more likely to pay off well every time you use it.

On top of that, the boosted healing magic is a bonus and classes that are going to be doing mass healing spells at higher levels will want to keep this feat in mind if they’re going to be rolling a lot of dice. Being able to up those ones to something higher is a big deal, especially when you’re at a point in the game where you need mass healing…especially in battle.

How Does Healer Feat Measure Up?

The Healer feat is an excellent choice as a 1st-Level feat. This scales thanks to proficiency bonus and the fact that magical healers now have much more of a reason to take a look at what this has to offer (hello, Life Clerics!) with those one rerolls.

This is obviously a niche feat, but it’s one that provides value both right away and even more as players scale up in level. Whether a healer gets more options, a usual non-healer now has the ability to give healing (hello mobile monks), or creating a secondary healer in case the main one goes down, this is a useful feat that allows versatile team compositions.

It’s a very good option for a Level-1 feat and is going to find itself in both conventional and creative original builds.

Healer Feat: DnD One Vs 5E

There’s a lot here to unpack. The main differences between the two versions of the Healer feat are:

  • Unconscious creatures go from getting 1 hit point to the normal healing a conscious creature treated with a healer kit gets (big boost from the DnD One version)
  • Healing in 5E was 1d6 + 4 + number equal to player’s hit dice and now is one hit die roll + proficiency bonus (generally 5E’s will produce better results, and was huge at high levels)

This is a case where at low and middle levels, the Healer Feat is much better with the DnD One version of the feat. At later levels, it’s a major nerf compared to what a 5E player with this feat could do.

Since this is a 1st-Level feat in the DnD One Dungeons & Dragons system, it makes a lot of sense. The main nerfing is what was possible at higher levels, but at lower levels this version will generally be stronger.

Related Article: 5E Healer Feat Guide

The other biggest difference was that in 5E players who were unconscious were separate from those who were conscious. Getting rid of this so an unconscious character could get more than 1 hit point back is a major benefit and can be outright crucial in a tight low-level battle.

Who Should Take the Healer Feat in DnD One?

Healer makes a lot of sense for Clerics. The ability to re-roll magic dice or give healing while the barbarian and fighter tank are major benefits. This gives another viable healing option and lets the party react to challenges with more versatile options because your healing ability isn’t capped at low-level spells.

Classes that aren’t mainly healers but have low level healing spells and often have to take over healing in a party without a Cleric (Druids, Rangers, Bards) should also consider this feat, especially if there’s not another first level one that really speaks to them and their build.

There’s also an argument for the wild card take, which I’m a fan of. A mobile monk who can run around, patch you up, and not get killed in the front line. A rogue who can’t manage a sneak attack but just keeps healing the barbarian as she tanks the frontline – there are many interesting ways to make this work.

DnD One Healer Feat Final Grade

The Healer Feat is a great feat. While I’m sad to see the upper level nerfing, this is more because I’m a fanboy of the original and the weird ways I made a healer monk work in 5E versus bad design. Having the best benefits of both the 5E and DnD One version of healer would make it a bit unbalanced.

The Healer Feat does what it says, provides more options for healers and medics in the party, and brings serious value to the otherwise uninspiring Healer’s Kit.

This is a very good 1st-Level feat and one that is going to find use from many new and experienced players alike.

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