Fighter - Hospitaller (Patreon)

Frontline Medic, by Willian Murai © Wizards of the Coast LLC

The Hospitaller Fighter is a combat medic, able to stand strong on the frontline and make sure their allies do the same.

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The Hospitaller strikes a balance between offense and healing, and fuels its aggression by caring for its allies. Battlefield Medic makes sure you have Medicine proficiency, and gives you the (very important) ability to use a Healer's Kit with your bonus action. Healer's Oath is your core feature, giving you situational bonuses based on your allies' health. While the party's in good shape, you get more speed and AC, to help you rush into combat. Once an ally gets bloodied, your attacks gain bonus damage. When you stabilize or revive a downed ally, your next attack gets super-advantage. And you can manage all of these states by using your Second Wind to heal others. At 7th level, Hospitaller's Hands makes you a more adept healer and allows you to choose one of three paths. Magical healing gives you the cure wounds spell, which you can cast as a bonus action. Surgical healing enhances your skill with a healer's kit. Medicinal healing causes your healer's kits to grant added bonuses in the form of temporary hit points and speed. Medical Specialization at 10th follows up on those paths with offensive boosts. Magical hospitallers get to deal bonus damage after they heal allies. Surgical hospitallers get boosted damage with daggers. And medicinal hospitallers can coat their weapons with poison. At 15th, you make a Vow of Protection, enhancing the benefits of your original Healer's Oath. And at 18th you become a Heralded Healer, increasing all your healing skills and granting you temporary hit points when you use them.

The Hospitaller is a little more complicated than I usually aim for, because it wants to represent those three separate styles of healing. (It makes sense for a fantasy hospitaller to learn some healing magic, but I really wanted to make sure non-magical hospitallers still work). It's also a little high on the damage side, but it compensates for this by doing a fairly bad job of using the major combat feats; lots of bonus action cramp makes it tricky to optimize around them.

As always, you're invited to come discuss and offer feedback on Discord!