I’ve been developing quite a bit of healing-focused content lately, and the vitalist is the latest product of that. One thing that psionics simply does not do well is healing. The system has some decent self healing, although that’s not really great. When it comes to healing others, the options are even more limited.
This class is loosely based on ideas garnered several different sources—both 1st and 3rd party—and works to improve psionic healing without making it the de facto best option. While most specialist classes eschew requirements to cast spells or manifest powers or other such systems, trying to be as broadly applicable as possible, this one requires the ability to manifest psionic powers.
Designing the Vitalist
As mentioned above, the vitalist requires the ability to manifest 1st-level psionic powers. This makes is fairly limited in scope compared to other specialist classes and drastically reduces the number of options for entry. It also requires 6 ranks in Heal, which isn’t the most common skill for psionic classes. As such, it’s only realistically available for a narrow group of psionic classes. This is somewhat intentional, as those are really the only classes that would be interested in taking levels in vitalist anyway, but it also just illustrates how limited the idea of psionic healing really is.
The goal of this class was to make psionic healing a viable option, but to do that, it has to cater to classes that would even be capable of using its abilities.
Healing Touch
This is the most important class feature to the class. It’s granted at level 1, even though I prefer to delay such signature abilities to level 2. However, it’s just too necessary to the concept to be delayed. Healing Touch allows a select list of personal powers to be used as touch powers, allowing a psionic character to heal others.
As a secondary effect, it adds a few non-personal powers to your class list but not to your powers known.
While not particularly flashy, this is the ability that enables the vitalist to even exist. Without it, a psionic character simply cannot use healing powers on others.
Empathic Healing
This is a somewhat unique ability inspired by the concept of being an organ donor as well as the idea of transferring vitality between characters. Delaying and “storing” the effects of the empathic transfer power is how the mechanics of this idea originated, and it eventually morphed into something which functions more like a paladin’s lay on hands ability.
Basically, you get a fairly small pool of daily healing points that can be used to heal yourself or allies just like a paladin’s lay on hands. As an added benefit, if you manifest empathic transfer, you can add points from this onto that power as a free action, allowing for more healing when necessary.
The second major aspect of this ability is that, when you pool of healing is less than full, you can drain hit points from a touched target to restore your pool of healing. So, if you normally have 9 points of healing per day, you can heal one target for 9, then damage another for 9, to against have 9 points of healing. It’s effectively unlimited healing per day, so long as you have a donor. As an added benefit, if you manifest hostile empathic transfer, you can use a free action to refill a depleted pool.
Finally, you can choose to just outright harm yourself as a free action to refill your pool of healing, letting you sacrifice your own hit points to heal others.
Psionics isn’t great at creating health or healing like a cleric’s cure spell could, but it’s got several options for just moving health around. Vitalist takes that concept and runs with it.
Aura Healing
The final ability of the vitalist is the same as Healing Touch, except that now you can use a limited set of healing powers at close range rather than by touch. Pretty straightforward.