Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Real Healbot

When Eberron: Rising from the Last War dropped for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons we wondered if there could be two more perfect elements to create an honest to goodness healbot character within its pages. We’d be proud to join your adventuring party and follow them around making sure their hit points are the top priority with the character build guide for 5E D&D laid out by Nerdarchists Dave and Ted over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel. Let’s get into it.

Behind the CBG — Real Healbot

Every CBG we create considers the journey as much as the final outcome. We aim to present a guide suitable for any level of 5E D&D play whether you’re pursuing an epic campaign from start to finish, starting beyond 1st level or choosing a character for a one shot. Then we take those concepts and develop an NPC or creature version of the character build for DMs to incorporate into their games. All of this gets packaged up and laid out in a PDF you can find over at Dungeon Master’s Guild. We’ve got dozens of pay what you want products at DMG, many of them best sellers so if you want to check those out start with the Real Healbot here.

All about the character story

Each CBG starts with a character concept sticking to a particular schtick, from the Mind Breaker’s psyche crushing smites to the Real Healbot’s taking ownership of the usually self-deprecating slang term used by healing specialists to imply the only thing they do in a party is heal over and over again. Sometimes puns and pop culture references instigate the creation of a CBG too.

For us it’s important to consider who these characters are as individuals and why they follow these particular paths. One special thing to note with this CBG is while we always aim to make the journey to 20th level as practical as possible — none of these characters “come online” after an awkward slog through many levels — the Real Healbot hits the road to adventure loaded up with more than sufficient means to heal the heck out of their companions by 6th level. After this point the player of such a character can play their own sort of minigame and heal people in different ways just to see their expressions change.

Healbot NPC for 5E D&D

Full disclosure — the NPCs and creatures we make in CBGs are some of my favorite bits of 5E D&D content to create. We step back and look at the character build to find the standout features that feel like signature abilities. The juice! From there we consider what sort of person or people would possess or gain these abilities and build a stat block around them. More often than not the section of a CBG For Dungeon Masters presents a generic creature.

The Healbot NPC takes the trope far beyond what the character build guide envisions and imagines this creature as a bonafide robot designed only for medical procedures. The Healbot can monitor several creatures at once, making a prognosis for each one and deploying a Treatment Plan tailored to their needs. They can also make quick assessments of whatever menacing forces stand in their way. But the Healbot’s superior knowledge of healing can be used to cause severe harm to those under their care too! When it comes to enemies their bedside manner gets put on hold.

Got Your Back. When adventurers prepare to delve into dungeons deep, and they’re short on restorative resources, a healbot makes the perfect solution. For a nominal fee one of these mercenaries trained to monitor health and well being accompanies adventurers into what will almost certainly be danger. Powerful or wealthy patrons may insist on sending a healbot with adventurers for added insurance. A typical contract also precludes a healbot from stealing the party’s thunder by defeating monsters, especially significant ones. In rare circumstances healbots might be encountered on their own in the wild, returning after completion of another contract.

“Triage (Recharge 6). As an action the healbot chooses a Treatment Plan that affects all monitored creatures.“

If your next 5E D&D game needs a character who heals and cures like no other — whether you’re the DM or a player — check out the Real Healbot Character Build Guide here.

*Featured image — The investigations of a warforged wizard, Talenta halfling and their dinosaur companion lead from the ruins of the Last War into the depths of the Demon Wastes on the cover of Eberron: Rising from the Last War for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. [Art by Wesley Burt]

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