Chaplain
Edwin cursed as he lost another soldier to blood loss. He looked up and saw the battle turning in the enemies’ favor. Taking up the banner of the fallen soldier, he let out a rallying cry, charging at the enemy line, inspiring his allies with a renewed sense of vigor, and more importantly…hope.
Edwin, Chaplain Fighter
In the eyes of your companions, you are as much a counsellor and spiritual leader as you are a fellow warrior. Militaries and mercenary companies often contain members of various clergies among their ranks. These chaplains often come from religious sects whose tenets promote war, healing, peace, protection, or freedom, and they tend to the emotional and physical well-being of their companions.
Building an Chaplain Fighter
Fighters who dedicate themselves to becoming chaplains are able to heal their allies and act as bulwarks of the battlefield, rallying others to them and inspiring them to overcome the many dangerous conditions often encountered in the heat of battle.
Student of Faith offers you proficiency in either Insight of Religion, a reflection of your spiritual training.
Tend the Injured grants you the ability to heal others using your own Hit Dice during a short rest.
Rally the Troops empowers you to temporarily inspire your allies to ignore the effects of being charmed or frightened. As you gain additional levels in this subclass, you are able to overcome additional conditions, such as incapacitated, stunned, paralyzed, and even remove levels of exhaustion.
Field Medic allows you to heal others using your Hit Dice, without taking a short rest, as well as increases how often you regain Hit Dice.
Rally Point provides you the option to use a reaction to move an ally toward you after it takes damage.
Hospitaler greatly increases the rate at which you recover Hit Dice, from both short and long rests.
With these abilities, Chaplains are able to act in a powerful support role both in and out of combat. The ability to heal allies during short rests can be particularly invaluable if your adventuring party is short on otherwise magical or divine forms of healing typically offered by clerics or paladins. The Rally the Troops ability can sway the flow of a battle against enemies that use abilities that charm or frighten, such as the fey, undead, or certain spellcasters. When combined with Field Medic and Rally Point, the Chaplain can not only hold their own in battle, with access to the full array of armor and weapons available to all fighters, but can also keep their allies healed and out of harm’s way.
As with all classes, any race is suitable for playing a Chaplain, especially if your gamemaster allows you to use the optional rules variant to set customize racial ability modifiers. If you want to play a more defensive-oriented fighter, consider playing a Fireforge Dwarf, who have resistance to both poison damage and fire damage. If you want to play a more offensive-oriented fighter, consider the Minotaur (either variant), whose charge ability will allow you to deal additional damage as you lead your allies into battle.
Roleplaying Tips
When playing a Chaplain fighter, you should consider how exactly your healing abilities manifest. Are they purely mundane in nature, offered in the form of salves, bandages, and splints? Or is there perhaps a subtle divine source flowing through hands as you heal others? While you may not have the raw divine power of a paladin or cleric, there is nothing wrong with flavoring your healing as being somewhat divine in nature, but consider running this idea past your gamemaster. When it comes to roleplaying, it might help to decide how much your personality or interactions with others are influenced by your divine beliefs. Are you someone who is constantly proselytizing to everyone you meet, or is your relationship with your god more private in nature? Additionally, while the name of this subclass on your character sheet will be Chaplain, you may decide that another title is more appropriate for your background or campaign setting, such as pastor, clergyman, minister, or others, which you can use to introduce your character in-game to others. When crafting your backstory, ask yourself how you chose to follow the path of a spiritual leader. Was there a traumatic event from your past that caused you to seek out divine guidance? Were you raised in a religious sect or order? Did you receive a divine vision in the midst of a terrible battle that caused you to change your ways When choosing a background, Acolyte and Healer are both safe options with fairly obvious ties to the subclass. But as a fighter, you could also lean more in a martial direction with such backgrounds as Elite, Infantry, or Mercenary Recruit. Whatever path you choose to follow, be sure to ask yourself why it is you’ve sought out the company of an adventuring party, and use that to guide your roleplaying in the future.
How to Access this Content
This subclass was created by our partners at Kobold Press, and it is one of the many available to subscribers, along with others like the Soulspy or the College of Entropy, as well as races such as the Shade or Spindrift Dwarf. Build your own Chaplain fighter and tell us about it in the comments below or on any of our social channels. Join us on Discord, Reddit or Facebook to meet other members of the community and take your game to the next level, or follow us on Twitter @shardtabletop for regular updates.
