Healer 5e (Updated for the 2024 Rules)

Mike Bernier

Last updated: March 24th, 2025

When wounds are deep and potions are scarce, the Healer feat can be the difference between life and death.

A healer rushes into battle with several healing kits

Willian Murai - Wizards of the Coast - Frontline Medic

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What Is the Healer Feat in 5e?

While magical healing is prevalent in D&D, the Healer feat allows characters to restore Hit Points using Healer’s Kits. This feat returns from the previous iteration of the Player’s Handbook, though it has been made one of the Origin feats you can pick up with your background.

It’s also been adjusted so it’s more versatile outside of stabilizing downed allies or even using Healer’s Kits, which we’ll dig into more below!

How Does Healer Work?

The Healer feat provides two main 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 as a Utilize action. This allows the target to expend one of their Hit Point Dice, which you then roll. The target regains Hit Points equal to the roll + your Proficiency Bonus. While having extra healing resources is great, usually, action-based healing isn’t particularly effective in D&D 5e because of how action economy and monsters work in combat. Plus, this now isn’t as effective out of combat because the creature you’re healing has to expend a Hit Dice. Still, it’s effective at lower levels when you’re more likely to run low on spell slots, and you get it for free at level 1, so it’s not a bad shout.

Healing Rerolls: Whenever you roll a die to determine the number of Hit Points restored from a spell or aforementioned Battle Medic feature, you can reroll a 1 and must use the new roll. While this isn’t going to drastically increase your healing output, rolling a 1 on a heal feels bad. This is a nice little boost that’s consistently beneficial no matter how high your level is. Usually, dice from healing effects range from d4 to d8, and increasing the spell slot expended increases the number of dice, which means you could potentially reroll more than 1 dice per heal.

What is a Healer’s Kit?

A Healer’s kit is a basic item that can be used to stabilize a creature with 0 Hit Points without needing to make a Wisdom (Medicine) check. It costs 5 GP and has ten uses, making it a good option to carry around in your pack, even for adventurers who don’t have the Healer feat.

How to Get the Healer Feat

You can pick up the Healer feat when you choose the Hermit background at character creation or any other time you’re allowed to choose a feat (like at character level 4).

Is Healer Good?

We gave Healer a C Tier rating In our 5e Feats Tier List, making it a below-average feat in D&D 5e.

The Healer feat has got some decent buffs in the 2024 Player’s Handbook. Now, when you heal using the Healer’s Kit, the target gets to use their Hit Dice, making it more effective for classes with higher Hit Dice. That said, you can’t use this on creatures that have spent all their Hit Dice.

You can also reroll and 1s on healing dice, which can provide a minor boost to your healing efforts. Seeing as healing spells in the 2024 Player’s Handbook have had their healing dice doubled, this keeps the feat in line with the increased power level. Still, healing-dedicated builds aren’t necessarily needed in D&D, so usually something like Healing Word to revive downed enemies from a distance as a Bonus Action is all you’ll need. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work when you chug a Potion of Healing.

Tankier characters who prefer to be in the frontlines, like Barbarians, Fighters, and Rangers, might also enjoy being able to heal as an action without needing a caster. These brawny types usually have a d10 or higher Hit Dice as well, meaning they can potentially heal for a lot more when they use it on themselves.

Rogues do surprisingly well with this feat because of Cunning Action, so they can Disengage with their Bonus Action, move out of reach of an enemy, and heal all in the same turn. This is especially true for Thiefs, who can use the Utilize action as a Bonus Action, allowing them to heal and attack in the same turn.

Clerics or Druids who cast a lot of healing spells will also see a decent boost to their healing capabilities, thanks to being able to reroll 1s on healing dice.

Healer 5e Interactions

Why is the Healer Feat Suboptimal?

The way that D&D 5e is designed makes healing in the middle of combat subpar unless you spend resources on the more powerful spells, like the level 7 Heal spell. Most of the time, using your action to output damage is going to result in a more successful combat. This is because the lower-level healing spells heal for the same or less amount that damage spells produce.

The most important time to spend resources on healing is when a party member is downed. Removing one of your allies from combat severely impacts your action economy and, therefore, makes combat much more challenging. This is why the level 1 Healing Word, which is a Bonus Action and can heal at range, is one of the most effective healing spells in the game.

The 2024 Player’s Handbook has luckily added the Healing Rerolls benefit, which allows you to reroll 1s when you roll healing dice, which boosts Healing Word, making this more efficient than its previous iteration.

Which 5e Classes Make the Most of Healer?

The color code below has been implemented to help you identify, at a glance, how good the Healer 5e feat is for a specific class/subclass.

Red: Weak, unlikely to contribute to your build

Orange: Situationally good, but below average

Green: A solid choice

Blue: A great option worth considering

Sky Blue: One of the best choices for optimization

The Healer feat is a decent choice for parties that often find themselves without magical healing or for characters who want to play a non-magical medic role. While it doesn’t replace the potency of spells like Cure Wounds or Healing Word, it offers a reliable and resource-independent way to heal, especially in campaigns where Short Rests are infrequent.

Artificer: Artificers get access to some healing already and if you wanted to go for a more defined healing build, you could always take the Alchemist subclass.

Barbarian: Barbarians will never want to spend their turn healing rather than attacking.

Bard: The additional healing resources this feat offers in Battlefield Medic, as well as the boost to healing from Healing Rerolls, makes this a decent choice for Bards who will be taking on a more support role for their party.

Cleric: The additional healing resources this feat offers in Battlefield Medic, as well as the boost to healing from Healing Rerolls, makes this a decent choice for Clerics who will be taking on a more support role for their party.

Druid: The additional healing resources this feat offers in Battlefield Medic, as well as the boost to healing from Healing Rerolls, makes this a decent choice for Druids who will be taking on a more support role for their party.

Fighter: This isn't a horrible feat for early levels of play, as it allows Fighters to heal themselves for 1d10 + Proficiency Bonus as an action. Combined with features like Action Surge and Second Wind, these benefits will help your Fighter stay in the fight. That said, once your Fighter can start attacking two or three times a turn, it's much better to focus on outputting damage.

Monk: This isn't a horrible feat for early levels of play, as it allows Monks to heal themselves for 1d18 + Proficiency Bonus as an action. Seeing as the updates in the 2024 Player's Handbook allow the Monk to Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action, this means you can heal and attack in the same turn for as long as you have Hit Dice to spend.

Paladin: Seeing as this improves Lay on Hands and gives Paladins another pool of healing resources that don't require spell slots, it decently worthwhile.

Ranger: Goodberry is already a better effect than this feat for most circumstances.

Rogue: Rogues are decent battlefield medics because of their ability to Dash and Disengage as a Bonus Action. Combined with Healer, you can likely reach any downed teammate and heal them without getting hit yourself. Thief Rogues are particularly good as they can take the Utilize action as a Bonus Action. Overall, this increases your Rogue's utility and helps take the healing off of your caster's plates so they can spend more resources obliterating your foes.

Sorcerer: Sorcerers are better off leaving healing to other party members while they focus on outputting damage. Plus, they're glass cannons that want to stay on the outside of combat, not run into it.

Warlock: Warlocks are better off leaving healing to other party members while they focus on outputting damage. Plus, they're glass cannons that want to stay on the outside of combat, not run into it.

Wizard: Wizards are better off leaving healing to other party members while they focus on outputting damage. Plus, they're glass cannons that want to stay on the outside of combat, not run into it.

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Mike Bernier

Mike Bernier is the lead content writer and founder of Arcane Eye. He is a Adamantine best-selling author of Strixhaven: A Syllabus of Sorcery on DMs Guild and is a contributing author at D&D Beyond. Follow Mike on Twitter.

Healer 5e (Updated for the 2024 Rules)

What Is the Healer Feat in 5e?

How Does Healer Work?

What is a Healer’s Kit?

How to Get the Healer Feat

Is Healer Good?

Healer 5e Interactions

Why is the Healer Feat Suboptimal?

Which 5e Classes Make the Most of Healer?

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Durable Guide 5e

Dual Wielder Guide 5e

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Mike Bernier