- Physickers are great at being non-combatants, I don't have to worry about fighting if I don't want to because (at least for now) there isn't a need to go anywhere dangerous.
- Physickers specialist skills are: medical. That's all. If I maxed out medical I'd still have a boatload of skill points to throw into whatever hobby I want, I could be a decent combatant, explorer, or craftsman.
- Physickers don't actually need much medical. Based on the data, I think they often do raise it above 100, but abilities don't require it, and don't benefit from it, aside from reduced roundtime for tending and bandaging, and duration for therapy which benefits other people, but not the physicker. In a kind of perverse way, the physicker is better off if their therapies don't last longer.
- Physicker work is a service rather than a good, so physickers don't really need to worry about market flooding, it never constrains their work.
- Scholars and locksmiths have tasks now, and there are general tasks, but physicker work is better XP than any of them because there isn't any cool down.
- Infirmaries provide all the goods for physicker work, so one ability and no gear is sufficient to start making riln. Physickers can provide their own materials by having hillant unguent, needle, thread and maybe bandages, but if they do that they get paid more riln, suggesting that the infirmary is indeed taking a cut from their earnings when they're using infirmary supplies.
- Because physickers don't require any supplies, aside from periodic trips to the library for abilities or training, they never have to leave town.
- Doing physicker work is very grindy, but it also feels RP-appropriate. When I'm grinding away in the infirmary, I feel like a physicker, I feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
So, when should a PC be encouraged to linger in one spot? If I could shelve books all day in the library and fill my bucket doing it, my arcanist would. It's a delightful task but the XP/cool down match up says go do other things instead and then when your bucket is full, let it glide down more slowly by having a jolly time shelving books. I haven't checked the XP/cool down trade off for the locksmithing task but I hope to do so soon, but I expect to find the same. In truth, I suspect that task rewards and cool downs are designed intentionally to cool down slowly enough that all the XP burns away and then some before you can do it again so that people go do other things. Maybe other classes should have it as nice as physickers do, but I suspect game design intent should shift physickers to be in line with everyone else. Replace medical certification with infirmary tasks to heal some number of patients and then it cools off and you can do it again later. I wouldn't like that as much, but I have it too good. Or maybe add an energy cost with tending, suturing, and soothing - people are exhausting to deal with after all. If the energy cost is high enough, physickers will need to do their own cool downs. And they'd have to leave for food eventually. Maybe reduce XP from tending (etc) so that you are emptying your bucket most of the time instead of filling it. Anyway, there it is - if you're finding your grind too hard, play a physicker to learn the game, it's delightful.