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View Full Version : Reattaching Lost Limbs Using Heal checks (3.5, possibly 4th Edition).



Tempest Fennac
2009-03-13, 02:28 AM
I suggested a way of re-attaching lost limbs to a freind without using Regenerate a while back, but I decided to modify when I suggested after talking with someone else about some problems with the rule idea. Please could you guys tell me if you think this would work?

Reattach digit/limb. DC: 15 Time needed: 1 minute for digit, 10 for a limb.

The creature being treated will recieve 1 HP of damage for having a digit attacked, or 5 for a limb. Once the attachment is completed, a Cure spell which is stronger then Cure Minor Wounds which restores HPs in 1 lump needs to be cast to restore limb-use (eg: Cure Light Wounds would work for this, but Lesser Vigor wouldn't due to it granting Fast Healing). Unless an Orison named Preserve Organ is used, the digit or limb must be reattached within 24 hours of being lost.

While there aren't any official limb-loss rules, I know several DMs who have custom rules for this, so I thought this would be a more practical solution then low-level characters losing an arm perminantly with their player needing to roll up a new character.

tsatthoggua
2009-03-13, 04:18 AM
We're talking about surgery here, in pre-technological times. Even today that is extremely complicated and requires many years in graduate school.

Out of my head, I'd make it a DC 25 Heal check, with a -4 penalty if you don't have the required equipment for cutting and stiching (could be a 100gp, 2lb kit) and must use impromptu tools taking at least 1 hour. Even for fingers, they have lots of really tiny nerves.

Daracaex
2009-03-13, 05:51 AM
We're talking about surgery here, in pre-technological times. Even today that is extremely complicated and requires many years in graduate school.

Out of my head, I'd make it a DC 25 Heal check, with a -4 penalty if you don't have the required equipment for cutting and stiching (could be a 100gp, 2lb kit) and must use impromptu tools taking at least 1 hour. Even for fingers, they have lots of really tiny nerves.

What he said. Also, healing magic would help a lot, so you could make healing spells provide bonuses.

bosssmiley
2009-03-13, 09:50 AM
Unless an Orison named Preserve Organ is used, the digit or limb must be reattached within 24 hours of being lost.

Is this even necessary in a world where refrigerate meat gentle repose exists? :smallconfused:

Reattaching a limb so that it heals with unimpaired function should be at least a DC35+ check requiring an hour or so of work. (adjust the DC to match whatever your campaign's benchmark is for "low level scrubs simply can't, mid-level types suck their teeth and look sceptical, and ultra-high level types do it without thinking")

And this is pro-skills me talking, a guy who added Heal DCs for clearing up status effects like blindness, paralysis, petrification and death.

@v: Tell that to ER doctors. :smallwink:
If you're sufficiently high level you can do the impossible even if you don't have a spells/day table. To argue the opposite is to maintain that the 'mundane' classes are a bunch of peons who shouldn't be allowed nice things. :smalltongue:

Theodoriph
2009-03-13, 09:52 AM
And this is pro-skills me talking, a guy who added Heal DCs for clearing up status effects like blindness, paralysis, petrification and death.


You shouldn't be able to heal death without magic, no matter what the DC is.

The Demented One
2009-03-13, 10:48 AM
You shouldn't be able to heal death without magic, no matter what the DC is.
Resuscitation. It's how real-world doctors heal death without magic. I think allowing a Heal check at a really, really high DC within one round of death to bring them back to life at, say, 0 hp would make sense, as long as it only worked for very limited kinds of death–for example, definitely not against death by hit point damage or magical death effects.

Tempest Fennac
2009-03-14, 03:58 AM
Gentle Repose is a level 2 spell while Preserve Organ is a level 0 spell. Therefore, it's a much better choice for this. Also, the reason why the DC is only 15 is because all the heal check is doing is latching the arm back onto the patient, hence the need for a Cure spell to get it to work properly again. Without the Cure, the limb would just be attacked loosly to the target without being functional.

Theodoriph
2009-03-14, 05:04 AM
Resuscitation. It's how real-world doctors heal death without magic. I think allowing a Heal check at a really, really high DC within one round of death to bring them back to life at, say, 0 hp would make sense, as long as it only worked for very limited kinds of death–for example, definitely not against death by hit point damage or magical death effects.


No...real doctors do not heal death. Once you're dead, you're dead Jim. :P Doctors don't resuscitate dead people. They resuscitate people who aren't breathing, or whose hearts have stopped....but that doesn't mean the person is dead. :smalltongue: You're confusing those states with actually being dead. Don't worry...people find it confusing. That's why doctors use different terms. I believe the one for when people are "dead dead" is somatic death.

Brain Death quickly leads to somatic death since once the brain is dead, there's no hope for you. :smalltongue: Clinical death occurs when there's no breathing, no circulation and no brain activity. But clinical death isn't really death since it occurs at the onset of the symptoms...and when that happens...you still have 3-7 minutes to get some oxygen to the brain. The brain is the first organ to die....and once you experience Brain death, there's no going back :P

sigurd
2009-03-14, 07:07 AM
Simply don't allow it.

"Heal" the skill is not meant to reattach limbs. Monsters like the troll that can reattach limbs do so as a special power. Skills have limitations.

Run will not allow you to break the sound barrier.
Jump doesn't work across oceans.
Heal doesn't reattach limbs.

If you don't have any terrible things that can happen, the players will not compliment themselves for avoiding them. Losing a limb should seriously suck not simply be a higher skill check.

Tempest Fennac
2009-03-14, 07:25 AM
I know Heal on it's own can't do that, which is why a cure is needed as well (I don;t see how just sewing the limb back in place would be that difficult).

rampaging-poet
2009-03-14, 10:34 AM
I see where you're coming from with this, but I agree with all the people who think the DC needs to be higher. As written, a first level character with a decent Wisdom score could do this taking ten. My mother is a nurse, so it's a safe bet she'd have maxed out Heal if she were a D&D character, but even if she can re-attach limbs in the field, I doubt she could do so successfully every single time.
I don't know very much about how this is done real life, but I imagine one could reverse-engineer a DC out of that. Assume that the surgeons performing this are either third or fourth level, and that whatever equipment they use counts a magic item giving them a competence bonus on Heal checks.

Also, if Cure spells could re-attach lost limbs, they would say so in the spell description. IIRC, Regeneration is sub-par as a straight-up healing spell, but it's still worth the spell slot because it's the only thing that can restore lost limbs. Perhaps a bonus to the heal check like +1 per die it would heal normally?

Tempest Fennac
2009-03-14, 12:41 PM
I know Cure spells aren't listed as being able to do that (this is an alternative rule which lets them do that). In real life, re-attaching the limb would require re-attaching the bone and individual nerve ends as well as the muscle and flesh, which would be impossible with the level of technology in a normal D&D game, which is why I decided to have it with most of the re-attaching being handled by the cure spell with the Heal check just being used to allow the cure to attach everything.