Making the Heal skill relevant?

[Vladislav]

As you know, no one ever takes ranks in Heal, because it's obsoleted very quickly by low-level spells and cheap items. So I thought about adding more options to keep it a bit relevant.

- DC 15, no retry, 10 minutes: Heal 1d6 damage. For each 5 points this check exceeds 15, you may heal additional 1d6 damage. A character can benefit from such healing only 1/day.
- DC 15, no retry, 10 minutes: Heal 1 point of ability damage. For each 5 points this check exceeds 15, you may heal additional 1 point of ability damage. A character can benefit from such healing only 1/day.
- DC 25, retry allowed, duration varies: remove the Dazed, Dazzled, Deafened, Sickened, Nauseated, Paralyzed, Stunned or Blinded conditions. The duration for this check is the time unit used to measure the duration of the condition.
(for example, the duration of Glitterdust is measured in rounds, so it takes 1 round to remove blindness from Glitterdust. If the duration was 10 min/level, it would take 10 minutes; removing a condition with duration of "permanent" is DC 30, and takes 1 day)
- DC varies, no retry, 1 hour: provide a bonus on save vs. energy drain. A character who has been energy drained and needs to make a Fortitude save against permanent level loss uses his save result or the result of your Heal check, whichever is higher.
- DC 20, no retry, 10 minutes: remove the exhausted condition (changes into fatigued)
- DC 20, no retry, 1 hour: remove the fatigued condition

Opinions?

[Eonir]

Looks pretty good, I like the idea of Heal being actually useful.

However, I do not like "permanent" conditions being taken away, those should stay being fixed by powerful magic only IMO.

[watchwood]

I was recently thinking about this myself - my own solution was the following:

When using a healing spell, spell like ability, or similar effect as a standard action, you may do the following by performing it as a full round action instead: Make a heal check. Divide the result by 10, and multiply the total amount healed by the result.

And suddenly, not only is the Heal skill good, but combat healing is pretty good as well.

[navar100]

If it's only once per day for the benefit then the skill remains obsolete to spellcasting. I understand not wanting infinite healing, but once per day is too rare. Make it once per injury per day where one combat equals one injury despite having been hit multiple times.

[Curmudgeon]

However, I do not like "permanent" conditions being taken away, those should stay being fixed by powerful magic only IMO.
I think that's pretty well addressed by requiring a full day per condition per attempt, with success only determined at the end of that time when the check is made. If "powerful" magic is available at all it will be used instead. (Though level 4 for Restoration and Panacea is actually on the low end of middling power.)

Can you think of a reason why the game would be better without adding this slow alternative healing?

[Vladislav]

Looks pretty good, I like the idea of Heal being actually useful.

However, I do not like "permanent" conditions being taken away, those should stay being fixed by powerful magic only IMO.Yeah, on reflection it does sound problematic. I may remove the provision for removing permanent conditions.
Actually, convinced by Curmudgeon, I'll keep it

I was recently thinking about this myself - my own solution was the following:

When using a healing spell, spell like ability, or similar effect as a standard action, you may do the following by performing it as a full round action instead: Make a heal check. Divide the result by 10, and multiply the total amount healed by the result.

And suddenly, not only is the Heal skill good, but combat healing is pretty good as well.While that's an interesting idea, my point was to make the mundane healing skill relevant, not to make the skill in conjuction with healing magic better.


If it's only once per day for the benefit then the skill remains obsolete to spellcasting. I understand not wanting infinite healing, but once per day is too rare. Make it once per injury per day where one combat equals one injury despite having been hit multiple times.You may be right about 1d6 being too low, but I see some bookkeeping issues, as well as abuse.
Player: "I engage in combat with a squirrel!"
DM: "m'kay, you kill the squirrel..."
Player: "Aha! That was a new combat, so I get to use the Heal skill again!"

So, the question is, where do you draw the line? Does combat with a harmless squirrel allow a re-Heal? A Rat? What if the squirrel or rat scratched the PC for 1 damage before dying? Can the PC then recover 1d6 hit points, for a net gain?

I think I'll keep it at 1/day, but maybe a bit better than 1d6.

[Ravens_cry]

Make it wisdom modifier times per day would help, and have it by 1d4+Wis mod. Have it it scale, perhaps another d4 for the for every 5 over the DC?
That way it isn't godly, but it is useful in a pinch.
A good feat might mean a making heal check while casting a healing spell maximises the spell.
Basically, you are not just blindly pumping positive energy, you are healing the places most needing it.

[Namfuak]

So, the question is, where do you draw the line? Does combat with a harmless squirrel allow a re-Heal? A Rat? What if the squirrel or rat scratched the PC for 1 damage before dying? Can the PC then recover 1d6 hit points, for a net gain?

I think I'll keep it at 1/day, but maybe a bit better than 1d6.

It could simply be 1/hour instead. 1d6 healing per hour is hardly game breaking (when compared to even lesser vigor, which does around the same average healing by CL4 and only takes 4 rounds), and keep in mind that every day you generally heal 10 damage anyway, so 1d6 is really just icing on the cake at that point.

[Slipperychicken]

You might be able to get away with rolling Heal and Survival (and maybe Use Rope?) into the same skill. Pathfinder did that with a few skills, and it worked pretty well.

The main thing that makes Heal irrelevant is fast, cheap, and reliable healing. Even if you're neither a spellcaster or have any of the combos that can give you near-infnite healing, and have an irrational hatred of consumables and UMD, Healing Belts give you 6d6 of near-instant healing per day, which requires no further investment or skill whatsoever, for 750gp each.


I think of taking ranks in Heal sort of like learning to survive naked in the wilderness, or taking classes on how to make your own shoes. Sure, there's that one-in-a-million chance that it might be useful one day, but in the overwhelming majority of cases, you're going to either have technology on-hand that can do everything required very cheaply and without much time investment on your part, or you can very easily access that technology, or you're living in post-industrial society, where those skills are practically useless anyway.

[thompur]

I have been considering something like this myself for my gameworld, including being able to revive a character slain by mundane means(i.e. direct damage). In my world, magic was impossible for 700 years or so, so mundane healing techniques advanced. Also, since True Resurection, Resurection,Raise Dead, Limited Wish, and Wish don't exist as spells(Although Revivify does), I want to make the Healing skill more usefull.

[Deepbluediver]

If it's only once per day for the benefit then the skill remains obsolete to spellcasting. I understand not wanting infinite healing, but once per day is too rare. Make it once per injury per day where one combat equals one injury despite having been hit multiple times.

I like this, with some sort of scaling mechanism (like +1d6 for every 5 points of the check). Either that or rather than have it heal a flat amount, make it based on a percentage of the characters health. That way, for example, the same check heals both the wizard and the barbarian for half (50%) of their maximum health, which would also help differentiate it from the kind of healing you get from spells and magic items.

Maybe something like this:
DC 5- heals up to 1d6
DC 10+character level- heal up to 25% of max HP
DC 15+character level- heal up to 50% of max HP
DC 25+character level- heal up to 75% of max HP

Fluff- The scaling from character level is because higher level players have more health (vitality) and frequently end up with more dangerous or more complicated injuries.

I would also like being able to do something similar for various conditions (blinded, deafened, nauseated, etc) as well as poisons or diseases.

[Ninja PieKing]

I would also like being able to do something similar for various conditions (blinded, deafened, nauseated, etc) as well as poisons or diseases.

I agree that would make a lot of sense, especially poison

[NichG]

I was designing a bunch of extra uses for skills to make the mundanes have more versatility, and one of my players pointed out a problem with this:

As long as you have spells like Wieldskill, Guidance of the Avatar, Improvisation, Moment of Prescience, and Divine Insight, high DC uses of skills will be dominated by casters who take advantage of buff-stacking.

That said, if the point here is to just make Heal more interesting, not necessarily to make non-casters using Heal more interesting, then I think this is the right track. I'd even go so far as to say there should be permanent conditions that magic cannot easily heal that the Heal skill could do something about. For instance, depending on your attitude about such things, what if a high enough Heal check over the course of a week/month/whatever could heal Con/Level loss from Raise Dead, or a permanently drained level.

Another possible use for Heal would be forensics. Make a Heal check to identify the weapon that dealt a wound. Make a Heal check to figure out, say, the Strength score of the creature that dealt a wound.

[Vladislav]

Another possible use for Heal would be forensics. Make a Heal check to identify the weapon that dealt a wound. Make a Heal check to figure out, say, the Strength score of the creature that dealt a wound.

I like this a lot, thanks for the idea!


As long as you have spells like Wieldskill, Guidance of the Avatar, Improvisation, Moment of Prescience, and Divine Insight, high DC uses of skills will be dominated by casters who take advantage of buff-stacking.
It's not so bad, actually.

Guidance of the Avatar has a duration of "1 minute or until discharged". It's useless on checks that are longer than 1 minute.

Wieldskill has 1 min/level, so the 10 minute uses aren't accessible by low level casters.

Divine Insight is 1 hour/level, so it can be used here, but the bonus is only 5+CL, not gamebreaking at low levels.

MoP is an 8th level spell, I don't really have any illusions about mundane skill use being able to compete against 8th level spells :smallamused:

Improvisation is only 1 round/level, so again useless on the time-consuming checks.

[INoKnowNames]

I believe that using Heal to check to see the source of a corpse's death is already a noted use of the skill.

For the sake of using Heal to remove negative conditions, one should take a reasonable look at the level in which such conditions are likely to come up, as well as the level to which spells would cause / remove such conditions. From there, you could determine the DC to which a Heal check would be able to remove them, assuming you don't simply enable Heal to be based on the DC of the source in the first place, much with Diseases and Poison (if I remember right). Magical conditions might be a bit harder, though doable.

I'd say theraputic Rubs and Massages, DC equal to the target's hit dice (+10 for exhaustion) would be an easy way to get rid of the issues of Fatigue and Exhaustion, common problems for characters prone to exerting themselves. Not to mention play up the UST between patient and doctor.

Trying not to think about spells here... If possible, one could keep track of each time a person has been injured in combat, and attempt a Heal Check per injury (with some penalty for each one attempted, since trying to do too much first aid might hurt more than help) to restore the target's hp. Succeed based on a high enough amount to completely remove it, otherwise, could heal just part of it (fail by too much to make it potentially worse). DC based on the amount of damage per injury, I suppose.

The entire skill system could use a good run through, to be honest. Mainly that spells make so much irrelevant.

[Cor1]

Since Skill DCs stop meaning anything related to what we know as "reality" past 30, maybe you could resurrect someone at 40+ 5 * day since death.

DC 40 Balance or Tumble should be walking on air.
DC 40 Concentration should be Mind Blank.

Now THAT would make skills relevant, as useful as spells.

Some of those already exist, but they're so far into Epic it's not relevant either. Yeah, you CAN hit a skill DC of 100, but it takes up a lot of resources. And it's not relevant when you need so many spells to do it that using other spells to do it directly would do it better.

[Curmudgeon]

DC 40 Balance or Tumble should be walking on air.
DC 40 Concentration should be Mind Blank.

Now THAT would make skills relevant, as useful as spells.

Some of those already exist, but they're so far into Epic it's not relevant either. Yeah, you CAN hit a skill DC of 100, but it takes up a lot of resources. And it's not relevant when you need so many spells to do it that using other spells to do it directly would do it better.
That's a huge power-up. Current rules have Balance at DC 120 to walk on a cloud, and you just can't walk on air.

But the basic problem with this change is that it's a boost mostly to spellcasters, because they've got the spells that boost skill checks. You've just worsened the current game imbalance. :smalleek:

[Acanous]

I could see Heal checks in the 50's or so being able to bring a character from -10 to -9 and stable, so long as they dropped within the last round or so.
Also, anyone who dies of massive damage rules, but still has HP left could be ressurrected by heal with an appropriate DC. "His heart stopped from the shock. I'll just administer some CPR and hopefully it'll start up again"

Adding bonus uses to skill checks helps mundanes more than casters. Yes it helps both, and yes the caster has an easier time boosting his check, but only a very high op or very high level caster is able to finangle around all his skills like that. The caster also usually has other means of doing the same thing for less resources.

So really the mundanes get more. They get *A* way to do it (without magic). The caster already HAD a way, and now has 2. Not as big a deal.

Finally, I could see "When using a Cure spell, including potion, scroll, or wand, you may take a full round action to perform a Heal check, using the result instead of rolling D8's. (the maximum ammount is still the same, IE Cure Light has a max of 8.)

[Seharvepernfan]

I don't think heal is as useless as you think.

Every time you cure disease/poison/stabilize someone, you spend a spell slot on it or an item's charge. In dungeons full of enemies who poison you with every attack (or hit you with bleed damage), those can add up quickly.

Everytime I play a cleric, I have them take heal until mid levels or so. I also like the complete adventurerer extra use of heal for determing cause of death.

[Malroth]

Time 10 minutes Heal a target to up to Half their maximum HP, DC is 5+ the amount of HP you are attempting to heal in this manner, this uses up 25GP worth of bandages, medicines and rare Herbs, Retry Yes but failure uses up the medicines and Herbs without effect and Failure by 5 or more inflicts 1d10 damage on the patient.

[moritheil]

I suggest that you incorporate the LM rules for necrosurgery.

Also, the spell Healing Lorecall is a (somewhat heavy-handed) way to keep Heal relevant.

[moritheil]

DC 40 Concentration should be Mind Blank.

Now THAT would make skills relevant, as useful as spells.

Concentration really, really doesn't need a boost. If you play with ToB, your saves become concentration checks; if you play with Psionics, it gives you Psionic Focus; if you play with Kensai, it gives you Strength boosts and saves; if you play with the MIC, it gives you a free Fort save at least once per day . . .

Concentration is highly relevant already. Perhaps even too much so.

[inexorabletruth]

I agree that Heal needs some help, but over-powering it kind of eliminates the fear of death. TPK sucks, but when the players feel no real need to exercise caution, the game gets kind of dull. Remember that almost every campaign comes with a heal-bot that can keep the team alive until they reach the next campsite as well. And by level 5, heal becomes more or less irrelevant, so you're mainly going to need Heal for low-level campaigns where players may have 4 to 12 HP.


- DC 15, no retry, 10 minutes: Heal 1d6 damage. For each 5 points this check exceeds 15, you may heal additional 1d6 damage. A character can benefit from such healing only 1/day.

Heal Check DC 15 = 1d6 (+Xd6) HP recovery is over-buffed. A DM offered that in my first PbP (lvl 1 low op), and it was unrealistic. In one attack I was knocked down and bleeding out. The next player healed me with a Heal check and restored me to almost perfect health. It felt a little too much like magic and not enough like field medicine. I dropped it to 1d4 and made it to where it could only be used on the same wounds once every 4 hours. It seems to work well so far. But another thought would be to make it 1d6 temp HP, to sort of emulate the effects of doping. A lot of older field medicine was mainly bandages, pain killers and strong narcotics (like PCP) that made you feel invincible, but didn't actually heal your wounds. And it will create a sense of urgency for your players to get some rest or actual healing before the meds wear off.

- DC 15, no retry, 10 minutes: Heal 1 point of ability damage. For each 5 points this check exceeds 15, you may heal additional 1 point of ability damage. A character can benefit from such healing only 1/day.

The Heal check already does this, only better, so this is more of a debuff on the skill.

- DC 25, retry allowed, duration varies: remove the Dazed, Dazzled, Deafened, Sickened, Nauseated, Paralyzed, Stunned or Blinded conditions. The duration for this check is the time unit used to measure the duration of the condition.
(for example, the duration of Glitterdust is measured in rounds, so it takes 1 round to remove blindness from Glitterdust. If the duration was 10 min/level, it would take 10 minutes; removing a condition with duration of "permanent" is DC 30, and takes 1 day)

I like this one, but I wouldn't allow a retry within 24 hours, and I'd set the DC to the effect's Save DC. After all, if an enemy fails to affect you, you become immune to the effect for a time. That might keep it balanced.

- DC varies, no retry, 1 hour: provide a bonus on save vs. energy drain. A character who has been energy drained and needs to make a Fortitude save against permanent level loss uses his save result or the result of your Heal check, whichever is higher.

That sounds a little OP for a Heal Check. I have no variant option to fix that. I wouldn't use a rule like this.


- DC 20, no retry, 10 minutes: remove the exhausted condition (changes into fatigued)
- DC 20, no retry, 1 hour: remove the fatigued condition
Not bad, but like with the heal check, I would make it a temporary effect. A successful check gives you 2 hours of non-fatigue or non-exhaustion (enough time for the drugs to wear off). Also, I don't know how often a situation like this would come up. Most of the players I've played with would rather make camp anyway so the casters can recover their spells, the crafters can build their items, and the rest can have some nice RP time. But that's just my experience. Perhaps you play with more gritty do-or-die types who never want the action to stop. You could allow retries, but for each time, they have to roll a Will Save with an increasing DC to determine if they become chemically dependent to the medicine that keeps them up. That could add a nice twist to it. Those who are hooked must pass a Heal check every two hours or be fatigued all the time.

[Vladislav]

Heal Check DC 15 = 1d6 (+Xd6) HP recovery is over-buffed. A DM offered that in my first PbP (lvl 1 low op), and it was unrealistic. In one attack I was knocked down and bleeding out. The next player healed me with a Heal check and restored me to almost perfect health. It felt a little too much like magic and not enough like field medicine. I dropped it to 1d4 and made it to where it could only be used on the same wounds once every 4 hours. It seems to work well so far. But another thought would be to make it 1d6 temp HP, to sort of emulate the effects of doping. A lot of older field medicine was mainly bandages, pain killers and strong narcotics (like PCP) that made you feel invincible, but didn't actually heal your wounds. And it will create a sense of urgency for your players to get some rest or actual healing before the meds wear off.
Did you notice the "10 minutes" part?

[TuggyNE]

The Heal check already does this, only better, so this is more of a debuff on the skill.

Actually, no; the existing use of Heal to treat ability damage adds 1 point for 8 hours of care at DC 15, or 2 points for 24 hours of complete bed rest at the same DC. This modification requires a check 5 points higher to reach 2 points, but after that it's strictly superior: faster and more thorough, and scaling indefinitely.


Edit: What would change with %-based healing? (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=5025.0) has some useful discussion, too.

[SSGoW]

Why not make it like 4th edition Heal checks? Make it a move action that can be done on themselves. Give a feat that turns it to a swift action or immediate action for the hell of it?

DC 15: 1/encounter a subject regains 1/4 hit points

DC 20: Grant free saving throw with +2 bonus (fighters would love this)

DC 20: Stabilized Dying character

Give it a few extra abilities to get rid of Blindness and stuff then you would have every fighter taking some points in the heal skill (err unless they have a negative int mod haha).

[ThiagoMartell]

Fluff- The scaling from character level is because higher level players have more health (vitality) and frequently end up with more dangerous or more complicated injuries.

That's... not fluff.

[inexorabletruth]

Actually, no; the existing use of Heal to treat ability damage adds 1 point for 8 hours of care at DC 15, or 2 points for 24 hours of complete bed rest at the same DC. This modification requires a check 5 points higher to reach 2 points, but after that it's strictly superior: faster and more thorough, and scaling indefinitely.


Edit: What would change with %-based healing? (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=5025.0) has some useful discussion, too.

Long-Term Care (DC 15):
From PHB, pg. 75
"... If your Heal check is successful, the patient recovers hit points or ability score points (lost to ability damage) at twice the normal rate: ... 2 ability score points for a full 8 hours of rest in a day, or 4 ability score points for each full day of complete rest."

- DC 15, no retry, 10 minutes: Heal 1 point of ability damage. For each 5 points this check exceeds 15, you may heal additional 1 point of ability damage. A character can benefit from such healing only 1/day.

Hmm... I suppose I see your point. It's way faster to do and has the potential to restore way more ability points. What worried me about it is the whole "no retry" thing. That's why I call it a debuff. Lose and you're effed. Win and you're a picture of health. In the original version, you can retry as long as there is evidence that the heal check didn't work. But if you allowed retry on that type of check it would be super bamf... even OP. So I see why you forbid retries. Meh... it's not my way, but I get it.

[Melayl]

In 2.5E (at least, the games I played in) had a "bind wounds" mechanic: it would restore 2d4 hp per use, one attempt per injured person was allowed per "encounter" that caused damage, up to the amount of damage caused during that episode only. No picking a fight with a squirrel to bind wounds again.

It kept us alive many a time. Not exactly hale, but alive.

I think using the Heal skill to actually heal damage in a similar way would be fine. I'd probably limit it to converting actual damage to nonlethal damage, myself (I find it a tad more realistic), but, to each their own.

[Amoren]

I managed to get a few uses out of my heal skill with a cleric paladin in my longest table game so far. I used it to identify what caused the wounds of a slaughtered drow village, which helped us figure out a mystery. I also got the DM to rule that the heal skill could resurrect/resuscitate our wizard when he died to a psions crisis of life, since the fluff of the power was stopping his heart rather than magically killing him (of course, that didn't stop me from rolling a natural one on it and ending up reenacting Hollywood drama).

[killem2]

I have to say, I liked the way NWN did things.

Heal
With this skill a character can heal hit points and cure
poisons and diseases with a Healing Kit.
• Ability: Wisdom
• Classes: All
• Untrained: Yes
• Check: Must beat the poison or disease DC. If successful,
the target is cured, and is healed with a number of hit pointsequal to the skill roll plus all modifiers. If the target suffers
from no poisons or diseases, it is still healed of damage.
• Use: Use Healing Kit on wounded creature


Make heal kits certain prices, with certain DC's to work. Maybe possible penalties of the target is below 0 hit points.


I think it could also be wisdom or intelligence.

[Kelb_Panthera]

d20 modern's treat injury skill actually covers some of these ideas, and is for all intents and purposes the same thing as heal.

[Deepbluediver]

I have to say, I liked the way NWN did things.

Heal
With this skill a character can heal hit points and cure
poisons and diseases with a Healing Kit.
• Ability: Wisdom
• Classes: All
• Untrained: Yes
• Check: Must beat the poison or disease DC. If successful,
the target is cured, and is healed with a number of hit pointsequal to the skill roll plus all modifiers. If the target suffers
from no poisons or diseases, it is still healed of damage.
• Use: Use Healing Kit on wounded creature


Make heal kits certain prices, with certain DC's to work. Maybe possible penalties of the target is below 0 hit points.

I agree with most of this, except that I think Heal is definitely one of those skills that should need training to use properly. It relies heavily on medical knowledge and specific first-aid techniques, and there are quite a few ways for ignorant people to screw things up.

[Novawurmson]

I managed to get a few uses out of my heal skill with a cleric paladin in my longest table game so far. I used it to identify what caused the wounds of a slaughtered drow village, which helped us figure out a mystery. I also got the DM to rule that the heal skill could resurrect/resuscitate our wizard when he died to a psions crisis of life, since the fluff of the power was stopping his heart rather than magically killing him (of course, that didn't stop me from rolling a natural one on it and ending up reenacting Hollywood drama).

I'm imagining the Invader Zim episode in which Zim travels back in time to make Dib's life a living hell. It ends with a paramedic slamming stuffed pigs onto his chest shouting "LIIIIIIIIIVE! LIIIIIIIIVE! IF I LOSE ANOTHER THIS MONTH I'M GOING TO GET FIRED!"