Using Medicine check to recover HP during combat?

[Yukito01]

Hey there.
In a recent campaign I’m running, one of my players asked me if they could heal another player during combat using their Medicine skill. I know that Medicine skill cannot be used to directly heal HP, but as the party had no healer (all new players who wanted to hit things hard, no support), I decided to rule that the player could make a check. On a 1-10, the healing failed. On a 11-15, the player receiving the healing could spend one hit dice to recover HP. On a 16-18, the player receiving the healing recovered additional hit points equal to the healer’s WIS modifier, and healer’s WIS plus proficiency if the roll was 19+.

My question is, what this a good call? Because hit dice are a resource that only recovers on long rests, I could not think of a way players could exploit this. On the other hand, maybe I screwed the balance a bit.

One thing to also note is that I’m worried I’m teaching the players the rules wrong. To be fair, I don’t think any of them will play that much, much less with another DM (seeing as how difficult it is to find anyone who plays D&D around this area).

Anyways, any opinion or insight on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

[Wizard_Lizard]

It doesn't seem broken, and as long as everyone is happy with it.

[Zhorn]

Why not tell the to invest in the Healer feat?
Your games, your rules, all that jazz. But the healer feat is pretty much in the same avenue of what is being asked for, or should I say what they are asking for is a version of Healer without the resource aspect.

[Frozenstep]

If they can just keep doing it, they'll never need to worry about healing between combats, which means they won't have to worry much about taking damage and trying to stay healthy as combats slowly wear them out. That's removing an interesting source of tension. It also kind of makes healing potions redundant.

But if you're fine with those two things, then sure.

[LibraryOgre]

The Healer feat does seem to be a good idea... and there's always the option from time immemorial: an NPC. Have them come across a healer-type character who does not otherwise participate in combat. Like someone who was a doctor for the thieves' guild who is now travelling with them for protection.

[Bjarkmundur]

I'd rate the solutions in the order of

1. Add an NPC
2. Show them the healer feat.
3. Dish out more healing potions, houserule potions to be a bonus action to consume.
4. Grant a player proficiency with a Herbalism Kit, allowing him to craft any number of healing potions as a part of a long rest at half market value (25gp)
5. Grant a boon to the character who wishes to become the party's healer as a quest reward. Something simple like "Healing Word 1/LR without using a spell slot"
6. Make a custom healing-surge-esque feature, which allows your player to make a trained medicine check as an action using a healer's kit to allow another character to use one hit die. A character can only benefit from this 1/short rest, regains HD+CON hit points.

Although a single casting of a 1st level spell costs around 30gp, many are happy to join a party with the promise of riches and a nice percentage. You can calculate it as a skilled hireling per day, and an extra 30gp per spell slot the NPC is granted if you want to get technical. So hiring an adventuring NPC for a tenday might cost something along the lines of 140gp to hire + a cut of the riches.

Alternatively, I have some solutions you might like in my houserule document. I avoid the rule vs. houserule confusion my having all my houserules written down, so a player always knows where a rule comes from. Rules that might benefit from a healer-less party are:

Armor Saves
Lingering Injuries
Altered HP scaling (since character are beefier at levels 1-4, and it then levels out. This gives your group 4 levels to acquire means to heal or shore up their weaknesses before things get scary)
Inspiration
Revised Medicine SKill

[Lunali]

If they can just keep doing it, they'll never need to worry about healing between combats, which means they won't have to worry much about taking damage and trying to stay healthy as combats slowly wear them out. That's removing an interesting source of tension. It also kind of makes healing potions redundant.

But if you're fine with those two things, then sure.

It costs hit dice.

[jjordan]

I dealt with the question by creating a tier of non-magical potions for direct use. They aren't as good as magic but they can work nicely as tier between slapping a bandage on it and getting the gods to heal it.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?590467-Expanding-Healing-Options

[Nagog]

I have a similar rule, with giving the party the option of investing in Medicine Kits, and using medicine checks to heal with those similar to low level healing potions, healing 1d4+the healer's Medicine check bonus. Encourages people to invest in that skill and for those who can, gain expertise in it as well, allowing our Rogue to also be a pretty decent healer with Expertise in healing on top of stocking up on Medicine kits (with 4 uses per kit, it's essentially a cheaper but more involved health potion)

[Yukito01]

The Healer feat does seem to be a good idea... and there's always the option from time immemorial: an NPC. Have them come across a healer-type character who does not otherwise participate in combat. Like someone who was a doctor for the thieves' guild who is now travelling with them for protection.

A healer NPC may actually be a good idea. Can't believe I completely overlooked that!


Why not tell the to invest in the Healer feat?
Your games, your rules, all that jazz. But the healer feat is pretty much in the same avenue of what is being asked for, or should I say what they are asking for is a version of Healer without the resource aspect.

Oh! The healer feat makes lots of sense. Actually, because they are all new players, I avoided mentioning feats at all. They were already struggling to remember all of their class features, and adding more options on top of that seemed overkill.

Just for curiosity, how would you consider the balance of a skill check doing what a feat does, but costing extra resources (target's hit dice), and with a chance of failure (roll less than 1)? Well, to be fair, feats are also a limited resource, so I guess my implementation may not be so balanced after all.

[Nagog]

Just for curiosity, how would you consider the balance of a skill check doing what a feat does, but costing extra resources (target's hit dice), and with a chance of failure (roll less than 1)? Well, to be fair, feats are also a limited resource, so I guess my implementation may not be so balanced after all.

I think it's pretty powerful starting out, as one hit dice will almost completely heal a level 1 character, however a single hit dice will at most stabilize a lv.7+ character. This essentially takes the place of short rests and are available in combat, but it depends on whether you want to use rests at all in your game.

[Yukito01]

I think it's pretty powerful starting out, as one hit dice will almost completely heal a level 1 character, however a single hit dice will at most stabilize a lv.7+ character. This essentially takes the place of short rests and are available in combat, but it depends on whether you want to use rests at all in your game.

I see. The PCs were lv 3, so while it helped them, it did not heal them back to full. Actually, I'm still new to DMing for 5e, so I'm yet to find a good balance of rests. So far I'm going with 2-3 encounters per day, but I think that's less than optimal, right?

[Tanarii]

I see. The PCs were lv 3, so while it helped them, it did not heal them back to full. Actually, I'm still new to DMing for 5e, so I'm yet to find a good balance of rests. So far I'm going with 2-3 encounters per day, but I think that's less than optimal, right?
3 deadly combat encounters, or 2 Deadly combat plus 3 Easy non-combat, still falls within the DM suggested guidelines.

[Zhorn]

Oh! The healer feat makes lots of sense. Actually, because they are all new players, I avoided mentioning feats at all. They were already struggling to remember all of their class features, and adding more options on top of that seemed overkill.

Just for curiosity, how would you consider the balance of a skill check doing what a feat does, but costing extra resources (target's hit dice), and with a chance of failure (roll less than 1)? Well, to be fair, feats are also a limited resource, so I guess my implementation may not be so balanced after all.

ASI's (and feats by association) are a resource just as much as anything else. A character only has access to so many.
As for not overloading your players with more options, that's fair enough. But if you start introducing variant house rules that aren't in the book that they need to keep track of instead, that are serving the same function as what you are avoiding... I think that's just going to lead to more confusion in the long run :smallconfused: for the past 3 months not a session has gone by without one of my players misquoting a rule from the book because the campaign they ran last year was so heavily modified with house rules they were having trouble remembering what the actual RAW was.

Medicine checks on their own have that chance of failure (DC 10 to stabilise at 0, regaining consciousness and 1 hp after 1d4 hours).
Healer's Kit makes the above check into an auto success.
Healer (Feat) removes the 1d4 time delay getting them to 1 hp and conscious on that turn.

it might not sound like much compared to so many other feats and abilities, but this aspect of Healer is HUGE. That 1 hp is enough to give a player their turn back rather than making a death save or just lying their unconscious, and that effect on the action economy is a pretty big power swing in your party's favour.

The extra once-per-rest heal is also nothing to sneeze at, doing 6-11 hp at level 1, to 25-31 at level 20, it is immediately more reliable that a Potion of Healing (4-10 hp) and cheaper too (5 gp for 10 uses vs 50 gp for a single use).

Neither aspect really needs any kind of buff or change from its rules as presented to be a strong option. It already IS strong (just be sure your players are keeping track of how many healer's kits' uses they have used).
At MOST I might change the 1 hp from stabilising to a proficiency dice instead if the player has proficiency with the Medicine skill just to reward players for investing in both the skill and the feat.

Dungeon Master's Guide p263
Proficiency Die


Level
Proficiency Bonus
Proficiency Die


1st-4th
+2
1d4


5th-8th
+3
1d6


9th-12th
+4
1d8


13th-16th
+5
1d10


17th-20th
+6
1d12



or just change it to the flat value of their Medicine Check modifier (+5 WIS +6 Proficiency Bonus +Expertise = 17 hp stabilise)

[Bjarkmundur]

I avoided mentioning feats at all.

That's actually better!
You can give feats as quest rewards! Just choose one for each PC, and you can choose the healer feat for your healer-to-be.