[3.X] Heal Skill Homebrewery

[Keneth]

I wasn't really sure where to post this, but I suppose this place is as good as any.

I'm working on a homebrewed version of the Heal skill for my 3.X games, but I'm severely lacking in inspiration. Heal is one of those skills my players never invest in, and for good reason; even with the upgrade in Pathfinder, it just doesn't see much use in a typical game past the first level or two.

Now, I've seen a lot of good ideas over the last decade, but I've never had the sensibility to save them in any shape or form aside from my head, so I was wondering if you guys could point me to some good implementations, whether yours or someone else's.

I'm looking for something that stays relevant even by mid levels, which would likely mean the ability to assist in or entirely remove adverse effects like negative levels, ability drain, curses, etc. without entirely obsoleting the need for spells. I would also like for it to affect healing spells in some manner, such as by applying a bonus and/or removing conditions.

Note that I don't expect anyone to actually make this homebrew from scratch, or I would have posted this in the request thread. I'm just looking for existing homebrew so I can kickstart my own brain and design something that fits well in my games, and possibly plagiarise some ideas for personal use.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Tend Wounds: With one minute of work, you can treat another's injuries. Roll a DC 15 Heal check. For each point you succeed by, the patient gains two temporary hit points. These do not stack with other temporary hit points, and cannot bring a target's effective current hit points above its maximum (so a character with 30/50 hit points could not receive more than 20 from a Heal check). Any time the target recovers hit points, each point of healing converts two of these temporary hit points into an additional point of healing. This effect is not recursive.

Augment Healing: You can use your medical knowledge to improve the effects of healing spells. Whenever you provide direct hit point healing to a target (but not simply granting fast healing, regeneration, or the like) you may roll a DC 15 Heal check as a move action. Each point you beat the DC by increases the healing provided by one point.

Suppress Ailment: With one minute of work, you can temporarily treat a negative condition on the target...although there are some minor side effects. Roll a Heal check against a DC equal to the save DC of the effect the imposed the condition + 5. If no save was allowed, calculate the DC as if one were. If the target is Sickened, Shaken, or Fatigued, it loses that condition. Otherwise, it becomes Sickened, Shaken, or Fatigued (your choice) for ten minutes per point you beat the DC by, and ignores a single chosen condition other than Dead or Petrified for the same duration. If the new condition is removed or ignored for any reason, the old condition immediately reasserts itself. If the target already has the new condition, they stack (Sickened -> Nauseated -> Helpless; Shaken -> Frightened -> Panicked; Fatigued -> Exhausted and Staggered -> Unconscious), so it generally isn't advisable.

[Keneth]

I had hoped for a more enthusiastic response, but that's ok. After a fair bit of sifting through old threads and searching for diamonds in the nebulous mess of creativity that is the homebrew forum, I've managed to find a decent amount of ideas to spark my own designs to life. Hopefully, I'll manage to spawn a creation pleasing enough to my players for them to no longer ignore mundane healing, without entirely breaking some other part of the game. Although I'm still slightly worried by the simplicity of maximizing skill checks and all that such shenanigans imply, I think limiting the progression to ranks, rather than simply arbitrary difficulty classes, should work well enough to hold off any ridiculousness until higher levels.

And thank you, Quellian-dyrae, for your input. It's already been helpful in some respects.

[TuggyNE]

Have you seen the MMB thread on percentage healing and similar from a while back? It mentions some ideas for including Heal skill in that.

[Yitzi]

Perhaps an FRA usage to turn a large number (maybe up to WIS modifierXthe roll result) of lethal damage into nonlethal. Which might not seem that amazing, until you consider that healing magic heals an equal amount of nonlethal as well...

[Keneth]

Turning lethal damage into nonlethal damage might be good. Nonlethal damage heals faster naturally, so that would be quite excellent as I didn't know exactly how to explain healing a large amount of injury by mundane means.

Have you seen the MMB thread on percentage healing and similar from a while back? It mentions some ideas for including Heal skill in that.

I've actually been mulling over this idea for a while since I've started houseruling again, but I haven't been able to find a good way to implement it. Percentages are annoying to calculate, and having a flat percentage changes the a lot of the dynamics. I'm still ignoring this change for now, but a similar change to the Heal skill might be worth considering.