Dentistry in PF?

[Nina Luna]

Could dentistry be handled with Heal, or should it be a Profession skill?

[Ultrace]

There are no RAW guidelines for how to handle dentistry that I know of, but the answer I think... Is both.

The actual diagnosing of tooth problems and potential remedies, to incude extractions, amalgam fillings and surgery (all of which were performed with varying degrees of crudeness prior to 1200 AD) would be a profession--albeit one which should be used by a character with ranks in heal, since as with anything involving surgery/cutting/etc. there would be other potential effects on the body that would benefit from an understanding of the biology and complications.

Someone with ranks in heal could, however, help to treat tooth pain, bleeding or even potentially infection with known medical techniques such as hot and cold, herbal remedies, and other first aid. That is, they could treat the symptoms but not the actual problem.

I don't feel that Heal should be a catch-all for every problem a body could have. That having been said, the actual description of Heal includes treating diseases, which gingivitis and tooth decay could arguably be seen as. I would assign them high DCs for Heal in general, such as 20-25 for extractions, or even 30-35 for abcesses or impacted wisdom teeth, given the relative understanding for what we would see as Golarion (it wasn't until the 1700s that "modern dentistry" existed in our world.) For someone specializing in the profession itself, the DCs would likely be lower by perhaps 10. Still difficult, but much easier for a person whose focus is just on teeth.

Magic, as always, complicates things when we try to draw comparisons with the real world and Pathfinder. Polypurpose Panacea and Delay Pain can do wonders for a patient's ability to endure the practices. Magic like Shrink Object might make removal of teeth a snap if you ruled the tooth as an object and not an extension of the creature. Bleeding and other complications of the open wounds of extractions can be taken care of with a simple Cure Light Wounds following the extraction. (Would Virtue's 1 temporary hp allow the recipient to essentially ignore the wound incurred from pulling out a single tooth? I don't know.) Though obviously on the higher price end, Regenerate could regrow entire sets of teeth lost to injury or neglect.

[merpius]

I think the above approach is fine, so long as you desire to have a lot of detail about the particular specialty of dentistry (perhaps along with similar detail about a whole lot of other specialty tasks; it's not a bad thing, inherently, to have a lot of detail).

For a more simplified approach you could simply make it a regular type Heal check to deal with tooth problems just like it is for spinal problems, problems with your left ventrical, problems with your right index toe, etc. Further, you could still have th eprofession, as profession skills are more about how to make money with a particular skillset than that skillset itself. Like many profession skills, you could probably use profession (dentistry) to make HEal checks WRT dental problems, but the more common purpose would be to make money over the course of a week (or day, or whatever) practicing dentistry (and maybe barber services as well, since there used to be significant crossover between the two, perhaps the correct profession, in fact, would be profession (barber)).

In the end, whatever makes it fun for your group is what you should do. It's not like RAW includes detailed rules for dentistry; it handwaves all forms of healing, basically.

[Nina Luna]

Thanks for advice, guys: I think I´ll allow using Heal to simply extract a tooth, and use Profession dentist for more complicated operations :)

[avr]

I'm fairly sure profession (torturer) is a thing.

[OmegaZ]

On a diegetic level, medieval dentistry was often done by the local smith as they were the ones who had the tools (mainly tongs to pull out painful teeth). They also often served as barbers and surgeons as they could make and maintain the sharp razors required for those jobs as well.