Medicine, First Aid, healer's tool

[Zwordsman]

Howdy.

So this came up a few times in a few spots. So.

Medicine Skill.
Untrained: Administer first aid.

This is mean to be used on a dying character to ya'kno.. help save them when you don't have healing and such. It is a 1 action effect.

However. it requires a healing kit. You can not attempt it without one.

So, no tearing of cloaks to stop the blood flow, etc.

Healer kit's cost 50 silver at base, 200 for the higher level one.

So. realistically level 1 characters can't easily just get one 'in case"
and the folks who would really want one, like alchemists for instance. sure as hell can't afford them at level 1.

This leads to plenty of situations where a dying person just has to be kind of..poked with a stick going "you can do it! Roll well don't die!" as everyone twiddles their thumbs because we ran out of healing spells/elixir.
Its lame...

Could we please add a stipulation that it can be attempted without a kit at some sort of penalty ?
Or better yet.. just don't require a kit,
and make healer kit's at base give a bonus to the checks.

This is an untrained skill, its meant to be used by anyone and everyone. Realistically its entirely believable, so far, that folks won't pick up a spare healing kit "in case" for quite a while, 50sp is a fairly good investment for a while.
(and in the case of Alchemists cost almost as much as their "required to operate but don't get for free" Alchemy Kit)

[Themetricsystem]

I think Experts in Medicine should be able to attempt these checks without a Kit at something like -2 conditional Penalty. Someone who is untrained would very likely do more harm than good trying to Triage a badly injured person.

[Zwordsman]

I dont' think it should be expert only, MANY of the classes would rarely ever get that far in medicine, further exacerbating the "poke em with the stick and chant 'SURVIVE!'" issue.

This isn't Triage (Triage just means to/the assign/assignment the level of emergency to patients). Triage isn't a roll in this game, it is just a player prioritizing choice.
This is First Aid. First Aid is far more the "keep pressure here to stem the flow of blood" sort of thing.. Further, in a world with that kind of every day danger, everyone is , at base, far more able to perform smaller things like that. People being far more used to blood and danger than in modern civ.

At base the character who in question, who is dying, can roll to go back to not dying status. So it isn't like we're performing surgery, closing up someone's gut and the like. This is more like the movies where they seemingly live forever and never get worse just from one of the side characters holding a folded up coat on a wound sort of first aid.

------There absolutely does need to be a Treat Deadly Wounds, requiring a medicine kit and is a Trained Skill that does HP restoration (and could be used instead of First Aid. This should be a 1+action activity. per each action the healing amount should rise. SO you can do a quick "use alchemical glue to seal a cut" in battle, and after battle sew them up using a full few actions.-------------

Even the description on Administer First Aid is written as if it was being done by someone whose total medical knowledge is "losing blood is bad". it is basically someone stopping the blood from someone in a car accident. You don't really know what your doing all taht well (hence the critical failure chance), but you do know what results in death.

This should be the go to without a kit.
If they want to distinguish with a Kit and with more training. They should add in Critical Success factors to the skill attempt. That is what should distinguish "skill" vs "keep the guts and blood in best i can!"

but First Aid? Untrained skill.
Should not require a Healer's Tools (which should be called Doctor's Bag or Medical Kit. Heal isn't the skill name now! and in Pathfinder "healer" often means magical healing not medicine.. that was the whole point in changing the skill name). It can certainly take a penalty without a kit if they so wished.
but the fact that you can't even try to slow blood down with your hands or clothing, or a tanglefoot bag is just.. silly.

You cant' even Assist/aid another the deadee's roll to not die.

plus, it is entirely possible for the dying person to recover to not dying themselves. so it isn't like a real life first aid.

[Draco18s]

Technically we have that skill-action. Its called Battle Medic. And the reason it's a feat is because you heal someone for 1d10+WIS in a single action.

What we don't have is the base non-feat version that can do the same thing (or almost the same thing) in a minute or ten minutes.

[Zwordsman]

I didn't reference Battle Medic simply because I would not want the Treat Deadly Wounds to run under the same "bolstered" rules that one runs under.

Though honestly it should be reverse..
Treat Deadly Wounds I suggest should be Bolstered 1/day
while the feat Battle Medic should allow as much as they like, or 1/fight.

[Draco18s]

Zwordsman wrote:

I didn't reference Battle Medic simply because I would not want the Treat Deadly Wounds to run under the same "bolstered" rules that one runs under.

Though honestly it should be reverse..
Treat Deadly Wounds I suggest should be Bolstered 1/day
while the feat Battle Medic should allow as much as they like, or 1/fight.

I'm not thrilled with Bolstered either. And "do battle medic, but without the feat and it takes a minute" doesn't mean you can't also remove bolstered from it.

[iNickedYerKnickers]

Draco18s wrote:

Technically we have that skill-action. Its called Battle Medic. And the reason it's a feat is because you heal someone for 1d10+WIS in a single action.

Except it's not a single action. At minimum it's two...

1. Interact: Retrieve kit
2. Battle Medic.

Or, 3. Interact: Stow kit (vs. leave it on the ground).

More actions are needed if you have to remove a shield first or it's stowed in a backpack.

[Draco18s]

iNickedYerKnickers wrote:

1. Interact: Retrieve kit

Battle Medic says nothing about needing a medicine kit.

[iNickedYerKnickers]

Draco18s wrote:

iNickedYerKnickers wrote:

1. Interact: Retrieve kit

Battle Medic says nothing about needing a medicine kit.

Wow! Our group completely read everything wrong then :)

Thanks for the notice!

[ENHenry]

I personally think First Aid should be attemptable without a kit; even though it's a premodern society, it's a magical premodern society, and there are lots of basic first aid techniques to help an injured person that don't involve equipment (though it's not desirable) that a person could pick up - at the very least, putting pressure on a bleeding wound and keeping the person's airway unobstructed.

[PCScipio]

First aid should also have a lower DC, and no critical failure result. I think there's a reason First Aid is taught to non-specialists in real life.

[LordKailas]

PCScipio wrote:

First aid should also have a lower DC, and no critical failure result. I think there's a reason First Aid is taught to non-specialists in real life.

I bolded the relevant part. Maybe it should require a kit if you don't have training, but if you're trained in it one of the benefits is that the kit isn't required for the untrained use of the skill.