Medicine should change to be Intelligence based


Skills, Feats, Equipment & Spells


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balance wise:
Nature already has a mundane healing option and is Wis based.
Clerics and Druids already have good healing options.
Rangers can use Nature for healing as well.
This will give Int healers like alchemist something to do to help with their subpar healing.
Int is atm by far the weakest skill and the only skill that doesn't make you "better" at something as you raise it (it only makes you average in more things)

lore/setting wise:

Hearth wisdom is by definition what the nature based healing is.
Medicine is much more like a science, so it makes sense to be Int based.
Doctors are traditionally "smart" but not traditionally "wise".


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Seconded.


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I'm pretty sure that the only reason that the Heal skill was Wisdom-based to begin with was because they assumed that clerics would be rolling it. And this then got carried over to non-D&D D20 games like D20 Modern and Star Wars, where Treat Injury was Wisdom-based.

You could make an argument that empathy is an important part of diagnosis and treatment, but it's still a bit weird that doctors aren't expected to be smart.


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I agree, medicine should be intelligence based.


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HELL YEAH
this would be freaking great!

It would allow an Alchemist to at least have a decent shot at things like Battlefield medic. Though.. not remotely great shot. but at least not FUBAR for most his life.

Int based+adding a new Treat Deadly Wounds skill (can be 1/day if they wish-though I'd suggest not but be a 10min thing instead)) and then Battlfield Medic feat being 1/battle. would go a long way for Alchemist healing at the least. (Elixir so inconsistent such low minimum)

Also.
It would kind of make Int more appealing to Not-Int based characters.


Strong disagree.

Thematically, it fits far better with Wisdom. Also, clerics, druids, monks and, more importantly, rangers are thematically more appropriate healers than int based classes (ya, including alchemists).

Unless Nature can be used to heal in the same way as Medicine with upcoming changes, this would be an extra terrible change.


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Data Lore wrote:

Strong disagree.

Thematically, it fits far better with Wisdom. Also, clerics, druids, monks and, more importantly, rangers are thematically more appropriate healers than int based classes (ya, including alchemists).

Unless Nature can be used to heal in the same way as Medicine with upcoming changes, this would be an extra terrible change.

druids and rangers already have Nature based healing. (it's already in the book as a skill feat).

Chinese medicine, which is what i assume you mean by Monks having good healing, is traditionally plant based as well.

Medicine thematically has zero things to do with being "wise" but everything to do with being "smart".


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I was actually about to make a thread positing this question. I am not sure making Medicine INT based is the right call yet, but the idea definitely has some legs.

When you think about it, there's not actually a ton of reason for clerics to be super talented healers. They can just magic away injuries. And think about this new wounded condition-- it seems to persist even after a Heal spell, requiring Treat Wounds to get rid of. There's an implication there I kind of like that while healing magic can patch you back together, it might not patch you together right. Meaning that at a certain point you need to do stuff like reset bones manually before someone can be magically restored to top shape. And at that point, knowledge of anatomy does really seem like the important thing.

There was a suggestion of giving the alchemist an option to use INT for medicine, but I don't think they can afford a class feat for that. They could also maybe make it a skill feat that anyone could take? We had traits like that in PF1 and they were pretty popular.


Again, unless the changes to healing in the next update also apply to the Nature skill (which does not appear to be the case from what Bulmahn said), your proposed change would poopoo on more classes than are helped. This means that fewer classes are likely to use the downtime healing effectively and traditionally lore based classes will be pigeonholed into speccing medicine since everyone else's INT will blow.

Again, strong disagree.

Also, this is a fantasy game. Whether its native american shaman, voodoo\hoodoo spiritualists, priestly healers, medicine men or Mr. Miagi giving Daniel-Son a weird massage etc, the fantasy trope has always been Wisdom for healing.


I wonder if there's a way to make multiple attributes apply to each skill depending on what you're going to do with it. Like some uses of intimidation are clearly charisma based (e.g. "making a convincing verbal threat") while others are closer to strength (e.g. "picking up somebody by their shirt collar".)


I'd be fine with a general feat like the intimidation one that let's a high strength character get a bonus to intimidation (I think its +1 or +2 if STR is 20+). But it should absolutely remain based on WIS.


Strong disagree because INT is already overloaded on skills.

Int has 4 skills already (not including Lore) and Wis has 4. Making that 5 and 3 isn't worthwhile.


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Int makes sense. sounds good to me.


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Medicine.. is a science. which really should be Int. or they should change the name. P1's heal was a magical science. They could turn it back to that if they want it wis based and bring back some of the weird pseudo magic boosters to it (such as healing with planes energy)

Additionally, Wis is already really heavily loaded. Will save, several skills, perception. Two of those things are things that most, if not all, characters would very much enjoy having.

Int right now, as many people have phrased, is relatively the "dump"
So having heal apply to that would help with that. (Note: with the alter of skills I don't think Int is dump. but I also never thought it was)

plus. I think the classes with the biggest lack of healing ability are also ones who are quite fond of INT because of skills.

-----
the below is kind of rambling thoughts.

I do have to say also. I do not know why Society is INT based. Ought to be Cha or Wis. But I also dont know why Society is related to Linguistics as social graces and linguistics don't need to be related.

I do think that the other skills that can heal should be able to do so with the new dying rules as well.Some skill choice for Occult, Nature.
In those cases, maybe short 10min "rituals" instead of "medicine"

this would allow for a lot of interesting RP. The Sciency Alchemist who dislikes magic giving snark to the sorcerer performing an occult ritual etc.

I am all for more "Mundane healing choices" and magic stuff for in battle-or feats like Battle Medic.
Some folks would say that having feats like battle medic, for medicine, occult, nature and maybe religion, would be painful overlap. But you could just change the name and the prereqs and effectively make it available to all of them.
Which would only serve to increase the player's options and decrease the issues of "Well.. whose gonna be teh healbot?"

Effectively.. I think I'd like the mundane heal option for INT Wis and Cha in some fashion.
More so if they remove Resounance points from Cha.
Dunno the most effective way to do that though.


Medicine as Wis skill makes sense to me for a baseline. In a Word with Golarion's low-ish scientific development, most Medicine users will go with common sense ("If I bandage this wound, it will stop bleeding") or herb-based tinctures taught by the wise men and women of their village.

That said, there are some quite learned areas in Golarion.

So I'd just add a "Student of Medicine" skill feat that gives Medicine a more academic approach (making it int-based) and be done with it.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Zwordsman wrote:
...

Social graces aren't based on Society. That's still diplomacy. Society is a catch all skill to encompass knowledge local, nobility, linguistics, and other rarely used skills from PF1. Summed up as succinctly as possible, it translates to "cultural awareness." It is very much INT based. Having a good society score can represent you having read a lot of anthropology papers, for example. You can do that and still be awkward af.

Now, a good society roll might tell your wizard something useful that could be leveraged in a conversation, but they are better off giving that information to the Bard for actually delivering it.

I actually had this happen yesterday in a dungeon world game: I spouted lore to see what I knew that might flatter a dragon, and shared it with the bard to give him a +1 forward on his Charisma roll.

Another example would be: Society is what you roll to write a speech on foreign policy. Performance would be what you roll to deliver it.


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I'm definitely with using intelligence for medicine.

With alchemists becoming a core class and the timeline shifting a few years forward it makes sense that there might be some medical colleges cropping up around the world.

Yes this is a fantasy game but remember:
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
-Agatha Heterodyne


Wolfism wrote:

I'm definitely with using intelligence for medicine.

With alchemists becoming a core class and the timeline shifting a few years forward it makes sense that there might be some medical colleges cropping up around the world.

Yes this is a fantasy game but remember:
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
-Agatha Heterodyne

i like your scientific sources^^


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Draco18s wrote:

Strong disagree because INT is already overloaded on skills.

Int has 4 skills already (not including Lore) and Wis has 4. Making that 5 and 3 isn't worthwhile.

and Wis has also Perception, Will saves and Initiative.

your point being?

Wisdom far surpasses Int as a stat atm, it having less skills reliant on it is not a worry balance wise, in fact, it is very much a good thing to happen balance wise.


Captain Morgan wrote:
....

Well said. I like it~

I'm likely too caught up due to certain bits in the society bit and some of the feats related just making me feel like it has 0 to do with learning and more to do with understanding society/people. Which I don't (personally) equate with intelligence and equate more with how charisma is phrased as "instinctual" I guess.

but probably far too much time spent in Ling dept in Uni with other weird folks making our own lil bubble of weird.

----

I still very much want Int to Medicine though. At the very least for Alchemists who are 100$ non magical in this version (YES!) and, I feel, would be spear heading sort of medical knowledge to better their elixirs and draughts and how they work with the body.

but also feel 1000% that it should not be an alchemist feat. and wouldn't do enough to be a medicine skill feat (by itself anyway)

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