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DC 15: Stabalize a dying character (does not restore hp)
DC 20: Treat wounds; restores 1d6 hp (Can only be used Once/day/character)
DC 30: Revive; brings a dead PC to -9 hp and stabalizes(Can only be used within the round after he died.)
This is a modified version of what's above. This is what I'm thinking of using. I also thought of a mechanic that can reduce the treat wounds DC but a failure causes the PC 1 point of damage and each check takes 10 mins. unlimited times per day.
Gonna use big jakes version this sat .I like it well im just gonna aloow its use 1 time per person per fight.
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I think a rule could be added to death that when a character dies the DM rolls 1d10 and that is the # of rounds they have to be revived by a heal check. That would prevent player metagaming, oh he has x rounds still I'll try next round and still leave the possibility that he ccould fail and try again.
Wow - lots of good ideas floating around here. The Heal skill was definitely overdue for an overhaul -- no one ever took it in our 3.5e campaign, and with many other skills now counting as two or more 3.5e skills (Stealth, etc.), having the 3.5 version of Heal is, well, about half as useful as having no skills at all.
The D20 Modern ideas look pretty solid. I have to agree that some hp recovery is not unreasonable, as long as there is some way to prevent abuse.
Agreed. If I can take a Skill to have a Fast Healing ability, then why would I ever have a Fast Healing ability? Cure light wounds is now nearly useless after level 2 or 3.
That is the biggest factor when making rules like this: how does it affect the other parts of the game. If you were to incorporate healing checks to restore hp, you'd have to address its impact on things like Fast Healing.
But let's compare a Heal check with Use Magic Device.
A DC 20 activates a wand. Any wand. Cure Light Wounds, Cure Moderate Wounds, Heal and so on.
My idea (and I'm not saying its a perfect idea) gives a d6 on a DC 20 at 1st level or 20th level... something others have addressed.
The biggest difference here is the cost of the attempt. If you mandate the use of a healer's kit to restore hp using a Heal check, you're looking at 50gp for 10 attempts. 5 gp each for a max of 1d6. A wand of cure light wounds costs 750gp for 50 uses. 15gp each use for d8+1.
I think that's part of the mechanical problem, as well.
As for making low-level heal spells nearly useless, you'd have to look at the chances of a low-level PC making a DC 20 heal check. Unless you take feats to increase the skill or have a really high WIS modifier, there's less than a 50% chance of success at low levels.
Here's how I house-ruled it:
Anyone that takes damage during an encounter can be healed with the heal skill as long as treatment begins within one minute of the encounter’s end. Each PC must choose what to do at the end of the encounter; heal themselves, heal another, or aid another. Only one check may be made per PC per encounter. You heal 1d4 hit points per 5 points of the check’s result (rounded down) up to a maximum of the damage you took during the encounter -5 (you cannot heal any damage taken in a previous encounter). If you heal yourself, you suffer a –2 check penalty. You cannot take 10 or 20 on this check. This action takes 5 minutes to perform. If it is started immediately after combat it stops any further hit point loss as soon as it is begun regardless of the skill check result. If you are interrupted during this time all healing is lost.
Example: PC #1 has a maximum of 16 hit points. He begins a combat encounter with 11 hit points and takes 8 points of damage during battle. At the end of the encounter PC #2 heals him while PC #1 successfully uses the aid another action to help. Their heal check result is 17, so PC #1 heals 3d4 damage. PC #1 rolls 3d4 and gets a 10; however, he can only be healed of 3 points of damage (8 points of damage taken during the battle –5). PC #1 now has 6 hit points. Neither PC #1 nor PC #2 may heal anyone else of any damage from that encounter.
As Alchemy is a Craft Skill, why not considering Healing skill as a Profession skill ?
I can't think of a good reason why not, but then again, the name isn't that important.
I think your other ideas make sense (especially the time aspect of hp recovery), although I do question why anyone would voluntarily become sickened in exchange for healing a few hp.
I find idea to enhance effect of healing spell with the use of skill a good idea (as appraise with detect and identify in Pathfinder).
I agree, that's an interesting idea.
I find idea to enhance effect of healing spell with the use of skill a good idea (as appraise with detect and identify in Pathfinder).- Nyco
This idea could be really cool.
I really like using skill checks in my games, and the more usefullness you can get out of any skill makes the game better for me. Skills that only have one specific use (like Jump) don't seem a strong as skills that have multiple functions.
Having effects that encourage players to continue to pump skill points into a skill (bardic music, for example) is a good thing. Making things difficult to accomplish only to compensate for maxed-out skill checks is not.
I find the Heal skill very useful, even per the RAW, but once I have a reasonable chance to hit a DC 15, I stop putting in ranks.
Sure, you could use it to treat poison or disease, but by a certain level, my clerics already have magical means to deal with the issue, and will have enough spells per day that it won't hurt to use them.
So I'd love to see the Heal skill become even more useful in the game.
I'd like to lend a couple rules to this discussion that I have added to my campaign.
It's intended to accomplish the following:
1) allow non-magic healing characters a way to provide healing
2) reduce dependency on a cleric
3) cut down on wands of cure "x" wounds
4) be simple rule-wise and useful at any level of play
The rules are a little more complex than this but....
Rest Period:
Once after each combat encounter you may take a rest period to regain energy expended and allow minor pain to subside. Upon completion of the rest period, you regain hp equal to your character level. You may not gain more hp than what you had at the beginning of the encounter and you may not rest if you are unconcious.
First-Aid:
Once after each encounter, you may recieve first-aid. This requires a heal check. The DC is 20 with a healer's kit, otherwise it is DC 25. Success allows you to regain a number of hp equal to your character level. This may also be performed on an unconcious character, but the DC rises to 25 with a healer's kit, DC 30 without one. This may give the character enough hp to bring him above 0.
I have it a little more spelled out than this to cover loop holes, but this is the basic nuts and bolts of it.
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I'd like to lend a couple rules to this discussion that I have added to my campaign.
It's intended to accomplish the following:
1) allow non-magic healing characters a way to provide healing
2) reduce dependency on a cleric
3) cut down on wands of cure "x" wounds
4) be simple rule-wise and useful at any level of playThe rules are a little more complex than this but....
Rest Period:
Once after each combat encounter you may take a rest period to regain energy expended and allow minor pain to subside. Upon completion of the rest period, you regain hp equal to your character level. You may not gain more hp than what you had at the beginning of the encounter and you may not rest if you are unconcious.First-Aid:
Once after each encounter, you may recieve first-aid. This requires a heal check. The DC is 20 with a healer's kit, otherwise it is DC 25. Success allows you to regain a number of hp equal to your character level. This may also be performed on an unconcious character, but the DC rises to 25 with a healer's kit, DC 30 without one. This may give the character enough hp to bring him above 0.I have it a little more spelled out than this to cover loop holes, but this is the basic nuts and bolts of it.
I like.
I like these ideas about the use of the heal skill to heal hp. I think that a way to keep this from being abused is to say that that a character can be healed in this fashion a number of times per day equal to his CON modifier.
I like the idea of Heal actually having the capability of healing someone, in general our healers never had much use for it in the long run. They were always better off dropping a first level spell and pumping a CLWs or dropping 0-lvl for CMWs rather than using the skill.
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I posted last night about what I was going to do to test minor healing through the heal skill but the boards have eaten that post. I'll repost it for all of you to see and will provide feedback from my playtest on Friday.
DC 20: Treat Injury: You can heal a character 1d6+1/5 levels of the healer. This check takes 10 minutes to complete. If you are interrupted during this time, this ability fails.
My post last night was also eaten by the boards...
I like Stonechild's idea limiting a character's heals to their CON modifier. Per encounter limits are messy and subjective, and I think this solution is more elegant not only in terms of streamlining, but also because it reflects the ability of high CON characters to recover more often from grueling fights.
That said, I also like Bigjake's idea of reviving dead characters, within a very limited time-frame. I think instead of being a flat DC, this should scale according to how far gone a character is. A PC who just got punched by an ogre, for example, should be easier to revive than one who just got roasted by a red dragon.
My suggestion: Make this DC = 30 + 1 per hit point the character is below -10 (or, perhaps more simply, 20 +1 per hit point below 0).
I like Stonechild's idea limiting a character's heals to their CON modifier. Per encounter limits are messy and subjective, and I think this solution is more elegant not only in terms of streamlining, but also because it reflects the ability of high CON characters to recover more often from grueling fights.
I agree with its advantages, but just want to emphasize what others have already mentioned: that keeping track of usages will require annoying and distracting DM bookkeeping (after all, you KNOW you can't trust your players to tell you when their characters have hit their limit).
I like Stonechild's idea limiting a character's heals to their CON modifier. Per encounter limits are messy and subjective, and I think this solution is more elegant not only in terms of streamlining, but also because it reflects the ability of high CON characters to recover more often from grueling fights.I agree with its advantages, but just want to emphasize what others have already mentioned: that keeping track of usages will require annoying and distracting DM bookkeeping (after all, you KNOW you can't trust your players to tell you when their characters have hit their limit).
Seriously? If this were the case, you'd never know when a player died, ran out of spells, etc. If I trust PCs to keep track of these things, I don't see why they can't simply mark down how many times a day they've healed.
I don't think buoying the amount of heals a character can receive to his CON modifier would be particularly annoying or distracting. Its far easier to keep track of than, say, knowing how many hitpoints you came into an encounter with, as some people here have advocated.
The problem with tying all this hp stuff to Con or your Con modifier is that it makes Constitution as an ability too valuable. From the existing rules set, you get:
1) bonus Hp equal to your Con modifier at every level
2) bonus to Fort equal to your Con modifier
These by themselves are quite nice.
Now adding all these proposals, some possibilities put forth could add:
1) Extra starting HP equal to your Con (in one starting HP option at least)
2) go to negative Hp equal to 10 plus Con modifier
3) amount of times you can be healed by mundane means tied to your Con modifier
4) amount of hp healed is 1dx + Con modifier
5) etc.
The result? Who would ever create a character without a good Con score? As it is right now I have yet to see a player make a character with less than a 14 Con in my campaigns in 3rd edition.
I'd rather see more things being linked to character level rather than ability scores, including what is being discussed in this thread. Such as healing a number of HP equal to your level after an encounter, or your character dies when he reaches a negative HP total equal to 10 + character level.
This naturally makes them scaleable and gives more freedom to players during character creation in putting ability scores in abilities they want to rather than where they think would be most optimal. In general, stat boosting items are already a high priority on on most players wish lists. Tying too many benefits to ability scores would only increase this urge.
I also find that tying a mundane healing mechanic to a limited number of times per day equal to your Con modifier to be a needless mechanic. It also just seems plain awkward...
Two characters are involved in 5 encounters in a given day. One has a 14 Con and the other has 20 Con. So basically, one character can be treated after each fight, but the other can be healed after only 2? It is also a mechanic that would add redundancy. You already get bonus hp equal to Con modifier, so let's add Con modifier number of healing times per day? Both in essence are increasing total hps and result in widening even further the hp gap between a low Con character and a high Con character.
The beauty of the current benefits of a Con bonus is that they provide that bonus in two different ways: one gives bonus HPs, the other a bonus representing hardiness to withstand other types of health related assaults that don't deplete hps (poison for instance)
So my advice... stay away from Con modifier mechanics on this one, unless it results in providing a bonus in a new way.
Another way to do this, instead of doing a per encounter or per Con modifier per day method is to say the heal check heals hit points = to the character's con modifier to a minimum of 1. But that makes the skill far less useful at the higher levels. Also, it becomes yet another thing that is tied to the Constitution ability score, making it even more valuable.
Better ways to rule mundane healing through a heal check should be level dependent or hit die dependent, and not Con based. With Level dependent, the heal skill keeps up with Character Power, but with Hit Die dependent, the heal skill keeps up with Class power. I like to go with healing based on level of the character as I proposed earlier as it has less problems and is simpler than HD dependent. As far as trumping magical healing is concerned, again I don't think it really does. Cure light wounds happens in 6 seconds or less, whereas mundane healing needs a healers kit to be reliable, (except at higher levels) and takes 5 minutes and isn't 100% successful. And the "rest period" in my proposal could be eliminated, (though my players do like it).
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I can see using heal and first aid techniques to quickly stabilize someone or stop bleeding, but perhaps restoring hit points could be handled by the hour: An hour of treatment; cleaning the wounds and bandaging them, possibly using sutures, etc. could restore some HP.
Maybe limit it to once per day or once per major fight per character.
Tracking it by CON sounds like too much book keeping.
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My thoughts on the heal skill is that it should be time consuming, costly, but unlimited.
heres my ideas
actual healing
heal can be used as first aid (DC 10) requiring 5 minutes of uninterrupted work. you heal the target character level + 1 hit points +1 hit point for 5 point success above the DC (e.g. a 5th level character with 43 hit points receiving a DC 23 heal check would heal 7 hit points). for each additional minute spent applying first aid the target heals +1 hit point per minute +1 for each 5 point success above the DC. (e.g. the above example character would heal an additional 3 hit points per minute beyond the 5th.)
First Aid cannot take a character above 50% of his maximum hit points and cannot be done without a healers kit.
Cost
Each 5 minutes of first aid requires 1 use of a healers kit (a healers kit has 10 uses according to the SRD and costs 50gp).(The above example character can only gain up to a maximum of 21 hit points. If he was on 1 hit point it would take 11 minutes of first aid to bring the character up to 50% health and use 3 charges from a healers kit).
Treat Wound (DC 15) replaces the old first aid skill and can only be applied to a character once per encounter (day?). The character heals 1 hit point per character level + 1 hit point for each 5 points you succeed the DC (e.g. a 5th level character receiving a DC 23 heal check would heal 6 hit points). Treat wound requires 1 minute of uninterrupted work but can be used without the healing kit. There is no limit to how much a character can be healed in this manner (up to his maximum hit points of cause) but the character must have taken at least 1 hit point of damage during the encounter (day). Treat wound must be applied within 5 minutes of the last wound the character suffered or the skill is wasted.)
(note: I like the sickened idea for healing but nauseated is a little too harsh)
long term care can be used to heal a character to 100% hit points. but the time taken increases to 8 hours of rest. this use requires only 1 use of a healers kit but cannot be done without one.
To me this is no more powerful than a cleric who takes the Touch of Healing[Reserve Feat] which is unlimited and can be used during combat. in every game I have played in a character with this feat heals the entire party to at least 50% before the next encounter. it doesn't change the game in any way so granting this to a heal skill (with a cost) will only help improve the game IMHO.
Well, as a doctor I have no problems with healing being based on Wisdom. I have encountered other doctors whom one would consider none too bright, but are very effective. They possess great intuition and knack for what they do. It goes back to the age old question, "Is medicine an art or a science?"
Furthermore, you could start an argument about basing on Charisma, as great bedside manner, hand holding, a kind word, etc. can have great imapact on the healing powers of the patient (debatable for an unconscious one). But I'd hate to see a bunch of Rogues going around making Bluff checks to heal wounds. I'm thinking that quack Doctor from the Simpsons (Dr. Nick is it?).
Anyway, I like all the discussion going on. I, too, would like to see some basic curing from the heal skill. I used to play Neverwinter Nights in 3E and they used some mechanic there with heal kits.
Mongoose Publishing's d20 Conan RPG game has an expanded version of the Heal skill that allows PCs to restore hit points with a successful check. It is essentially healing magic without the magic because anyone can do it.
The 50th issue of their free PDF magazine Signs and Portents detailed a Healer class with various abilities that further enhanced the game's Heal skill. (Full Disclosure, I'm partial to the article and Healer's abilities because I wrote it. TOOT. That was my own horn. :))
I based the healer around several feats I've been using in my home D&D campaign (along with the Conan RPG expanded Heal skill) to decrease the plethora of healing magic required to keep a party alive and fighting. Each feat requires a certain number of ranks in the heal skill as a prerequisite. A couple of examples:
Skilled Healer: Lets a PC add his Wis modifier to the number of hit points he restores each time he uses the Heal skill.
Battle Surgeon: When stabilizing a dying PC, a successful heal check also restores an additional 1d6 (plus attended character’s Constitution modifier) worth of hit points. This increases to 2d6 at 8th level, and 3d6 at 16th level. A PC can only benefit from this ability a number of times per day equal to his Constitution modifier (minimum 1).
Ability Damage: Once per day a heal check can restore 2 points of ability damage to a PC's Strength, Dexterity or Constitution.
Staunch the Blood: As a full-round action a character can perform a Heal check on an adjacent PC to restore 1d6 (plus attended character’s Constitution modifier) hit points. A PC can only benefit from this ability a number of times per day equal to his Constitution modifier (minimum 1).
It might not seem like a lot of hit points, but coupled with a paladin and a few potions it has worked for us. It has also made the Heal skill something everyone wants, and lets the party cleric use his spells slots for something besides cure moderate wounds.