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As in my first tirade about fixed DCs, Treat Deadly Wounds needs to scale to be useful in a game. I applaud the creation of this function of the Heal skill, but I would recommend a few changes.
First, make the Heal check have potential repercussions for failing by 5 or more, and have the subject of the surgery take damage if the skill check is blown. Why, you ask? Because then you can take away the limitation of once per day, and eliminate some bookkeeping.
Next, set the DC to some variable amount – I’d recommend adding to the DC the number of hit points the character is reduced from maximum.
Lastly, I’d also advocate allowing Heal to revivify creatures that have died the round before. This was a clear win situation for the game when the Revivify spell was added in the Spell Compendium (and Pathfinder added Breath of Life). Adding this function to the Heal skill would increase the survivability of characters immensely.
I would be cool with this, also allow heal to do just that maybe 1d4 HP per battle or day or something, it should have some affect.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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I'd be cool with heal being used to heal hit points. I get tired of players chugging potions of cure light wounds like they're downing Red Bull's before finals. Using heal should have some costs and restrictions. What could these be?
(1) Healing takes time. Wandering monsters may be a possibility. I love the idea of players locking themselves in the dungeon and trying to hold the fort while they patch each other's wounds.
(2) Hit points healed equals the amount that the heal check exceeds the DC.
(3) Maximum possible heal = half (one third?) total hit points.
I love the idea of Treat Deadly Wounds. A few problems, though.
Spells and Potions, being instantaneous, aren't even close to being made obsolete by this. The cleric would retain his role as battlefield medic, but would be able to save his healing magic for the battlefield, and maybe use his class skills for situations that aren't urgent enough to warrant a miracle.
Those two changes would make the heal skill worth investing in for Clerics and laymen alike, without ruining spells and potions.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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I love the idea of Treat Deadly Wounds. A few problems, though.
the cost of healing this way (out of healing kits) is more expensive than purchasing potions. Potions are instant/better. This needs to be fixed.
Healer's Kits have 10 uses for 50gp. 5 gp each. How much do your potions cost?
humm yes that sounds good, max would be maybe 1/2 or 1/3rd. I would only let this be used 1 time per battle per pc. This would go a long way to taking away healing magic dependency.
Also it wont replace magic but it is far more common then magic. And really helps out groups with no cleric on with DM[like me] who do not allow magic marts.
Director of Games
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Truth be told, I am trying to avoid 1/battle mechanics... for a number of reasons.
I also prefer this to be a rule that is primarily one used to help explain natural healing for NPCs as opposed to any sort of replacement or competition with magical healing.
Thoughts
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
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Truth be told, I am trying to avoid 1/battle mechanics... for a number of reasons.
I also prefer this to be a rule that is primarily one used to help explain natural healing for NPCs as opposed to any sort of replacement or competition with magical healing.
Thoughts
Well, no matter what, players will use the Heal Skill. If you want to aim it at NPCs, make the time to Treat Deadly Wounds at 1 hour or 4 hours. But at the end of the day, players will use it.
How about this?
Treat Deadly Wounds: With a healer’s kit that is expended in the use, surgery may be attempted on a wounded creature, with an attempt taking 4 hours. The DC is 10 + the total hit points of damage the creature has taken. Success heals the creature by (1d6 + Wisdom modifier) hit points. Failure by 5 or more causes an equal amount of damage. Surgery can be attempted repeatedly on a creature for cumulative effects.
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I also prefer this to be a rule that is primarily one used to help explain natural healing for NPCs as opposed to any sort of replacement or competition with magical healing.
I would beg you not to take this attitude. Even if it is not competitive with magical healing, non-magical healing that is still functional opens up so many more options for party design than "you must have a cleric or paladin," which is where it is now. (And only paladin if you adopt the paladin variant you offered during the relevant playtest.) In particular, a relatively low-magic party (especially in, say, a low-magic campaign) would be greatly helped by such a system, even if it would not be at the level of what magical healing can achieve.
5 GP: TDW consumes multiple "charges" from a healers kit. When you add it all up, it is less cost effective than potions on an HP/GP basis.
Truth be told, I am trying to avoid 1/battle mechanics... for a number of reasons.
I also prefer this to be a rule that is primarily one used to help explain natural healing for NPCs as opposed to any sort of replacement or competition with magical healing.
The concept of "natural" healing of HP is silly to me.
You shouldn't heal "naturally" at all if you've been stabbed or bludgeoned. Taking a nap isn't going to help, setting bones straight, suturing, tourniquets and preventing infection is what heals. Then comes the rest.
I accept that HP aren't even remotely realistic. Realism isn't called for here... but if a character spends ranks on Heal (even a cleric) they should probably be able to use it to recover HP, because that is the axis by which we measure health in D&D.
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Director of Games
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I also prefer this to be a rule that is primarily one used to help explain natural healing for NPCs as opposed to any sort of replacement or competition with magical healing.I would beg you not to take this attitude. Even if it is not competitive with magical healing, non-magical healing that is still functional opens up so many more options for party design than "you must have a cleric or paladin," which is where it is now. (And only paladin if you adopt the paladin variant you offered during the relevant playtest.) In particular, a relatively low-magic party (especially in, say, a low-magic campaign) would be greatly helped by such a system, even if it would not be at the level of what magical healing can achieve.
I understand your concern, but right now I have to go along with certain base-line assumptions about the game, such as:
- Parties have access to magic healing
- Magic healing is a finite resource that helps control the flow of the game
Opening up the heal skill to be a general use replacement for healing really alters some dynamics that I am concerned about changing, not just to individual groups, but to the game as a whole.
I think that if you are running a low magic or cleric/paladin free game, there are a number of adjustments you already need to make, and altering the Heal skill is one simple one to make. I am not trying to be dismissive here (as this is something I have actually thought about quite a bit), but I am hesitant to open up this skill use too much.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
humm what about if it can only heal a max of 1/3rd your total hp per day?
That way it wouldn't matter how much you fight you can still only be bandaged up for a total of 1/3rd your HP.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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One thing I'd like to see changed with regards to treat deadly wounds is to have it work with a cheaper option than the healer's kit, since that also counts as your MW tool for the heal skill and gives a +2 to your check. It would be nice to have a separate item that you could purchase that was a "treat wounds kit" for lack of a better name, that would cost less than 25 gp (I'd propose 10gp), would allow use of the heal skill for treat deadly wounds, and not give a +2 to your check. This would make it a more affordable option for 1st level parties that don't have lots of excess cash. An alternative would be to change healer's kits to cost 25 gp and only have 5 uses (or 1 use of treat deadly wounds) to allow easier access at the very beginning of a PC's carreer.
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I understand your concern, but right now I have to go along with certain base-line assumptions about the game, such as:- Parties have access to magic healing
- Magic healing is a finite resource that helps control the flow of the game
I fully accept and agree with these assumptions, but I submit that there is substantial room for improving skill-based healing without challenging them. Several alternate systems have been proposed already that do just that; many have been criticized by other posters for being insufficiently effective at replacing magical healing, in fact.
The usual alternative to a full-powered magical healer is a character with cure light wounds on their spell list and a wand of CLW. If we assume that such a wand grants 5 hp per use, and has 50 uses, we see that we get basically 250 hp for 750 gp, or 3 gp/hp. If we require a 50 gp healer's kit that has 10 uses, the same ratio should get us roughly 17 hp out of that kit - if we could use it repeatedly, if it only took a standard action to use and if it were guaranteed to work. Since none of those is true, we seem to have some room to play here. The once/day healing in particular is a problem, with the hour-long use time right behind it.
- Parties have access to magic healing
- Magic healing is a finite resource that helps control the flow of the game
There is much to consider here.
It's my opinion that being able to restore HP quickly and safely in combat is sufficiently magical. If the heal skill restored 1d6 HP per hour, consuming materials, I would consider the status quo unharmed.
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Jason
what do you think about daily uses and only doable out of combat?
i mean you can only use the heal skill to heal hp once per day, helping stop the most critic wounds, i was thinking more in the lines of
DC 10 1d4
DC 15 2d4
DC 20 3d4
.
.
.
and so on
someone in averybad shape would need many days to recover fully without magic aid still
this way you help a party of low level characters to not spend all their resources in healing and will give them a bit of a help, and in higher levels is so small that it won't matter to most of them.
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Okay here is the breakdown of cost for a treat deadly wounds skill
Healer's kit 50gp (2 uses)= 25gp per use, 1 hour treatment time, 1 per day limit, risk of failure.
Cure light wounds potion 50gp (1 use)= 50gp per use, 3 second treatment time, unlimited uses per day, no risk of failure.
Curewort 25gp (1 use)= 25gp per use, 6 second treatment time, unlimited uses per day, no risk of failure
Wand of Cure light wounds 750 gp (50 uses)= 15 gp per use, 3 second treatment time, unlimited uses per day, no risk of failure.
As it stands It is rediculously overpriced to seek healing from the skill (see the fact that you can buy curewort which is pathfinder material for the same cost of using the skill, cheaper actually because you can buy a single dose), not to mention healing without a healer's kit is a -10 to the check, so dang near impossible despite being iconic (tearing strips of cloth from your cloak to bind an allies wounds anyone?)
Solution:
Make treat deadly wounds take 2 uses of a healers kit, that changes it to
Healer's kit 50gp (5 uses)= 10gp per use, 1 hour treatment time, 1 per day limit, risk of failure.
This is still not a comparable option to using cure items, but at least it doesn't make it a silly matter of being both less effective then magical healing and more expensive. It also changes the negative for not having a healer's kit from a -10 to a -4, which is much more reasonable and enables the attempt with improvised gear (ever hear a story were someone splints their broken leg with a tree branch and some strips of cloth from their pants etc. etc.? I have at least 3 times in recent memory).
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Now for the actual skill itself.
1hp/level is not a decent amount ever, it just isn't, any skill, item, whatever that heals 1hp per level had better be a swift action because otherwise it's a meaningless window dressing. I would rather the option not waste the space it takes up in the book and the ability be removed altogether than have a 1hp/level limit. If it's for NPC then just say in the NPC section of the book that normally NPCs seek treatment for injury from the heal skill. Don't explain it, it's one sentence and it takes up less space.
If you're putting it in the book for players to use, then make it at least useful. I was actually convinced by Roman with a good arguement that a per diem cap was in fact necessary. The thing about a per diem cap is that then you can actually make the skill useful, and since it can only be used once per day, it doesn't significantly alter the breakdown of resources. Changing turn into channel energy had a bigger effect than having an effective heal skill would.
As such I suggest
treat deadly wounds:When treating deadly wounds, you can restore hit points to a damaged creature. Treating deadly wounds restores 1d4+wis modifier hp. Add 1d4 for every 5 by which you beat this DC . A creature can only benefit from its deadly wounds being treated within 24 hours of being injured and never more than
once per day. You must expend two uses from a healer’s kit to perform this task. You take a –2 penalty on your Heal skill check for each use from the healer’s kit that you lack. Treating deadly wounds takes 1 hour of work. Only one person may use aid another to assist you on this check at a time.
This because of the use of d4s and the fact that there is a once per day cap and an hour time limit means that at best it saves one spell per character a day, or if the party doesn't have a divine healer can actually have more than one fight a day.
Thoughts?
Jason?
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For me the problem has always been that Heal is useless, but so flavor important that it can't be avoided. So I came up with three uses for the healing skill which scale and augment rather then conflict with the value of magical healing. They tested well at low and high levels.
Heal Skill
Tend Injured: When using natural healing, increase amount those you are tending to heal by your Heal skill.
Treat Wounds: DC: 10 + Wounds. Takes 1 Hour and a Healer's Kit, Raises a PC to 1 HP / HD + Con Modifier. If a PC has more HP then this it has no effect.
Enhance Magical Healing:DC: 10 + Maximum Magical Healing Possible from Source. Magical Healing takes 1 minute instead of 3 seconds, guarantees minimum healing equal to healing skill.
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For me the problem has always been that Heal is useless.
Bingo, heal is useless, but it doesn't say anywhere in the ability that it isn't recomended that players put ranks in the skill, so what winds up happening is new players always wind up with ranks in heal because it sounds useful, and then I always have to tell them that it isn't, and then they ask me if they can switch it out, to which I say yes because I'm not going to have them waste important skill ranks that way. If the skill is an NPC skill then have it stated in the heal entry that it isn't recomended PCs take it in the same way they recomend that PCs don't take levels in NPC classes. Doesn't mean they can't, just that they know what they are getting into when they take it.
If that isn't going to be done, then the skill needs to be worthwile. I have a character with a +12 to heal. I keep increasing heal because it fits the characters flavor. I haven't used heal once in game because we have a cleric with a wand of cure light.
Might I also suggest a Chiurgeon feat. For a low magic game, this would offer significant healing, but it would not overshadow magical healing in a normal came.
Chiurgeon
You are trained in treating life threatening injuries.
Prerequisite: Heal 5 ranks.
when using the treat deadly wound function of the Heal skill, you may perfom surgergy on the injured individual. Surgery takes 1d4 hours; if the patient is at negative hit points, add an additional hour for every point below 0 the patient has fallen.
Surgery restores 1d4+1 hit points for every character level of the patient (up to the patient’s full normal total of hit points) with a successful skill check. Surgery can only be used successfully on a character once in a 24-hour period.
A character who undergoes surgery is fatigued for 24 hours, minus 2 hours for every point above the DC the Chiurgeon achieves. The period of fatigue can never be reduced below 6 hours in this fashion.
Truth be told, I am trying to avoid 1/battle mechanics... for a number of reasons.
Thank you, thank you, thank you - I loathe explicit "per battle" or "per encounter" mechanics for a number of reasons, not least among which is the fact that an "encounter" is a purely metagame construction that should have no place in determining frequency or duration of abilities. There are other ways to achieve implicit "per encounter" effects if desired, such as to have abilities have recharge times that are impractical in combat and so on.
I also prefer this to be a rule that is primarily one used to help explain natural healing for NPCs as opposed to any sort of replacement or competition with magical healing.
I understand your position and indeed agree with it, but it does make the Heal skill a somewhat dubious choice power-wise for PCs. I have partially offset this in my campaign by effectively making Heal act as Knowledge: Anatomy to give it extra uses.
As to the topic of healing itself, some amount of healing per day per person would be OK if applied within X rounds or minutes of the wound being received. Perhaps we could even have it set at something like this:
First Aid/Patch-up: 1d4 (or 1d6) hit points healed per each 5 points of DC above 15 (inclusive), but capped at half-hit points for each character per day. In order to be effective, first aid must be applied no later than 1 minute after the wound is received.
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Might I also suggest a Chiurgeon feat. For a low magic game, this would offer significant healing, but it would not overshadow magical healing in a normal came.
Chiurgeon
You are trained in treating life threatening injuries.
Prerequisite: Heal 5 ranks.when using the treat deadly wound function of the Heal skill, you may perfom surgergy on the injured individual. Surgery takes 1d4 hours; if the patient is at negative hit points, add an additional hour for every point below 0 the patient has fallen.
Surgery restores 1d4+1 hit points for every character level of the patient (up to the patient’s full normal total of hit points) with a successful skill check. Surgery can only be used successfully on a character once in a 24-hour period.
A character who undergoes surgery is fatigued for 24 hours, minus 2 hours for every point above the DC the Chiurgeon achieves. The period of fatigue can never be reduced below 6 hours in this fashion.
So a player has to invest a feat and ranks and a healers kit for the ability to be useful? no thank you. feats shouldn't be used to fix abilities, they should be used to bolster abilities.
So a player has to invest a feat and ranks and a healers kit for the ability to be useful? no thank you. feats shouldn't be used to fix abilities, they should be used to bolster abilities.
While I would prefer the abilities of the feat to replace the treat deadly wounds function of the Heal skill, I offered the feat as a suggested compromise.
I don't know if it adds anything, but here is the campaign house rule I'm currently using:
Heal (Trained only; Wis)
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. You heal damage equal to ½ the check’s result (rounded down) up to a maximum of the damage you took during the encounter. You cannot heal any damage taken in a previous encounter. The following also apply:
1. Only one check may be made per PC per encounter.
2. If you are being healed, you cannot heal another or aid anyone except the person healing you.
3. If you heal yourself, you suffer a –2 penalty.
4. A healer’s kit gives a +2 bonus to the heal check and has 10 uses.
5. You cannot take 10 or 20 on this check.
6. This action takes 5 minutes to perform.
7. If you are interrupted while healing any benefit is lost.
8. A natural 20 heals all damage taken in the encounter.
Example: PC #1 has a maximum of 100 hit points. He begins a combat encounter with 95 hit points and takes 5 points of damage during battle, dropping his hit points to 90. At the end of the encounter PC #2 heals him while PC #1 successfully uses the aid another action to help (including his –2 check penalty for healing himself). Their heal check result is 17, so PC #1 is able to heal 8 damage; however, he can only be healed of 5 points of damage since he only took 5 points of damage during the battle. PC #1 now has 95 hit points. Neither PC #1 nor PC #2 may heal anyone else of any damage from that encounter.
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I don't know if it adds anything, but here is the campaign house rule I'm currently using:
Heal (Trained only; Wis)
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. You heal damage equal to ½ the check’s result (rounded down) up to a maximum of the damage you took during the encounter. You cannot heal any damage taken in a previous encounter. The following also apply:
1. Only one check may be made per PC per encounter.
2. If you are being healed, you cannot heal another or aid anyone except the person healing you.
3. If you heal yourself, you suffer a –2 penalty.
4. A healer’s kit gives a +2 bonus to the heal check and has 10 uses.
5. You cannot take 10 or 20 on this check.
6. This action takes 5 minutes to perform.
7. If you are interrupted while healing any benefit is lost.
8. A natural 20 heals all damage taken in the encounter.Example: PC #1 has a maximum of 100 hit points. He begins a combat encounter with 95 hit points and takes 5 points of damage during battle, dropping his hit points to 90. At the end of the encounter PC #2 heals him while PC #1 successfully uses the aid another action to help (including his –2 check penalty for healing himself). Their heal check result is 17, so PC #1 is able to heal 8 damage; however, he can only be healed of 5 points of damage since he only took 5 points of damage during the battle. PC #1 now has 95 hit points. Neither PC #1 nor PC #2 may heal anyone else of any damage from that encounter.
This I do think steps on magical healings toes, and it uses a 1/encounter mechanic which jason says he is trying to avoid.
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I think using heal skill to actually do some healing works as a way of getting back health a little if you are in a party without a cleric you can still actually get some healing without spending weeks in downtime. Granted my brother took one level of cleric (and is out healing the paladin, but that's another story) so our party does have access to magical healing, mostly through wands though since spells, and channels, run out fast.
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I think using heal skill to actually do some healing works as a way of getting back health a little if you are in a party without a cleric you can still actually get some healing without spending weeks in downtime. Granted my brother took one level of cleric (and is out healing the paladin, but that's another story) so our party does have access to magical healing, mostly through wands though since spells, and channels, run out fast.
What's funny is that it's actually not cost effective to use the heal skill to try and save on magic. See above where I showed that it's actually CHEAPER to use a wand then to buy a healers kit and try to use it. I mean no matter what the rules finally look like, it shouldn't be cheaper to get instantaneous miraculous healing than to bandage yourself up with some guaze.
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I think using heal skill to actually do some healing works as a way of getting back health a little if you are in a party without a cleric you can still actually get some healing without spending weeks in downtime. Granted my brother took one level of cleric (and is out healing the paladin, but that's another story) so our party does have access to magical healing, mostly through wands though since spells, and channels, run out fast.What's funny is that it's actually not cost effective to use the heal skill to try and save on magic. See above where I showed that it's actually CHEAPER to use a wand then to buy a healers kit and try to use it. I mean no matter what the rules finally look like, it shouldn't be cheaper to get instantaneous miraculous healing than to bandage yourself up with some guaze.
Well you do realize you only need a stick, some herbs, and a couple of days alone time for a cure wand. For bandages, you have to farm cotton, or sheep, have to feed and water them. Then harvest the wool or cotton...then weave them into the bandages all very time comsuming and costly. Oh and forget saving money if you have a silkworm farm for silk bandages.
For reference, I don't think 1d4/character level of the individual being healed is a problem. ESPECIALLY since no one has a d4 HD anymore. A lot of games that allow non-magical healing throw in a costly time component (on a scale of hours), but restore 1d6 or even 1d8/level. Note, that's not the level of the person doing the check, but the person getting healed. Once per day + costly time component horribly outweighs the cost of magic being much quicker.
Even something as simple as applying a status effect afterward, like the fatigued condition or something, would be a step towards keeping "balance". If it's for NPCs, don't put it in the general skill section, that just confuses people. It definitely needs rebalancing.
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Well you do realize you only need a stick, some herbs, and a couple of days alone time for a cure wand. For bandages, you have to farm cotton, or sheep, have to feed and water them. Then harvest the wool or cotton...then weave them into the bandages all very time comsuming and costly. Oh and forget saving money if you have a silkworm farm for silk bandages.I think using heal skill to actually do some healing works as a way of getting back health a little if you are in a party without a cleric you can still actually get some healing without spending weeks in downtime. Granted my brother took one level of cleric (and is out healing the paladin, but that's another story) so our party does have access to magical healing, mostly through wands though since spells, and channels, run out fast.What's funny is that it's actually not cost effective to use the heal skill to try and save on magic. See above where I showed that it's actually CHEAPER to use a wand then to buy a healers kit and try to use it. I mean no matter what the rules finally look like, it shouldn't be cheaper to get instantaneous miraculous healing than to bandage yourself up with some guaze.
And do you know how many septics you have to kill to make your weapon anti-septic?
Nope, gotta spend a feat to make it proc like that. A feat from a 3.5 wotc splatbook, no less.
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I'd be cool with heal being used to heal hit points. I get tired of players chugging potions of cure light wounds like they're downing Red Bull's before finals.
I HATE this.
I also prefer this to be a rule that is primarily one used to help explain natural healing for NPCs as opposed to any sort of replacement or competition with magical healing.I would beg you not to take this attitude. Even if it is not competitive with magical healing, non-magical healing that is still functional opens up so many more options for party design than "you must have a cleric or paladin," which is where it is now. (And only paladin if you adopt the paladin variant you offered during the relevant playtest.) In particular, a relatively low-magic party (especially in, say, a low-magic campaign) would be greatly helped by such a system, even if it would not be at the level of what magical healing can achieve.
I agree 100%. PLEASE give us just a little non-magical healing.
How about changing the treat deadly wound function to 1d4 per rank in the Heal skill? Treat it as surgery, usable once per day and taking 1d4 hours. Keep the fatigue rules from my Chiurgeon feat suggestion.
A dedicated healer could restore a good number of hit points, but the once per day use and fatigue effects would limit the usefulness to a group of PCs, while still making it very useful for NPCs. As a group goes up in level, magical healing becomes even better (and makes a PC cleric stand out when healing the sick).
For example:
1st level - cure light wounds restores 1d8+1 hp (average 5 hp) as a standard action vs. surgery restoring 4d4 hp (average 10 hp, 1 per day, and likely 24 hours of fatigue) requiring 1d4 hours.
By 11th level, heal becomes available. A healer with 11 ranks restores 11d4 hp (average 27 hp) and, on average, will still cause 12 hours of fatigue to the patient. A cure serious wounds cast by an 11th level character heals nearly as much (average 24 hp) as the heal skill.
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How about changing the treat deadly wound function to 1d4 per rank in the Heal skill? Treat it as surgery, usable once per day and taking 1d4 hours. Keep the fatigue rules from my Chiurgeon feat suggestion.
A dedicated healer could restore a good number of hit points, but the once per day use and fatigue effects would limit the usefulness to a group of PCs, while still making it very useful for NPCs. As a group goes up in level, magical healing becomes even better (and makes a PC cleric stand out when healing the sick).
For example:
1st level - cure light wounds restores 1d8+1 hp (average 5 hp) as a standard action vs. surgery restoring 4d4 hp (average 10 hp, 1 per day, and likely 24 hours of fatigue) requiring 1d4 hours.By 11th level, heal becomes available. A healer with 11 ranks restores 11d4 hp (average 27 hp) and, on average, will still cause 12 hours of fatigue to the patient. A cure serious wounds cast by an 11th level character heals nearly as much (average 24 hp) as the heal skill.
This seems viable
I'd like to point out that there is a lot of middle-ground between the Beta version of TDW and what people are asking for here.
I don't want a 1/battle rule (or per encounter, or per scene, because those are inconsistent). There is, however, a lot of room to make skill healing useful while preserving the role of magical healing as a diminishing resource.
It is my belief that healing HP spontaneously during a battle should only be achievable with magic, with the Beta TDW, this is possible with the skill. I would remove that application, and allow TDW to return more HP but over a long period of time, and make TDW very vulnerable to perform during combat.
The question of "How Many HP can you Heal?" can only really be addressed by fixing that quirk of the HP system that allows a frail wizard to regain full health from death's door in less time than a brutal barbarian. If every character has an amount of natural healing that takes into account their HD type and Con bonus, then I think it is simple to derive a Skill Healing cap from that number.
A dedicated healer could restore a good number of hit points, but the once per day use and fatigue effects would limit the usefulness to a group of PCs, while still making it very useful for NPCs. As a group goes up in level, magical healing becomes even better (and makes a PC cleric stand out when healing the sick).
I like this too.
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Having skimmed thorugh the postings, I was wondering if instead of straight curing of hit points, the skill converts an amount of hit point damage to non-lethal damage?
This allows the skill to improve the results of a cure spell and allow characters without magical healing available to regain health over a shorter time frame than a nights rest.
D20 SRD[/b] .. (PF files at home)]
Healing Nonlethal Damage
You heal nonlethal damage at the rate of 1 hit point per hour per character level.
When a spell or a magical power cures hit point damage, it also removes an equal amount of nonlethal damage.
Having skimmed thorugh the postings, I was wondering if instead of straight curing of hit points, the skill converts an amount of hit point damage to non-lethal damage?That's an awesome idea
I concur. A simple and elegant solution.
Having skimmed thorugh the postings, I was wondering if instead of straight curing of hit points, the skill converts an amount of hit point damage to non-lethal damage?
This allows the skill to improve the results of a cure spell and allow characters without magical healing available to regain health over a shorter time frame than a nights rest.
D20 SRD[/b] .. (PF files at home)]
Healing Nonlethal Damage
You heal nonlethal damage at the rate of 1 hit point per hour per character level.
When a spell or a magical power cures hit point damage, it also removes an equal amount of nonlethal damage.
This is one of the best suggestions for the Heal skill since the Alpha discussions when Treat Deadly Wounds was introduced. I wonder if it could work?
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Having skimmed thorugh the postings, I was wondering if instead of straight curing of hit points, the skill converts an amount of hit point damage to non-lethal damage?
This allows the skill to improve the results of a cure spell and allow characters without magical healing available to regain health over a shorter time frame than a nights rest.
D20 SRD[/b] .. (PF files at home)]
Healing Nonlethal Damage
You heal nonlethal damage at the rate of 1 hit point per hour per character level.
When a spell or a magical power cures hit point damage, it also removes an equal amount of nonlethal damage.
I think that's an excellent idea, though it still raises the question of treatment time. It's a noticable improvement over the current suggestions, however, elegant and functional in several ways (not least of which is that it encourages mundane healing as part of a magic-users repertoire...).
So under this system, a cleric could make a heal check to convert HP damage to non-lethal HP damage... and then cast a Cure Light Wounds... possibly doubling the actual HP healed from the spell, right?
If this is the case, I think the Heal spell will be used not to heal HPs so much as... healing ability damage, conditions, and such rather than actual HPs, since the common healing spells become much more effective. It's not a bad thing, I'm just speculating.
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I don't mind the idea of converting lethal to nonlethal damage. Here's what I suggest:
- time should still be 1 hour (to prevent competition with magical healing)
- allow conversion of 1d4 + Wis modifier hit points to nonlethal damage.
- don't regulate times per day it can be used (bookkeeping attempts on various players is a bad idea)
- each use uses up 1/5 of a healing kit (50 gp), and nothing from a masterwork healing kit (a new item worth 500 gp)
Ta da!
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I don't mind the idea of converting lethal to nonlethal damage. Here's what I suggest:
- time should still be 1 hour (to prevent competition with magical healing)
- allow conversion of 1d4 + Wis modifier hit points to nonlethal damage.
- don't regulate times per day it can be used (bookkeeping attempts on various players is a bad idea)
- each use uses up 1/5 of a healing kit (50 gp), and nothing from a masterwork healing kit (a new item worth 500 gp)
Ta da!
This is the best solution. I'm going to implement this in my campaign as a houserule if nothing else. This way healing halls (or infirmaries) don't always have to send out for clerics whenever anyone comes in with a papercut.
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This is the best solution. I'm going to implement this in my campaign as a houserule if nothing else. This way healing halls (or infirmaries) don't always have to send out for clerics whenever anyone comes in with a papercut.
True. And it makes healer's kits an unspecified bunch of bone splints, healing herbs, bandages, suture thread, compresses, alchemical draughts, and whatnot.
Now, when Fredegar the Fighter is down 35 hit points, the DC to treat his wounds should be higher than Pedro the Peasant down 2 hit points, but that's another argument.
But if Fredegar is down that many hit points, it means on average, a successful healer can convert it all to nonlethal damage over 10 hours, at a cost of 100 gp worth of healing kits, and probably bring the guy back up to full hit points in about 20 hours. That's pretty swift, but look at the cost -- it means Pedro the Peasant can't afford that kind of doctor (which is probably a good balance for such quick healing).