Our party was attacked by a pack of worgs and our cleric went down to -6 hit points. Luckily, he made his check to stabilize. After the battle, however, we found that we had no additional sources of healing We are hours away from the nearest town with no way to treat him.
Am I correct in thinking that he has to continue making stabilization checks on an hourly basis at this point? That he may still die if we don't get him to a settlement and a source of healing quickly enough?
I remember something to that effect, but am having trouble finding it in the rules. I'm now wondering if the recovery rules changed between editions.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Recovering with Help: One hour after a tended, dying character becomes stable, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check to become conscious. The character takes a penalty on this roll equal to his negative hit point total. Conscious characters with negative hit point totals are treated as disabled characters. If the character remains unconscious, he receives another check every hour to regain consciousness. A natural 20 on this check is an automatic success. Even if unconscious, the character recovers hit points naturally. He automatically regains consciousness when his hit points rise to 1 or higher.
Recovering without Help: A severely wounded character left alone usually dies. He has a small chance of recovering on his own. Treat such characters as those attempting to recover with help, but every failed Constitution check to regain consciousness results in the loss of 1 hit point. An unaided character does not recover hit points naturally. Once conscious, the character can make a DC 10 Constitution check once per day, after resting for 8 hours, to begin recovering hit points naturally. The character takes a penalty on this roll equal to his negative hit point total. Failing this check causes the character to lose 1 hit point, but this does not cause the character to become unconscious. Once a character makes this check, he continues to heal naturally and is no longer in danger of losing hit points naturally.
Alright, so if he is considered "attended" it looks like he will be fine. If he is not considered "attended" then I am right in my interpretation.
So, what qualifies as attended? Can you be attended when surrounded by a bunch of allies with no mechanical means of healing or treating you?
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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First Aid: You usually use first aid to save a dying character. If a character has negative hit points and is losing hit points (at the rate of 1 per round, 1 per hour, or 1 per day), you can make him stable. A stable character regains no hit points but stops losing them. First aid also stops a character from losing hit points due to effects that cause bleed (see Conditions for rules on bleed damage).
You can make Heal skill checks untrained.
Once he's stable, I don't think he benefits from the "first aid" use of the heal skill. You can also "treat deadly wounds" with the heal skill.
Once you've done those, then you can use the "long term care" use of the heal skill. You've got to keep him alive and inactive (well, uninterrupted) for eight hours for his natural healing to kick in.
Natural Healing: With a full night's rest (8 hours of sleep or more), you recover 1 hit point per character level. Any significant interruption during your rest prevents you from healing that night.
Alright, so I just need to make a DC 15 heal check to "attend" him? Sounds good, especially considering it's only a standard action and we have hours to spare.
Treating deadly wounds takes 1 hour of work. Providing long-term care requires 8 hours of light activity.
Guys, simply quoting rules I've already read isn't really helping. Use your words. Provide some context to the rules quotes you are providing.
If it was self-evident to me, I wouldn't have brought it up at all.
Alright, so I just need to make a DC 15 heal check to "attend" him? Sounds good, especially considering it's only a standard action and we have hours to spare.No actually, it's an extended activity, because you're in the long term phase of the skill. It's not just take 6 seconds and forget about him for the night.
So you're saying I would have to use the "long-term care" option to be considered attending him?
Well, how does that work when you're dragging the body through the wilderness trying to avoid potentially running into more worgs or other hazards? Can it even be done at the same time?
OK, RD. I know you're smart. You said "especially considering it's only a standard action and we have hours to spare." I quoted the rules because I was pointing out that of the three uses of the heal skill that I'd previously pointed out, two of them take more than a standard action.
I don't think you have to make any heal skill check at all to be considered "tending". You'd be tending even if you failed the heal checks. You just don't get the other benefits of a successful check.
I see it going something like this.
Character is injured into the negatives. Say -N.
Other party member uses "first aid" DC 15 heal skill to stabilize.
If an hour is available, OPMs can attempt "treat deadly wounds" (DC20). The rules for that are pretty clear, including the penalties for not having a healer's kit. Success or failure, assume the injured character is still in the negatives. In addition, at the end of his hour, by the rules in an earlier post, the IC makes the DC10 con check (modified by remaining damage). If he becomes conscious, he's disabled.
If he's disabled, he's ambulatory but moves at half speed and only gets one action. Otherwise you're going to have to carry him.
lol. Overlooked "treat deadly wounds" earlier somehow. Just the same, not much of an option for our characters though, since the only one who could pass the DC is the one who is out cold.
I think you do not need a heal check to have someone count as "being attended". At the point you are at, the cleric is not in danger of immediate death by bleeding out or the like. Now if you actually want to help him, a heal check, sure. But all you seem to want to do is to make sure he stays alive while he recovers on his own.
You're doing excessively simple things, like making sure he doesn't choke to death on his own vomit, trying to pour water down his throat every now and then, making sure he doesn't freeze to death at night, not letting him get eaten by wolves, that sort of thing. So you don't have to make a check at all, the fact that you are there and trying to not let him die is enough.
The rules for the stable condition might clear things up:
If a character has become stable on his own and hasn't had help, he is still at risk of losing hit points. Each hour he can make a Constitution check to become stable (as a character that has received aid), but each failed check causes him to lose 1 hit point.
If stabilized with help (e.g., Heal (First Aid), the stabilize spell, magical healing), that character is in the clear--no check needs to be made unless the character is damaged again. If the character stabilized alone, then she has to make a Constitution check every hour or lose a hit point. Once that check has been succeeded, however, the character is treated as if stabilized with help and need make no further checks.
Is it just me or does it seem - based on the Recovering without help quote AND the Stable condition quote - that it should read "Each hour he can make a CON check to become CONSCIOUS" not "become STABLE"? It was confusing me for a bit there.