Ok, one of my players took a feat, and maxed Medicine Skill, to be a doctor.
So far, I'm overall very dissapointed with medicine skill in the game.
First of all, the basic medkit has a Treat Wounds DC of 25, or 30 to add +INT. That makes the medkit of thousands of years into the future worse than Pathfinder healing kit were, because those allowed for DC 20 treat wound checks (25 to add Wisdom). Not exactly an improvement in healthcare.
Then, by spending a feat and spending skill points to max your skill, you can get the ability to use Medpatches to Treat Deadly Wounds as a full round action, with a cost of 50 per medpatch (assuming you hit your DC 25, which is NOT easy to do at lower levels). A healing serum on the other hand, can be used by anyone, is repeatable, and do not need a medicine check.
By lvl 5 you can buy SprayFleshes to allow for more treat deadly wounds, making those tough DC 30 Medicine checks would heal you your level + INT level. So by lvl 5, about 8 to 10 points. By level 5, and in the same price tag, you can buy Mk II healing serums, which heal 3d8 each (so, on average, more than Medicine), without paying a feat tax, and without maxing a skill, with no chance to miss.
In general, "be a doctor" seems to be a trap option, with a feat tax, skill investment, and credit cost in consumables, to not really been able to beat Joe Average with healing serums.
TL:DR, the DC for Medicine Skill, and the cost of the items needed to use it, is waaaay too high (high DCs seem to be over the place in the game, not just Medicine, tho. I'm looking at you, DC to move next to walls in zero-G- DC 20 to barely move at the lowest level is insane.-). Specially when compared with mundane items like healing serums (Mystic spells are way better too, but at least those cost resources like spell slots and whatnot).
As SirShua mentioned, the check DC is eventually manageable, but I do agree with the OP that the DC is still too high and the benefits are vastly outweighed by cheap, easier options. The skill really needs a complete rework, with "tiered successes" (every 5 or 10 points you beat a base DC gives you more benefits / better healing), and generally making it better than cheap options that don't require skill use.
The level 4 mechanic in our party has been about 50/50 for treating wounds and has gotten +int a couple times. and that's with people forgetting the aid another check. His skill focus is in engineering, and no feat. The party is going to get an advanced kit soon which is going to near guarantee the heal, and a good chance of getting +int.
At least in my experience, the biggest issue my party has had with the medicine skill is remembering to use it.
Yep, I know it's maneageable. To begin with, Taking 20 is not a hard task with a medkit (takes 20 minutes), so even at lvl 1, it can be done.
The thing is, it is not very useful, for the most part. Specially when compared to Healing Serums.Long Term Care is a DC 30 check, that can't be used taking 20. So it's beyond the realm of any player, until you have lvl 10 at the very least. It needs 8 hours, and heals an extra 10 to 15 hp at lvl 10.
First Aid is DC 15, and I guess can be useful in a pinch, but resolve points also stabilize, and healing serums do it as well (even healing you).
Treat Disease is not bad. But antitoxins and similar medical stuff can give you a similar bonus.
The feats (such as Medical Expert), are total traps. You spend a feat, to be able to do something slightly worse than someone who does not spend a feat.
I'm going to rework it in my home campaign, so it really does not bother me much. But I think they really fumbled this one, as much as they did with starship combat. The difference is starship combat is an integral part of the game, and thus was addressed, while this is at best a subsystem, so "shrug shoulders" would work as a fix. Everybody who wants to be a doctor can roleplay he is one, using healing serums (and saving feats and skill points), or choose to spend points in trap options (and then use healing serums anyway, but with a sense of acomplishement because they are playing "the right way" by spending points in useless options).
Overall the game is pretty good. But I really really really feel they missed the option to make a GREAT game by not allowing open playtesting. Whoever was doing the playtest, is not very good at assessing DCs. Starship combat is exhibit A.
It's definitely the case that Sprayflesh is absolute garbage compared to buying healing serums like a sane person. Medpatches are also bizarre, because they only help the untrained - in fact, it's very easy to build an L1 character whose Medicine check is worse with a Medpatch due to being trained.
I can't really agree with the idea that "lack of open playtesting" is holding back Starfinder. That is premised on the idea that the playtesting feedback from a non-selective set of the general playerbase would actually provided useful feedback. Given the general responses through the first six months of release? Any useful results would have largely been drowned out by a chorus of "Why is this not still Pathfinder?" and variations.
Sure, that's true.
It would also give a lot of useful posts detailing math issues with glaring things like Starship Combat DCs. Or DCs in general, including Medicine.
DC 30 to barely use a med lab means your average surgeon in real world has +20 to Medicine (so they can use an operating room taking 10). To use it well (DC 40 to triple the regular HP gain), you need +30 in Medicine.
It's not that +30 in Medicine it's impossible. It's just that it needs loooots of ranks, and loooots of INT. I don't think every single surgeon out there should be a high level character with genius level intelligence.
A level 2 Character with 2 ranks in Medicine, class skill, +3 from int, has +8 to Medicine. He's not Dr Strange before hands got mangled level, but he's pretty competent. Could be a combat doctor for the marines, for example. He even spent a feat to be a Medical Expert and heal better in combat (so, a combat doctor).
He needs to roll 17 to use a medpatch to treat deadly wounds. Seventeen. Because the DC for a lvl 2 item is 25. It cost him 50 credits per try. Will heal 2 hp to a lvl 2 player. It's limited to once per character per day.
Or Joe Average could spend 50 credits and heal 1d8, with 0 ranks in the skill, no int, no class skill, and no roll, as much as he wants, with no limit per day.
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No, average Surgeon does not have a ton of hit points, can't pass a lot of saving throws, and has a big Base Attack bonus (which is what high level means), and don't have genious level intelligence, because genius level intelligence should be reserved for the most intelligent people out there. Not every single doctor in the world has Nobel Prize level of intelligence and IQ of 180+.
Somebody with a couple of levels, maxed ranks in a class skill, Intelligence 16, and, say, Skill Focus in Medicine should be able to succesfuly use an operation room and give you the surgery you need. That's like +10-12 to Medicine, and that should be a pretty good doctor. He, however, manage to use a med lab if he rolls 18 to 20.
The game seems to think that if you don't have +20 in a skill, you are a nobody. That's pretty harsh, unless everybody in the game is level 10+. In which case, players should be level 10 too.
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The Medicine skill is not meant to supplant or compete with magical healing. It's there for the times when you don't have access to these things. If one's group doesn't have a Mystic, say, and prefers to reserve healing serums for last resort, the Medicine skill can see quite a lot of productive use. It has in my game.
I feel the rules tend to reflect more the PCs than NPC stuff. Or that get a variant like, "You can take 20, but you still have to roll. On a 1, bad things happen, otherwise it goes like you rolled a 20." And then you stack circumstance and equipment bonuses and the like.
I mean really, NPC actions on NPCs is going to be GM fiat, even NPC on PC if he's going for narrative rather than true dice-rule-all. For combat or other contested stuff? NPCs follow the same rules as PCs, otherwise? Its more appropriate for the GM to just decide if they want something to succeed or not.
Otherwise I agree with the 'how did they come up with DCs for this?" feeling.
Further buffing healing effects in Starfinder is not the way I'd go, personally. Beefing Medicine up to compete directly with other forms of healing is not necessary, since it has a specific niche, and just beefing all the healing in the game up just leaves you back where you started. Worse off, actually. The game already lets you recover Stamina Points with a short rest and provides such a profusion of other ways to heal things that taking this any further would essentially lead to making the entire factor of risk feel nerfed or enforce a further upward creep in the power of hazards and enemies that leaves you back where you started again. No, thanks.
Anyway it's not about projecting realistically what future medtech must be like; "healing serums" are the idiot-proof future medtech here, obviously, with the added option of technomantic flavouring if you want it. This is cinematic science fantasy and Medicine is clearly designed as Cinematic Doctoring, which needs Experts! and Medical Labs! (The latter of which do, incidentally, allow you to Treat Deadly Wounds more than once per day and would be a must for a character building to use the Medicine skill.) It's the same way the system has lots of Science! but little in the way of science.
And it follows the same general pattern as other skills in comparable niches. Diplomacy likewise does not let you compete with Charm Person or Hypnotic Glow; you have to build a CHA-focused character to make it useful and even then the DCs for, say, de-escalating a hostile foe in combat are forbidding. They should be as befits a game where you want room for magical powers to shine at doing those things and skills to function in a way that supports them.
The downside of this is that it will tend to mean that some highly-developed skill niches just get crowded out in some games. That's maybe just a basic hazard of games with magic in. Medicine is most useful in the hands of someone who's already a high-INT character and in situations where the players' resources will be taxed so that it's necessary to go beyond their cache of healing serums. (In which situations a player who was salty about how their Medicine skill is "no Mystic cure" will quite quickly see the light.) I'd be particularly tempted to do this in a game with a player who was building specifically to use the Medicine skill.
Perhaps an easier house-rule fix for Medicine would be to make having the Medicine skill necessary for using healing serums. Handwave it as you need a low-DC skill check to know where and how to administer it, or something. Et voila, you really do have healing serums as your idiot-proof emergency kit. Might take some selling to some player groups, though.
Another option: you could additionally house-rule a feat along the lines of Connection Inkling that lets a Medical Genius -- who has studied their craft enough to see the very structure of reality underlying it -- be able to use healing-related spell gems and chips. Or something of that nature.
In the meantime, if someone has built their otherwise-mundane character as the Group Doctor, a quicker fix would just be to figure a way to give them a Spellthrower fusion that allows them to use spell chips and gems. This beefs up their consistent healing contribution and they would still have Medicine as a backup to magical effects. (And hopefully still be given opportunities to use it.)
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I dunno, around level 5, the advanced Medkit becomes available. Its expensive, 2,700 credits, but you really only need one of those per party.
It functions as a portable medlab, which means treat deadly wounds is useable twice on each party member per day. It also make the treat deadly wounds DC only 20.
If you have an Int focused character at level 5 (say a Technomancer or skill focused Envoy or Mechanic) with 18 Int, and skill focus or skill expertise, you're looking at +5 (ranks) + 4 (Int) + 3 (Insight) + 3 (Class) = +15. That means take 10 and you hit DC 25, which is add your Int to the healing territory. So for the cost of 1 minute each, you can heal each member of your team 9 hit points. At the cost of 10 minutes plus 1 minute each you can heal each member of your team for a total of 18 (out of 27 to 41 maximum hit points). Four party members makes that 72 hit points healed. Thats 16 healing serum mk I, or about 5 healing serum mk IIs. Possibly in a single day. And you get to keep the advanced medkit afterwards for the next day and can keep using it all the way to level 20.
Thats a best case (worst case?) scenerio where everyone in the party has taken significant hit point damage. But over time, the medkits and medicine skill will save you a fair bit of credits, probably more than a profession skill would make you in SFS.
How efficient do you feel that healing use should be without further credit expenditure?
I admit Sprayflesh are pretty underwhelming until level 8 or 9, at which point they catch up to Healing Serum Mk II. Level 10 and later, Sprayflesh are probably superior in terms of total average hit points regained per credit spent. I probably would stick with Healing Serum Mk IIs until level 10, then switch over purchases.
Sure its not in combat healing, but it takes on the order of the amount of time as a short rest. In addition, that medicine skill plus lab can do a few things the potions can't. Like provide +4 on saving throws versus disease and poison.
Probably the only thing I might change is the DC for long term care. On the other hand, they might release some labs/equipment that gives bonuses to long term care. A modern Starfinder hospital presumably has better facilities than what you can setup in 10 minutes out of a 10 pound box, and would presumably provide a hefty circumstance bonus. Plus aid another from a couple supporting nurses.
Sprayflesh is universally worse than Healing Serums for healing - unlike Serums, multiple Sprayflesh doses (prior to resting to "consume" them) won't stack, instead overlapping, and won't even stack with SP healing from a Rest (you spend the RP, then take the HP healing instead of the SP healing). It's true that as early as L2 (L1 for a Lashunta) Sprayflesh heals more per credit than any Healing Serum in the game, but this doesn't address the problem that it does a lot less healing, in general, than taking your SP regen instead, and possibly chasing it with a drink of Mk 1 Healing Serum (the most credit-efficient Serum option). If Sprayflesh healing stacked with SP healing from resting, it would be interesting, and if it stacked with itself, it would be straight-up compelling and blow serums out of the water for out-of-combat healing.
Sprayflesh doses are basically Medpatches only cheaper if you're not trained in Medicine, so if you can convince your GM to let a computer control a sprayflesh doser, you can pretty readily build yourself a gizmo that will just stop your bleeding now, without requiring an action from you. I have no idea how legal that's intended to be - the rules on what computers can control are very lax and loose, including explaining what a control module ships with (e.g. a control module for a gun ships with a turret of unknown specs....). That said, computers have no way to gain skill ranks, only skill bonuses, so a tier 2 computer controlling a sprayflesher will roll a 16 on a 1, autopassing the DC 15 for stopping bleed. This is even better if you can come up with a way to tell when people are unstable - we don't have Medicine DCs for diagnosing ailments, so it's impossible to figure out what you need for your autosprayflesher to decide for itself when to dose you, just like we don't actually know how a creature doctor is supposed to tell when you're dying, stable, poisoned, etc. Depending on how your GM rules, building yourself an autodoc into your armor, consisting of a computer-controlled sprayflesher and computer-controlled advanced medkit, can be pretty great for things like autostabilization, or shaking off diseases and poisons.
That's odd, when I looked at it I couldn't find any scenario where Sprayflesh is better than spending the 440 credits buying and drinking 8 mk I healing serums instead.
That's odd, when I crunched the numbers I couldn't find any scenario where Sprayflesh is better than spending the 440 credits buying and drinking 8 mk I healing serums instead.
Good point that I wasn't thinking about. Sprayflesh is better than a single MK 2 healing serum option but not a bulk worth of MK 1 potions. You're right, it's better for everyone to just carry 20 MK 1 serums (90hp average) at 10th level or so.
I conceed Sprayflesh is pretty bad in light of that.
I suppose that makes the advanced medkit the primary use case for medicine. Thats still a good investment, as at 10th that's probably 6 MK 1 series per day per person before you start hitting the bottles. Or potentially 300 credits per person per day saved at 10th.
Edit: I suppose MK 1 healing serums make all expendable forms of healing look inefficient, even other healing serums.
The Medicine skill is not meant to supplant or compete with magical healing. It's there for the times when you don't have access to these things. If one's group doesn't have a Mystic, say, and prefers to reserve healing serums for last resort, the Medicine skill can see quite a lot of productive use. It has in my game.
I know, and I agree.
I haven't compared it to a Mystic's healing spell, tho. I compared it to a mundane piece of tech that absolutely everybody can use, including the medic. And a smart medic would use it, instead of medicine.
And it follows the same general pattern as other skills in comparable niches. Diplomacy likewise does not let you compete with Charm Person or Hypnotic Glow; you have to build a CHA-focused character to make it useful and even then the DCs for, say, de-escalating a hostile foe in combat are forbidding. They should be as befits a game where you want room for magical powers to shine at doing those things and skills to function in a way that supports them.
Err... Not the same
A big "Not the same".A lvl 1 character can try Diplomacy against a lvl 1 NPC, with a decent chance of success. A lvl 1 doctor can't heal anyone.
There are no diplomacy serums at 50 credits each, that allow you to bypass the skill check and succesfully convince someone.
And again: Charm Spell occupy a known spell slot. It uses a spell slot when wasted. Has inherent problems (such as saving throws, and the NPC probably starting a fight if he success the save and knows what you are doing). I do not have a problem with Mystic Healing being better than Medicine, because Mystic Healing uses resources, while a medkit is infinite. That's ok.
The problem is: healing serum are not magic. Don't use spell slots. Don't require you to be a specific class. It's a whole different thing, so "proving that medicine should not be as good as spells are" is not an argument in the Medicine vs Healing serums debate. At all.
That's odd, when I looked at it I couldn't find any scenario where Sprayflesh is better than spending the 440 credits buying and drinking 8 mk I healing serums instead.
Sorry, I screwed up my math - I originally crunched the same as you, but when I redid it for this thread, for some reason I thought Sprayfleshes contained 10 doses, not 5 - and worse, for some reason I thought it let you heal with your entire Medicine bonus, not just your INT. The difference is crippling. You are correct - Sprayfleshes still suck even under optimal conditions (INT 9 Doctor working on an L20 patient).
That's odd, when I crunched the numbers I couldn't find any scenario where Sprayflesh is better than spending the 440 credits buying and drinking 8 mk I healing serums instead.Good point that I wasn't thinking about.(...)
Thanks!
Edit: I suppose MK 1 healing serums make all expendable forms of healing look inefficient, even other healing serums.
Pretty much, although the more expensive healing serums have the action economy advantage. Since Sprayflesh is strictly a "downtime" healing option that take a minute to activate, the primary drawback of MK I Healing Serums (takes 8 rounds to drink/inject 8 serums) seems irrelevant.
I suppose that makes the advanced medkit the primary use case for medicine. Thats still a good investment, as at 10th that's probably 6 MK 1 series per day per person before you start hitting the bottles. Or potentially 300 credits per person per day saved at 10th.
Edit: I suppose MK 1 healing serums make all expendable forms of healing look inefficient, even other healing serums.
While I agree that at lvl 10, with a maxed skill, it might become a decent option, this does not address the problem from lvl 1 to 9. As I said a couple of posts ago, it seems like many DCs were made with lvl 10 in mind. Like ... "the goal is lvl 10 chars with max ranks at this skill do not autopass this check". That means lvl 1 to 5 characters, or characters with non-maxed ability/ranks/class, will fail.
By lvl 10 you have been pouring skill points and feats into a useless thing for 9 levels in a row. That's pretty harsh for an AP that finishes at lvl 12, for example.
I ran the (fixed) numbers, and even if Treat Deadly Wounds let you apply your entire Medicine check as bonus healing, not just your INT bonus, it would still be worse per credit than Mk 1 Healing Serums. In fact, even being this nice still means you can't catch up to the serums until L10:
Your healing total is the result of your Medicine check plus your intelligence score plus your target's level plus your target's constitution score.
I think any possible homebrew is going to have to start with drastically cutting the cost per dose of Sprayflesh, particularly since it seems intended that an L5 doctor should have some interest in carrying at least one can of it.
By lvl 10 you have been pouring skill points and feats into a useless thing for 9 levels in a row. That's pretty harsh for an AP that finishes at lvl 12, for example.
I'd argue its probably reliable and useful by 5th actually. At 5th level, with 14 Int and it being a class skill results in a +10 medicine modifier. Thats basically the minimum investment in medicine as a side skill. That is enough to take 10 to hit the DC 20 treat deadly wounds on an advanced Medkit (available at 5th level). That heals 5 hit points in 1 minute. 10 hit points in 12 minutes by setting it up as a medlab. An extra 1-2 minutes for every additionally wounded character to heal 5-10 hit points. Thats 1-2 MK 1 Healing serums per day per person.
The upfront cost is 2,700 credits and 5 skill points. It'll pay for itself when compared to MK 1 healing serums after 1-2 levels depending on how active your adventuring day is and how spread around the damage tends to be.
I agree its not in combat healing, but 20 minutes is still quick enough to be reasonable in an adventure, considering you're already spending half of that recovering stamina.
If you actually do have a doctor specializing, then 5th level, 18 Int, class skill, skill focus (or Operative bonus or Envoy expertise) can hit +15 at 5th, which is a take 10 to hit DC 25 and let them add their Int (+4) to the healing. Thats 9 hit points in 1 minute, or 18 in 12 minutes at level 5. Thats 2-4 MK 1 healing serums per person per day in 10-20 minutes.
Either way, at 5th level, its probably worth it to have someone with the Medicine skill and an advanced medkit in the party to supplement other healing options. It'll save credits, and probably help out a saving throw or two.
That's odd, when I looked at it I couldn't find any scenario where Sprayflesh is better than spending the 440 credits buying and drinking 8 mk I healing serums instead.Sorry, I screwed up my math - I originally crunched the same as you, but when I redid it for this thread, for some reason I thought Sprayfleshes contained 10 doses, not 5 - and worse, for some reason I thought it let you heal with your entire Medicine bonus, not just your INT. The difference is crippling. You are correct - Sprayfleshes still suck even under optimal conditions (INT 9 Doctor working on an L20 patient).
Actually it's even worse than that - you pay 440 credits for one (1) dose of Sprayflesh. If you change the item to include 10 doses for the same price it might be an interesting item in its own right. It comes with various drawbacks (hard cap per day, time-consuming, burns Resolve), but it's cheaper than chugging healing serums.
Then again, by the time you can reliably make the medicine check the cost difference between serums and sprayflesh would be minimal and you'd probably rather have the extra resolve points. Hmm... The text mentions "infected flesh". The Starfinder diseases are pretty brutal at the moment, maybe tweak the item to somehow interact with disease saves?
The medkits on the other hand are not a bad investment. Anything that helps with disease saves are very welcome indeed.
All skills should be useful to a character at level 1, at least as long as they have it as a class skill and a minimum +1 ability modifier. A $50 item usable by anyone untrained shouldn't be better than a skill you actually have to spend a limited resource (skill points) on, especially when you look at other skills which /are/ useful at level 1 for comparison.
Sure, you shouldn't be doing brain surgery at level 1. But you should at least be able to restore some hit points without having to be level 5 and spending thousands of credits. A level 1 character able to hit 15 on the check DC should be able to at least match a cheapass healing serum.
Woa, I was really convinced Sprayflesh had multiple doses in it, but you're right - it's Capacity 1! Man, that's awful.
Sprayflesh does interact with disease saves in that you can use them as a medpatch, but that's not helpful to a trained doctor.
I'm fairly certain trained doctors can use medpatches.
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All skills should be useful to a character at level 1, at least as long as they have it as a class skill and a minimum +1 ability modifier. A $50 item usable by anyone untrained shouldn't be better than a skill you actually have to spend a limited resource (skill points) on, especially when you look at other skills which /are/ useful at level 1 for comparison.
Sure, you shouldn't be doing brain surgery at level 1. But you should at least be able to restore some hit points without having to be level 5 and spending thousands of credits. A level 1 character able to hit 15 on the check DC should be able to at least match a cheapass healing serum.
I'd argue its useful at 1st. Whether the skill is useful enough I agree is debatable.
However, I'd argue the medicine skill and a medkit is at a minimum more useful than a single 50 credit expendable at 1st level, because that expendable is only usable once, while the medicine skill can be reused over and over. Is it better in levels 1-2 when compared against twenty MK 1 healing serums? Probably not. But that is also a much larger credit investment. Also, by level 5 or 6, your medicine could have been worth twenty MK 1 healing serums. By level 10, it could have been worth a hundred, possibly much more.
Since +5 medicine (1 rank + 3 class skill + 1 Int) is enough with take 20 to get DC 25 for a treat deadly wounds with a basic medkit, the only DC out of reach at 1st level is the long term care one.
For an actual play comparison, in SFS in 6 scenerios I've probably seen medicine used a dozen times or so. Certainly more than say, sleight of hand, disguise, or any specific profession skill. Our party has used it to stabilize probably close to 10 enemy NPCs (which didn't have resolve, and the GM used the 3 rounds at 0 hp until death rule). Its really useful in SFS in that regards as not everyone brings stun weapons to the table. Always handy to allow for interrogation afterwards or to avoid a trail of dead bodies on Absalom station.
And we've also used it five or six times to top off hit points for 1 or 2 points on multiple characters. So the 100 credit kit has probably healed about as much as two MK 1 healing serums, although much more spread out. Except for those serums I keep rolling a 1 on, like last session.
I've found people are hesitant to chug a 50 credit healing serum when they're only down 1 or 2 hit points and have fully recovered their stamina with a 10 minute rest. However, at 1st and 2nd level, that can be topped off in 20 minutes guaranteed by someone with medicine. It also becomes more useful the more spread out the damage is.
I'll also note, 1st level characters in a home campaign could have a medical bay available on their ship if they are allowed to design it. Its expensive, 8 out 55 BP, and compromises would be needed in its design, but its one of the ways to get the ship to help outside of starship combat. Drops treat deadly wounds DC to 20, allows treatment twice per day, and provides +2 insight when dealing with diseases and poisons.
Again, whether that is useful enough as a skill is debatable, but I wouldn't say it is useless at 1st level.
I'm fairly certain trained doctors can use medpatches.
Nope.
A medpatch allows you to attempt a Medicine check untrained with a +10 circumstance bonus, but only for the first aid, long-term stability, treat disease, and treat drugs or poison tasks.
I'm fairly certain trained doctors can use medpatches.Nope.
A medpatch allows you to attempt a Medicine check untrained with a +10 circumstance bonus, but only for the first aid, long-term stability, treat disease, and treat drugs or poison tasks.
I really can't comprehend how you and others are interpreting that to mean that someone trained in Medicine can't use it. All it means is that anyone can use it, even if they aren't trained in the usually trained-only skill.
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I really can't comprehend how you and others are interpreting that to mean that someone trained in Medicine can't use it. All it means is that anyone can use it, even if they aren't trained in the usually trained-only skill.A medpatch allows you to attempt a Medicine check untrained with a +10 circumstance bonus, but only for the first aid, long-term stability, treat disease, and treat drugs or poison tasks.
Because that's how English works? Maybe it'll be easier to read if I rearrange it as an IF THEN sequence.
This is what that sentence says:
IF you attempt a Medicine Check
AND that Check is Untrained
AND that Check is in this list: first aid, long-term stability, treat disease, and treat drugs or poison
THEN the Check is allowed
AND the Check is made with a +10 circumstance bonus.
You follow? The sentence very clearly states that Medpatches do something when you attempt a Medicine check untrained. There is no allowance in their rules block for what happens when you try a trained Medicine check.
im going to have to disagree with you on that as well. To me this says that it allows a check untrained, meaning normally those checks requires someone with the trained medical skill.. not that you can't be trained in the skill to use them that's just nonsensical.
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This is what that sentence says:
IF you attempt a Medicine Check
AND that Check is Untrained
AND that Check is in this list: first aid, long-term stability, treat disease, and treat drugs or poison
THEN the Check is allowed
AND the Check is made with a +10 circumstance bonus.You follow? The sentence very clearly states that Medpatches do something when you attempt a Medicine check untrained. There is no allowance in their rules block for what happens when you try a trained Medicine check.
A---> B
ATherefore Not C.
Non sequitor. That isn't how logic OR english work. Just because the rules don't tell you what happens when your +12 doctor or your +4 boyscout try to use these things does not mean that they don't work at all.
The wording is vague. Use a common sense answer.
A---> B
A
Therefore Not C.Non sequitor. That isn't how logic OR english work. Just because the rules don't tell you what happens when your +12 doctor or your +4 boyscout try to use these things does not mean that they don't work at all.
The wording is vague. Use a common sense answer.
The wording is not vague, it just doesn't say what you want it to say.
There are exactly as many rules in the book allowing someone to make a trained check with a Medpatch and get a +10 circumstance bonus as there are rules allowing someone to do it with a flashlight or a field ration: none at all. I get that you disagree with the RAW, and that's fine, and you're welcome to houserule it - Fuzzypaws was asking me about the RAW, not about what I felt the RAW ought to be, which is what you seem to be focused on.
In fact, I challenge you to write Medpatches in a clearer fashion if your design intent was explicitly to only provide the bonus to the untrained - I honestly can't come up with much aside from re-arranging the comma to be easier to parse. It's very, VERY direct about the fact that you have to make an untrained check to get the bonus.
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The wording is not vague, it just doesn't say what you want it to say.
The wording is vague. Your logic simply doesn't follow from what's there.
There are exactly as many rules in the book allowing someone to make a trained check with a Medpatch and get a +10 circumstance bonus as there are rules allowing someone to do it with a flashlight or a field ration: none at all.
If the game was written by or for a computer program you might be right.
But it's not, and you're not. The rules are written under the assumption that they will be read by a human being able and willing to apply a modicum of common sense to the issue at hand. If thats not the case that's not entirely the fault of the rules.
A medpatch is a giant bandaid that can be stuck on a wound by anyone. The idea that you can't use it with training is simply too silly for the writers to bother proofing against that implication.
Now it could be clearer what happens when someone with a +12 bonus uses the thing .. is it +10? +12? +22? But this idea that having a +4 medicine skill stops you from using it is abject silliness that is not the text, not the rules, not a logical consequence of the rules and not an opportunity for you to tout your adherence to the one true raw while accusing everyone else of home brew heresy.
Goblin bandages
These strips of dirty cloth have been infused with a bizarre mixture of alchemical reagents, pickle juice, the blood of fast healing beasts and bits of toenail fungus. A user untrained in medicine can apply a Goblin bandage as a full round action to use medicine with a +10 circumstance bonus but for the first aid, long-term stability, treat disease, and treat drugs or poison tasks. A user trained in medicine cannot use these at all, as even the most basic medical knowledge tells you what a bad idea putting one of these on an open wound is and thus interferes with the faith based magic that makes them function.
I kind of see where you're coming from RAW, but RAI I'd be extremely surprised if that's the intended ruling.
As a part of my job I receive regular CPR training, but I know an automated defibrillator (like this one) that's designed for anyone to use with zero training would still do a much better job of stabilizing a patient. Luckily, knowing CPR doesn't take away my ability to to turn on and follow the instructions the machine is giving me.
I see the medpatch working the same way. I can use my own limited Medicine skill on the first aid check to stabilize a patient, or I can set aside my training and trust the medpatch to do its thing instead. If I choose to do the latter, I ignore my trained medicine bonuses and simply roll d20+10 (circumstance bonus from medpatch) +x (wisdom).
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Have to go contra-Quindraco here. That's just a perverse reading of the rules. It does not remotely follow that if you can use something Untrained, you can't use it Trained. If you're Trained you just have an added bonus (moreso if it's a Class Skill). The wording of rules does sometimes seems to have been done with certain common-sense assumptions in mind, and this seems like such a case.
However, I'd argue the medicine skill and a medkit is at a minimum more useful than a single 50 credit expendable at 1st level, because that expendable is only usable once, while the medicine skill can be reused over and over.
Yes. To Hiruma you listen!