The Lost Star: Area A4 (Problems with Medicine Skill)

[Balsamic Dragon]

In area A4, the players can investigate a body and use a Medicine roll to determine cause of death. Unfortunately, there is nothing in the rules about what sort of a skill use this would be, what proficiency is required, or how long it might take. There is only one Untrained use of Medicine described in the rules, and two Trained uses (outside of feats), and there is no feat that covers Forensics.

In most games, I would simply make something up, as the GM. But I think that this sort of use of Medicine is so common, that there should be a described action. Here's what I wrote up for it:

Medicine Trained Activity

Forensics (Concentrate) (Manipulate) (Secret)
By examining a body for ten minutes, you can attempt to determine the cause of death and related information.
Critical Success: You learn an additional piece of information about a person involved in the death, a weapon used, or the location where they died.
Critical Failure: You determine incorrect information.

On a larger scale, this sort of thing is going to happen a lot. Rather than have a huge number of Skill uses to page through, there should be some guidelines on how to create these sort of actions.

[Secret Wizard]

And give us related Skill Feats too!

This would be extremely fun and applicable.

[swordchucks]

I had a similar situation with the Thievery check to fish the idol out of the pool. I had the player crit-fail the check, but it wasn't clear what kind of check it was, nor what the consequence should be. I ended up just having him touch it, since they would almost certainly have smashed it later, anyway.

[Balsamic Dragon]

Yeah, in the case of the Thievery check, it looks like the author may have intended it to be Disable Device (especially since tools are required) that only requires one success to accomplish. However, the entry needs to specify if this is a Trained Only use of the skill.

This brings up a larger issue, which I may move to a different section of the forums: Why couldn't this be a simple Dexterity check? (The answer being, I don't think there are any rules for making straight ability checks in this game!)

[swordchucks]

I'm cool with Thievery being the check, it just needs to be put into the skill as a use. "Delicate Manipulation" or something that can be done untrained. It is something that comes up often enough to get its own entry.

[kyenerall]

Real neat creation with the "Forensics" use ! Very thoughtful addition !

That being said: My supposition would be that, if it is not otherwise indicated in a module/adventure, no training is required for that particular check; it can be attempted by anyone. What do others think ?

Also: As a larger point that is implied by this question --->

Page 144 in the Playtest rules, in the Skills section, says (in the fifth paragraph of the first column): "As the uses of a skill aren't comprehensive, there may be times when the GM asks you to attempt a skill check WITHOUT ANY OF THE LISTED ACTIONS, activities, free actions, or reactions ..." (My caps added for emphasis.)

This means that it's not always necessary in PF2 for there to be a specific "use" mentioned with a skill check. Skill checks can be made in a *general* way without a particular use. I think that is what is intended by Paizo for both this Medicine check (in area A4) and also the Thievery check in the pool room.

As another example: While there are lots of specific uses of the Athletics skill (shove, grapple, climb, etc.) described in the rules, there might certainly be a situation when someone is doing something Athletic that is not covered by the 10 uses outlined in the text. For example, suppose that an adventurer wanted to throw a bulky object over a wall. There isn't an Athletics use named Throw. In such a situation, I would think that you (at the behest of the GM) would make a general Athletics check, and the results of the check would be just: success = you accomplish the task, and failure = you don't, with no critical success or failure unless the adventure text (module creator) specifically mentions those.

Paizo moderators: Am I getting that right ?

[Balsamic Dragon]

kyenerall wrote:

Page 144 in the Playtest rules, in the Skills section, says (in the fifth paragraph of the first column): "As the uses of a skill aren't comprehensive, there may be times when the GM asks you to attempt a skill check WITHOUT ANY OF THE LISTED ACTIONS, activities, free actions, or reactions ..." (My caps added for emphasis.)

Ah, thank you! I missed that! It might be clearer if that same paragraph stated that, unless the GM tells you otherwise, such skill checks can be made without training. But generally, I like the idea of open-ended skills, as opposed to ability checks.