Healing without magic?


Advice


I'm toying with the idea of a campaign where the players are part of an expeditionary force to a new world; the world they came from has no magic, and they'll discover it as their adventure unfolds. This would have the mechanical effect of making them start with no spellcasting classes but with the option of multiclassing later.

However, one challenge I'm trying to figure out is how they would have healing early on. I don't want to make them take forever to heal naturally; I also don't want to make it so easy that it reduces the awe of getting divine magic later. And which natives are friendly will depend on their actions so I can't even assume that throwing a native NPC healer in for them will work.

So how do I a) allow early healing, before they have discovered magic, but b) not make nonmagical healing so potent that there is no incentive to use magical later?


To quote Arthur C Clarke “Any sufficiently advance technology is indistinguishable from magic”. If they are exploring a new world and do not have magic I assume that they are using advanced technology. In that case there are probably technical equivalent of many magic items. Instead of a wand of cure light wounds you have a Med Kit.


In d20 Modern, Surgery heals 1d6 hit points per level, but takes 1d4 hours and exhausts the target.

Other than the slow rate (because it's most useful at low level in your game) you might want to try something like that. This would certainly bring PCs to full every night, but not necessarily every encounter.


Healer's Hands

Usable right at level 1. If they take Skill Focus in Knowledge Planes and Heal skill, it gets really good in late game.

A really solid way to get Skill Focus in both is to be human and take the alternate racial trait Focused Study because you basically get 3 Skill Focus feats for the price of 1 feat. AND, Skill Focus is awesome because your bonus goes from +3 to +6 when you get 10 ranks in it ;D

Focused Study: All humans are skillful, but some, rather than being generalists, tend to specialize in a handful of skills. At 1st, 8th, and 16th level, such humans gain Skill Focus in a skill of their choice as a bonus feat. This racial trait replaces the bonus feat trait.

So you can be any class, but you'd have to be a human to do this. Although, any race would be good at it too, it would just cost that particular race one extra feat later on.


Create a new type of item for Alchemical Healing based on Cure Light Wounds. Say an Alchemical First Aid Kit that weighs 1 pound, is consumed when used, counts as 1 use of a Healer's Kit and can be used with the heal skill to achieve enhanced results.

If used to perform First Aid the action heals 1d8 hp +healers ranks in heal (to a maximum of 5) in addition to its normal effects. It also provides a +5 alchemical bonus to the heal check. A character need not be dying to receive first aid.

If used to perform Treat Deadly Wounds it counts as 1 use of a healer's kit, and gives a +2 alchemical bonus to the heal check. The Treat Deadly Wounds only takes 10 minutes to perform, and can be performed one additional time today for this patient. The healer may add their ranks in Heal to their wisdom bonus.

If used to Treat Wounds from Caltrops or similar injuries it reduces the time needed to 2 full rounds, restores 1d8 of damage from such injuries, and gives a +2 alchemical bonus to the heal check.

Since this performs more or less like a Cure Light Wounds potion, the cost should be similar at 50gp per kit. The extra bonuses are off set by the additional time and skill rolls needed.

This should handle early healing and be useful later on, but not competitive with magical healing.


Ryze Kuja wrote:

Healer's Hands

Usable right at level 1. If they take Skill Focus in Knowledge Planes and Heal skill, it gets really good in late game.

That doesn't fit the flavor of the campaign. The feat is inherently magical. You radiate positive energy! Also in the late game its BETTER than magical healing. Everything the OP doesn't want.


Healing herbs are one answer to how to let characters survive without magic. You need to make them either cheaper than potions or not bought with gold - if the PCs are a member of a military or similar, they might get issued with some rather than paying.


Meirril wrote:
Ryze Kuja wrote:

Healer's Hands

Usable right at level 1. If they take Skill Focus in Knowledge Planes and Heal skill, it gets really good in late game.

That doesn't fit the flavor of the campaign. The feat is inherently magical. You radiate positive energy! Also in the late game its BETTER than magical healing. Everything the OP doesn't want.

FINE! <flips table storms out>

:P


What if you house ruled something similar to the 5E rules for healing during short rests?

Short Rest

A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds.

A character can spend one or more Hit Dice at the end of a short rest, up to the character’s maximum number of Hit Dice, which is equal to the character’s level. For each Hit Die spent in this way, the player rolls the die and adds the character’s Constitution modifier to it. The character regains Hit Points equal to the total. The player can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll. A character regains some spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest, as explained below.


There's Troll Styptic. Heals more than CLW on average but it can make you sickened and it's twice as expensive as a potion.


Hmm, perhaps I should explain the campaign a bit better - many of these are great ideas but wouldn't work in this specific campaign.

Basically I'm borrowing an idea from Jim Butcher's Codex Alera, in part - the IX Hispania Roman Legion, or rather a portion of it along with a portion of the camp followers, are on Earth in 121 CE, but through supernatural means are transported to a high fantasy world. The players will take the role of a contubernium of exploratores/speculatores - a squad of scouts.

This means they will start with technology level appropriate for 121 CE Earth. Alchemical options wouldn't work.

Now, the Romans did have some rudimentary surgery, so Kimera757's answer might be best. The healing herbs of avr could also work, though getting them for free risks them totally replacing potions. Perhaps if they also came with a downside - 1 point of Wisdom damage, so using one a day would be okay but using two or more would start to accumulate penalties?


Ryze Kuja wrote:

What if you house ruled something similar to the 5E rules for healing during short rests?

Short Rest

A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds.

A character can spend one or more Hit Dice at the end of a short rest, up to the character’s maximum number of Hit Dice, which is equal to the character’s level. For each Hit Die spent in this way, the player rolls the die and adds the character’s Constitution modifier to it. The character regains Hit Points equal to the total. The player can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll. A character regains some spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest, as explained below.

I'm not as familiar with 5E - is there some limit on this? What stops a party from healing up after every fight?


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Pathfinder stuff:

Devoted Healer (Faith) [Quests & Campaigns, p.18)
Raised in the company of skilled healers, you were always encouraged to devote your time and energy to the welfare of others.
Benefit: Whenever you take 20 on a Heal check to treat deadly wounds, you restore an additional id4 hit points to those you aid.
Verdict: It might take longer to treat the deadly wound, but since you normally can only do it once you might as well get a little extra.

Feat: Signature Skill (Heal) [Pathfinder Unchained]

5 Ranks: When you treat deadly wounds, the target recovers hit points and ability damage as if it had rested for a full day.

10 Ranks: When you treat deadly wounds, the target recovers hit points as if it had rested for a full day with long-term care.

15 Ranks: When you treat deadly wounds, the creature recovers hit point and ability damage as if it had rested for 3 days.

20 Ranks: When you treat deadly wounds, the target recovers hit point and ability damage as if it had rested for 3 days with long-term care.

Portable Altar, Masterwork (Demon Hunter's Handbook, pp.18-19)
Price: 400 gp; Weight: 40 lb
Dedicated to a particular deity, this intricately etched case contains numerous candles, stands, scented herbs, dishes, silks, small cups, containers, and similar ceremonial tools all bearing colors and iconography sacred to the associated deity. Among the items found within the altar are the tools and materials necessary to perform not just ceremonies, but also jobs and professions the related deity deems sacred, as well as holy texts written to inspire greatness in the deity's followers.
Benefit: The user can expend some of the materials within the altar to gain a +2 circumstance bonus on the next Craft check of the specified type. In addition, after spending 1 hour praying and reading the holy scriptures within the altar, the user gains a +2 circumstance bonus on a single skill check. A masterwork portable altar can be used multiple times, but after 20 uses, it must be restocked with 50 gp worth of sanctified materials.
Verdict: Though not technically a healing item, masterwork altars to Norgorber and Urgathoa provide a +2 bonus to Craft(alchemy) checks. Whether you want the other bonus to Stealth or Disguise is up to you, it doesn't really matter to me. It's a rather expensive way to gain a bonus to Craft(alchemy) but circumstance bonuses stack. Since you can always use a deity of your own pantheon to provide a bonus you want it might provide +2 alchemy and +2 Heal, just saying.

Mobile hospital (Advanced Class Guide pg. 204)
Price 1,000 gp; Weight 500 lbs.
Category Kits
This kit for a wagon provides all the equipment needed to care for up to 10 sick or injured people at a time. It includes two large tents, 10 cots with bedrolls, a sturdy table, a chirurgeon’s kit, and five healer’s kits. It grants anyone using it a +2 bonus on Heal checks to provide first aid, can be used to treat deadly wounds with a single use of a healer’s kit instead of two, and doubles the rate at which patients recover in long-term care.

Portable Solarium (Occult Adventures pg. 249)
Price 800 gp; Weight 35 lbs.
Category Tools
This long, wooden case contains a complicated framework of brass armatures, balance weights, a foldable mat, and purplehued lenses of various shapes and sizes. When assembled, the case becomes a small bed over which looms a complicated, slowly revolving array of lenses that filter sunlight onto the mat below. Only usable on bright, sunny days, the solarium has enough room for one Medium or two Small creatures to recline beneath its lens array and bask in the healing rays of the filtered natural light. The solarium can be used in conjunction with the long-term care use of the Heal skill. Subjects who bask in the filtered light for an 8-hour rest period recover 1 additional hit point per level or 1 additional ability score point if their caregivers succeed at the required Heal check.

Healer’s Kit (Pathfinder Core, p.161)
Craft DC: 20
Price: 50 gp; Weight: 1 lb.
This collection of bandages and herbs provides a +2 circumstance bonus on Heal checks. A healer’s kit is exhausted after 10 uses.

Surgeon’s Tools (Ultimate Equipment, p.79)
Price: 20 gp; Weight: 5 lb.
When used in conjunction with a healer’s kit, surgeon’s tools raise the kit’s bonus to a +3 circumstance bonus on Heal checks to treat wounds or deadly wounds.
Verdict: These tools stack with the Healer's kit. You can still use it with Caltrops, Spike Growth, or Spike Stones and Deadly Wounds.

Bodybalm (Adventurer's Armory, p.9)
Price: 25; Weight: --
Craft DC: 25
When this pungent yellow powder is boiled in water and given to a
creature to drink, it provides the attending healer a +5 alchemical bonus on Heal checks for providing long-term care, treating poison, and treating disease.

Troll Oil (Ultimate Equipment)
Price 50 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Craft DC: 30?
This crimson liquid is viscous and tastes foul. If you drink it, for the next hour you automatically stabilize when reduced to negative hit points (unless the damage is sufficient to instantly kill you) and have a 50% chance each round to end any bleed effect on you. If you take fire or acid damage, the benefits of troll oil are suspended for 1 round.

Healy Myrrh (Qadira, Gateway to the East, p.19)
Price 50 gp; Weight —
When you burn this powerful resin, it fills 8,000 cubic feet with faint smoke that persists for 8 full hours. Any creatures resting or receiving long-term care in the area while the healy myrrh is active regain 1 additional hit point per level. Multiple uses of healy myrrh in a 24-hour period do not stack.
Construction Requirements: Craft (alchemy) 5 ranks, Heal 5 ranks; Cost 25 gp

Troll Styptic (Seekers of Secrets, p.43)
A witch’s brew of troll blood, powdered plant extracts, and alchemical binders, troll styptic is intended as a field treatment for wounds and bleeding, particularly where
magical healing is not available. This powder is stored in small packets, and when applied directly to wounds grants a living creature fast healing 2 for 2d4 rounds, as well as closing any open wounds the subject has or receives while the styptic is active, preventing ongoing damage from bleeding. This is a painful cure and requires the target to make a DC 15 Fortitude save to avoid being sickened for the duration of the fast healing.
Verdict: This is actually pretty decent way of healing, given that it's non-magical. It's not really a long-term solution though, even if you craft it yourself with Alchemy skill, because you're just not going to be able to afford to keep up with your party's healing needs. Of course, it could be argued that if you can get ahold of Troll that gives you a regular supply of its blood (willingly or unwillingly) it would drastically reduce the cost of it.

Bloodblock (Advanced Player's Guide, p.184)
Price: 25 gp; Weight: --
Craft DC: 25
This gooey, pinkish substance helps treat wounds. Using a dose gives you a +5 alchemical bonus on Heal checks for providing first aid, treating wounds made by caltrops or similar objects, or treating deadly wounds.
A dose of bloodblock ends a bleed effect as if you had made a DC 15 Heal check. When treating deadly wounds, using a dose of bloodblock counts as one use of a healer’s kit (and grants the +5 bonus stated above).

Smelling Salts (Advanced Player's Guide, p.185)
Price: 25 gp; Weight: --
Craft DC: 25
These sharply scented gray crystals cause people inhaling them to regain consciousness. Smelling salts grant you a new saving throw to resist any spell or effect that has already rendered you unconscious or staggered. If exposed to smelling salts while dying, you immediately become conscious and staggered, but must still make stabilization checks each round; if you perform any standard action (or any other strenuous action) you take 1 point of damage after completing the act and fall unconscious again. A container of smelling salts has dozens of uses if stoppered after each use, but depletes in a matter of hours if left opened.

If you are willing to go back to D&D 3.5 there are additional options:

Healing Salve (Tome & Blood, p.72)
Price: 50 gp; Weight —
DC Check: 25
Rubbing this stinky green paste into wounds promotes rapid healing. Applying the salve is a full-round action. One dose cures 1d8 points of damage to a living creature. The Alchemy check DC to make healing salve is 25. If you have 5 or more ranks in Profession (herbalist), you get a +2 bonus on checks to craft it.
Verdict: A high Craft(alchemy) DC for an item that should be one of the mainstays of non-magical healing. For 50 gp that doesn’t jump out as incredibly amazing but in a campaign with no divine healing these can be used as immediate life-savers. The trick is to actually be able to make these yourself to save money.

Healer's Balm (Complete Adventurer, p. 119)
Price: 10 gp; Weight —
Craft DC: 20
This smooth, sweet-smelling balm allows a healer to better soothe the effects of wounds, disease, and poison. Healer’s balm provides a +1 alchemical bonus on Heal checks made to help an affected creature. The effects of healer’s balm last for 1 minute. One dose of healer’s balm is enough to coat one Medium creature. Applying healer’s balm is a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity. It can be applied as part of a standard action made to administer first aid, treat a wound, or treat poison.
Verdict: Given that it can be used individually with three different Heal actions at least gives us another way to boost the Heal check, although it seems like a waste of money. If you think you need it and got money to burn then go ahead, otherwise don't.

Candle, restful (Arms & Equipment Guide, page 33)
Price: 100; Weight: 1 lb.
Craft DC: 25
This thick blue candle burns slowly, filling the air with a sweet, relaxing scent for 8 hours. These candles, although slow to function, have tremendous restorative abilities. Characters that spend a night of rest sleeping within 20 feet of a lit candle heal at twice the rate they normally would. After a day of light activity, characters who rest under the influence of the candle heal double their level in hit points and 2 points of ability damage. After a day of complete rest, characters who sleep under the influence of the candle heal three times their level in hit points and 2 points of ability damage. The benefits of a restful candle stack with those provided by someone providing long-term care with the Heal skill.
Verdict: Given that there are only so many ways to heal ability damage this item already becomes endearing just for that reason. Given that it stacks with a long-term healing check makes it even more so, because we need to get a boost wherever we can. A bit pricey for an alchemical item, but still doable.

Bitterleaf Oil (Races of the Dragon )
Price: 25 gp; Weight —
Craft DC: 15 *no Craft DC listed*
Kobolds use this salve to keep their scales healthy and shiny. Each bottle of bitterleaf oil holds enough for ten applications. If the oil is applied each day (a full-round action), it staves off shedding indefinitely, in addition, on any day when bitterleaf oil is applied, the character naturally heals 1 additional point of damage per HD (max. 5) with a full night's rest.
Verdict: At a price of 5 gp per HD this is a nice boost to natural healing. But that means that it kicks in at the end of a day or during a Heal check.
Note: Eventhough it says that kobolds use it for their scales, it doesn't necessarily say that the healing effect only applies to kobolds. Humans technically shed skin particles as well, just not like reptiles do.

Healing Hands Skill Trick (Complete Scoundrel)
Requirement: Heal 5 ranks
Effect: Heal someone 1d6HP whenever you make a Heal check to stabilize them. While restrictive, this costs a mere 7 skill points to give you Cure Minor Wounds at will (but only on dying characters).
Note: So, in D&D 3.5 this required you to be Level 2. A skill trick costs 2 skill points. Keep this is mind for Pathfinder use.

Elysian Thrushes (Planar Handbook, p.118)
If you can legitimately capture some Elysian Thrushes, breed them, and keep them in cages, their music will help out by doubling natural healing. This would be an interesting nonmagical option and could be expanded upon as a health resort.

Problem: Listening to Elysian Thrushes may be great to boost natural healing, but their song makes people want to become uninterested from ding anything but listen to their song. After 12 hours of listening to an Elysian Thrush a character not native to the Blessed Fields of Elysium must succeed on a DC 12 Will saving throw or be perfectly content to remain encamped, and if no one brings the character food and water, he will quietly die of starvation and thirst, content merely to keep listening to the bird's song. The character can be removed forcibly and subsequently returns to normal after 24 consecutive hours of not hearing an Elysian Thrush, but, otherwise, the effect of the song can be broken only by casting a spell on the victim that stirs up powerful emotions (fear, rage, or crushing despair, for example), or by slaying all the Elysian thrushes within hearing. Get yourself some earplugs to get a bonus on the Will saves.

Vivacious Creatures or Ravids (Planar Handbook, p.131/Monster Manual 3.5, p.213)
When you reach Level 6 you are able to gain the Leadership feat. Get yourself a Vivacious creature as your cohort and go to town. A vivacious creature can fire a positive energy ray once every 1d4 rounds with a range of 60 feet that infuses the target with positive energy equal to 1d4 + its Cha modifier. That damages undead, but causes healing to everything else. That makes it great for ranged healing. Any living creature within 10 feet of a vivacious creature also gains 1 hit point per round due to the aura of positive energy surrounding it. So, make sure that once you have full hit points that you keep it away from you - we wouldn't want your character to make a Fortitude save and explode. Granted, vivacious creatures can suppress their positive aura, but they take 1 point of Strength damage for each minute of doing so. It also has Fast Healing 5, which could become useful if you find an ability to suck health from it, but that seems unnecessary. Otherwise get a Ravid. It's a perfectly non-magical option, but you have to explain how you acquired one or the other Outsider. It's the problem with having creatures from the Positive Energy plane around. Ravids don't have that aura but could certainly replicate that problem with their energy ray.

3) Resplendent Cloaker (Ravenloft D20 - Denizens of Dread, p.51)

Resembling a lovely and bejeweled cloak of rich, glowing fabric, these benign symbionts are nontheless seen as evil omens. Resplendent cloakers feed by healing the wounds of their hosts. Unfortunately, their lovvely appearance and radiant glow also attract attention to their hosts. They are considered evil omens because they always seem drawn to suffering and bloodshed as if they were prescient. It is thought that their glow might be a method of communication, but no one has been able to successfully communicate with them.

Vril Cream (Sunken Empires, p.31) <- Third Party Pathfinder
This paste is found in small, opaque jars that are frequently covered in strange, dimly lit runes. When the single application within is applied, you instantly mend open wounds, healing 2d8+2 damage. (Only intelligent humanoid targets are affected.) The target can resist (Fortitutde DC 15 negates). If you accept the healing or fail the save, you suffer a -4 penalty to Will saves to resist spells and effects with the charm descriptor. This effect lasts for 24 hours. Cost: 200 gp; 1/2 lb; Craft DC: 20


Derek Vande Brake wrote:
Ryze Kuja wrote:

What if you house ruled something similar to the 5E rules for healing during short rests?

Short Rest

A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds.

A character can spend one or more Hit Dice at the end of a short rest, up to the character’s maximum number of Hit Dice, which is equal to the character’s level. For each Hit Die spent in this way, the player rolls the die and adds the character’s Constitution modifier to it. The character regains Hit Points equal to the total. The player can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll. A character regains some spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest, as explained below.

I'm not as familiar with 5E - is there some limit on this? What stops a party from healing up after every fight?

You can only expend Hit Dice you have.

For example if you are a 3rd Level Fighter, you have 3d10s to spend, distributed however you like throughout the day during your Short Rests. Maybe you spend 2d10 during your first, then 1d10 during your second rest much later. You would roll these dice and add Con to determine how much you heal.

You regain half of your maximum Hit Dice when you rest for 8 hours (Long Rest). That means they return to your Pool you can spend. You also get your full HP back.

Note that Short Rests take 1 Hour, but you can do minor things while resting such as eating, reading etc.


I have a homebrew campaign that deals with alternate dimensions and so I needed to revamp non-magical healing to make it viable w/o completely overshadowing magical healing options.

I stole ideas from d20 modern/future, pathfinder and 3.0 to revamp the healing skill.

Treat Injury (Wisdom)
This skill replaces skills like healing that are wisdom based and can be used to restore hitpoints. Ranks in healing count as ranks in Treat Injury but you may not place ranks into both Treat Injury and healing or it’s equivalent skills.

Use this Skill to help Characters that have been hurt by damage, poison, or disease.

Check: The DC and effect depend on the task you attempt.

Kit Requirement:

Spoiler:
In general, you need the right kind of kit in order to attempt a check. Attempting a check without a kit at all carries the following penalties. First Aid -2, Medical -4, Surgery -8. Alternatively, you may make the following substitutions. You can expend 2 uses from a first aid kit to perform a task requiring a medical kit at no penalty (or 1 use to only suffer a -2). You can expend 2 uses from a medical kit to perform a task requiring a surgery kit at no penalty (or 1 use to only suffer a -4). A surgery kit can be used in place of a first aid or medical kit. A medical kit can be used in place of a first aid kit. Mastercraft kits only provide a bonus if they are being used for a task that normally requires that sort of kit.

Task(DC/AoO?/Kit Required/Time)
--------------------------------------------------------
Dress Wounds(10/—/First Aid/10 min)
Provide First Aid(15/Yes/Medical/Full Round Action)
Stabilize Dying Character(15/Yes/Medical/Standard Action)
Perform Field Surgery(20/—/Surgery/1d4+ hours)
Provide Long Term Care(15/—/Medical/8 hrs or 24 hrs)
Treat wounds from caltrops, etc.(15/—/First Aid/10 min)
Revive Character (15/Yes/First Aid/Standard Action)
Treat Poison (Save DC/Yes/None/Standard Action)
Treat Disease (Save DC/Yes/None/Standard Action)

Dress Wounds:

Spoiler:
With a first aid kit, if a character has lost hit points you can convert some of that lethal damage into non-lethal damage. A successful check, converts 1d4 hit points + your wisdom modifier (if positive) into nonlethal damage. For every 5 points you exceed the DC by, you may roll an additional 1d4. Each time this skill is used, the character must give up one of the following item slots: head, headband, eyes, shoulders, chest, belt, wrists, hands, feet. Nothing may be equipped in the slot until this damage has been healed. The application of this skill can used multiple times per day so long as the character has item slots to give up. Removing the bandages early or wearing an item in the associated slot, causes the wounds to re-open causing the non-lethal damage to convert back to lethal damage, in addition you gain the bleed condition losing 1 hp per round, a successful stabilization check can be used to stop this bleed damage. Non-lethal damage gained from this check recovers at a rate of ½ a point per character level (min. of 1), per hour.

Provide First Aid:

Spoiler:
With a medical kit, if a character has lost hit points you can restore some of them. A successful check, as a full round action, restores 1 hit point per HD of the creature. If you exceed the DC by 5 or more, add your wisdom modifier (if positive) to this amount. The number restored can never exceed the character’s full normal total of hit points. This application of the skill can be used successfully on a character only once per day.

Stabilize Dying Character:

Spoiler:
With a medical kit, you can tend to a character who is dying. 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. This also stops a character from losing hit points due to effects that cause bleed.

Perform Field Surgery:

Spoiler:
With a surgery kit, you can conduct field surgery, stitching grievous wounds, realigning broken bones, and removing bullets or shrapnel. Surgery requires 1d4 hours; if the patient is at negative hit points, add an additional hour for every point below 0 the patient has fallen. Thus, a character who has -3 hitpoints requires 1d4+3 hours of surgery to tend their wounds.
Surgery restores 1d6 hit points for every character level of the patient (up to the character’s full normal total of hit points) with a successful 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 surgeon achieves. The period of fatigue can never be reduced below 6 hours in this fashion.

Provide Long-Term Care:

Spoiler:
With a medical Kit, the successful application of this skill allows a patient to recover hit points and ability points lost to temporary damage at an advanced rate: 2 hit points per character level for a full 8 hours of rest in a day, or 4 hit points per character level per day of complete rest; 2 ability score points for a full 8 hours of rest in a day, or 4 ability score points each full day of complete rest. A new check is made each day; on a failed check recovery occurs at the normal rate for that day of rest and care.
You can tend up to as many patients as you have ranks in the skill. While the patients need to spend all their time resting. You need to devote only ½ an hour of the day per patient you are caring for.

Treat Wounds from Caltrops, Spike Growth, or Spike Stones:

Spoiler:
A creature wounded by stepping on a caltrop moves at one-half normal speed. When using a first aid kit, a successful check removes this movement penalty.
A creature wounded by a spike growth or spike stones spell must succeed on a Reflex save or take injuries that reduce his speed by one-third. Another character can remove this penalty by using a first aid kit and taking 10 minutes to dress the victim’s injuries and succeeding on a Treat Injury check against the spell’s save DC.

Revive Dazed, Stunned or Unconscious Character:

Spoiler:
With a first aid kit, you can remove the dazed, stunned or unconscious condition from a character. This check is a standard action. A successful check removes the dazed, stunned or unconscious condition from an affected character. You can’t revive an unconscious character who is at -1 hit points or lower without first stabilizing the character.

Treat Disease:

Spoiler:
To treat a disease means to tend to a single diseased character. Every time the diseased character makes a saving throw against disease effects, you make a check. If your check exceeds the DC of the disease, the character receives a +4 competence bonus on his saving throw against the disease.

Treat Poison:

Spoiler:
To treat poison means to tend to a single character who has been poisoned and who is going to take more damage from the poison (or suffer some other effect). Every time the poisoned character makes a saving throw against the poison, you make a check. If your check exceeds the DC of the poison, the character receives a +4 competence bonus on his saving throw against the poison.


I wrote up a skyrim like alchemy rules set for pathfinder. Works based on craft alchemy DC. Yeah, level 1 witch with enough money for the cauldron gets a +21 to the skill Check.

DC 15 level 1
DC 25 level 2... alc potions get interesting ...
DC 35 level 3 stuff is on par with a +4 to Str potion or similar things. And they need several ingredients.

Etc.

Back to topic: alc healing potions give your class hitdie plus con modifier in hitpoints back. More healing for the barbarian.

The Exchange

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I know you said you didn't want natural healing to take "forever" but that's a relative term. If your campaign world is one where the PCs are normally not particularly rushed, natural healing doesn't actually take that long.

If you rest for a full day, you recover 2 HP per level. If someone can make a DC 15 heal check to provide long-term care during that time, it doubles to 4 HP per level. You can also treat deadly wounds once per day per person for another HP per level. So two days of rest will fully heal most PCs (not the Con-monster, but most everyone else.)

That might be enough for your campaign. It will feel a lot more like a real scout force trying to only pick fights when they are in peak condition and having to make fighting retreats if they are attacked while wounded. And when they get access to magical healing, it becomes "oh, wow, we can do a lot more each day now!"


Devoted Healer is kind if ridiculous. To take 20 on a skill means spending 20 times as long to perform the action. Treat Deadly Wounds takes an hour to perform. So taking 20 will spend over an entire day to restore 1d4 and probably the healer's wis mod more hp than if he spent an hour to do the same operation.

If someone spent 20 hours in a single operation they should be making endurance checks after 8 hours. And they really need to sleep at the end of this which means the operation takes 28 hours in total.

Without some way to reduce the time needed to Treat Deadly Wounds this isn't really usable.


Incredible Healer exists as well.

I would just lower the prereqs if you want to use it early. It's fairly strong.


Derek Vande Brake wrote:
The healing herbs of avr could also work, though getting them for free risks them totally replacing potions. Perhaps if they also came with a downside - 1 point of Wisdom damage, so using one a day would be okay but using two or more would start to accumulate penalties?

That could work, but free is relative. At low levels you weren't going to spend much (maybe anything) on potions anyway. Nothing much is being replaced in that case. Later on your patron could get tired of paying so much to keep you on your feet, or might be concentrating their money on their senate bid, or maybe they lost their source of cheap healing herbs.


Romans had fairly good medical skills for their time. Assuming that their is a decent surgeon who will consistently be able to treat wounds when they get back to camp means a couple days down and they are good to go.

Personally, I don't think you need to do anything special. Sure, they will have party members down for a couple of days now and again healing up, but most 'scouting' type things is no more than one encounter a day anyway. You can control when encounters will occur (i.e. on they days the party isn't up for it, either another team goes out that day or the reduced party goes out, but luckily don't find anything significant.)

Since your party won't have many, if any, daily resource pools starting out, a 'multiple encounters a day' scenario is only different from a 'multiple encounters over multiple days' scenario by amount of HP and rate of healing. No magic healing over multiple days is mechanically going to be almost identical to magical (or some other sped up method) healing between encounters within a single day.

Eventually you are probably going to want to do a 'dungeon crawl' style of action, but I expect that that can wait a level or two and by then you can supply healing if you need too. A command word item with X/uses of a cure spell per day is something that they can find, and going a couple of levels without will make it cool.


I appreciate all the help!

I felt inspired to write a short story to start the campaign off...
-----------------------------------------------------------
The real winners of the battle were the crows.

Centurion Aelius crossed the field towards the Legatus's tent, watching as soldiers and camp followers searched the fallen - looking for wounded survivors, prisoners, or in some cases precious baubles among the corpses. Outnumbering all the human searchers, however, were the crows. Everywhere they flapped across the battlefield. As Aelius spotted one nearby, standing on the remains of a Pictish soldier. As he watched, it dug down with a sharp beak, plucking out the dead man's eye. A tasty morsel.

The Legion had fought off the Pictish warband, but the crows were the ones who had won.

Disgusted, Aelius turned away and continued towards the Legatus's tent, thinking back on the events leading up to this. Reports had come in of Imperial lands being raided by a particularly large force, Pictish warriors in their strange paints. The bulk of the legion had been on patrol in the north, searching for the raiders, but the raiders had found them first. Howling, coming through the trees, the Picts had slammed into the Roman force. The legion was well trained but the Pict ambush had been a complete surprise, and the terrain had not been favorable to the Romans. Aelius wondered why the outriding scouts hadn't given more warning. Surely such a large force would have been noticed sooner?

It seemed Aelius was the last to arrive at the meeting; as he entered the Legatus's tent, he heard the other centurions speaking.

"...heavy losses across the legion. The sixth cohort has been completely destroyed; the first and seventh have lost eight men in ten..."
"...much of the baggage train set on fire, but we should have provisions to return to Eboracum..."
"...a number of the enemy were women, truly a barbaric people..."
"...we did catch a fair number of prisoners, should bring some good coin from the slave markets..."

The man at the center of the tent raised a hand, and the conversation stopped. Legatus Fabius Avitus was young for his position, but had earned the respect of his centurions. "For the glory of Emporer Hadrian, we have been victorious here today, but at great cost. We will return to to Eboracum, but for now we must set up camp and deal with our dead. The vexillations should return to join us before we move out. Gaius Severus," Fabius indicated a nearby centurion, "you will take over as primus pilus. Centurions, get your men ready to move at dawn a day after next. Dismissed."

***

It was a cold night, and Aelius sat close to the fire near his tent. Many of his men had already gone to bed; the last few up were on first shift for guard duty. Aelius, however, couldn't sleep. It wasn't the first time he had seen war, or even the fifty-first, but for some reason the battle of the previous day had left him unsettled. There was something... wrong about it. Something to do with the scouts, and the lack of warning.

A log shifted in the fire, throwing a shower of sparks into the air, and a burst of warm air distracted him from his troubled thoughts. He shrugged. The scouts likely had been intercepted by the Picts before they could bring back warning. If the forest was thick enough, even a large force might be missed by even the keenest observers until it was too late. At these thoughts, Aelius stood up and walked to his tent. Soldiers got precious little sleep as it was and he really shouldn't waste time when he could.

***

It felt like he had just closed his eyes a moment when Aelius was awoken by one of his men.

"Centurion!" the legionaire whispered. "Wake up! The fog... it's..." The man's eyes were wide with fear, and he pointed.

Aelius realized a moment later that he could see the man's eyes, despite the lack of firelight in the tent. He looked outside and saw almost nothing. A thick fog had rolled into the encampment, so dense that Aelius couldn't see the fire he had been sitting at hours before. And the fog was glowing. He jerked back, alarmed. Was he imagining it? No, the thick, gray wall outside his tent was definitely lit up, a sickly greenish glow that would not have been perceptible during the day but was readily apparent in the dark of the night. What witchcraft was this? Pictish magic?

"Stay here," he told the frightened soldier who had woken him, then stepped out into the fog. One hand, holding tightly to the tent flap, trembled violently, but he forced himself not to flee. He peered out, trying in vain to see around him. Why hadn't anybody noticed this? Where were the guards? Where were the noises of the camp, even at night?

"Hello?" he called out, but his voice sounded muffled, even to him, as though he was speaking through thick linens. "Can anyone hear me?"

When he heard no answer he searched among his tentmates' belongings for a rope. Tying it around his waist, and around the frame of the tent, he stepped back out into the fog. It took all of his courage to move away from the tent, away from what felt like the one spot left in the world where men still existed, and out into the gray-green witchlight swirling around him.

It was only a few yards away, but it seemed like miles, when he found the first body. He almost stumbled over it in the fog, and he let out a brief yelp - a vocalization of fear that barely reached his own ears. The corpses from the battle had been cleared away from the camp, so he knew it wasn't from that. And yet here was a man in legion uniform, lying face down, his hand grasping a gladius... his hand...

Aelius leaned over and looked closer. The hand holding the gladius had been torn at, ragged wounds that looked like... bites? Rounded, but small. As though by a child. Now that he was looking he could see more bite marks, on the soldier's arms, on his legs. But despite the profusion of bites there was little blood around the body. Aelius had seen many men die - some at his own hand. He had seen bodies torn at by wild animals. This was new to him. Fearfully he followed the rope back to his tent.

The legionaires in his tent asked him what he had seen but he couldn't bring himself to speak, at first. Finally he managed to give an order. "Stay alert. Keep your weapons at hand."

***

Hours later, dawn arrived. The weary soldiers had stayed up all night, and saw the sun's rays burn through the fog, dissipating it. As they looked however, they realized something had changed - the terrain nearby looked completely different. There were fewer tents than there should have been. On the horizon, away from where the sun broke was the moon - but there was another one higher in the sky, as well.
Two moons, thought Aelius. How were there two moons?


The Romans were pantheists. Worshiping many gods. They often co-opted the local gods into their worship. While this worship did not appear to do much back home, the gods of the new world might have different ideas.

As to alchemical remedies, the Romans also had them.

/cevah

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / Healing without magic? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.