Balancing the attributes: Medicine should really be Int by default

[Lyee]

Let's face it. Right now, Int is a garbagey dump stat for anyone that doesn't need it for class features. If you're not using spell DCs, you can even dump it as a Wizard pretty happily. Trained skills are not worth the investment, considering the game is balanced around you maximizing a few to master from 7th. One language at 14 is... a neat bonus, it does not sell an attribute. And the flat bonus to some 'knowledge' checks is better than nothing, due to rituals, but ignored by more than half the PCs I expect to see.

Medicine just got a cool buff with Treat Wounds. It's not quite reasonable that everyone tries to Treat Wounds after the main Medicine Dude crit fails, or if he's out of the scene. Wis is currently loaded quite hard, with Will Saves, Perception, default Initiative (via Perception), and several good skills.

Why is Medicine Wis? My guess is that it's a mix of 'because it was that way in the old system' and 'because Cleric/Druid are wis-based', but that really isn't a good reason. Medicine is a very learned, studied talent. It's solidly Int-based. I'm happy for Cleric/Druid to get 'can use Wis for Medicine' as a class feature, or added to one of their Class Feats, but I don't think it makes sense to be Medicine's default attribute. Moving it to Int balances out the attributes for your average character (a little bit, it's still uneven), while also making sense.

Make Alchemists good doctors!

[Vidmaster7]

I think int needs more things then that too.

[Data Lore]

Strong disagree. This is fantasyland not Doogie Howser MD or House.

I vote it stay Wisdom - experience not study. Especially to continue the trope of the Cleric, Druid, Ranger or Monk that heals its companions in downtime. Those are typically Wisdom heavy classes and its unlikely they can be effective while investing in INT. Natural Medicine cannot do the Treat Wounds action so they must use WIS and Medicine. With scaling DCs they will fail without heavy stat investment.

Instead, I suggest something like Intimidating Prowess. That feat requires 16 STR and Expert in Intimidation. It gives a +1 bonus to intimidation or +2 with 20 STR. It allows the other stat to impact.

So keep it Wisdom based but allow a high INT guy to nab a feat like that if he has 16 INT and is expert in Medicine.

[Vidmaster7]

Then what would be some other ways to improve intelligence then?

[Data Lore]

No idea. But screwing over Wisdom is not the answer.

[Vidmaster7]

Wisdom will still have plenty their. will saves alone makes it prime real estate.

[Data Lore]

I dont just care about Wis saves. Its the themes of a ranger using poultices. A monk using pressure points to alleviate pain. A cleric or druid tending to the wounded not with magic but experience,

Those folks being trumped by a wizard in downtime healing is just plain bad thematic design.

Int needs something else. Not this.

Edit: at most, maybe something like Versatile Performance that allows Arcana or Craft to be used in lieu of Medicine for purposes of Treat Wounds. That allows the "learned" PC to tend to folk's wounds. That way the WIS classes can still fit the thematic niche but others to be the "smart" healer. I can see this as an Alchemist class feat especially.

[Igor Horvat]

Wisdom is in PF/D&D best described as practical intelligence/awareness.

First aid is more about being fast and practical than precise and methodic.

I would also remove religion and nature from wisdom back to intelligence.

[WatersLethe]

From a trope perspective, the wise crone having intuitive knowledge of which poultice to use is very satisfying to me. I can definitely see where the old-school primarily instinctual healing should be Wisdom based.

I definitely think there should be an easily accessible skill feat to switch it to Intelligence and also thematically transition to more modern, science based medicine.

As for things that could make intelligence more useful, I recommend bumping up languages further, so you get a bonus language at every +1 int mod.

I also think Int should be useful for Investigation and piecing together clues, but I'm not sure how.

Lastly, I'd like to see the return of Int based combat feats, but in a satisfying and fleshed out way.

[Midnightoker]

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Then what would be some other ways to improve intelligence then?

They need to tie it back into Skills.

When Signature Skills were still in place, I thought it might make sense to just allow your increases to be based on INT (so if you have 18 you get 4 Skill Increases) but with Signature Skills gone, I'm not sure that would be all that balanced (would make Wizard much better than Sorceror and Alchemist just got a huge buff already).

Perhaps some form of increases akin to PF1 where you have base increases and then add your INT mod (minimum 1):

Wiz Int - 2
Fighter Int + 1
Rogue Int + 0
Cleric Int + 0

etc.

You could also do half INT mod, which numerically is probably a bit closer to where you'd want to be, but is a bit awkward.

You could also make Proficiency bonuses to skills a function of INT (similar to the Duelist in PF1 for AC).

I would like INT to show its face in the Skill department other than the starting Trained values though, as with the removal of ranks, Intelligence now doesn't service the "learned" aspect of Skills.

[dnoisette]

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Then what would be some other ways to improve intelligence then?

Every level that you get a skill increase, you get an additional skill increase if your Intelligence score is 14 or higher.

But yes, Wisdom is just too good right now :
- Will saves
- Perception checks
- Initiative checks (when perception-based)
- Medicine checks (Treat Wounds, Battle Medic)
- Nature checks (Natural Medicine - some more heal when paired with Treat Wounds and Battle Medic)
- Religion and Survival skill checks as well
- spell DCs and spell points for Druids and Clerics

Comparatively, Charisma suffers :
- face skills checks (Deception, Diplomacy, Intimidation)
- Peformance checks (only relevant for Bards)
- spell DCs and spell points for Bards and Sorcerers
- number of Resonance points

The last one is still good for now but once consumables stop requiring RP to function and are simply enhanced by RP expenditure, it will have a lesser impact.

The worst is definitely Intelligence :
- spell DCs and spell points for Wizards
- alchemical items DCs and Resonance points for Alchemists
- number of skills trained at level 1
- Arcana, Occultism, Society and Lore skill checks
- one extra language known at character creation if INT>14

With Charisma and Wisdom, there are reasons to invest in those ability scores if you don't need them for your class features.
The incentive is much, much lower for Intelligence.
Besides, Wisdom is so much more valuable than Chrisma that you will always boost Wisdom if you don't need to have a naturally high Charisma for class features.

[swordchucks]

If Nature got a roughly equivalent function to Treat Wounds (the current one is far too weak), then I'm all for making Medicine key off Intelligence again.

The only real reason to have it in Wisdom is to make it accessible to clerics and druids (who typically have a harder time investing in INT than a wizard or alchemist have investing in WIS).

[theservantsllcleanitup]

I think historically speaking, medicine was not particularly scientific or rigorous. Think the shamanistic type of healing, herbs, salves, healing rituals. We hadn't invented the scientific method yet. I mean even into more modern times we had doctors going to the bathroom and then performing surgery without washing their hands. If you haven't invented germ theory, no amount of intelligence will tell a young doctor to wash their hands, but maybe a lot of experience will tell you that washing your hands produces better outcomes (for some reason.... but why? That's where int comes in).

Anyway, I think finding a balance between wis and int for medicine is the correct route. Default wisdom and a feat for int or vice versa, I'm not sure. Or maybe even just a class feature for certain classes, like how alchemists use int for resonance.

[Use Headbutt!!]

The way I see it this confusion comes from the fact that medicine is used to both diagnose disease and to suture wounds. Suturing wounds is very similar to crafting and thus logically is int based (or dex based but that isn't really an option here). In the real world diagnosing diseases is int based because you have to memorize as many diseases as possible and then compare the noted symptoms to the diseases you know. In sword and fantasy adventures though, diagnosing diseases is wisdom based because you need to determine what is wrong. Sensing that their lymph nodes are inflamed, feeling that they have a high fever, listening to their breathing to see if there is fluid in the lungs, these are all wisdom based tasks. In the real world we have machines to measure and quantify most of those tasks which puts more emphasis on the int side of medicine but that isn't an option in the pathfinder setting.

Additionally in 3.5/pf1 you would treat patients over long periods of time (closer to being a nurse rather than doctor) and help them recover over the period of 8 hours or a day to help increase natural healing. That was always more of a wisdom based task. I think medicine being wis based in PF2 is more of a hold over from that than anything else.

Currently medicine doesn't have that option and with the new emphasis on immediate surgery/first aid from the new skill use/wound mechanic I feel like medicine is starting to lean more int based. That being said, thematically it is in the realm of wis based characters so I am fine with it (though I agree int needs some boosting).

[Dasrak]

This is an extremely good idea. Intelligence is in desperate need of something, and with medicine now a must-have skill for any party that's a great place to give it something. The nature skill can fill the niche of wisdom-based non-magical healing.

Generally for any task, there's a broad range of ability scores that can make sense depending on your perspective. Due to the way the rules work, only one can be the default, and I'm not particularly picky about that so long as it makes some sense and gives each ability score a reasonably good selection of options to pick from (and, as mentioned, making medicine Int-based is a vast improvement in that regard). Honestly, if we're talking about mismatched ability score / skill combos, wisdom for riding a horse is the worst offender by a wide margin right now.

[pad300]

A more general solution might be to allow some skills to have multiple attributes you could pick from for a Key ability:

Medicine could be Wis or Int
Intimidate could be Cha or Str
Craft could be Int or Dex (some people have "their brain is in their hands: very good craftspeople , but not geniuses).
Nature and Religion could be Wis or Int (like medicine, scientific study vs intuition)
Society could be Int or Cha

Or maybe just a bonus on specific actions from a secondary ability... Like Int on all recall knowledge checks (yes, that implies a double down on arcana checks). You could then have treat wounds/poison/disease be a medicine action with a secondary bonus from int, without affecting administer first aid.

[dnoisette]

pad300 wrote:

A more general solution might be to allow some skills to have multiple attributes you could pick from for a Key ability:

Medicine could be Wis or Int
Intimidate could be Cha or Str
Craft could be Int or Dex (some people have "their brain is in their hands: very good craftspeople , but not geniuses).
Nature and Religion could be Wis or Int (like medicine, scientific study vs intuition)
Society could be Int or Cha

I would take a skill feat for that, it seems interesting and worthwhile.

[ErichAD]

They could just put the two knowledge skills, nature and religion, back on to intelligence and split "thievery" up into lockpicking/disable device under the craft skill and palming/hiding objects under stealth.

Barring that: Medicine should probably get removed and relevant checks be made by the appropriate knowledge skill. It's odd that you could give relevant first aid to something you can't actually identify.

[Lyee]

Swapping medicine to Int (or back to Wis, if I can get Int as the standard) as an optional thing for a character could work. To avoid adding new systems, maybe it could be a rider on a medicine skill feat (or multiple skill feats offer it as a rider?).

I see some arguments people are making for first-aid, on-the-spot stitch ups Battle Medic style requiring a lot of intuition, but for anything taking longer - treating wounds, long-term treatment of poison, disease, ennervation, etc, I definitely imagine characters consulting books or their mental library of problems and solutions.

[Captain Morgan]

I'm cool with medicine becoming INT based, or a feat to make it an option or whatever. What I really don't want is Religion and Nature to go back to being INT based. I don't really care if it doesn't make as much sense. Neither do wizards knowing more about the respective fields of clerics and druids.

Plus, Religion and Nature both have a lot of room for intuition to come into play. Even if the wizard HAD read more scripture than the cleric, the cleric is more suited to deciphering a parable and realizing it was about this demon in particular and that the "divine energy" the heroes of the parable used to drive it off was most likely good damage.

[Starfox]

Making Medicine an Int skill would also make the cleric dependency less of an issue. You can either have a cleric, or a medic. These two would no longer be the same thing.

[ErichAD]

I do enjoy the convenience of a completely dumpable int stat. Being able to prioritize wisdom, charisma and dex on my cleric without concern for the other stats has been really nice. But it's pretty obvious the int stat has had enough removed from it that it could be removed from the game with little change.

It's been my experience that the world is full of people who know an awful lot about professions they would be incompetent to practice. Knowing about religion and religious topics being separate from contacting a deity seems pretty reasonable to me. But I wouldn't want it changed. It seems like PF2 is made with the idea that you'll be able to dump intelligence if you aren't a wizard or alchemist, leaving it in charisma's old spot. They'd need to fiddle with a bunch of things to change that back.

[Captain Morgan]

dnoisette wrote:

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Then what would be some other ways to improve intelligence then?

Every level that you get a skill increase, you get an additional skill increase if your Intelligence score is 14 or higher.

But yes, Wisdom is just too good right now :
- Will saves
- Perception checks
- Initiative checks (when perception-based)
- Medicine checks (Treat Wounds, Battle Medic)
- Nature checks (Natural Medicine - some more heal when paired with Treat Wounds and Battle Medic)
- Religion and Survival skill checks as well
- spell DCs and spell points for Druids and Clerics

Comparatively, Charisma suffers :
- face skills checks (Deception, Diplomacy, Intimidation)
- Peformance checks (only relevant for Bards)
- spell DCs and spell points for Bards and Sorcerers
- number of Resonance points

The last one is still good for now but once consumables stop requiring RP to function and are simply enhanced by RP expenditure, it will have a lesser impact.

The worst is definitely Intelligence :
- spell DCs and spell points for Wizards
- alchemical items DCs and Resonance points for Alchemists
- number of skills trained at level 1
- Arcana, Occultism, Society and Lore skill checks
- one extra language known at character creation if INT>14

With Charisma and Wisdom, there are reasons to invest in those ability scores if you don't need them for your class features.
The incentive is much, much lower for Intelligence.
Besides, Wisdom is so much more valuable than Chrisma that you will always boost Wisdom if you don't need to have a naturally high Charisma for class features.

Also, I just want to point out that Intimidate and Deception make charisma an amazing secondary combat stat. I haven't messed with feint much yet but Demoralize is crazy good.

[ErichAD]

Yeah, weaponized combat banter is the best part of PF2. It sure gives the Fear spell a back seat.

[HWalsh]

I hate to say this, but...

If we're talking about "bad off stats" then Strength and Charisma are at the top of the crap pile.

Strength = Melee to hit, unless you're using a finesse weapon, melee damage unless you're a rogue, Athletics checks, and Bulk, which can be circumvented by a relatively cheap bag of holding.

With trained skills granting an effective +4 to a skill check bonus skills are a big freaking deal.

[dnoisette]

HWalsh wrote:

I hate to say this, but...

If we're talking about "bad off stats" then Strength and Charisma are at the top of the crap pile.

Strength = Melee to hit, unless you're using a finesse weapon, melee damage unless you're a rogue, Athletics checks, and Bulk, which can be circumvented by a relatively cheap bag of holding.

With trained skills granting an effective +4 to a skill check bonus skills are a big freaking deal.

Strength is necessary for all melee builds, no matter the class you're playing.

Charisma is required for Resonance, party face and combat applications, no matter the class you're playing.

Intelligence is only required for Wizards (provided they care about their spell DCs; which they do if they didn't go with buff spells) and Alchemists.
Intelligence is not even required to be a skill-monkey, you just have to go with the right class (Rogue, Bard).

[Elleth]

Captain Morgan wrote:

I'm cool with medicine becoming INT based, or a feat to make it an option or whatever. What I really don't want is Religion and Nature to go back to being INT based. I don't really care if it doesn't make as much sense. Neither do wizards knowing more about the respective fields of clerics and druids.

Plus, Religion and Nature both have a lot of room for intuition to come into play. Even if the wizard HAD read more scripture than the cleric, the cleric is more suited to deciphering a parable and realizing it was about this demon in particular and that the "divine energy" the heroes of the parable used to drive it off was most likely good damage.

I'd like Medicine to be Int-based.

For Religion and Nature, I'm actually really happy about them being Wis-based for the same reasons as you.

[Leedwashere]

I, too, think it would make a lot of sense as an Int skill. Then maybe make natural medicine somewhat more relevant (but not necessarily as good (like the difference between heal and soothe) so there is also an option for wisdom type skill-healers. One uses your knowledge of anatomy, the other uses your ability to notice the useful things around you. It's a good dichotomy to set up.

[Quandary]

I think, as already brought up, Medicine/WIS is being used as proxy for broader issue.

The game system does not INHERENTLY require INT to not affect number of skill boosts, so why not consider that?
I think tying INT to more skill increases is utterly reasonable. Could be just +1 for 14+ INT, or even +1 per +2 INT bonus.
A major way to moderate either approach is saying INT bonus skill increases can only be applied to INT skills.
That lets high INT characters be good at high # of INT skills, but no better at others, which shouldn't step on others' toes.

[ErichAD]

Leaving the skill selection unrestricted is probably fine. You'll only have two stats capable of supporting the rolls well enough to bother increasing skills. And going from 9 skill bumps to 18 skill bumps means you're only increasing 6 skills to legendary, not enough for all the skills supported by your primary and secondary stat unless you pumped strength or constitution. Rogues would be crazy of course, but a rogue taking a hit to perception and deception for int needs some sort of compensation.

Plus, without the skill feats to support those skills, those skill bumps may not matter all that much.

[StratoNexus]

I still think Intelligence should also grant extra Skill Increases as you level up. Guaranteed house rule in games I GM if it does not make it into Core.

2 to 6 extra Skill Increases, some of which can be used to add more Master or Legendary skills.
That makes Intelligence attractive.

[Joey Cote]

I think as GMs get their heads around the idea that not every skill based DC should be considered as an equal level challenge, and the -4 untrained penalty starts really kicking in, people are going to realize that having a decent breadth of skills is very useful and value intelligence more. Also, once they start adjusting monster stats to make them a bit less awesome at everything.

That said, it might be useful if there was a skill feat that allowed a character to use int bonus instead of wis bonus on one or two skills they were trained in. Might need to exclude perception from that list though since that would make it an almost autotake for any int based class. But being able to roll medicine and religion or nature checks on int instead of wis wouldn't be broken. Could even do that for a few other skills. Like a feat that let you dex for athletics instead of str (and maybe give a +1 to bulk since there aren't any other skills that use str).

[ikarinokami]

intelligence should grant additional skill increases. it's a simple and elegant solution that makes logical sense.

[shroudb]

A way to make Int be less terrible would be to simultaneously allow:

A) all Recall checks can be made with Int if the person wants to.

B) Int skill increases are not capped to "trained", although they are still capped by level.

The above means that your +int skills at level 1 can be up to expert, and if you so choose to increase int later on with your precious stat increases, you'd get just a bit higher.

The above still means only 1 more legendary skill (since you only get 1 increase after level 15), 2 if you account for the headband.

That's only 1-2(with headband) extra skills.

I see no balance issues if 24 Int means 5 skills instead of 3,especially since skill feats (that are the most important thing) are still the same across everyone regardless of Int score.

[Azih]

Maybe they should consider having some skills be optional for what attribute they're based on. There's a lot of 'mental' actions that can benefit from either 'intuitive' or 'rational' thought processes.

So Medicine can become Int OR Wis chosen at creation time. Thievery can become Int OR Dex

OR

Hear me out.

Add an Int bonus to all skills along with any other attribute that it already has (min 0)

So Thievery becomes Dex + Int for example

That one's easy to rationalize but you know even Athletics being Str + Int makes sense.

Any sport you care to follow, especially team sports, have elite athletes who are renown for having high 'sport IQ'. Their Athletic and Acrobatic skills are enhanced by them being students of their games.

I like that idea enough that I'll make a thread on it.

[Starfox]

"sport IQ" sounds a lot like Dexterity to me. Intelligence RL can be a lot of things, but in d20, its pretty much defined to be scholarly.

---
Furthermore, I am of the opinion that Table 10-2 should be destroyed

[Azih]

"sport IQ" is definitely not the same as dexterity. it's more like "Art of War" type stuff where you learn strategies and tactics and counters to them as well as you your opponents capabilities to exploit whatever advantage you can. But that's a pretty off topic discussion so I'll leave it there :)

[Cyouni]

ikarinokami wrote:

intelligence should grant additional skill increases. it's a simple and elegant solution that makes logical sense.

This seems the simplest and fastest way to make rogue obsolete in the CRB.

[Zwordsman]

I am of the camp of making it INT.

Because it is called "medicine" not "heal" now. Heal made sense with wisdom.
but Medicine is specifically a science.

Since they purposfully changed it, and added things like "battlefield medic" (medic~ rather than healer) along with other changes (such as how Expert and higher level items work) it feels like this setting is more science and magic together and probably some magitech in some of the items as well.

Plus. Just looking at the classes--the classes most likely to use Medicine are likely the ones who value INT anyway. Alchemist, Rogue for instance.

TLDR: Medicine is a science-and non caster classes will very much want it. So I prefer INT.
If it stays Wis I'd really prefer the name to be altered. Then a skill feat named Medicine to come up that allows use of INT+some other side benefit to make it worth a feat.