Update 1.3 Treat Wounds Analysis (spreadsheet)

[swordchucks]

I did a fairly basic analysis of the new treat wounds ability.

Spreadsheet

Possibly the most interesting thing about the sheet is that Treat Wounds doesn't do a lot at the lower levels. It isn't until around level 5 (assuming everyone stuffs their attribute bumps into CON) that it starts to take off. Honestly, that's the opposite of what I would expect from non-magical healing.

Now, the current analysis is obviously missing information on crit success / crit fail rates, which will also vary with level and be important.

[Dreamtime2k9]

It appears to be expecting minimum investments on con across the board for all but the barbarian.

It appears your not factoring in 1st level stat bumps/backgrounds?

No toughness either?

I don't think 14 con(+2) would be high, i think thats the new average from what i've seen thusfar. I can safely say that i've never seen a d6 class start with 8 con regardless of potentially being an elf or not.

I was going to say healer's tools exist and would provide a +1 for expert quality but i suppose that didn't get adressed in the 1.3 update.

You also didn't include a potent item for wisdom post 15th level, would at least make sense for the professionals i think.

The modifiers also appear to be 1 off in the medicine users tab, unless i'm missing where that last +1 comes from entirely.

---

Despite the above: yea, it does seem like it scales a lot better with higher con post 5th level which is what i assume the point was rather so then to be massively accurate as to HP numbers for builds.

[swordchucks]

Dreamtime2k9 wrote:

It appears to be expecting minimum investments on con across the board for all but the barbarian.

The "HP Basics" tab had the details. Essentially, here are the four cases:

Elven Wizard with a -1 CON mod (CON increases at 5/10/15/20)

Human Rogue with a +1 CON mod (CON increases at 5/10/15)

Human Fighter with a +2 CON mod (CON increases at 5/10/20)

Dwarven Barbarian with a +3 CON mod (CON increases at 5/15)

I didn't go heavier on CON because I haven't seen playtest characters favoring CON heavily so far. The Dwarven Barbarian is meant as a "high end" case. It isn't meant to be exhaustive but rather to show some end points and a couple of "average" guys in the middle.

Some of the numbers I picked are obviously because of the things I've seen in characters at my tables so far.

Dreamtime2k9 wrote:

It appears your not factoring in 1st level stat bumps/backgrounds?

What are you talking about, specifically? Stat bumps should be included to give the CON stats.

Dreamtime2k9 wrote:

No toughness either?

I also left out feats that give HP in the dedications and the like. The goal isn't to do an exhaustive analysis of every possible HP total, and since Toughness and the other feats don't affect how much you can be healed, I made the decision to not add them in.

Dreamtime2k9 wrote:

I don't think 14 con(+2) would be high, i think thats the new average from what i've seen thusfar. I can safely say that i've never seen a d6 class start with 8 con regardless of potentially being an elf or not.

The elf is a definite bookend "worst case". Well, I suppose a true worst case wouldn't raise the mod with level. Regardless, I've seen it done, though I'm not sure I've seen it in the playtest yet (though I did have an elf fighter with a +0 at first level).

I changed the terms to Low/Low-Mid/Mid-High/High, which is probably more accurate. I've seen plenty of classes with 8hp/lvl with a +1 CON mod at first level, so it feels valuable to include.

Dreamtime2k9 wrote:

You also didn't include a potent item for wisdom post 15th level, would at least make sense for the professionals i think.

That's fair. I added it, though it doesn't really change much in practice.

Dreamtime2k9 wrote:

The modifiers also appear to be 1 off in the medicine users tab, unless i'm missing where that last +1 comes from entirely.

At a guess, you're not counting the item bonus (which is in Column D, since it's the same for everyone). I'm assuming that every healer gains the Expert tools at level 3.

---

In general, I updated the sheet to include success/fail rates for Treat Wounds by a handful of cases.

Case 1: Untrained User (10 wis, no skill, half-wis bumps)

Critically fails about 30-35% of the time and only has about a 20% success rate (which drops off to a consistent 15% rate at high levels).

Case 2: Trained Amateur (10 wis, trained, full wis bumps, no skill bumps)

Critically fails 5-10% of the time and has a pretty steady 40-45% success rate.

Case 3: Skilled Amateur (14 wis, trained, full wis bumps, full skill bumps)

Critically fails 5% of the time, and tends to have a steady 45% success rate and about a 15-20% critical success rate.

Case 4: Professional (18 wis, trained, full wis bumps, wis item, full skill bumps)

Critically fails 5% of the time, consistently succeeds 45% of the time, and critically succeeds 20-25% of the time (with some spikes of 15% and 30%)

---

Overall, I actually like the looks of skill success for those that invest in it.

[Dreamtime2k9]

It appears like our playgroups have vastly different statlines, i guess its fine then, just ignore my earlier remarks. I have yet to see anyone with a +0 constitution modifier, including elves at my tables so i guess thats a big portion of where my confusion came from.

I should point out though that healer's tools by raw don't actually do anything though.

Quote:

Healer’s Tools

This kit of bandages, herbs, and suturing tools is necessary
for Medicine checks to Administer First Aid, Treat a
Disease, or Treat a Poison. Expert-quality healer’s tools
provide a +1 item bonus to such checks.

The playtest didn't adjust the tool for the new use of medicine, although that probably should be adjusted, it isn't presently. I'd assume most GM's probably should houserule to include it considering its most likely an oversight with the 1.3 update.

You could argue that a character with the creation domain's artistic flourish could at least in theory (using RAI instead of raw) create better tools potentially enhancing it by another potential +2. Resulting in some increased odds.

[swordchucks]

Updated the spreadsheet with some more realistic numbers for the "expected" HP gained per period by healer type. By this metric, the expected healing is (healer's success chance) * (success healing) + (healer's critical success chance) * (critical success healing). This results in some interesting observations:

1) All healers perform poorly below level 3. This type of healing doesn't seem to be very viable for healer-less parties at that level. Past that point, everyone gets a bit better if they are trained, but you generally need a healer that's focused on Medicine to some degree to rely on it.

2) You're looking at ~1 hour worth of healing for most characters and characters. However, the nature of critical failures is such that you're pretty likely to crit fail at some point during the process, making it desirable to have multiple healers capable of using Treat Wounds.

---

Overall, I'm not really satisfied with this as a method of healing. There are just too dang many dice involved. Healing up a beat up party at level 1 takes the best healer ~15 rolls (and the avoiding of a natural 1 15 times). That's just not viable.

I'd rather see this mechanic refined and tied to Medicine proficiency. Let's say that with Trained you can spend 30 minutes and restore (CON MOD) x (level) + (healer's WIS MOD), expert that x2, master that x3, legendary that x4. Or something.

I like that the healing return is static, I just don't like having to sit around and wait for the healer to roll ~8 times.