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So my playtest group welcomed the advent of the Medicine: Treat Wounds addition to the rules with open arms. A chance to have something different than Cleric Healbotting as an avenue to adventuring in Golarion.
However, we just played a couple of nights of PF2/PT where characters were getting beat up pretty notably. The Cleric’s Heals were all used up but the desire to stop just to get heal spells back was undesirable based on the RP of the campaign. Fortunately, players had invested in both Medicine as a skill and the Healer’s Tools as an item – it was our first real test of the newer features that came with the rules update.
This began some real observation on the use of Treat Wounds in the game. After literally hours of discussion on the subject, here’s a lot of what was expressed (as an aside, this group is coming from 5E with Short Rest, Long Rest, Second Wind, and Hit Dice healing):
1st) Treat Wounds felt like a more “in character” way of healing naturally. This was appreciated, though some thought that the 10-minute skill check routine created a lot of die rolls that then broke immersion as more and more were required.
2nd) The bigger concern was how it felt like Treat Wounds really made Full Rest healing terrible. A single 10-minute rest with a competent Medicine user was as good as a full night’s rest. That 16 CON level 4 Fighter got 12 HPs in 10 minutes – and 36 in just a half an hour. Had he taken a full 8 hours rest, he would get just 12. The DC of that Medicine Check was 16. Assurance on an Expert Skill almost made that automatic, but luckily it’s not (however, at level 3, EVERY SINGLE Treat Wound check will automatically succeed with Assurance – DC 15 – so Treat Wounds is essentially a regeneration skill, but fortunately it’s only that level the numbers work). The Healer had an 18 WIS (+4) and Expert Medicine at level 4 (+5). With a DC 16 and a +9, he will succeed 70% of the time, which he did 3 times in a row in the case we had for 36 HPs. There was only a 5% (crit fail 1) of any sort of healing train slowing.
So the real concern was that suddenly 8 hours of rest seemed inconsequential. Couple that with how good Treat Wounds is (from 4 to 12 in our 4th level group) with time, there was concern that it became a Must Have skill (medicine) and item (healer’s tools), even with a Cleric in the group. With there being no associated cost after the initial kit purchase, it felt a little odd – are there really 100 hours of bandages, tinctures, herbs, salves, etc., in that one medicine kit so that a Medicine trained character can use it forever, healing 1000s of points of damage? That also seemed unreasonable - maybe there should be some associated cost with more and more use (IE: limited charges on each Healer's Tools).
It really did feel like a 10-minute AoE regeneration tick hoping to dodge that die roll of a 1. That made it a must skill for every party it was decided.
Thanks for the information. This is great news, because then you just need to worry about immediate healing in combat that many classes can do.
The Hot Topic of our playtest group continues:
Other thoughts. In the second group these players are testing, we have no healer or WIS based character. The Treat Wounds character has a 14 Wisdom with Trained in Medicine to start.
At level 1, this means 50 silver pieces offers a 55% (+3 vs DC 13) chance of a successful Full Night’s Heal equivalent (Level x CON) with a 5% chance of Bolstered (no healing through Treat Wounds) and a 5% chance of crit success for Level x CON x 3. On average, this means about 10ish rolls before Bolstered with 5+ full nights of healing as a result. A 12- CON gets about 5 HPs. A 14 CON get about 10 HPs. 16 CON, 15 HPs.
In comparison, a Minor Healing Potion costs 30 silver pieces, 1 resonance, and heals 1d8 (4.5 avg). It is, however, usable in combat.
By level 3, that 14 WIS on an Expert Medicine now is 60% (+6 vs DC 15) chance with 10% crit success and still only 5% bolstered. Again, with 10 segments to Treat Wounds, it would be 15 HPs at the low end to 45 HPs (or much more) at the high end.
The Lesser Healing Potion now costs 80 silver pieces for 1 resonance worth of 2d8+4 healing (13 average) while the healer’s kit from level 1 is still in use for free. Again, though, in a combat situation, that could be life saving.
If you look much later.. say at level 12.. where a single success of Treat Wounds on a 14 CON character results in 24 HPs, so a 14 WIS, Master Medicine character would be +16 vs DC 26 (55%), getting in 10 uses of Treat Wounds per day on average would be at least 120 HPs of healing.
The Major Healing Potion now costs 2500 silver pieces for 7d8+20 healing (51.5 average) for the resonance point.
Heal potions are still valued, though, so the inclusion is somewhat just for comparison on the coin. The real issue feels like full rest and Treat Wounds effectiveness.
We looked at a number of House Rules we could adopt.
Would higher DC (say just the small step to HARD) help balance it? It would definitely create more uncertainty on the Bolstered end. If crit fails happened 15-20% of the time, reliability on this would be uncertain. That made players a little itchy.
How about a cost association? Say Healer’s Tools had 20 charges. A group of 4 would then burn through a full tool kit in just 5 full Treat Wounds uses on those 4 players. Now we’re looking at Healer’s Tools mules. Meh. It might be good for a silver sink, but seems undesirable. Even with higher charges, the feel is that carrying about bunches of kits hurts immersion and feels gamey again.
How about longer time periods? 30 minutes would certainly put that 10 rest period into the “this feels impactful range”. But the game mechanic feel of Short Rests in 5E being 1 hour isn’t desired either. Stopping for a 30 minutes repeatedly would work better than the previous ideas, and even better than Short Rests in 5E which are ALL or NOTHING nonsense, but it’s still a time sink that doesn’t feel nature in the course of an adventure. With 10 minutes, if something comes up, it doesn’t seem unreasonable. You get partial successes in good bite-sizes. “We were hoping to get a good hour rest in, but those Bugbears jumped us after just 20 minutes – thankfully, that was enough to recover some of our energies to hold them off”. At 30 minutes, it starts to get into the.. “Yeah, we lounged around in the Gnoll lair for 2 and a half hours until we felt ready to go” that feels unnatural to us.
That led to probably the solution that had the most traction: Reduced healing. If it was just Level+CON (min 1 per level with a Crit being doubled), it felt like at the early levels, it really helped. “In that 30 minute break, we managed to catch our breath and refocus our efforts!” as they get 4 to 8 HPs back without being as absurd at high levels (a crit success currently for an 18 CON at level 20 would net 240 HPs in 10 minutes whereas the reduced would only be 48 HPs).
As for full night’s rest, that feels like it would then need a bit of a boost itself. Maybe something like Level x CON x 3 as if a full night’s rest is equivalent to an automatic critical success with a Treat Wounds as it exists now or at least x2 instead of x3.
I am certainly not saying this is *the* solution to this or even that everyone sees Treat Wounds as being out of balance, just that these were our observations and thoughts to this point.
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I feel Treat Wounds ia about in the right place, but might remove the crit failure condition. Bedrest might need a buff though. Would 100% not nerf Treat.
The crit-success values might need to come down. For a 12th level party, a success is CON*12 hp, which for most characters will be 12 and in some cases 24, with the fighter and barbarian getting more.
A critical success on the check is (CON+3)*12, or 48 hp for everyone, 60 for some, and upwards of 72 or 84 for the fighters and barbarians.
84 hp is HALF of my 12th level paladin's maximum! Fair, only a con of 16, so I'd only get 72, but that's stil 43%.
Draco18s wrote: The crit-success values might need to come down. For a 12th level party, a success is CON*12 hp, which for most characters will be 12 and in some cases 24, with the fighter and barbarian getting more. ???
I would expect 90% of characters to start the game with minimum +1 con, go to +2 at 5, and +3 at 10. A level 12 character with only +1 con in 2E sounds very odd to me.
Considering my first draft of Treat Wounds, before there was an offical version, was just a 100% heal: I also don't see it being even slightly an issue you heal half your max? It's a crit from an (at least) trained person! That should be a lot!
"A lot" is one thing, three to four times more is something else.
And at level 12, having only a 12 con might be low, but those are the minimum values. Keep in mind that an 11d8 hall is about 51 hp.
I was seeing about 25%+ crit rate chances with focused characters using level appropriate boosts.
Let's look at Level 10, for example.. Right in the middle...
Although our playtest groups have had a high wisdom character most times, going to say the highest in this test is a Wisdom of 18 (+4). With an Expert Healer's Tools (+1) trained to Mastery (+2), this character will be 10+4+1+2 for a total of +17.
Aid seems reasonable in this activity (IE: a doctor with assistants), so +2 circumstance. There was some debate on whether or not other boosts could be used, but we left it at that.
Level 10 Treat Wounds DC is 24. That means that at +19. the actor needs to roll a 5 for success and a 15 for a Critical Success.
Looking at that, we will compare it to a typical 18 CON target (starting at 14 con, and putting +2 at 5th and 10th). 30% of the time, they will heal for 120 HPs in 10 minutes. 50% of the time they will heal for 40 HPs in 10 minutes. 20% of the time they won't heal at all. And 5% of the time they'll be unable to try healing again. That averages out to about 56 HPs healed per attempt. A 18 CON Human Ranger at level 10 probably has about 148 HPs.
That means 1 crit heal (30%) almost heals to max (81% of health healed). Even a regular heal (50% chance) is over 1/4th of their total HPs. 80% of the time, they are getting a big chunk of HPs with a pretty decent chance of just needing one 10-minute stop to max out, or near max.
At level 20, it becomes even crazier. 20 CON will be more the norm, skill bonus (with Aid) will be +31 vs DC 36 which means 30% chance of a 10 minute rest resulting in a heal of 300 HPs. Yes, 300 HPs in just 10 minutes.
Even if we rolled it back and said character won't use CON as one of their 4 bonus stats all the time (why would they do that? good question), a 16 CON still results in 30% chance of 180 HPs of healing in 10 minutes.
If for some reason, a player wanted to play a sickly elf who never got any better (8 CON at level 20), well then you can at least hold healing down to a modest 30% chance of 60 HPs in 10 minutes. 80% chance of getting at least 20 HPs. In an average 40 minute rest, the sickliest adventurer possible would get at least 100 HPs.
Any average adventurer, if for some reason they wanted to rest that long, would probably get around 500 HPs or more in that 40 minute rest.
But even at the more modest mid levels, 10 or 20 minute rests are going to heal a lot.
If that's the intention, so be it. Characters will be able to pretty much charge up to full HPs between battles if even a short amount of time allows (say, a group who just beat some foes is quietly searching about the room for loot/clues uses that 10 minutes to also Treat Wounds).
I would suggest, though, that if that is the intent, please put in some optional rules where this doesn't feel like an MMO or cRPG where you just hit a rest button, everyone heals to max, and 10 seconds later they are back at it at full HPs.
ShadeRaven wrote: That made it a must skill for every party it was decided. I like Treat Wounds. I'm running a healer-less campaign right now and it has greatly helped without being overpowered. So yes, it's absolutely a "must have" skill if you don't have a healer.
Having said that, when you crit fail your Treat Wound check, I would GREATLY prefer that it bolsters the target from ALL further attempts of Treat Wound for that day. If you don't bolster from all attempts, then yes it is a "must have skil" for all PCs.
I'm OK with Treat Wounds being better than full rest, we have to suppress our suspension of disbelief and these are one of those times. We cannot increase the amount healed from rest, it would make non-magic healing too good. Rest is still necessary to recover from other forms of injury (enervated, drained, fatigued), and I'm OK with that.
I agree it's a lot of rolling. My players dice were hot the other night and he rolled 40s times before rolling a "1". It's a little much. I might make 1 roll for every 20 minutes in the future, although that will make it more swingy.
I don't want to track bandages. It's a pointless thing to track, the way I see it, the supplies are very cheap and the PCs refill it during downtime. And when travelling they can restock as well from cloth and herbs. I want to get away from tracking things, I don't want more. Especially when we get to higher levels, I don't want to be tracking silver pieces.
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Our Doomsday Dawn testgroup had another short game session tonight (just over an hour) and it was interesting again.
1st) Even with a Cleric, Treat Wounds is valuable. The group got severely beat up after 2 fights and each time they managed to use Treat Wounds effectively. The first time, the group healed all 4 battered characters to full. The second time, 3 of the 4 were in bad shape and we finally had a Bolstered (crit fail) that stopped the healing for one. We finished with 3 completely healthy character and 1 moderately wounded character (about 70% health). The Cleric has been out of heal spells since using his last 2 sessions ago.
2nd) Some regret was expressed about not raising CON more now that Treat Wounds is the dominate healing path.
3rd) Very satisfactorily, the group is much more willing to forge on rather than have those awful short adventure days when healing spells are expended.
We also have a second test group where they are purposefully playing without healing to see how things like Treat Wounds and Battle Medic will go as the primary healing. The characters will definitely be built a little differently with that in mind.
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My only issue with treat wounds is the number of rolls. This, and quite a number of checks in PF2, could be automatic. At least if you are trained enough.
Also, Heal could be and Int skill, to unburden the cleric of some healing duties.
I do agree with Starfox that it is too many rolls. I don't agree however that it should be automatic when trained enough as the Failure and Crit-Failure add interesting dynamic with time-crunched parties.
But since rolling 6 checks per hour is pretty tedious, maybe it'd be good to have the option to roll once for X*10 minutes for X* Treatment healing? That would keep the risk of Failure while greatly reducing number of checks.
And while I can't speak to Math balance on the DCs Night rests do need a buff in potency, I could see something like 1/2 Max HP for long rest and Full HP for non-rolled Healer tended bedrest.
How would that work if the party doesn't know how long they have (see chapter 5 of Doomsday Dawn)?
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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
I don't really see why a night's rest needs to be bumped TBH. It's real benefits are to everything other than hit points. Spell slots, spell points, and once per day items being the obvious one, but there are also a lot of conditions which lessen with a night's rest.
What other purpose should it be serving?
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What we ended up doing is allowing for Treat Wounds to be combined with a Full Night's rest. IE: If the Healer's Tools user wanted to Treat Wounds on their watch, for that 2 hour stretch, they could do up to 12 Treat Wounds checks for characters that appeared would not be recovering from previously inflicted wounds, exhaustion, trauma, etc.
To be fair, I run a grittier campaign world and have GMed in game systems where things like broken bones, head trauma, and severed limbs was a part of the game. I am happy to be back to less complicated gaming now that time and effort are both less expendable, but I still balk, just a little, at the FULL HEAL button where characters are usually either just dying/dead or at full HPs.
And yes, I realize that's today's D&D and I am fine with that. If the voices here that believe Treat Wounds isn't strong enough are the majority and they boost it more, I'll be okay with that, too. I am just looking at our experience with it and how it reflects on game play and our preferences.
Not to mention that I don't remember the last time I actually played/GMed in a campaign where every single aspect of it was pure RAW.
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So we played tonight in a healerless group, except for a modest amount from the Paladin. It's a new group, so level 1.
After a couple of battles that went very much in the party's favor (which included the beauty of a readied shield with blocking damage, and paladin's retributive strikes), the group finally ran into trouble against a couple of giant animals (lizard and ferret).
The first short rest period (30 minutes) saw the Dwarven Fighter healed to full with Treat Wounds. However, the Paladin, who has only a 12 CON, was a little unlucky and received only 1 HP of healing, leaving him with 7 wounds still after the rest. The group decided to forge on as the Paladin had 3 Lay on Hands left and the rest of the group was in good shape and fully charged.
However, the next battle, against an Orc with a trained Giant Ferret at its side saw the misfortune of a big hit landing on the Paladin. This took him to dying. The orc was cleanly dispatched despite its Ferocity reaction, and the Giant Ferret was actually calmed by the Gnome Sorcerer (and a good Diplomacy check per Animal Whisperer) who has the ability to speak with animals innately as the Ferret was already severely wounded and wanting escape.
Unfortunately, the Paladin was dying and getting worse (dying 2 by this time). Quickly, the Dwarven Fighter who is a Trained Medicine man, tended to his wounds hoping to keep him from the brink of death. A solid roll there stabilized the Paladin and left him unconcious, and wounded, but no longer dying.
And then the twist...deciding it was important to get him back on his feet, the dwarf then attended the paladin and Treated his Wounds. Critical failure (1). No other healing available.
This was really the first time that using a Hero Point really mattered. Using that, the Paladin shook off the ill effects of having that Giant Ferret tear into him, he sat up, exhausted and battered, and promptly set out to Lay on Hands himself all three times. He's not at full health (just shy with 2 points of damage), can't receive any healing from Treat Wounds, and there's no other healing available now.
We left it there as it was getting late, so I am not sure how the party plans on progressing. There's a poor farmer's son that's been abducted, so leaving him at the hands of the Orcs is a tough decision. However, the Paladin is healthy enough, but still suffering from the ravages of early combat and is in a weakened state physically, such that recovering from further trauma might be very difficult.
We are definitely enjoying the interplay with Treat Wounds and groups both with and without true healers.
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And I’ll add that taking 10 or 20 minutes to tend wounds with a healer’s kit doesn’t seem “gamey” to me. (I’m playing the Dwarven fighter with medicine skill in ShadeRaven’s games). It’s kind of exciting in a way. Not only do we fear being interrupted by foes, but the uncertainty of rolls adds to it too. Critical successes are awesome, but that crit fail that bolsters the target against further tending is a nice counterbalance.
One thing we all discussed was that in a healer light party, it almost seems necessary for PCs to have 14 Con or above. I like how PF2 seems better at making all attributes important. Con seems pretty important.
ShadeRaven wrote: We left it there as it was getting late, so I am not sure how the party plans on progressing. There's a poor farmer's son that's been abducted, so leaving him at the hands of the Orcs is a tough decision. However, the Paladin is healthy enough, but still suffering from the ravages of early combat and is in a weakened state physically, such that recovering from further trauma might be very difficult. Seems your group have had more than a full day's worth of action already. Remember, a spellcaster would only have had 2 spells for this entire time.
Interestingly, the party Wizard has managed to conserve some of his spells as he has most of his spell points left and 1 first level spell. While I am not sure if Cantrips are entirely up to speed, Daze as a 1 action spell and Electric Arc as a two target spell get regular use along with some others that have utility/combat control. I don't think he feels quite as hamstrung as he might have in PF1.
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One interesting thing comes to mind off of Starfox's comment...
My group proceeded in this scenario with the idea in mind that they'd have to conserve resources and even risk overextending themselves as they race against time in hopes of rescuing someone. So they didn't go in guns blazing and alpha-striking from the get go - no rest and recharge every couple of battles.
Is that a foreign concept to many? Is there a place for that kind of scenario or is the 1-4 encounter day now the norm?
This group has enjoyed how Treat Wounds has allowed for the extended adventure day where it doesn't feel like the average 24 hour period is 30 seconds of action followed by 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 30 seconds of rest.
It's also why having improved cantrips is important to the viability of such a campaign.
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I tend to run adventures that have a lot of "not much time constraint" periods between encounters, so those rules didn't work that well, my players ended up having almost infinite out-of-combat healing unless they got really unlucky. I ended up using this:
Each character can have their wounds treated 5 times until they need to rest
Critical Success: 2 x Con Mod (minumum 1) x Level + 1 healing
Success: Con Mod (minumum 1) x Level + 1 healing
Failure: Con Mod (minimum 1) x (Level + 1)/2 healing
Critical Failure: 0 healing
Resting for 8 hours heals the same as a success in Treat Wounds
(If you are wondering why level + 1, it's because level 1 is weird since you get HP from Ancestry and Class only at level 1)
This is far from perfect, but it's been working better than the current system, at least for us. It's also a little bit more "realistic" since you can't repeatedly try to treat a wound until it's healed. However, if most people like the current system and it works for you guys, I doesn't botter me if limited uses of Treat Wounds per day stay as they are, a house rule.
Interesting, dm, that seems workable. Most the time there's sort of a natural 10 minute search-and-loot period between encounters that the group is now folding a quick "anyone need any wounds treated?" adjunct to it that seems natural and part of the adventuring flow.
The 1-hour short rest of 5E always felt like a significant pause in play in the campaigns we were playing before the playtest, so maybe these quick interludes help maintain the immersion better by comparison.
Last night, in our No Healer campaign, the group forged on despite the paladin being bolstered against treat wounds. They learned quite a bit in a tough battle against the Orc Warchief and his cohorts (which included a shaman):
1) If you go healerless, better not have just 1 person capable of Medicine. The dwarven fighter was the medicine man and when he went down, there was a *long* struggle for life for him because he kept failing his Recovery Check only to succeed later.. he hovered between Dying 1 and Dying 3 for at least 8 rounds. Everyone else was at least a -3 medicine which meant they were more likely to increase his chances of dying that recovering.
2) Strategy definitely changed for the paladin who no longer could heal even out of combat. He shot his crossbow more and moved in more cautiously.
3) Having an emergency healing potion, even minor, will be important. The dwarf was still on the brink of death (he had already used his heroic point) when the group found and unidentified vial of a milky white liquid and just took a chance that it wasn't toxic or otherwise useless in this situation, forcing it down his throat. As luck had it, it was a minor healing potion and the dwarf was alive, if wounded, once again. The frantic search of the warchief's party, the what-the-heck decision as recovery rolls were still going vacillating close to death to he might make it, and the collective sigh of relief played out dramatically.
Still debating on going LEVEL + CON to help early healing and slow down the massive later level healing, but we play as written right now and it's been fun.
ShadeRaven wrote: Interesting, dm, that seems workable. Most the time there's sort of a natural 10 minute search-and-loot period between encounters that the group is now folding a quick "anyone need any wounds treated?" adjunct to it that seems natural and part of the adventuring flow.
The 1-hour short rest of 5E always felt like a significant pause in play in the campaigns we were playing before the playtest, so maybe these quick interludes help maintain the immersion better by comparison.
Last night, in our No Healer campaign, the group forged on despite the paladin being bolstered against treat wounds. They learned quite a bit in a tough battle against the Orc Warchief and his cohorts (which included a shaman):
1) If you go healerless, better not have just 1 person capable of Medicine. The dwarven fighter was the medicine man and when he went down, there was a *long* struggle for life for him because he kept failing his Recovery Check only to succeed later.. he hovered between Dying 1 and Dying 3 for at least 8 rounds. Everyone else was at least a -3 medicine which meant they were more likely to increase his chances of dying that recovering.
2) Strategy definitely changed for the paladin who no longer could heal even out of combat. He shot his crossbow more and moved in more cautiously.
3) Having an emergency healing potion, even minor, will be important. The dwarf was still on the brink of death (he had already used his heroic point) when the group found and unidentified vial of a milky white liquid and just took a chance that it wasn't toxic or otherwise useless in this situation, forcing it down his throat. As luck had it, it was a minor healing potion and the dwarf was alive, if wounded, once again. The frantic search of the warchief's party, the what-the-heck decision as recovery rolls were still going vacillating close to death to he might make it, and the collective sigh of relief played out dramatically.
Still debating on going LEVEL + CON to help early healing and slow down the massive later level...
I do think that first level healing needs some help, because the amount of health you recover compared to your maximum health is so much worse at level 1 than at any other level. However, it being jut Level + Con may make so that high-level characters need to stop for a long time and spam Treat Wounds a lot of times, and actually make high Con characters recover less health, proportionally.
Let's pick a level 10 Dwarf Fighter with 157 hit points and 20 Constitution as an example. This guy would recover 15 hit points per Treat Wounds, which means if he was very low the group would need to succeed in 10 Treat Wounds checks to fully heal him (almost 2 hours suposing only successes).
Now let's pick a level 10 Elf Wizard with 82 hit points and 14 Constitution. He would recover 12 hit points per Treat Wounds, which means if he was very low he would need to be successfuly treated about 6 times to become full.
Proportionally, people with lower HPs and lower Con would actually recover faster, which I don't really think is very desirable at all.
I agree, and I admit I run a more gritty style where being at full health isn't always expected.
What stuck out to me, though, as characters were being made after the changes to Medicine with the Treat Wounds was that the chances of Critical Success were pretty high (30%) meaning that the 10 Dwarf Fighter was getting that spike healing of 150 HPs (10x5x3) pretty often.
But as you pointed out, the LVL+CON version, even with a crit, is only 45 HPs, so that quick treat wounds 1 shot averages only (50% of 15 + 30% of 45) 21 hit points per "recovery" period. For that 157 fighter, on average, without crit fails, it would require 7 10-minute rests to go from severely wounded to full.
Even if the party was willing to forge on with modest wounds (I'll say 25% HP loss), just getting to 117 health from, say 30, would require an average of 40 or 50 minutes of rest.
And that just seems too long to be a part of a narrative flow where characters are trying to push on.
I guess what I am saying is that I am coming around to the system as is simply because players are having more fun being able to "patch and push" in comparison to either "blast and bed" (alpha then sleep) or "nuke and nap" (alpha then short rest).
It just feels jarring when I see that Crit Success and someone gets all their health back in one hit, but that only happens with advanced levels.
I almost want to take CON out of it (though it feels right that the target's fortitude contributes to recovery) and go with something flatter like 3*level. This would allow for some okay healing (3 hp) at 1st level with a 9 HP crit heal while not making healing at 10 on a crit quite as dramatic (90).
And I think the risk of Bolstered still is important even if it's only ever 5% but I may houserule, should this be the final version, that a Hero Point can remove a single Bolstered.
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What if the patient’s con bonus added to the med check instead of the amount of hp received? It may be a clunky mechanic to apply, but it seems to fit in a narrative where more hearty pcs are more likely to be healed with any given try. That with 3x level might work.
Rhenny wrote: What if the patient’s con bonus added to the med check instead of the amount of hp received? It may be a clunky mechanic to apply, but it seems to fit in a narrative where more hearty pcs are more likely to be healed with any given try. That with 3x level might work. That...makes a lot of sense actually.
I was thinking the same thing, Draco.. sort of gets closer to where I want Treat Wounds to be. Still more beneficial to high con characters (better chance at success, crit success), and with the 3x I proposed, more early on and a little less later down the road (30 HPs or 90 HPs is still decent at level 10).
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The more we play, the more natural treat wounds and other medicine checks seem. In remote areas of a dungeon, our party secures an area, sets watches, and we try to spend 10-30 minutes to catch our breaths and make minor patches. We also search the area more thoroughly. At only 1st level, we don’t gain so much hp, but if we add 2-4 to a wounded pc it feels like we’ve done something to improve our condition.
In one of our groups, we have no cleric, but we do have a paladin. In a no cleric or healing caster (druids, alchemists, sorcerer that can heal, etc.) party, it is almost mandatory that pcs have at least a 14 Constitution to start.
The treat wounds (and later combat medic) will give us a chance to play without a cleric, which is important. Nobody should be forced to be “the cleric” if he/she doesn’t like playing it. Personally, I like playing clerics and I see great potential for great diversity and interesting choices for clerics in PF2.
ShadeRaven wrote: 2nd) The bigger concern was how it felt like Treat Wounds really made Full Rest healing terrible. A single 10-minute rest with a competent Medicine user was as good as a full night’s rest. That 16 CON level 4 Fighter got 12 HPs in 10 minutes – and 36 in just a half an hour. Had he taken a full 8 hours rest, he would get just 12.
<snip>
So the real concern was that suddenly 8 hours of rest seemed inconsequential.
While I like Treat Wounds as a concept/option, this sums up the majority of my issues with Treat Wounds as written. It's overpowered.
I don’t really want to get dragged into this conversation but I do have to ask... How is a night’s rest better than being treated by a trained professional?
As stated above a night’s rest is still important for status removal and other little things like say... preparing spells, alchemical items, spell points, resonance points, magic items and what not. I’m not necessarily saying that treat wounds couldn’t be tweaked a bit. But it should be better than sleeping for hp recovery.
Raylyeh wrote: I don’t really want to get dragged into this conversation but I do have to ask... How is a night’s rest better than being treated by a trained professional?
As stated above a night’s rest is still important for status removal and other little things like say... preparing spells, alchemical items, spell points, resonance points, magic items and what not. I’m not necessarily saying that treat wounds couldn’t be tweaked a bit. But it should be better than sleeping for hp recovery.
Not sure what others' take might be. I'm not suggesting that Treat Wounds can't be better than a night's rest. I'm suggesting that Treat Wounds is too strong in its current form.
Raylyeh wrote: I don’t really want to get dragged into this conversation but I do have to ask... How is a night’s rest better than being treated by a trained professional?
As stated above a night’s rest is still important for status removal and other little things like say... preparing spells, alchemical items, spell points, resonance points, magic items and what not. I’m not necessarily saying that treat wounds couldn’t be tweaked a bit. But it should be better than sleeping for hp recovery.
I agree with this. As a player and DM for decades, I’m actually growing tired of rest mechanics that restore hp for a night’s rest. I’d rather sleep be necessiary to avoid fatigue and recover expended resources. Tending wounds as a way to recover hp makes a lot of sense to me. It may be interesting to combine the two so that if wounds are treated properly prior to sleeping, there is a chance for quicker recovery.
When it comes down to it, hp recovery is one of those things that everyone feels different about. Some only want magical healing. Some like easy healing. Some like healing to be more difficult. Some like mundane healing. Some enjoy a hybrid. I hope PF2 makes it easy to adjust this slider.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
ShadeRaven wrote: I agree, and I admit I run a more gritty style where being at full health isn't always expected.
What stuck out to me, though, as characters were being made after the changes to Medicine with the Treat Wounds was that the chances of Critical Success were pretty high (30%) meaning that the 10 Dwarf Fighter was getting that spike healing of 150 HPs (10x5x3) pretty often.
But as you pointed out, the LVL+CON version, even with a crit, is only 45 HPs, so that quick treat wounds 1 shot averages only (50% of 15 + 30% of 45) 21 hit points per "recovery" period. For that 157 fighter, on average, without crit fails, it would require 7 10-minute rests to go from severely wounded to full.
Even if the party was willing to forge on with modest wounds (I'll say 25% HP loss), just getting to 117 health from, say 30, would require an average of 40 or 50 minutes of rest.
And that just seems too long to be a part of a narrative flow where characters are trying to push on.
I guess what I am saying is that I am coming around to the system as is simply because players are having more fun being able to "patch and push" in comparison to either "blast and bed" (alpha then sleep) or "nuke and nap" (alpha then short rest).
It just feels jarring when I see that Crit Success and someone gets all their health back in one hit, but that only happens with advanced levels.
I almost want to take CON out of it (though it feels right that the target's fortitude contributes to recovery) and go with something flatter like 3*level. This would allow for some okay healing (3 hp) at 1st level with a 9 HP crit heal while not making healing at 10 on a crit quite as dramatic (90).
And I think the risk of Bolstered still is important even if it's only ever 5% but I may houserule, should this be the final version, that a Hero Point can remove a single Bolstered.
I *think* you are over-shooting what a critical success actually heals. It doesn't say increase your healing as though your level were 3 times as high. It says increase your healing by your level x3.
That means that your 10th level dwarf with +5 CON gets (10x5)+(10x3) = 80.
Going from 50 HP healed to 80 HP healed is still a bump, but not nearly as outrageous as 150.
Note that that is a 20 CON dwarf. If you take, say, the 10-12 CON wizard, they go from 10 healing to 40: which is FOUR TIMES as much.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Draco18s wrote: Note that that is a 20cc CON dwarf. If you take, say, the 10-12 CON wizard, they go from 10 healing to 40: which is FOUR TIMES as much. True, it's a relatively bugger increase, though not absolutely. The wizard halls less on crit than the dwarf halls on a normal success.
Like I said down the line, we've found it better than 5E Short Rests as it feels more in the flow of post-encounter actions. I know it's hard to see any changes in attitude down a thread as I am easily as guilty of just reading the first and then jumping to the end, too.
Captain: Hrm. I always read that as CONxLvL and then added in as CONx(Lvlx3) on crit. That would be a much different interpretation of the rules - but like a few things, some clarification would be nice. Wish I knew where it was headed in the final version.
On Full-Night's Rest: Oh, I agree, that full rest is generally for conditions, but there's not even any provision for how Medicine affects it at all. So a group with a good Treat Wounds gains big chunks of Hit Points in 10 minutes, that same group rests for 8 hours and probably gets fewer hit points on average. Maybe I just don't leave players Fatigued, Diseased, and Drained enough :P
Overall, to make it feel more a part of the "adventuring experience", players (and my narration) has given it a slower, individual feel to each use - the 10 minutes of guarding the exits, nervously attending to someone battered while the weight of time drags against their actions. This has helped a lot.
Because the alternative just feels too mechanically gaming instead of roleplaying: "Looks like Griblet will need about 6-9 Treat Wounds to get to full health, so we stop and Treat Wounds until he's full or near full..here's my rolls". Time become irrelevant, rolls become tedious, and roleplay is largely lost.
I know we aren't supposed to compare against other systems here much, but as a regular player of 5E (before this playtest), the 1-hour rest always feels forced to me and it's all inclusive - you get everything for 1 hour, almost nothing more for 90 minutes, and nothing for 58 minutes. The 10-minute treat wounds feels worlds better to me.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
ShadeRaven wrote:
Captain: Hrm. I always read that as CONxLvL and then added in as CONx(Lvlx3) on crit. That would be a much different interpretation of the rules - but like a few things, some clarification would be nice. Wish I knew where it was headed in the final version. Looking at the text right now, I am fairly confident I have the right read. "As success, but increase the healing by your level × 3." I can get how that would be easy to misread, but taken at face value it can't really mean anything else. (And it would be very easy to word it to get "As success, but triple the healing.")
Quote: Overall, to make it feel more a part of the "adventuring experience", players (and my narration) has given it a slower, individual feel to each use - the 10 minutes of guarding the exits, nervously attending to someone battered while the weight of time drags against their actions. This has helped a lot. Yeah, I think it comes down to what makes sense in the story. I've run a few sessions that allowed players plenty of time to treat wounds, but it does mean they sometimes get caught before 10 minutes passes and go into the next combat banged up.
Fast suggestion, keep in mind that I didn't read what anybody else said.
Keep the numbers as they are. But if you want to keep a long night's rest relevant, make it like this: Treat Wounds only treats half of the damage healed and the rest becomes non-lethal. It still takes time to heal and a night's rest finish the process. This is not perfect, but it's very easy to use and probably will be accepted by the group.
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