Administer First Aid (Stabilize) vs Recovery Check

[fraserstanton]

Is it just me, or does self-stabilize (recovery check) vs someone actively using a healing kit and trying to stabilize seem a little unbalanced?

Quote:

Stabilize Attempt a Medicine check on a creature that has 0 Hit Points and the dying condition. The DC is equal to 5 + that creature’s recovery roll DC (typically 15 + its dying value).

Quote:

When you’re dying, at the start of each of your turns, you must attempt a flat check with a DC equal to 10 + your current dying value to see if you get better or worse. This is called a recovery check.

Stabilizing a dying 1 target is DC16 vs recovery check of DC11

Of course it does get easier as your medicine skill goes up, but at low levels it seems a little over the top.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

I'm not sure how you mean unbalanced. There is no need to choose between either recovering or being stabilized--recovery checks happen automatically every round, giving you roughly 50-50 odds of slipping closer to death or recovering (worsening as you get closer to death). On the other hand, First Aid is an action that an ally can take to completely remove your Dying condition. The odds of making a First Aid check are not amazing for an untrained ally (say +1 or 2 from Wis) but for a trained ally that modifier is probably at least +4 or +5, rendering the difference in the DCs almost the same (50-50) and, barring critical failure, won't cause you to slip closer to death.

First Aid has approximately the same odds of success for a trained ally, but with better benefits, fewer drawbacks, and even if it does fail, you still get to make that recovery check on your turn anyway. The only downside to First Aid is that it costs your ally 2 actions to stop you from dying (i.e. the same action cost as casting the spell Stabilize), making it possibly difficult to find the time in a tense combat scenario where one player is already down, but not in any way unbalanced against an automatic flat check.

[beowulf99]

The thing you have to remember is that a Stabilize attempt does not take the place of the Recovery check. It is in addition to such a check. So if you REALLY don't want someone to die, it is worth it to attempt to Stabilize them.

Also I don't think you are giving the Medicine skill enough credit as it increases. You actually have a much better chance to stabilize them than if they were to roll recovery themselves as early as level 2 depending on your Wisdom and if you have any other bonuses floating around. It is quite easy to get a +6 or better by level 2 if you are dedicating enough resources to Medicine, say for Treat Wounds.

For instance if you had a +7 to Medicine, you would be rolling against that DC 16 only needing a 9 or better. Their recovery roll always requires an 11 or better.

Both of these are rendered irrelevant if you have a cleric who bothered to prepare Stabilize (the cantrip).

I suppose you can say that it feels odd that in the higher levels a character can virtually auto pass a Stabilize check while Recovery checks are always just as difficult. But then again, you are talking about an unconscious, likely bleeding out, individual vs. someone who is at that point highly trained in medicine.

Feels fine to me.