| Nikkok |
I could swear, that I saw somewhere in the rules, that you can make a heal check to find out, how much hp someone currently has, and maybe other details of their health (diseases, poisoning, etc).
But now I can't find anything related to it.
So, if DM says "You see an unconsious wounded man", which check and with which DC should the party take and which action should it be, if they want to know more about his state? How quickly can somebody understand mid-combat how soon will die a friendly NPC that is bleeding out?
I understand, that DM always can rule something on the spot, but prefer to have some RAW, to now the base, from which it should start.
| VoodistMonk |
Characters are not technically aware of Hit Points, it's beyond the 4th wall of their "reality".
That being said, there is a spell that tells you if people are below 3hp called Deathwatch. And a class/archetype, or Obedience, maybe a feat, that gets it as a constant ability... I cannot remember which one off the top of my head, though.
Spells for detection of poison and disease, too... I don't know if a Heal check works without a Skill Unlock or something fancy like a feat or ability that expands the uses of mundane healing/Heal checks.
| Faolán Maiali the Azure Abjurer |
While not an official ruling, I'd say it would be a Heal check to assess a wounded creature's state, and on a successful check, you'd only receive an approximation of their hit points described in terms of how badly they are injured (i.e. healthy, grazed, injured, wounded, disabled, dying, stable, dead, poisoned, diseased, etc.), not how many hit points they have.
As for DC, I'd say it's about par for first aid or long-term care just to assess a patient, so DC 15 seems reasonable.
| Claxon |
In any event, in character I would assume any unconscious person is at less than 0 hp, and that they have anywhere between 10 and 20 hp worth of damage before death. Which is probably only 3 rounds of bleed damage at most.
The take away, if you have an NPC you think you really want to save focus on it.
Alternatively, not everyone can be saved but you can find and bring justice to those that did it.
Also, this is PF1. It's not that hard to get a raise dead.
| Quixote |
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I know of no such RAW, sorry.
That said, people who make a living of getting into life-or-death struggles on the reg should be pretty good at reading injuries, body language and structural integrity.
If another two blows would drop a foe, or an ally will die in the next 3 rounds, I think it's completely fair to share that information.
Cleric "hey fighter, how many hp do you have left?"
GM "ah-ah-ah! Your character doesn't know about hit points and all that."
Cleric *sigh* "okay. Fighter, how badly are you hurt?"
Fighter "...on a scale of 1 to 62, I'm about a 19."
| LordKailas |
As has been stated outside of the talent blood reader, I'm not aware of anything that lets you know the exact hp of a creature.
A rule that my groups use is the "bloodied" mechanic from 4th edition D&D. Basically, if a creature drops below half hp they are stated as being "bloodied" and its information everyone knows without having to make a check. Before doing this players would ask "am I even hurting it?" if something seemed like it was taking a long time to kill. That question comes up waaaay less often now since the players get a sense of how effective they are being w/o having perfect knowledge of how many HP the creature has left. Our group also allows the status spell to indicate exact hp.
Otherwise it's just a good idea that if an ally goes down and you're not sure if a healing spell will be effective you just hit them with a Stabilize spell and move on. If they're dead you haven't wasted resources and if they aren't dead you just saved their life. What's nice is that this cantrip has a range of close (not touch) which can be life saving if you can't get to the character.