Here is the text of Battle Medicine:
Battle Medicine
[one-action]
Feat 1
General Healing Manipulate Skill
Source Player Core pg. 253
Prerequisites trained in Medicine
Requirements You’re holding or wearing a healer’s toolkit (page 288)
You can patch up wounds, even in combat. Attempt a Medicine check with the same DC as for Treat Wounds and restore the corresponding amount of HP; this doesn’t remove the wounded condition. As with Treat Wounds, you can attempt checks against higher DCs if you have the minimum proficiency rank. The target is then immune to your Battle Medicine for 1 day. This does not make them immune to, or otherwise count as, Treat Wounds.
There is no Interact action and you simply need to be "wearing" a healer's toolkit.
But the Level 4 Shielded Recovery says "you can use the same hand you are using to wield a shield to... use Battle Medicine." Is there something I'm not understanding?
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Usage for the Healer's Toolkit. Can't bandage someone up while your hands are full of swords.
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Usage for the Healer's Toolkit. Can't bandage someone up while your hands are full of swords.
Also, Wearing Toolkits says that you are drawing and stowing the tools - which would require a free hand - even if the action cost of drawing and stowing the tools is included in the action cost of the action that requires the tools.
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I have generally seen it ruled that the "Manipulate" trait requires a free hand.
That would be the Interact action. Many spells uses the Manipulate trait and don't require a free hand.
Usage for the Healer's Toolkit. Can't bandage someone up while your hands are full of swords.Also, Wearing Toolkits says that you are drawing and stowing the tools - which would require a free hand - even if the action cost of drawing and stowing the tools is included in the action cost of the action that requires the tools.
Good link. Still, for some reason the Remaster removed the "need a hand free" requirement for Battle Medicine. That was a deliberate choice.
I'm inclined to require a free hand, given Shielded Recovery and the thematic weirdness of the Remaster change.
EDIT: Top comment on that thread points out that the healer's toolkit requires 1 free hand to use. Ugh I think the Remaster made it more confusing. But yes given that I think that should trump Battle Medicine's text.
EDIT 2: 2nd comment suggests that they copy-pasted an older version of Battle Medicine pre-errata. I think the Remaster text is in error.
I went through the exact same confusion trying to debunk this for someone else, ending only when I reached the healer's toolkit page on AoN.
Definitely confusing / clumsy enough that I hope there's an errata edit.
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I have generally seen it ruled that the "Manipulate" trait requires a free hand.That would be the Interact action. Many spells uses the Manipulate trait and don't require a free hand.
You must physically manipulate an item or make gestures to use an action with this trait. Creatures without a suitable appendage can’t perform actions with this trait. Manipulate actions often trigger reactions.
Oh, this is absolutely unclear enough to cause many arguments. Most tables I've been at have required a free hand if the specifics of the action require "physically manipulating an item" rather than "making gestures".
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I have generally seen it ruled that the "Manipulate" trait requires a free hand.That would be the Interact action. Many spells uses the Manipulate trait and don't require a free hand.You must physically manipulate an item or make gestures to use an action with this trait. Creatures without a suitable appendage can’t perform actions with this trait. Manipulate actions often trigger reactions.Oh, this is absolutely unclear enough to cause many arguments. Most tables I've been at have required a free hand if the specifics of the action require "physically manipulating an item" rather than "making gestures".
I think it's fair to require a free hand for things with the Manipulate trait that don't have the Interact trait (which would make that unambiguous). I'm only saying that Manipulate doesn't necessarily require a free hand. My thinking for a sword-and-board caster is that they're gesturing with their weapon hands to provide the necessary movements!
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Good link. Still, for some reason the Remaster removed the "need a hand free" requirement for Battle Medicine. That was a deliberate choice.
It created "Arcade Cascade" issues.
1) Premaster Battle Medicine - Requires free hand.
2) Healer's Toolkit - Requires 1 - 2 hands depending on whether it's worn or held.
3a) I'm holding the healer's toolkit; I can't meet the requirements for Battle Medicine because both my hands are occupied by the healer's toolkit.
3b) I have a sword in one hand and want to use my worn healer's toolkit for Battle Medicine; as soon as I start using my healer's toolkit I no longer meet the requirements for Battle Medicine.
The free hand requirement and the healer's tool requirements were redundant and incompatible. Since you need to know how a healer's kit works before you can use Battle Medicine, the redundant and contradictory component of Battle Medicine was what got removed.
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Hum, I have the PDFs for First, Second, and Fourth printing, and actually none have that mention of needing free hand in the Battle Medicine feat. I have no idea where AoN got it TBH.
Pathfinder Core Rulebook Errata
248: To reflect the clarification on healer's tools allowing you to draw them as part of the action if you're wearing them, change the Requirements to "You are holding healer's tools, or you are wearing them and have a hand free".
Page 258: In Battle Medicine, change the Requirements entry to “You are holding or wearing healer's tools.” Change the second sentence of the effect to “Attempt a Medicine check with the same DC as for Treat Wounds, and restore a corresponding amount of Hit Points; this does not remove the wounded condition.” This means you need to use your healer's tools for Battle Medicine, but you can draw and replace worn tools as part of the action due to the errata on wearing tools on page 287.
Update: We will be updating the tools revamp to indicate that worn healer's tools (along with other tool kits) take only one hand to use, as you don't have to hold the whole kit in your other hand, just pull out the things you need. What this means for Battle Medicine is that you only need one free hand to perform it with worn healer's tools, you don't need both hands.
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Hum, I have the PDFs for First, Second, and Fourth printing, and actually none have that mention of needing free hand in the Battle Medicine feat. I have no idea where AoN got it TBH.Pathfinder Core Rulebook Errata
248: To reflect the clarification on healer's tools allowing you to draw them as part of the action if you're wearing them, change the Requirements to "You are holding healer's tools, or you are wearing them and have a hand free".
Page 258: In Battle Medicine, change the Requirements entry to “You are holding or wearing healer's tools.” Change the second sentence of the effect to “Attempt a Medicine check with the same DC as for Treat Wounds, and restore a corresponding amount of Hit Points; this does not remove the wounded condition.” This means you need to use your healer's tools for Battle Medicine, but you can draw and replace worn tools as part of the action due to the errata on wearing tools on page 287.
Update: We will be updating the tools revamp to indicate that worn healer's tools (along with other tool kits) take only one hand to use, as you don't have to hold the whole kit in your other hand, just pull out the things you need. What this means for Battle Medicine is that you only need one free hand to perform it with worn healer's tools, you don't need both hands.
For the first quote from the errata page: Thats for Treat Wounds/Disease/Poison and Administer First Aid.
And... looking at both the 2nd and 4th printings of the book... It never got to print as-is. (Even if they wanted to, looking at that page, copy-fiting would have probably disagreed.)For your second one, the update part starts with: "We will be updating the tools revamp".
I'm pretty sure the tool revamp thing is the "wearing tools" rules that were added with the 2nd printing and that changed the wording of the descriptions of all the toolkits (only names tools back then). To me, that sounds more like a mention, a reminder, that other parts of the rules would be updated.
I do can see how that could have created some confusion though. That first wave of errata for the CRB really messed things up. xD
Like I've recently saw someone that still thought that the Fighter unarmed proficiency was automatically following their favorite weapon group prof because of the vague wording of the "errata" to make sure all classes were updating unarmed to at least follow the other proficiencies.
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For your second one, the update part starts with: "We will be updating the tools revamp".
The errata regularly feature 'stealth errata' that they have no intention of actually printing in the book or for whatever reason they can't [for instance, it doesn't fit in thee page/word count]. It's really FAQ's even though it's all labeled errata.
Second, it doesn't matter which ability it was talking about as it specifically talks about how many free hands you need to use healer's tools while wearing them.
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AoN is most useful as a quick reference than as a primary rules resource for reasons like this. It can and does do a very good job of collecting rules and references altogether, but if you don't have a starting foundation of how they were presented, it cam cause a lot more confusion.
A crunchy RPG has a lot of rules interactions and the way we structure and present those in books has a lot to do with trying to make the smoothest experience in a limited space sandwiched between a TOC and a GlossDex as your primary reference tools.
Clarifications are often a judgement call based on the targeted audience; a lot of examples of where things can get tricky can be found in the CRB and its updates. At the most basic level, Attack of Opportunity has the line "This Strike doesn't count toward your multiple attack penalty, and your multiple attack penalty doesn't apply to this Strike."
That's redundant text. It's there so that a new player doesn't need to go reading the entire rulebook to know that that's true of all attacks you make outside of your turn. For a new player, that is almost always a useful reminder. But divorced from the context of the book and presentation, you'll see people start arguing whether it implies that it's normally not true of things that don't also include that redundant clarification.
The best way to attain the highest level of system understanding is to start with the book and examine the components of each thing you're doing within their presented context, without inferring a broader context until you actually have that broader context.
Healer's toolkits have a little extra confusion baked in if you've been playing since the beginning because the original design team is very different than the one we have now, and there was a pivot of moving the healing tools to a single-hand usage instead of a two-handed usage, leaning into the idea that it's more fun and useful to have your healers kit have the baseline economy of anything else you'd use hand for rather than the more simulationist "obviously it usually takes two hands to bandage and splint someone" that it started at.
Treating a game as a live environment that gets regular QoL updates is both beneficial to the long-term health of the game and also fraught in a lot more ways than are often immediately apparent, both from a general usability perspective and from a sales and marketing perspective.
Clarifications are often a judgement call based on the targeted audience; a lot of examples of where things can get tricky can be found in the CRB and its updates. At the most basic level, Attack of Opportunity has the line "This Strike doesn't count toward your multiple attack penalty, and your multiple attack penalty doesn't apply to this Strike."That's redundant text. It's there so that a new player doesn't need to go reading the entire rulebook to know that that's true of all attacks you make outside of your turn. For a new player, that is almost always a useful reminder. But divorced from the context of the book and presentation, you'll see people start arguing whether it implies that it's normally not true of things that don't also include that redundant clarification.
A bit unrelated to the thread but I was curious about this, because there is a general rule about MAP outside your turn but there are also edgecases where you can use reactions on your own turn. As an example a fighter with Reactive Strike can use it against a spellcaster who cast Zephyr Slip vs the fighter, with this text it makes it seem like Reactive Strike will never, ever have MAP while something like Cleave or Opportune Backstab would if used in the same scenario.
Cleave gets map because it usually still happens in your turn.
I do think, based on my experience with debates on battle medicine in groups post remaster, that even if it’s redundant information for many it’d be worth it to put in the actual text of battle medicine that using it results in swapping out whatever is in a hand for your tools. That way you don’t have to worry about breaking requirements, but all the info you need for how it works in practice is in the same place (and where newer players will see first and foremost).