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So your martials without Medicine do have something to do, can actually punch the problem: the enemy applying the poison (et al). Thereby they can make the utterly worthless action valuable. Sounds like teamwork to me. Heck, Treat Poison, by removing afflictions & debuffs, is effectively a buff, and keeps the poison from progressing to worse levels the next time your ally's envenomed. For one-action and positioning, which seems about the minimum one could ask for w/o magic.
Sure, in combat it's difficult (IYO) to apply this unlimited resource, but it should be otherwise Medicine overshadows spells, a limited resource. Also, Medic's Doctor's Visitation addresses the movement needed, so it's not like Paizo/PF2 hasn't recognized it; only that they've balanced the Medicine skill differently than you have. That's it.
Your hyperbole & differing balance principles aside, now what? Anything you suggest becomes homebrew at best. Or were you looking for suggestions/homebrew/validation?
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I would agree that I wouldn't often consider taking the medicine skill related actions you mention in combat because they do have complications to pull off successfully, and often can be reapplied by the enemy.
BUT! The characters not doing healing should be getting in the way stopping the enemy from doing that (or at least making it painful for the enemy to do).
Anyways, while I somewhat agree with your observation, I more agree with Castilliano.
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People dying with persistent damage is quite dangerous.
Sure, if you have high enough heal spells, you can throw them at the problem, but a simple skill check might be enough, so why waste resources?
Poison can be quite debilitating, healing the damage might not be your first priority if your fighter is confused etc.
It is more of a niche, but can be important to have in some sitations.
There are a few ways to make it more useful, e.g. medics treat condition.
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Those "does the character die or not due to persistent damage/poison after the combat is over" are some of the most gripping moments in the game. When the GM has you stay in initiative because moments matter... that's so much fun to play out.
If a medicine character had no answer to those situations, [removed for profanity (vulgar)]
Even if that were the only case where first aid stuff came up (it's not), it'd still be worth having in the game.
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EDITED 4/47/2026 BY MEC
Those "does the character die or not due to persistent damage/poison after the combat is over" are some of the most gripping moments in the game. When the GM has you stay in initiative because moments matter... that's so much fun to play out.
Even if that were the only case where first aid stuff came up (it's not), it'd still be worth having in the game.
I agree and also think that hand waving away the issues short change these rule additions to 2e. First, persistent damage adds a bit of verisimilitude to the game (which can often be sorely lacking) as either magic or mundane healers scramble to keep someone alive. That tension is nice because in most other games it only happens in combat and not after. Second, persistent damage, poison, and even curses add some measure of uniqueness and danger from particular monsters.
As a GM, I often internally curse when my players land their persistent damage effects on my creatures because they can significantly add to total damage output. Now I just need to put together some encounters that are back to back so the players are sweating it out when they need to make hard decisions about which to prioritize: ending ongoing damage/effects or taking on the bad guys in the new encounter.
Those "does the character die or not due to persistent damage/poison after the combat is over" are some of the most gripping moments in the game. When the GM has you stay in initiative because moments matter... that's so much fun to play out.Post combat rolling is fun for the 1-2 players that have helpful actions. Maybe the 1 player with the persistent damage.
Absolutely abysmal for everyone else, because there is absolutely nothing they can do.
From my perspective, it's fine as long the post combat rolls can be finished in 5 minutes after combat.
And usually they can.
If it drags on a long time that is a problem, but only because not everyone has something to keep them engaged.
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Except worse, because the martials without Medicine could not default to punching the problem.
It feels to me like that is the core of the complaint right there.
The fact that OP's martial beatstick character wasn't the star of the show the entire time.
This is why the Investigator class gets such a bad reputation. Any time a campaign doesn't favor the purely combat-oriented characters and has the audacity to involve a skill challenge, people complain that their beatstick character was ineffective and they were bored through that entire part of the scene.
Except worse, because the martials without Medicine could not default to punching the problem.It feels to me like that is the core of the complaint right there.
The fact that OP's martial beatstick character wasn't the star of the show the entire time.
This is why the Investigator class gets such a bad reputation. Any time a campaign doesn't favor the purely combat-oriented characters and has the audacity to involve a skill challenge, people complain that their beatstick character was ineffective and they were bored through that entire part of the scene.
Really a "i am feel uncomfor when we are not about me?" situation on our hands
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Except worse, because the martials without Medicine could not default to punching the problem.It feels to me like that is the core of the complaint right there.
The fact that OP's martial beatstick character wasn't the star of the show the entire time.
This is why the Investigator class gets such a bad reputation. Any time a campaign doesn't favor the purely combat-oriented characters and has the audacity to involve a skill challenge, people complain that their beatstick character was ineffective and they were bored through that entire part of the scene.
TBH Every PC can play a part in combat. Not so for some skill challenges.
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Let's not go so far as to blame the OP because we don't know/understand their table dynamic. The OP may not even be the martial character unable to contribute, just voicing complaints observed for other players.
If skill checks take 5 or even 10 minutes after combat, that shouldn't be a big deal IMO. If you start getting beyond that to wrap things up, than I would say that is a problem for anyone who isn't involved in performing those kind of checks.
Let's face it, even a character with a lot of skill may not choose medicine. Or if you have multiple characters with medicine, but only 1 PC needing attention...you can't really have multiple people doing it (although you could probably Aid).
Anyways, there is a legitimate gripe about having content at the table that doesn't engage the whole party for an extended period of time.
But for this to cross into whining territory it would need to be something like the OP not being engaged for sub-five minutes at the table.
And honestly, I just personally laugh a little because what I see is when people aren't engaged they immediately go to their phones and then the problem is getting their attention back to the table.
I do want to agree with OP, while clarifying this is a balance issue that becomes even more apparent when put into the context of AP play. It's not about the design goal of those actions to be a lower potency fallback; that's a good design *goal*
The issue is that goal was missed by a country mile. Those actions are genuinely not worth performing, even when that situation arises, in like 99% of scenarios.
On paper, the reward/cost of some of those actions might seem okay as a fallback, but in practice, you are better off doing something else.
Even working to down a foe a turn sooner and leaving your ally to their condition, is often the right thing to do.
It's also important to really shout out that some of them are Medicine actions. That means investing that most precious resource of build budget, plus wearing a toolkit, and making skill checks that can fail.
When PCs get afflicted with persistent damage, most of the time that comes in the form of a foe that passively carries bleed on their strikes.
In actual play, even if someone was willing to spend 3A to move + Stop Bleeding, and wins rolling directly vs the effect's DC, the bleed will just be reapplied as a passive when the next hit lands.
Even more aggravating, bleed is the most common, but also the only persistent that requires that kind of scaling skill check; PCs can do 2A for Assisted Recovery with no check involved for all other types. That action's results does have a lot of GM discretion as to what happens. It might mean a recovery check with no bonus, or it might instantly end the persistent.
Regardless of the GM, in almost every case, it's a better idea to heal the afflicted PC than it is to try to treat the persistent/poison/etc.
That's how you know it's a failure of balance. Medicine skill actions that require investment should never be so bad as to require "literally have nothing else" to be usable. A single feat for some combat healing, or a close-enough to level healing item will utterly eclipse Stop Bleeding and persistent recovery help.
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But the real context that renders those actions as rather worthless, are their alternatives within the same niche.
As levels go up, and more items become obtainable, even the "no better option" theoretical use case vanishes. Because this is a rare event, you can put a consumable on your belt and forget about it. Blood Boosters offer 10min flat bleed resist + improve checks to flat 10.
And Soothing Powders are 30 a pop, work with your choice of persistent, and don't need a GM gimmie to function. The 210 gp version even lasts for 1 min, in case the persistent is reapplied.
I'm not much of a spellcaster, but I do know that even the cantrip Rousing Splash removes any chance of that PC helping with fire & acid recovery checks. Same action cost, 60ft range, new recovery roll @ DC 10, and scaling tHP?
Like, if that's an auto-works cantrip, how is the Medicine check "beat the DC" of the Stop Bleeding sub-action just worse in effect?
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Let's step back and look at this from another PoV.
When foes apply persistent dmg to PCs, that is typically a portion of what they are getting via that action spend. The same action that carries that persistent, will also do up-front damage, impose a Condition, be AoE, a 1A Strike, etc.
The math of the action cost, typically a 3A to move and execute, only has a CHANCE to remove that condition.
You are spending an entire turn to remove what was only a portion of foe's harm to begin with.
It is nearly unheard of for the action math of that to ever justify combat actions in actual AP play.
I've done it with my first PC, but it was a trap action that only hurt our survival chances.
Really a "i am feel uncomfor when we are not about me?" situation on our handsExcept worse, because the martials without Medicine could not default to punching the problem.It feels to me like that is the core of the complaint right there.
The fact that OP's martial beatstick character wasn't the star of the show the entire time.
This is why the Investigator class gets such a bad reputation. Any time a campaign doesn't favor the purely combat-oriented characters and has the audacity to involve a skill challenge, people complain that their beatstick character was ineffective and they were bored through that entire part of the scene.
I would like to formally retract my statement and apologize. I thought it was funnier than it sounded aggro, but that's not the case.
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So your martials without Medicine do have something to do, can actually punch the problem: the enemy applying the poison (et al).Did you somehow miss the most important part on that one scenario where those rules actually work?
"The only time it came up was a PFS game where the party choose to roll out poisons after combat. Which was kinda like a Hazard. Except worse, because the martials without Medicine could not default to punching the problem. I really advise to just handwave that stuff away after combat."
I thought it was pretty obvious to contrast your emphasis between Medicine being useless in battle, thus needing PC beatsticks to end the battle; and (some) beatsticks being useless after battle when Medicine's useful. Such granular griping when over the course of the scene both the no-Medicine beatsticks and PCs w/ Medicine had their times to shine. Again, teamwork.
Is this common enough to warrant investment in Medicine beyond Trained? Not on its own, but Battlefield Medic makes worthwhile, doesn't it?
And most poisons peter out quickly, so I shudder at wrestling with one longer than it takes to wait one's turn in combat. That would be sloppy play (at a table that is).
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Those "does the character die or not due to persistent damage/poison after the combat is over" are some of the most gripping moments in the game. When the GM has you stay in initiative because moments matter... that's so much fun to play out.Post combat rolling is fun for the 1-2 players that have helpful actions. Maybe the 1 player with the persistent damage.
Absolutely abysmal for everyone else, because there is absolutely nothing they can do.
There's lots of moments in a game where one character is going to get to shine because they happen to have the right thing to do when no one else does. That's how it goes. The key is to spread those moments around.
If someone invested enough into these skills to be good at this situation? Great! Let them have their moment trying to save another PC. It doesn't actually take very long to resolve these situations after combat as it is.
Besides, someone else could help out if they thought to bring a Blood Booster/Quenching Potion/Antidote as appropriate.
(And yeah, these actions are usually not worth using in combat. That doesn't mean they're worthless. They matter a great deal when someone is already a mess and has persistent damage ticking on them.)
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This is why the Investigator class gets such a bad reputation
No, the investigator has a bad reputation because it's really bad, pays penalties no other class does, and requires very specific behaviors from the GM to contribute even in the areas it's supposed to excel at.
Nothing to do with the topic here.
OP's complaint is totally valid.
OP's complaint is totally valid.
I mean maybe, we don't know their table dynamic.
I can agree it could be valid, but only if their party takes too long to handle the rolls afterwards. And if it does take too long, it's less likely to be an issue of the system, but likely of the players.
Most tables seem to be able to resolve this quickly.
As a heads up, sorry I had to edit one of your posts, WatersLethe! Vulgar language is a part of profanity, so I had to. Please keep this in mind for future posting, and I hope you all had a good weekend!
Alas, that is the risk of flying too close to the sun in the pursuit of humor. (◡‿◡✿)
Community & Social Media Specialist
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As a heads up, sorry I had to edit one of your posts, WatersLethe! Vulgar language is a part of profanity, so I had to. Please keep this in mind for future posting, and I hope you all had a good weekend!Alas, that is the risk of flying too close to the sun in the pursuit of humor. (◡‿◡✿)
Hey, your only harm was going against the forum guidelines. I did personally think it was funny, and it made me giggle, but I gotta do what I gotta do. *solute*