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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next [5E] Changes to Wisdom(Medicine)



Demonic Spoon
2014-10-28, 07:31 PM
REVISED V2


I'm trying to accomplish a couple things with this:


Reduce the dependence on magical healing or the Healer feat at low levels - I strongly dislike enforced party composition, and would rather my players play the characters they want to play rather than what Party Comp demands

Provide more of a mechanical benefit to choosing proficiency in Wisdom(Medicine) - someone with that skill should feel like they have some meaningful ability to keep his/her party feeling better

Not obsolete magical healing, or anyone who chooses to specialize in magical healing.



Disclaimer: Not all of the ideas expressed here are my own. I heard a couple of these ideas elsewhere

And so, here are my proposed changes:



The healer's kit no longer exists in its current form. Instead, a healer's kit enhances one's ability to successfully make Wisdom(Medicine) checks that involve actually practicing medicine on someone. You have disadvantage on such checks (including tending wounds and stabilizing the dying) without a healer's kit. Medicine checks for other purposes (such as diagnosing an illness) do not require a healer's kit.

Characters can tend wounds with a successful Wisdom(medicine) check, which works as follows:

When a character chooses to spend at least one hit die to recover health during a short rest, this character or another can roll a Wisdom(medicine) check to tend to his wounds. If the result is greater than 10, the character can maximize a number of hit die equal to the check result minus 10, divided by two, rounded down. The character being healed must declare the number of hit dice being used before the wisdom(medicine) check is rolled

A character can only have his wounds tended to by one person per short rest. Failed Medicine checks cannot be rerolled, and more than one person cannot attempt to tend the wounds of a single person.

A character may tend the wounds of more than one other character at a time. For each additional character being tended in the same short rest, all rolls to tend wounds are taken at a -2 penalty per additional character; roll separately for each character.

TheDeadlyShoe
2014-10-29, 04:32 AM
would this be free uses of the healers kit or would it use up a use?

i'm worried people are just going to haul huge backpacks full of healing kits, because meta...

Magus Clash
2014-10-29, 05:27 AM
i'm worried people are just going to haul huge backpacks full of healing kits, because meta...
That's not meta, it's just planning ahead. Meta would be a trained medic under the official rules having no medical supplies at all because he's sure to succeed in three tries.

Anyway, I'm glad you came up with this. I'm working on something similar but not identical that turns Medicine into a tool proficiency.

Rysan Marquise
2014-10-29, 06:26 AM
Ah, I misunderstood what you were doing with this at first read.

Successive DC increases are unnecessary. I recommend simply restricting the number of people a healer can heal in a short rest. As it is now the mechanic feels a bit odd and probably isnt worth the effort and book-keeping.


+1 DC per HD being healed is probably fine. It puts fully healing a high level adventurer at beyond impossible, but maybe it should be. This goes a bit against the bounded difficult design of 5e, and you might want to avoid it. A reasonable approach for a healer is probably something like: 15 DC for 1 HD, 20 DC for 2, 25 DC for 3. No more than 3 HD can be maximized during a short rest.

1 or 2 HD maximized can already be pretty strong, so it is worth considering.


Also if you are going to require the healers kit, your current implementation is quite strange. You might just want to make this tool use, and have the healers kit be required and medicine only achievable with it.


I think the basic idea is reasonably good, but the details are probably a bit too fiddly.

Demonic Spoon
2014-10-29, 09:27 AM
Revised, thanks for the feedback.

I want to keep a mechanic by which you take penalties if you try to heal too many people. Without something like that, there is no benefit to being a person in the party with the 2nd best Medicine modifier.

As it is now, if the entire party is wounded, it may be better for the healing duties to be split between players, making this a party mechanic rather than a set of checks that the designated healer always does.

I don't really like flat restrictions on number of people you can heal- that seems less interesting, and it seems like you should be able to tend to more than one person, even if it's more difficult.


5e has Bounded accuracy, not bounded difficulty. As you mentioned, it is beyond impossible to fully maximize the hit die rolls for a high level character, and I'm okay with that. There are many things in D&D that have impossible DCs, and we just don't expect players to hit them.

I revised the formula for determining how many HD you restore.. You start maximizing HD at a medicine check of 12, and get one more HD per two on the check. That means with a check of 20 you can maximize 5.

I'll just make it flat disadvantage to tending wounds and stabilizing without a healer's kit.



That's not meta, it's just planning ahead. Meta would be a trained medic under the official rules having no medical supplies at all because he's sure to succeed in three tries.

Anyway, I'm glad you came up with this. I'm working on something similar but not identical that turns Medicine into a tool proficiency.

The problem with that is that 5e's encumbrance rules are intentionally lax to minimize bookkeeping, but the end result is that there's little disincentive to carrying around tons of stuff. I'd rather save on players keeping track of 823.5 healing kits and their uses and just say that it's now a tool with all the supplies you'll need until you get to a place where you can resupply it.

From the other thread:


@Demon Spoon

I kind of like your homebrew suggestions, especially the dependence of the Healer's Kit on Medicine proficiency.

Maximising hit dice is an interesting idea, though perhaps just declaring someone is under the care of a proficient Medicine, er, person would make it automatic - keep down the bookwork and checks - maybe maximising a number of hit dice up to your Proficiency bonus? Or adding your proficiency bonus to everyone under your care's hit dice rolls (with the same maximum, so d8 hit die with your +2 Prof. bonus would heal 3-8hp). Food for thought, thanks. :smallsmile:

I don't want the mechanic to be limited to those with proficiency in medicine - as above, part of the problem I'm trying to solve with this is low level dependence on magical healing.

Also, keep in mind that this is a substitution for forcing your friendly local divine caster to reserve spell slots for healing magic, which already involves a bunch of "Okay, how many hitpoints are you missing?" and other discussions and dice rolls.