Mundane Healing (3.5)

[TheThan]

Ok guys I’m working on a low magic variant for dnd 3.5. One of the new rules is that all casters suffer a static 30% spell failure chance. While this should weaken spellcasters enough for the feel I’m looking for; it also has the side effect of weakening magical healing. So I have decided to beef up non-magical healing in order to make up for it. Below is what I have so far, I’m wondering what you all think? question, comments and suggestions are all welcome,


Mundane healing:
With the new spell failure chance, magical healing suffers as much as any other spell casting. As a result the heal skill has been changed to reflect greater use of it.

Heal (wis)

The heal skill allows a character to restore another’s lost hit points suffered from combat and cure diseases, poisons and other adverse conditions.

First aid:
You provide first aid to another creature. With a DC 15 heal check you restore 1d4 +1/3 your character level of hit points to your target. First aid takes a full round action and provokes an Attack of Opportunity.

Long term care:
The long-term care option allows a character to treat another character over an extend period of time. The character using this option cannot do anything but tend to his patent for the time period. He restores 1d6 +1/2 his character level hit points to his patent for every hour of healing he provides. The patent can do nothing but rest and be attended to during this time. This healing is automatic and no checks are required. You may look after multiple patents, but if you do, the healing is reduced to 1d4 +1/2 your character level.

Treat conditions
Some times characters are injured in ways other than hit point damage. Not all condition effects can be healed with this skill. Treating these conditions require a DC 25 heal check. Characters that have been affected by ability damage gain 1d4 ability points back. This cannot heal more points than they originally had in that ability. Healing conditions is a full round action that provokes an Attack of Opportunity.
Other conditions are healed with a DC 20 heal check. Only the following conditions can be healed with this skill: blinded, confused, deafened, nauseated, paralyzed, sickened, and unconscious.


Treat Wound from Caltrop, Spike Growth, or Spike Stones
A creature wounded by stepping on a caltrop moves at one-half normal speed. A successful Heal check removes this movement penalty. A creature wounded by a spike growth or spike stones spell must succeed on a Reflex save or take injuries that reduce his speed by one-third. Another character can remove this penalty by taking 10 minutes to dress the victim’s injuries and succeeding on a Heal check against the spell’s save DC.

Treat Poison
To treat poison means to tend a single character who has been poisoned and who is going to take more damage from the poison (or suffer some other effect). Every time the poisoned character makes a saving throw against the poison, you make a Heal check. The poisoned character uses your check result or his or her saving throw, whichever is higher.

Treat Disease
To treat a disease means to tend a single diseased character. Every time he or she makes a saving throw against disease effects, you make a Heal check. The diseased character uses your check result or his or her saving throw, whichever is higher.

Bonuses:

• 5 ranks in Knowledge: (nature) grants +2 synergy to the heal check
• 5 ranks in Survival grants +2 synergy to the heal check
• A character with the self-sufficient feat gets +2 hit points back when healed.
• Using a healer’s kit allows you to restore +2 hit points when using first aid.

[Myou]

Errr, stabilise is pointless with First Aid - magical healing automatically stabilises.

Also, if first aid heals that mush per round then you can just use that repeatedly instead of long term care.

[Godskook]

There's no DCs for any of that....

Also, make Survival, and possibly Know(Nature) useful skills in the healing process somehow(like how Aragorn's healing is shown in LotR as partly 'natural' healing, due to his wilderness expertise)

[TheThan]

Errr, stabilise is pointless with First Aid - magical healing automatically stabilises.

Also, if first aid heals that mush per round then you can just use that repeatedly instead of long term care.

the DCs are the same. also it did forgot that magical healing automatic stabilizes characters.

[deuxhero]

Somewhere has alchemy based (like alchemists fire) healing items.

[TheThan]

I’m not quite sure how to go about survival and knowledge: nature. They ought to be in there but I’m not sure how to go about it. I think I should apply a +2 bonus to the skill check and possibly a +1 bonus to the amount healed for each one. But that’ll make druids and rangers the best mundane healers and I’m not so sure I want to do that.

[Silverscale]

I’m not quite sure how to go about survival and knowledge: nature. They ought to be in there but I’m not sure how to go about it. I think I should apply a +2 bonus to the skill check and possibly a +1 bonus to the amount healed for each one. But that’ll make druids and rangers the best mundane healers and I’m not so sure I want to do that.

Why not have Druids and rangers be the best mundane healers, to e it fits the archetype perfectly.
Also to fix the problem someone pointed out that you could just make repeated First Aid check instead of Long term healing, perhaps change it so that First Aid heals 1d4 +1/3 healers level hit points. It keeps it meaningful without overshadowing long-term care.

[TheThan]

Ok guys I further modified the heal skill, I edited the top to reflect my changes. I also added rules for condition effects, poisons diseases and movement penalties (caltrops etc). it should be more complete now.

[Nostri]

I'd also suggest looking at the "new" rules for the Heal skill from d20 Modern. They're more complete then the ones in core D&D and might have some ideas you can cannibalize. I especially like the rules for surgery and used those in an Iron Kingdoms game I ran.

(In Iron Kingdoms there are various qualifiers that determine who a cleric or druid can heal. Such things like what the cleric's deity's is vs the target's alignment and if they worship the same deity. If the differences are too great the magical healing might actually hurt the target of the spell, possibly killing him. Not to mention the fact that the same could happen to the cleric casting the spell on the wrong person.)

Edit- I use "new" in a completely subjective way, of course.

[Ashtagon]

My houserule restrictions on first aid:

1) It can only be used within 10 minutes of receiving an injury.
2) It cannot be used again on the same person unless and until he receives a new injury.
3) It cannot be used to increase to hp to higher than it was before that injury.
4) If a skill check fails, the attempt can be repeated; the above three refer to successful uses of the skill to perform first aid.

Those four combined work to stop first aid from being used to heal from mortal wounds to full health.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

These are the house rules I use in my game - it really helps survival at low level, and tends to make sure the party doesn't retreat from the dungeon just cause they're out of spells, which tends to even out the mundanes' vs. casters' power levels.

I fully agree with Ashtagon's second and fourth rules: Healing for HP recovery should only be once per "set of wounds" (usually once post combat).

[Ashtagon]

These are the house rules I use in my game - it really helps survival at low level, and tends to make sure the party doesn't retreat from the dungeon just cause they're out of spells, which tends to even out the mundanes' vs. casters' power levels.

I fully agree with Ashtagon's second and fourth rules: Healing for HP recovery should only be once per "set of wounds" (usually once post combat).

Just curious, why don;'t you like my points 1 and 3?

#1 was to emphasise that it is *first* aid, and needs to be done quickly, before ordinary moving about and leaving it exposed irritates the wound.

#3 was to avoid the illogic of "I take a knife wound for 3 hp. That lets the medic heal me for (rolls dice) 5 hp".

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Just curious, why don;'t you like my points 1 and 3?

#1 was to emphasise that it is *first* aid, and needs to be done quickly, before ordinary moving about and leaving it exposed irritates the wound.

#3 was to avoid the illogic of "I take a knife wound for 3 hp. That lets the medic heal me for (rolls dice) 5 hp".

I don't disagree with them in principle, I just wholeheartedly agree with the other two points, while having some reservations about 1 & 3.
My mild objections: I think 1 & 3 may introduce too much book keeping.

1. Granted, there ought to be a time limit on Healing after combat. I just think "10 minutes" is maybe a little too concrete and arbitrary.
3. You'll have to track how much damage you take in each fight, as opposed to the normal tracking of just our total HP.

These aren't big objections: I'd be prepared to use those rules, but I have reservations.