D&D 5E Where is the point of medicine as a skill?

[Zardnaar]

I use it to provide clues to the PCs. A Perception check might let you know how a someone was killed a DC 15 medicine check might reveal that puncture how has a lingering traces of poison around it and a DC 20 or 25 roll might reveal what type of poison it is. Were those slashes made by claws or a weapon? Those burn marks could be a bonfire or some type of breathe weapon? A high roll could also reveal what type of breathe weapon such as a red dragon.

 

[Andor]

The "figure out how someone died" thing is huge in my games. It's a fairly easy check to determine whether a wound was from a sword or an animal, but a tougher check will tell you if it's from a wolf or from a werewolf. Success on this sort of check can lead to an entire side-quest.

So then what does the Investigate skill do for you?

I sincerely doubt 2/3 of the game is "fluff". Say you're trying to save a King from dying from a mysterious ailment. Medicine would tell you whether or not it's a poison, a disease, a virus, or a monster effect. What if you come upon a town that's riddled with disease, and only a medicine check will let you determine that the disease is coming from a rot that has grown on the crops, or if it is coming from the otyugh in the well. A grumpy shop keeper is telling you guys to get out, but a passive medicine check notices that he seems to be suffering from a cold, and you offer him a remedy, immediately changing his demeanor towards you.

Saying Medicine is fluff because it doesn't have any specific mechanics is like saying acrobatics is fluff, or heck, 90% of the skills are fluff. They serve a real and vital purpose in the game, and each one is useful in its own right.

If the King is dying from a mysterious illness, I'm gonna assume that a restoration spell was tried and failed. Which means it's a magical illness and medicine is useless. Just like all the skill of the Doctors of Gondor was useless against the Black Breath.

The skills in this game are not all equal. Perception is tested, at least passively, every time you walk into a room. Nature overlaps with Survival but does not have any practical utility. Medicine just sucks out loud. It is obsoleted by a 5gp item, and a cantrip. Even the healer feat ignores it.

For my game I removed Medicine and Nature as pointless mastery traps. You can employ house rules to make these things usefull, but that is what it takes.

 

[mcbobbo]

As I understand skills in 5e, they're not remotely the same as they used to be. They don't limit what you can do, they only provide a (typically modest) bonus when you attempt things. Everyone can use thieves tools, for crying out loud.

 

[SilverfireSage]

If the King is dying from a mysterious illness, I'm gonna assume that a restoration spell was tried and failed. Which means it's a magical illness and medicine is useless. Just like all the skill of the Doctors of Gondor was useless against the Black Breath.

Perhaps there's no one that's arrived yet that can cast restoration? Maybe the cleric isn't working in the King's favor? Regardless, one refutation of one point in a group does not refute the whole. There were many other scenarios that I gave.

The skills in this game are not all equal. Perception is tested, at least passively, every time you walk into a room. Nature overlaps with Survival but does not have any practical utility. Medicine just sucks out loud. It is obsoleted by a 5gp item, and a cantrip. Even the healer feat ignores it.

For my game I removed Medicine and Nature as pointless mastery traps. You can employ house rules to make these things usefull, but that is what it takes.

Nature is a knowledge check so I'm not sure how it overlaps with survival? "What kind of animal is that?" can only be answered by a nature check, likewise finding anything about that animal's behaviors and weaknesses. Did you remove perform too? How about all the tool proficiencies that don't have to do with combat or traps? Why did they bother putting in 90% of the artisan's tools?

All of these arguments fail to take into account the true essence of D&D and that is the roleplaying aspect. Most of the useful abilities that we possess as people don't come up all the time, and yet when the smaller ones do come up, it makes that moment all the more memorable. Nobody remembers that 100th perception check in the middle of the 50th castle, but people will remember when you used your Cobbler's tools to repair an orphan's shoes and he led you to a secret entrance, or when you used your medicine to figure out that eating a dragon's heart has beneficial effects. These are the moments when you actually participate in the Roleplay, and the whole point of 5E is to foster those moments.

 

[Stormonu]

I've always hated how D&D has side-lined non-magical healing. I'm of a mind to make a successful Medicine check heal, say, +1 HD during a short rest (or maybe even 1 or 5 minutes time).

Seems to me that would be a nice benefit to a group that doesn't want to drag around a dedicated cleric.

 

[mcbobbo]

Just wait for the healing wand. If it follows the others we've seen it'll not require any spellcasting ability and will auto-recharge...

 

[GameDoc]

I think some of the disagreement here comes down to differences in play styles and preferences. If one person wants to remove an element for their games, it's their prerogative. Others have stated how they make use of the same element and keep it around. The game allows for both and unless both sides wind up playing in the same campaign, no harm, no foul.

But can we avoid the wrongbadfun arguments?

 

[mcbobbo]

But can we avoid the wrongbadfun arguments?

So you're saying it's wrongbadfun to argue about this?

 

[Hunyock]

As written, yes it's fairly pointless other than for flavor. For my daughter, this was an important skill for how she views her character.

But I've also modified the healing kit rules a bit for my campaign and it makes it more interesting:

A creature receiving the benefit of a healing kit regains hit points equal to the Medicine bonus of the healer.

If the healer is a cleric, druid or paladin, add their character level to the number of hit points restored.
If the healer has the Healer feat, then you restore double the double the hit points with a healing kit, or you can heal the same amount as with a healing kit, but with no kit required.​

Randy

I love your focus on making the skill valuable and interesting for your player. I'm teaching my kids to play right now, and I'm going to incorporate your house rule. Great job!

 

[Andor]

Nature is a knowledge check so I'm not sure how it overlaps with survival? "What kind of animal is that?" can only be answered by a nature check, likewise finding anything about that animal's behaviors and weaknesses. Did you remove perform too? How about all the tool proficiencies that don't have to do with combat or traps? Why did they bother putting in 90% of the artisan's tools?

All of these arguments fail to take into account the true essence of D&D and that is the roleplaying aspect. Most of the useful abilities that we possess as people don't come up all the time, and yet when the smaller ones do come up, it makes that moment all the more memorable. Nobody remembers that 100th perception check in the middle of the 50th castle, but people will remember when you used your Cobbler's tools to repair an orphan's shoes and he led you to a secret entrance, or when you used your medicine to figure out that eating a dragon's heart has beneficial effects. These are the moments when you actually participate in the Roleplay, and the whole point of 5E is to foster those moments.

Wow. Read a little past what was written? I said I removed them as system mastery traps, not to ensure that all non-combat interactions were removed from my table.

Here's what the Medicine skill says:

Medicine. A Wisdom (Medicine) check lets you try to stabilize a dying companion or diagnose an illness.

It doesn't even cover Poison by the rules, god only knows why. And what proficiency in the skill gives you is +2 to that check for the only levels where it can really be an issue. That's it. Past first level the party will have enough cash that everyone will have a healing kit. And you do not need the skill to make the roll. There are no "Skill required" skills in 5e. All any skill is is a modifier to a stat check. The DC to stabilize a dying creature is 10.

Also notice that a 1st level Cleric/Druid/Paladin/Ranger spell, which can be cast as a ritual and therefore doesn't have any cost, at all, beyond 10 minutes of game time, will locate and diagnose any and all poison and disease within 30'.

Do you understand? Mechanically the Medicine skill is a complete and utter waste of a skill slot. I removed it from my game so that players could take something fun and/or useful with their skills like History or Investigate, which are not utterly obsoleted by a 5gp item or a common ritual spell. So get down off your high horse, in case you hadn't noticed this thread is full of house rules to try to make it so the skill isn't useless. Clearly those people also think that as written it is an inadequate return on investment for a skill slot. They simply chose the path of beefing it up instead of stripping it out.

Now it's fair to argue that Nature has legitimate space within the rules, but it does overlap with Survival.

Nature. Your Intelligence (Nature) check measures your ability to recall lore about terrain, plants and animals, the weather, and natural cycles.

Survival. The DM might ask you to make a Wisdom (Survival) check to follow tracks, hunt wild game, guide your group through frozen wastelands, identify signs that owlbears live nearby, predict the weather, or avoid quicksand and other natural hazards.

Survival implicitly covers everything Nature does, plus adds practical skills on top of it. The only reason to split them up is if you wanted to create a character like the Doctor from Gondor again, who had the book learning, but not the practical experience. And if one of my players wanted to do that I would let them. But barring such a character concept, I'd rather just let someone roll Int(Survival) to recall the Elvish name for a Musk deer, rather than making them take one skill to recognize the tracks and another to recall that the name.