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

[The Crimson Binome]

So then what does the Investigate skill do for you?

More stuff, but not as well. Make a Medicine (13) check, or Investigate (17).

 

[Goemoe]

As Yoda would say, what has been learned must be unlearned. There are some people that expect things to work the way they did in older editions. The medicine (heal) skill is one of those, I think.

If you want it to work like it used to, get rid of the healing kit and just have the medicine skill do what it does.

I like how it works, personally, and don't really need to see any changes to it.

Interesting point. But without healing kit the feat 'healer' does not work.

Instead of validation, people are actually disagreeing with me. Shut down discussion! Shut it down!

Just out of curiosity, have you ever taken an AQ test?

Many people don't disagree with me, they just ignore what I say and talk about a different topic(roleplaying). Roleplaying is fine, but not my point here. Read again. Carefully. It's all in this thread. I got my answers in different threads about this topic. Instead of insulting people you could try to help. I will ignore you too, I don't like your attitude.

As for the topic, again, I do like the function of medical treatment in the game. I do think it is interesting for adventurers to be able to learn this kind of treatment. I value roleplaying much and yes, all this is not my point. As talked about in length in this and in other threads I only ask for the technically usefullness of a skill which can be substitued in 9/10 cases by a cheap consumable. Skills are hard to come by, they are valuable. It should not be the case that the expensive skill needs to roll for something a cheap consumable can do adhoc.

Even if you like to play CSI D&D, a sound system for it would help not hinder your play. The current medicine system has flaws. All I wanted is getting input, if I had overlooked something in the rules, which I didn't. So for me the case is solved. No need for flames.

 

[mcbobbo]

Many people don't disagree with me, they just ignore what I say and talk about a different topic(roleplaying).
...
...I only ask for the technically usefullness of a skill which can be substitued in 9/10 cases by a cheap consumable. Skills are hard to come by, they are valuable. It should not be the case that the expensive skill needs to roll for something a cheap consumable can do adhoc.
...
...All I wanted is getting input, if I had overlooked something in the rules, which I didn't...

There is something you overlooked in the rules: 5e skills are not valuable nor hard to come by.

Everyone has every skill.

What you are calling 'skills' are actually 'proficiency bonuses'. These MAY be valuable, but are also not hard to come by.

That's your technical mistake. Hope that helps.

 

[SkidAce]

...It doesn't even cover Poison by the rules, god only knows why.

While I understand your point...I would let it cover poison.

Miriam-Webster online has several definitions of illness that I read as including poison.

Specifically the medical dictionary one: an unhealthy condition of body or mind.

But that's just me....carry on...

 

[bganon]

The way I plan to run things, Medicine (the skill) is about on par with History or Religion. None of them are widely applicable skills, and they may hardly ever even come up in some campaign styles. But they can be situationally very useful in noncombat exploration or social interactions. To me, being trained in Medicine means you are House, MD. And not just with nonmagical stuff - if Survival can be used to safely traverse the plane of Fire, and Animal Handling can be used to control a Hippogriff, then Medicine can be used to diagnose and prescribe treatment for Rot Grubs, Filth Fever, or Slimy Doom, recognize the signs of a very specific type of undead, or whatever.

I admit that's reading a lot into a single sentence in the PHB.

I prefer not to use it for healing purposes, since I see that as more appropriately a tool proficiency (healer's kit, surgeon's kit, whatever), and I'd actually like to make nonmagical healing easy to pick up during downtime.

 

[mcbobbo]

Where are you finding the notion of trained vs untrained in 5e? Or are you porting it from an earlier version?

 

[sgtscott658]

Howdy-

I think in the hands of a good DM, the medicine skill can be used for not just determining wound severity but for many things, say one of the players is in wilderness and gets poisoned, use the medicine skill to find the proper herbs and make an antidote. Medicine skill can also be used to determine (if your campaign uses different herbs) what herbs do what, maybe some can be used as ingredients for a minor healing potion, or for a potion of strength.

Only your imagination can limit you in how you look at the medicine skill, heck, you can run a "Breaking Bad" type campaign by using your medicine skill to manufacture Meth for various herbs possibly

Scott

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I've always felt magic has annoyingly trumped all mundane skill. So I'm thinking of allowing the Medicine skill to replicate the spell "revivify" with a DC 20 check.

Yay FIRST AID!

 

[TheSwartz]

Pragmatic (non-magical) Use

As a physician, I was thinking to create a d100 list of ailments a character could be afflicted with if the DM ever wished to do so (OK... so you drink the cloudy water the villagers shoved in your face just to appease them? Are you sure?)

I thought the medicine skill might be handy for such circumstances for various reasons: recognize contaminated food/drinks (non magical, non cursed, etc.), diagnose ailments, treat basic ailments, etc.

The trick (in my mind) though is differentiating this from those skills allowed via magical sources (i.e. clerics and druids).

 

[jimmyjimjam]

Try enter 'medicine' in the search engine. I did and found nothing.
For your other two tentpoles I entered the selected occasions... which is fine for me, but I want to discuss rules not fluff

Don't rules engage "fluff" as you put it?
PCs investigate a plague-stricken town. PC with medicine skill rolls to determine nature of the plague.