D&D 5E (2014) House Rules - magic healing

[Ezequielramone]

I have seen many times, playing dnd, things like you have xxxxx effect, can be healed with a dcxx medicine or any magical healing.
I understand magical healing being more capable that normal medicine ways.
It's OK for me having different levels of healing "power levels". But having magical healing since lvl 1 makes normal healing irrelevant and things like a broken legs something really unimportant.

In order to make injuries relevant to the history I'm planning to make the things " not so automatics ".

I already applied a DC 10 using the healers kit for stabilizing.

What do you think about this:
- using medicine will rise +5 the dc. And an use of healing kit.
- using magical healing will require a medicine check with the normal DC.
- this will applied only when magical healing cures the negative effect.


I really want to make medicine a relevant skill (like perception)

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

To make it more likely that your players actually use the medicine skill instead of magic, perhaps try something along the lines of how HackMaster handles specific injuries. It's actually pretty simply at its basic form, since it is just separating regaining hp (cure wounds and the like) from repairing specific injuries, and creating a line of spells for things like "relieve sprain" or "mend bone" (not precise examples).

If you make those spells higher level, the cost of that spell slot will seem too great to bother unless there is some reason why using the medicine skill would take too long (like someone needing their broken leg fixed immediately because the party needs to travel quickly and no one can carry the wounded).

 

[Ezequielramone]

Thanks, but it seems too complicated.
I prefer something fast and easy.
The narrative interpretation is that, the spell can heal hps wherever these represent. But, if you have further medicine knowledge you can fix real injuries (since hps don't represent serious injuries). that seems believable for me.
Still i want to polish this house rule.

 

[jrowland]

First, you'll need things like broken legs showing up in game. Are you using Lingering Injuries from DMG? If not, a quick and dirty is to add an injury when dropping to 0hp or on a Crit (or both). You can ignore effects (like slower speed for broken leg) for ease of use, just call it a "serious leg injury" and move on. Then use your medicine checks to repair the injury, even if magical healing brings HP back, the injury stays unless medicine checks succeed.

More complexity:
Add effects to injury
Number of Injuries > some number means incapacitated (Con mod, Con score, level, X, etc)
Injury severity (bloodied, Crit, 0hp, > CON score damage, all equal an injury and can be summed in a single hit for severity 1-4 leading to harder checks more time to fix)
and so on

I have a VERY ROUGH document, HERE on ENWorld if you want to steal ideas. Wow! 48 downloads and no comments.

 

[Ezequielramone]

First, you'll need things like broken legs showing up in game. Are you using Lingering Injuries from DMG? If not, a quick and dirty is to add an injury when dropping to 0hp or on a Crit (or both). You can ignore effects (like slower speed for broken leg) for ease of use, just call it a "serious leg injury" and move on. Then use your medicine checks to repair the injury, even if magical healing brings HP back, the injury stays unless medicine checks succeed.

More complexity:
Add effects to injury
Number of Injuries > some number means incapacitated (Con mod, Con score, level, X, etc)
Injury severity (bloodied, Crit, 0hp, > CON score damage, all equal an injury and can be summed in a single hit for severity 1-4 leading to harder checks more time to fix)
and so on

I have a VERY ROUGH document, HERE on ENWorld if you want to steal ideas. Wow! 48 downloads and no comments.

They show up many times. When you roll a dead save and g get a 1-5 you get an injury. I believe we get 0,7 injuries per session as an average. And dming one online group each week and a "normal" group once each two week... Well that happens.

I'm at work right now. I'll check that document. Thanks.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You could actually go into the realm of hp-visualization here. What if all magical healing 'just' pours mystical life force into the subject. Any wounds are still there, they have this supernatural vitality keeping them going in spite of them.

You could then come up with a system to inflict impairing injuries. Critical hits and failed death saves would be prime candidates or triggering impairment. So you get crit for bludgeoning damage and your arm is broken, you've only got one usable arm. Even filled with the comforting radiant power of Pelor, you can't do anything with that arm. But, a simple splint, and you can re-gain partial use of it. A truly remarkable 'chirurgen'* splinting it to a higher DC and you can use the arm again while it heals.

Then you could have magical afflictions that require a special 'cure' instead of (or in addition to) a spell or ritual to remove.

 

[sleypy]

Don't know if it has already been said, but you could also have the issue of magical healing causing a lingering injury to become permanent. If you have a broken leg and you heal them without properly setting the leg you run the risk of having it heal quickly but also wrong.

 

[LapBandit]

Don't know if it has already been said, but you could also have the issue of magical healing causing a lingering injury to become permanent. If you have a broken leg and you heal them without properly setting the leg you run the risk of having it heal quickly but also wrong.

Oh this I like! I may have to steal it for my own campaign. Depending on the severity and type of the wound, the healer makes a Medicine check to not make the wound permanent.

 

[Tanaka Chris]

Basically set all the bones and hold the parts together prior to the healing.
Magical healing speeds up the healing process and magically cures poisons/diseases.

A broken bone will be healed... but crooked if you didn't do it right.
Even in real life, some doctors need to break bones in order to re-set bones that have healed wrong.

 

[discosoc]

I also take care to explain that magical healing isn't a perfect solution. Just like it doesn't normally regenerate lost limbs, it also isn't doesn't instantly cure everything. You can be at max HP and still have a broken leg, a new scar, or maybe trouble keeping food down from a recent dose of poison.

Currently, I don't enforce any mechanics for that stuff, preferring instead to just add it to descriptions. Such as "you move to hit hit the Orc, ignoring the pain in your leg from the last fight" or "two of you work to set camp, and it seems like a good idea to give the rogue some space after his botches attempt at extracting the wyvern poison earlier in the day." That kind of stuff.

I am seriously considering adding some medicine and possibly survival checks during short and long rests to help illustrate some of the more mundane aspects of the adventuring life. Maybe somehow tying it into the healing done during a short rest.