Heal check to determine extent of injury?

[Stormtower]

I've recently played in a few sessions where PC healers were required to make DC10 Heal checks to determine the extent of injuries suffered by fellow party members in combat. Until such a check is successful, healers were prevented from casting cure spells on wounded PCs. Healers couldn't take 10 on the check due to being under duress in the midst of combat (a correct interpretation of Take 10, IMO, just poorly applied).

Try as I might, I cannot find anything in the SRD or 3.5 RAW to confirm that this is other than a houserule. I've seen this used a few times now, and it seems to add unnecessary and time-consuming complexity to an aspect of the game (magical healing) which seems quite well balanced per RAW to me.

Any comments? Anyone else use this rule, or can quote it from some 3.5 RAW source to confirm/deny that it's an official rule?

 

[moritheil]

IIRC it's a houserule to forbid a healer from casting spells until they make the check.

IMC I typically demand heal checks to see how injured people are, but that doesn't in any way prevent someone from just casting healing spells.

 

[taliesin15]

Never considered doing something like that IMC--i.e. just tell PCs that they are hurt, and not tell them how much actual hit point damage they have. Are there other DMs who play this way, that is keeping the amount of damage secret from players?

 

[Festivus]

I make them make a heal check roll to determine extent of damage, which I will tell them in relative terms (slightly, lightly, moderately, etc)... to give them an idea of the extent of the damage. Never give the acutal number, and the players don't have to make a heal check to cast.

 

[taliesin15]

and the players don't have to make a heal check to cast.

yeah, forgot about THAT stipulation, which seems *entirely* barmy to me!

 

[Xarls Taunzund]

I can certainly understand not telling the characters exactly how much damage they have taken, and requiring a Heal check to find out, though it is more work for the DM. However requiring a healer to make the check before casting the spell is ridiculous. If the caster doesn't want to take the time to make a check, he should be able to take a guess and cast accordingly. If he overcompensates and uses a Cure Critical when Cure Light would have been plenty, oh well, that is the risk he takes. I actually like that, a bit more realistic, which is the point to begin with.

 

[Stormtower]

Thanks for the responses, fellow ENWorlders. I think it's fair to say we've determined that all aspects of this variant heal check are houserules and cannot be applied to the 3.5 RAW for official play.

I think the rule of DC10 heal check to determine extent of injuries is just one too many moving parts in a system that doesn't really need an extra layer of granularity. As a DM, it just doesn't bother me one jot when PC healers metagame their healing spells. Why slow the game down to prevent that tiny and harmless piece of metagaming? Not in my campaign.

 

[kenobi65]

I agree, we're in house-rule territory here.

I can see requiring a Heal check from a cleric who's trying to quickly assess how injured another character is during combat (i.e., when the cleric is trying to make a split-second decision on how big a curing spell to apply). Once you're outside of combat, and can take a few seconds to assess the injury properly, I don't see the need for a roll (or, alternately, it's a DC 10 Heal check, and I assume you're taking 10 ).

I have played in campaigns in which the PCs didn't know exactly how many HP they had, or exactly how injured they were (IIRC, the DM used a scale like: Scratched - Injured - Pummeled - Critical). I think it was a house rule that the DM had been using forever, but I've never used anything like it as a DM, myself. I'm all about minimizing how much bookwork I have to do on my side of the screen, and having to track HPs for every PC, as well as every NPC, is just too much.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

You know, speaking is a free action that you can do outside of your own turn.

Why couldn't a cleric just say, "Bob, how hurt / tired are you?"