D&D 5E (2024) Improving Medicine - one of the least loved skills.

[CleverNickName]

Practicing Medicine:
I always require a DC 12 Medicine check for administering a healing potion to an unconscious character, since the character is actually dispensing 'medicine' to a 'patient.'

Forensics:
I also use Medicine to handle forensics: determining how a creature died, how long ago, what caused certain wounds, whether those injuries occurred post-mortem or not, etc.

 

[Retros_x]

As an aside, I find it fascinating that the usual debate about whether HP represents actual injury vs. abstract "luck / endurance" hasn't come up in this thread.

pssst don't summon it! On the other hand - a medicine check to recover luck - would that be the D&D-equivalent of a placebo?

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

As a DM I find myself calling for dexterity (medicine) checks with some regularity, representing surgery. In my mind medicine (wisdom) is for diagnosis and player characters are rarely in a situation where they diagnose a disease but they do frequently find themselves in situations where they need to saw off a limb or crack a rib cage, which says more about me than D&D.

EDIT: Now that I think about it the last three times the players had to perform surgery it wasn't to heal the afflicted person, but because they wanted to remove a body part without necessarily murdering the donor. D&D is fun.

 

[Tonguez]

As an aside, I find it fascinating that the usual debate about whether HP represents actual injury vs. abstract "luck / endurance" hasn't come up in this thread.

we are an enlightened lot who know that ones mental, emotional and spiritual healing are as important as their physical meat