D&D 5E Medicine Checks

[Ashrym]

When a player declares an action that has an uncertain outcome, I will call for a check with a DC I feel is appropriate, with the ability I feel is most relevant. When I do so, the player is free to suggest that their proficiency in Medicine might be relevant. If the action involves diagnosing or treating an injury or ailment, or applying medical training, it is likely I will agree, and they can add their Proficiency Bonus. I could probably make up an example of a scenario and an action a hypothetical player might declare in the scenario that I would call for a Wisdom check to resolve if that exact situation occurred, and that I would be willing to allow Medicine proficiency to apply to. But I don’t believe that would be a valuable exercise. It involves too many assumptions to be practically useful, as it is highly unlikely for just such a scenario to come up in game. And in general I find that only bad things come from trying to guess in advance what actions the players might take and pre-planning checks and DCs for those assumed actions.


I didn’t answer the Frankenstein question because I don’t have enough context to make a ruling with any confidence. If you give me a scenario, and an action (with clear goal and approach), I can rule on it, but again, I don’t think doing so would be a valuable exercise, for either of us.


It’s not a question I am particularly interested in answering. But if you give me more context I’ll tell you how I would rule, if you want me to do that for some reason.


Neither of us is trained in the things your character is trained in. Any action you describe and I resolve is an abstraction of what your character might do. But you are still the one in control of your character, you have to be the one who says what they do. You don’t have to be especially detailed, just reasonably specific and concise. You’ve already described a fair few actions that satisfy that requirement.


Between the abstraction that separates what we say at the table from what occurs in the fiction, and the bonuses that you apply to checks in the event that a check is needed to resolve your action, I think that gap is pretty well accounted for.


You don’t have to go to a medical library. Just tell me what you intend to accomplish, and what your character does in the fiction to try and accomplish it. “I examine Bob’s symptoms to try and determine the best way to treat them” was a beautiful action declaration. It expresses your goal and your approach concisely and with a reasonable degree of specificity. You didn’t need to be a surgeon to do that.

So what kinds of things in fictions would you think might also be covered here?


Here is my perspective: Sharing ideas and experience helps players, DM's, and ourselves. There's no reason not to share examples and ideas. Sharing those ideas regardless of sharing DC's or not helps give people ideas. It's not possible to roleplay a character worse in having given them a better idea of what that character can do with that character as opposed to not knowing what that character can do.

I don't care about the DC's themselves. DC's are just sliders. I don't change the rules to give characters higher bonuses if I want the style to give more room -- I lower the DC's for the relative effect. Eg real history vs wuxia. The difference is created in making harder actions easier and impossible actions possible.

What's important is being on the same page between the players and the DM. If I'm the DM and I'm thinking different media than you (you're thinking bloodletting and humors and I'm thinking House) then there's a disconnect. Exercises like this can give a better general idea. Not just in different actions but different styles.

"I didn’t answer the Frankenstein question because I don’t have enough context to make a ruling with any confidence. If you give me a scenario, and an action (with clear goal and approach), I can rule on it, but again, I don’t think doing so would be a valuable exercise, for either of us."

I would ask why you wouldn't just create the context for the example. In a game you would have context and players giving that but for a hypothetical discussion on ideas anyone can give the context or ask what if. You don't need to wait for us to give ideas before you give answers, lol. I'm asking you for ideas too. Just pretend you're the DM and the player if it helps.

So what examples in media do you think you would be capable of if you were a player using medicine?

 

[Ashrym]

@iserith I see you lurking, lol

Any examples you have of players who did things in your campaigns that you decided the outcome was in doubt and used a medicine check to share?

 

[iserith]

@iserith I see you lurking, lol

Any examples you have of players who did things in your campaigns that you decided the outcome was in doubt and used a medicine check to share?

Yeah, stabilizing a dying creature, and that's about it.

 

[Ashrym]

Yeah, stabilizing a dying creature, and that's about it.

Thank you.

Any insight on why medicine wasn't coming up? I'm guessing you don't use the campaign settings that were using medicine a bit more?

Any chance this thread is working as intended and giving ideas on it?

 

[iserith]

Thank you.

Any insight on why medicine wasn't coming up? I'm guessing you don't use the campaign settings that were using medicine a bit more?

Any chance this thread is working as intended and giving ideas on it?

Now that I think about it some more, it came up in my completed Planescape campaign when they were doing brain surgery on a gray slaad during a huge battle near the Spawning Stone on Limbo. Nobody had the Medicine skill proficiency though and Wisdom was in short supply that session so it was very difficult for them. If I remember correctly, someone nearly died doing it. Lots of Inspiration spent to get the job done.

Players in my game add their own skill proficiencies when I call for an ability check based on their previously stated approach to the goal on the assumption they are playing in good faith. So it's really up to them to do stuff where Medicine seems like it might apply. It doesn't seem to come up much though except the odd stabilization.

The Basic Rules only really say it's used for stabilizing dying creatures and I'm just fine with that. My current campaign's lousy with clerics, so I don't imagine they think they needed to train it.

 

[Ashrym]

The Basic Rules only really say it's used for stabilizing dying creatures and I'm just fine with that. My current campaign's lousy with clerics, so I don't imagine they think they needed to train it.

I'm very a much a "the player says / does this" and "the DM determines the result" type of player. Medicine applies to whatever the DM decides it applies to and in response to the players' actions. I think the limited description limits playing. That just doesn't stop me from trying to do thing to follow the character concept.

It was the forensic part of this after encountering it in campaign books that I thought fleshing out the concept might be worth it for anyone interested. That and anytime someone tells me something is useless I tend to see for myself. It's how I got seriously hooked on bards in 3e.

Thank you again. I asked you when you weren't joining in and that's presumptuous, so I appreciate the responses.

 

[iserith]

I'm very a much a "the player says / does this" and "the DM determines the result" type of player. Medicine applies to whatever the DM decides it applies to and in response to the players' actions. I think the limited description limits playing. That just doesn't stop me from trying to do thing to follow the character concept.

In my games, you can just add Medicine if you think it applies to your stated approach to the goal when I call for the ability check. You don't even need to ask (and I prefer players don't). So explore that character concept all you want.

I don't really think the limited description really "limits playing." I'm not sure what that really means or what the limitation is relative to. I expect Medicine will see less use than Athletics or Perception, particularly when the characters have options for healing. I don't come with any expectations that they should have more parity in terms of use, if that's what you mean.

Thank you again. I asked you when you weren't joining in and that's presumptuous, so I appreciate the responses.

No problem. @Charlaquin basically lays out how I see it anyway, so I didn't have much to add. From what I presume is our shared perspective, Medicine not seeing much play doesn't register as an issue that needs addressing. But I do like reading all the official examples out of curiosity.

 

[cbwjm]

Nice resource for a DM trying to figure out a DC for a medicine check when it does come up.

 

[Ashrym]

Nice resource for a DM trying to figure out a DC for a medicine check when it does come up.

The checks have to come up first, lol. Some published campaigns have several and others have none. I think there was a shift towards inclusion as more setting became published, primarily associated with information gained from bodies or blood stains.

 

[Charlaquin]

So what kinds of things in fictions would you think might also be covered here?

I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand the question.

Here is my perspective: Sharing ideas and experience helps players, DM's, and ourselves. There's no reason not to share examples and ideas. Sharing those ideas regardless of sharing DC's or not helps give people ideas.

I’m with you on that. I’m just not sure I have much useful to share here. I call for checks when players describe actions that might succeed, might fail, and have a cost for failing. Strength if the action is based on physical force, Dexterity if it is based on agility and precision, Constitution if it is based on physical endurance, Intelligence if it’s based on recollection or reasoning, Wisdom if it’s based on awareness, observation, or intuition, or Charisma if it’s based on social skills or force of personality. If a player suggests that their Medicine proficiency might be applicable, I allow it as long as the action involves diagnosing or treating ailments or injuries, or relying on medical knowledge. That is true regardless of what ability the check is keyed off of. I don’t know how much more thorough I can be than that.

It's not possible to roleplay a character worse in having given them a better idea of what that character can do with that character as opposed to not knowing what that character can do.

You keep bringing up this idea of “knowing what your character can do” as if Skills were prescriptive. There’s nothing a character who is trained in medicine can do that a character who isn’t trained in medicine can’t. They’re just less likely to fail when they have to make a check to see if the thing they did worked.

I don't care about the DC's themselves. DC's are just sliders. I don't change the rules to give characters higher bonuses if I want the style to give more room -- I lower the DC's for the relative effect. Eg real history vs wuxia. The difference is created in making harder actions easier and impossible actions possible.

The DC isn’t really the issue here. The issue is trying to invent a hypothetical scenario in which a hypothetical player declares a hypothetical action that hypothetically requires a check to resolve and hypothetically would be appropriate to add the character’s Proficiency Bonus to for their training the Medicine skill. This is far too abstract and removed from reality for anything I might say to be useful. And anything I did invent would only serve to reinforce the incorrect notion that certain outcomes require successful checks to achieve. In my games, “determin(ing) if a patient is safe to move” doesn’t necessarily require a DC10 Wisdom (Medicine) check to do. It might. It might require a DC20 Intelligence (Medicine) check. Or a DC5 Wisdom (Perception) check. Or it might not require a check at all. Or it might be impossible. I don’t know because the goal is completely devoid of any context. Any of those might be appropriate ways to adjudicate actions made with the goal of determining if a patient is safe to move, depending on the scenario and what the PC is doing to try to make that determination.

What's important is being on the same page between the players and the DM. If I'm the DM and I'm thinking different media than you (you're thinking bloodletting and humors and I'm thinking House) then there's a disconnect. Exercises like this can give a better general idea. Not just in different actions but different styles.

See, that sounds to me like something to discuss with the play group, potentially at a session zero or something. I don’t see how a big list of tasks that have been listed as requiring Medicine checks to accomplish in an adventure somewhere helps with that at all.

"I didn’t answer the Frankenstein question because I don’t have enough context to make a ruling with any confidence. If you give me a scenario, and an action (with clear goal and approach), I can rule on it, but again, I don’t think doing so would be a valuable exercise, for either of us."

I would ask why you wouldn't just create the context for the example. In a game you would have context and players giving that but for a hypothetical discussion on ideas anyone can give the context or ask what if. You don't need to wait for us to give ideas before you give answers, lol. I'm asking you for ideas too. Just pretend you're the DM and the player if it helps.

That’s not something I really care to do. If you want to know how I would adjudicate a given action in a given scenario, I will answer. But I’m not particularly interested in inventing scenarios and telling you how I would rule on hypothetical actions in them. I don’t think that’s a valuable use of either of our time.

So what examples in media do you think you would be capable of if you were a player using medicine?

“Using Medicine” is not a concept I think is applicable to D&D 5e. The Medicine skill is insurance against failure at tasks that involve diagnosis and treatment of ailments, and application of medical knowledge. So, I guess to answer your question, a character who is trained in medicine is capable of doing things from any media involving medical diagnosis and treatment, with a greater success rate than they would have if they were not trained in it.