D&D 5E Medicine Skill usefulness?

[Anand]

Since the only use of this skill is to stabilize characters or identify diseases, something easily done by a cleric cantrip or, better yet, anyone with the healer feat, don't you guys think the skill is too specific? I fell that none of my players would even consider it an option. The only player that look at it dismissed because he was the cleric.

 

[jadrax]

Some recent discussion on this can be found here.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?357785-And-now-for-something-completely-useless

 

[1of3]

Yes. It's quite redundant, especially because Healer's Kit Proficiency is another thing. I feel the same way about the Nature / Animal Affinitiy / Survival split.

 

[badula]

My houserule for the healing skill

My players didn't like the full hp after a long rest mechanic, it broke their suspension of disbelief, so here's what i've envisioned (it still need more playtest tbh)

Revisited Healing

Short Rest:
· A short rest Takes 30 min
· During a short rest to spend more than 1 Hit dice you need a medicine Test
· Medicine test DC 10 let’s you spend 1/3 (Rounded up) of your max Hit dice pool
· Medicine test DC 15 let’s you spend 2/3 (Rounded up) of your max Hit dice pool
· Medicine test DC 20 let’s you spend any amount of Hit dices

Long rest
· Same duration
· You regain 2/3 (rounded up) of your max Hit dice pool
· You regain NO extra HP

Medicine Skill
· Enables the use of Hit dices during rests
· Medicine test DC 15 Stabilizes a dyin patient
· Medicine test DC 20 Stabilizes a dyin patient and he gets 1Hp

Healer’s Kit
· It gives Advantage in Medicine Tests that enable the expense of Hit Dices
· Stabilizes a dying patient with no check required ( a check with advantage is still allowed to see if you pass the DC 20 curing 1 HP)

P.S. other uses of the skill follows the normal PHB rules (evaluate wounds, forensic investigation, disease diagnosis etc etc)

 

[Illithidbix]

I tend to include diagnosis of injuries, diseases and poisons.
Technically this is mentioned in the uses of Investigation ("discern from the appearance of a wound what kind of weapon dealt it")... but I would be happy with either skill being used myself.

Yes, it can seem a little redundant, although it's vaguely useful for a character that doesn't have a cantrip/spell/feat/healers kit that does it better.

In my campaign it also has far more use because I choose to make healing on "normal people" to be erratic and unreliable (magic is extremely rare and the players are metaphysically different due to having class levels).
So medicine was the go to method of dealing with people the players liked who were caught in the crossfire.

 

[PnPgamer]

I guess the same redundancy has been through the 3e and 4e as well. back then medicine could be used to help against poison and disease by giving bonuses to the save, but the trouble was that spells removed them completely and without relying on dice. In 2e however, it was very good as the healing back there was not a cakewalk, it increased the amount of healed overnight greatly.

 

[abirdcall]

I think it is silly that it is Wisdom too.

It really should just be covered by the Nature skill.

*edit* oops necro'd thread.

 

[devincutler]

I think the skill can be quite useful in some circumstances. While the non-proficient skill check might seem to be easy, a DC 10 when your life is on the line can make you want every plus to the check possible. So a +2 or +4 to the proficiency can matter.

The biggest thwart to the usefulness are healing kits. However, there is a variant (I think in the DMG) that says you cannot stabilize anyone without a healing kit. In other words, the healing kit allows you to make a Medicine check to stabilize. There....now the skill is quite useful.

I would probably rule that you could try it without the kit, but at a disadvantage. Now the skill is even more useful.

Also, Medicine has been used in my games to figure out what killed someone (bite, claw, sword).

 

[Sunseeker]

I let my players who are proficient in medicine make checks where they regain 1+ConMod+X, where X=how high you roll above a 10 as a full-round action. At +6 proficiency that's only a max of 26HP (assuming no additional special modifiers), no crit bonus. If you are not proficient in medicine, you cannot make this check but you can perform it on others. I also let them use it to negate ongoing non-magical damage, where the DC is 10+the average damage.

But otherwise yes, Medicine is fairly useless as a skill.

 

[Athinar]

Use the Medicine Skill to allow Advantage on Healing Spells and kits

DC 15 Medicine Check - Advantage with Healing Spells and advantage on saves for poison or disease
DC 10 Medicine Check & Healer's Feat - Advantage with Healing Spells and advantage on saves for poison or disease

as well as Advantage on Healing (HD) during a Short Rest