D&D 5E Uses for the Medicine skill

[Horwath]

1. Use medicine check instead of constitution check vs poison or disease. Or allow new con save with advantage.

2. Alternate short rest bonus. During short rest use Medicine for DC 10 one HD rolled is maxed, DC 15 two dice, DC 20 3 dice, etc... per character.

3. For a charge of healers kit character can gain temp Hp equal to proficiency bonus. You must complete long rest to gain this benefit again.

4. Craft antidote. Advantage to poison or disease save for 24h. use a charge of a healers kit. One save only if broad bonus. Any save in 1-10 days vs. specific kind of poison or disease.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I merged Medicine into Survival in my games, exactly for this situation. Both of those skills had less oomph compared to a lot of the rest of the skill list, so by putting them together it made Survival much more enticing.

I did the same thing with merging Intimidation into Persuasion. Because I don't fix a skill to an ability score but use whichever ability score applies for a check based upon what the PC is doing and then allow the player to attach a skill prof if it applies, when they try and intimidate someone it's usually ends up being a Strength (Persuasion) check. It gives Persuasion a bit more oomph.

Likewise, Sleight of Hand got nixed and PCs instead make Dexterity (Deception) checks to do those kinds of tricks. Makes Deception more worthwhile as well.

 

[mrpopstar]

Let you craft healing potions?

Proficiency with the herbalism kit allows you to create potions of healing.

As with Quickleaf above, I use Medicine frequently for knowledge and investigation checks.

I'm also inclined to do this, but Intelligence gets such low play. I like to focus on Investigation and the formal knowledge skills as much as I can when asking for those checks.

I think it's meaningful that Medicine relates to Wisdom and not Intelligence. In Dungeons & Dragons, caring for an injured person is intuitive and palliative as opposed to something that draws upon logic or education.

How did that corpse die? The DC varies based on the age and state of the body, but this can provide critical information about the sorts of creatures that might be found nearby. Outside stabilizing a dying character, this is the most common use at my table.

When your character looks over a body for clues and makes deductions based on those clues, I would ask for an Intelligence (Investigation) check.

If your character deduced that the body belongs to the victim of some sort of animal attack, I would ask for an Intelligence (Nature) check to recall lore that might help him determine what type of animal it was.

If your character deduced that the body belongs to the victim of some sort of illness, I might ask for a Wisdom (Medicine) check to diagnose what the illness was.

1. Use medicine check instead of constitution check vs poison or disease. Or allow new con save with advantage.

I would love proficiency in Medicine to interact with the illness that results from poison in some meaningful way.

4. Craft antidote. Advantage to poison or disease save for 24h. use a charge of a healers kit. One save only if broad bonus. Any save in 1-10 days vs. specific kind of poison or disease.

Proficiency with the herbalism kit allows you to create antitoxin.

I merged Medicine into Survival in my games, exactly for this situation. Both of those skills had less oomph compared to a lot of the rest of the skill list, so by putting them together it made Survival much more enticing.

That's an idea!

 

[mrpopstar]

Medicine would benefit if the healer's kit was listed as a tool requiring proficiency, instead of an adventuring gear item.

 

[Staccat0]

Help an npc survive birthing a demon, let players determine the nature of an ailment, identify remains, identify the tools cultists are using and what they might be using them for in a dark ritual, determine a cause of death, help an NPC with specific injuries and give the king cpr

 

[Quickleaf]

I would love proficiency in Medicine to interact with the illness that results from poison in some meaningful way.

I like [MENTION=6801299]Horwath[/MENTION]'s usage of a Medicine check in place of a Constitution check when fighting a disease.

Hmm... some possible uses of Medicine vs. poison might be...

Delaying ongoing damage from poison, so instead of happening every round it happens every minute or every hour. Buys time. Would need to clarify that a given poison can only be delayed once.

Rendering a poison (in non-living tissue) inert. Might fall within the wheelhouse of Medicine and a poisoner's kit, both. Just wait for the look on a villain's face when your PC drinks that poison goblet of wine and toasts the villain with a knowing smile (having sprinkled some powder in the goblet first to render the poison inert).

When your character looks over a body for clues and makes deductions based on those clues, I would ask for an Intelligence (Investigation) check.

If your character deduced that the body belongs to the victim of some sort of animal attack, I would ask for an Intelligence (Nature) check to recall lore that might help him determine what type of animal it was.

If your character deduced that the body belongs to the victim of some sort of illness, I might ask for a Wisdom (Medicine) check to diagnose what the illness was.

I think there's nothing wrong with those broad assertions, but the devil is in the details.

For example, the party finds a body and needs to know how long it has been dead for. I would ask for a Wisdom (Medicine) check if there was a chance of failure, or just tell them outright if I felt it was obvious. While we may have aging a corpse down to a science in modern times, I imagine in the faux medieval era of D&D that a character would be triangulating the answer "how long has the body been dead" from multiple sources and using their intuition. Sure, they may have read some medical texts, but principally they're drawing on their experience with corpses and their intuition of multiple signs to make an inference.

Where I'd have Intelligence (Investigation) come into play is the next step. What does it mean to the PCs that the corpse is 3 days old. What significant things may have happened three days ago that might correlate with this corpse and its manner of death? Totally an Intelligence (Investigation) check.

Just a different approach, I suppose.

 

[mrpopstar]

I think there's nothing wrong with those broad assertions, but the devil is in the details.

I am a man of details!

For example, the party finds a body and needs to know how long it has been dead for. I would ask for a Wisdom (Medicine) check if there was a chance of failure, or just tell them outright if I felt it was obvious. While we may have aging a corpse down to a science in modern times, I imagine in the faux medieval era of D&D that a character would be triangulating the answer "how long has the body been dead" from multiple sources and using their intuition. Sure, they may have read some medical texts, but principally they're drawing on their experience with corpses and their intuition of multiple signs to make an inference.

What you describe is deductive reasoning, which is the domain of Intelligence. When you look around for clues and make deductions based on those clues, you make an Intelligence (Investigation) check.

Where I'd have Intelligence (Investigation) come into play is the next step. What does it mean to the PCs that the corpse is 3 days old. What significant things may have happened three days ago that might correlate with this corpse and its manner of death? Totally an Intelligence (Investigation) check.

I'm still struggling with the idea that proficiency in Medicine assumes experience with corpses in your scenario.

Just a different approach, I suppose.

A Wisdom (Medicine) check has a purely palliative function. I approach it like that.

 

[mrpopstar]

Just a different approach, I suppose.

Were we at the same table, we would compromise with a variant Intelligence (Medicine) check.

 

[machineelf]

I like your 1a suggestion and might use that in my game. But I don't like the extra healing, because there is already a feat for that, essentially. It doesn't make you gain an extra hit dice, but just heals for a certain amount per use of a medicine kit.