Using Heal to find out how someone died.

[LokiDR]

I would consider a full autopsy an application of heal and taking 20. I know phorensic examiners can take a quick look at a corpse and determine a number of things. I'd put the time at 10 minutes, just as Complete Adventure does. The DCs range from 0 for physical wounds to 20 for spell with no visible effect. As CA puts it, this is only useful for determining cause of death. There is penalty for time passed and additional examination (-5). It seems a reasonable rule to me.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Consider tempering the results with the PC's knowledge skills. Don't give out too much information on the purported killer unless the PC has the appropriate knowledge skill, for instance. Maybe with a good heal check, you could identify the type of creature, but not much beyond that. "It's some kind of animal with claws." Or, "The weird wounds were probably from some type of aberration." You could even be more vague, "He was killed by some sort of energy blast." The heal check allows you to know about diseases, poisons, and probably some amount of anatomy, but that's most likely humanoid anatomy. You should use other knowledge skills to represent knowledge of other creature types.

 

[werk]

Only problem is DC is DM fiat since so much is variable.

Exactly, if the DM thinks the coroner is getting too much information from his easily made heal checks, break it up and make it harder to get that info.

I'd try to base it off of the knowledge checks to identify creatures. You have a base DC and get another tidbit every 5 points that you over succeed.

"I want to know how the mayor died, I suspect foul play."
"OK, roll your heal"
"43?"
"Fine! Steve the Apothecary killed him with shadow mushroom poison dripped into his ear while he slept...I hate you!"

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I would require that use of the Heal skill to require:
- The Investigation Feat from Eberron
- 10 Minutes per check {with a -10 penalty for hasty check in one minute}

I would definately temper the results based on the character knowledge.

I would not require a Heal check for the obvious things, IMHO a simple Search check should be able to identify that a skeleton died from massive damage to the skull with a blunt item..
The Heal check would be able to determine more details, such as was the victim standing, etc.

A thought, perhaps answer 1 question for each 5 points over DC 10 ?
With this Werk would have 6 questions he could ask..
Of course the starting would be "You have discovered the Mayor, dead in his bed. He has not obvious wounds"

This could make the interaction a bit more interesting than 'Roll = results'

eh..
Overall, thats actually a pretty cool use of the skill!

 

[AuraSeer]

Thanks for the suggestion, Li. I agree that performing one of these checks should take longer than 6 seconds, so I will definitely consider how long such a check should take. (15 minutes seems reasonable.) But I have little doubt that the player I have in mind would simply grab the body and spend 5 hours of down time looking at it to allow himself to Take 20.

If he carries the body away, I'd apply a very hefty circumstance penalty for disturbing the scene. There's bound to be evidence which doesn't come along, like bloodstains, or footprints, or body's severed limb. Also, even if the PC does happen to find all the bits of the corpse, it's bound to be damaged even more by rattling around in someone's backpack for the rest of the morning. I'd say -10 or -15 sounds like a decent penalty to apply.

Come to think of it, feel free to apply other circumstance penalties ahead of time. Unless the body is fresh or magically preserved, decay will have taken its toll, and it's bound to have been munched by animals and insects and any nearby monsters. (It's hard to spot poison damage when you're looking at a pile of gnawed bones.) Off the top of my head let's say -2 if the body is a day old, -4 if it's a week, and -6 for a month.

Remember that circumstance modifiers from different sources do stack.

Jack's solution might work, but I'm not sure I can justify why there are no retries. After all, you would know whether you found the cause of death or not, and you don't "use up" the body when you do the Heal check/investigation. So it seems that retries should be allowed.

You'd know whether you found the cause, but you wouldn't know why not. Further investigation might not help. Maybe the body has bite marks that could be from either the fatal wound or hungry scavengers, or maybe it has broken ribs that could be from a warhammer or from falling down onto an uneven surface. Once you realize you can't tell the difference, staring at the body some more isn't going to make more evidence appear.

 

[hong]

You'd know whether you found the cause, but you wouldn't know why not. Further investigation might not help. Maybe the body has bite marks that could be from either the fatal wound or hungry scavengers, or maybe it has broken ribs that could be from a warhammer or from falling down onto an uneven surface. Once you realize you can't tell the difference, staring at the body some more isn't going to make more evidence appear.

That could also be considered to be the result of taking 20 (you didn't notice the bite marks until you turned the body over, or you didn't find the broken ribs until you went looking for them, etc). Whether you draw the correct conclusions is just a matter of whether you hit the target DC, whatever it may be.

In fact, in the absence of interruptions, taking 10 vs DC X isn't very different to taking 20 vs DC X + 10. Taking 20 also helps explain why a thorough inspection should take longer than 1 round.

 

[Nail]

Would not the feat "Track" tell you far more about the circumstances of death?

The Heal skill could tell how the creature died, but not much about the creature who did the killing. (Weapon marks would be the obvious exception.)

 

[Three_Haligonians]

You should use other knowledge skills to represent knowledge of other creature types.

How about synergy? If the character has 5 ranks in Knowledge: Dungeoneering, they get a +2 to their Heal check to determine death by aberration.

Or, if your a little stricter, you could say that they need X amount of ranks in the required Knowledge to be able to use the Heal skill that way at all.

Just some thoughts,

J from Three Haligonians

 

[lukelightning]

DM: "You see a body on the ground, bruised and battered."

Player: "I use heal to see how he died...crap, I rolled a 1."

DM: "You find out he died from a fumbled heal check."


P.S. Yeah, I know you can't fumble heal checks, but for the sake of a joke you can.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The D20 Modern supplment, Critical Locations, has rules on this. It takes 1d6 hours to do an autopsy. (Presumably you could take a -10 or so penalty to do a "quick" analysis.)

Some of the DCs are quite high, I believe 30. The high DCs are for exotic poisons, icepick deaths and the like. (A 1st-level expert is unlikely to determine unusual causes of death.)

I'd like to know what kind of check you need to recognize finger of death. And can you tell the difference between that and slay living?