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Table of Contents
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Check
The DC and effect depend on the task you attempt.
Action
Providing first aid, treating a wound, or treating poison is a standard action. Treating a disease or tending a creature wounded by a spike growth or spike stones spell takes 10 minutes of work. Treating deadly wounds takes 1 hour of work. Providing long-term care requires 8 hours of light activity.
| Task | DC | AoO? | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| First aid | 15 | Yes | Standard Action |
| Long-term care | 15 | - | 8 hours |
| Treat wounds from caltrops, spike growth, or spike stones | 15 | - | 10 minutes |
| Treat deadly wounds | 20 | - | 1 hour |
| Treat poison | Poison’s save DC | Yes | Standard Action |
| Treat disease | Disease’s save DC | - | 10 minutes |
Special
If you have the Self-Sufficient feat, you get a +2 bonus on all Heal checks. If you have 10 or more ranks in Heal, the bonus increases to +4.
A healer’s kit gives you a +2 circumstance bonus on Heal checks.
First Aid
You usually use first aid to save a dying character. If a character has negative hit points and is losing hit points (at the rate of 1 per round, 1 per hour, or 1 per day), you can make him stable. A stable character regains no hit points but stops losing them. First aid also stops a character from losing hit points due to effects that cause bleed.
Long-Term Care
Providing long-term care means treating a wounded person for a day or more. If your Heal check is successful, the patient recovers hit points or ability score points (lost to ability damage) at twice the normal rate: 2 hit points per level for a full 8 hours of rest in a day, or 4 hit points per level for each full day of complete rest; 2 ability score points for a full 8 hours of rest in a day, or 4 ability score points for each full day of complete rest.
You can tend as many as six patients at a time. You need a few items and supplies (bandages, salves, and so on) that are easy to come by in settled lands. Giving long-term care counts as light activity for the healer. You cannot give long-term care to yourself.
Treat Wounds from Caltrops, Spike Growth, or Spike Stones
A creature wounded by stepping on a caltrop moves at one-half normal speed. A successful Heal check removes this movement penalty.
A creature wounded by a spike growth or spike stones spell must succeed on a Reflex save or take injuries that reduce his speed by one-third. Another character can remove this penalty by taking 10 minutes to dress the victim’s injuries and succeeding on a Heal check against the spell’s save DC.
Treat Deadly Wounds*
When treating deadly wounds, you can restore hit points to a damaged creature. Treating deadly wounds restores 1 hit point per level of the creature. If you exceed the DC by 5 or more, add your Wisdom modifier (if positive) to this amount. A creature can only benefit from its deadly wounds being treated within 24 hours of being injured and never more than once per day.
*You must expend two uses from a healer's kit to perform this task.
You take a –2 penalty on your Heal skill check for each use from the healer's kit that you lack.
Treat Poison
To treat poison means to tend to a single character who has been poisoned and who is going to take more damage from the poison (or suffer some other effect). Every time the poisoned character makes a saving throw against the poison, you make a Heal check. If your Heal check exceeds the DC of the poison, the character receives a +4 competence bonus on his saving throw against the poison.
Treat Disease
To treat a disease means to tend to a single diseased character. Every time the diseased character makes a saving throw against disease effects, you make a Heal check. If your Heal check exceeds the DC of the disease, the character receives a +4 competence bonus on his saving throw against the disease.
Autopsy
By combining medical knowledge with alchemical techniques, it is possible to gain a significant amount of information from a corpse without the use of magic. Heal forms the basis of forensic pathology, but Craft (alchemy) allows you to test the characteristics of blood and is required for certain advanced actions. The table below indicates the type of information that can be gained with a Heal check (the check is made in secret by the GM, see retry), along with the DC of the check and the ranks in Craft (alchemy) that you must possess (if any). Performing an autopsy requires approximately three hours. At the end of this time, you can make two checks (typically cause of death and examining the injury that caused death). Each additional check takes an additional thirty minutes to perform.
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Cause of Death: can be useful when you want to know if the crushing damage came after the victim was poisoned. This only provides general information: “She died as a result of decapitation” or “She appears to have died of natural causes.” To obtain more specific details, you must make an additional check to examine the injury or determine the nature of foreign substances.
Examine Injury: allows you to obtain information about a specific wound. If you make the check, you determine the basic cause of the injury (a narrow blade, a small blunt object, teeth). If your check beats the DC by 5 or more, you gain specific details about the weapon that caused the injury (a double-edged dagger with a six-inch blade). If your check beats the DC by 10 or more, you gain information about the manner in which the wound was inflicted (the attacker was left-handed, about six feet tall, and probably grabbed her from behind).
Presence of Foreign Substances: reveals whether the victim had drugs, poison, or high levels of alcohol in his system when he died. As with a cause of death check, this information is not specific; it simply determines that something unnatural was present at the time of death.
Nature of Foreign Substances: allows you to determine the specific nature of any substance you have identified (Additional Knowledge check may be required). You must discover the presence of foreign substances before you can attempt to determine their nature.
Time of Death: reveals when the victim was killed. This is an imprecise science at best. If the user does not possess the prerequisite levels of Craft (alchemy), time of death can only be determined to within 4d6 hours. With access to alchemy, the time can be pinpointed to within 1d6 hours. You cannot try again after a failed roll. If you miss the check by 10 or more points you may come to a false conclusion, otherwise you will just be unable to obtain any useful information.
Special
Time is the enemy of the pathologist. Every twelve hours that passes from the point of death adds 2 to the DC of any autopsy check. In a swampy or tropical environment, this penalty is doubled; in an especially dry environment it is halved. The spell gentle repose will preserve a body in its current condition for the duration of the spell.
Certain poisons and drugs may be harder to detect than others. The GM should consider the poisons that exist within the game world; those that are difficult to trace could increase the DC of checks made to determine cause of death, presence of foreign substances, and nature of foreign substances by up to 5 points. During the course of an autopsy, you may also make a Perception check to notice any unusual details about the corpse. There may not be any; but perhaps you will notice a few threads of cloth caught under the victim’s fingernails, or a small tattoo that will prove to be relevant later. It is up to the GM to determine whether there are any facts to be discovered, and if so, what the DC of the check should be.
Try Again
Varies. Generally speaking, you can’t try a Heal check again without witnessing proof of the original check’s failure. You can always retry a check to provide first aid, assuming the target of the previous attempt is still alive.