Heal

Description

Ability Score Used:	Wisdom
Usable Untrained?	Yes
Armor Check Penalty Applies?	No

You are skilled at tending to the ailments of others.

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.

Heal Skill Actions

Task	Heal DC	AoO?	Time
Identify drug/pharmaceutical	Drug's Save DC	Yes1	Standard Action
Provide First aid	15	Yes1	Standard Action
Provide Long-term care	15	-	8 hours
Treat wounds from caltrops, spike growth, or spike stones	15	-	10 minutes
Treat the Bleed or Bruised condition	Special	Yes1	Standard Action
Treat Injuries	2x Campaign Level	-	1 hour
Treat poison	Poison's save DC	Yes1	Standard Action
Treat disease	Disease's save DC	-	10 minutes
Prevent recovery2	15	-	1 hour
Torture2	15	-	1 hour
Deep hurting2	20 or 30	-	2 hours
Prevent fast healing2	25	-	1 hour
Erode willpower2	Target's Will saving throw modifier (modified for morale penalties) +10	-	24 hours

• ¹ Administering First Aid provokes an attack of opportunity and using any skill that uses an action "usually" provokes an attack of opportunity.
• ² These uses of the Heal skill are usually evil actions and may have repercussions for good-aligned characters using them.

Common Uses

Identify Drugs/Pharmaceuticals

The Heal skill can be used to identify and understand pharmaceuticals. The check DC is equal to the save DC of the pharmaceutical in question, and a successful result reveals the drug's qualities, effects, dosage information, risk of addiction and side-effects of use or withdrawal. If the check succeeds by 5 or more, the character also intuits an effective means of treating addiction (if applicable), though such treatment often takes a week or longer to perform. Failing the check by less than 5 will generally provide a rough idea of the type of drug (stimulant, depressant, placebo, poison, palliative). Failing by more than 5 gives a false result. As a result of this possibility, the GM should generally make this check in secret.

• Action/Time: Standard action

• Retry? Varies. Generally speaking, you can't try a Heal check again without witnessing proof of the original check's failure.

Provide 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. Creatures suffering from ongoing conditions require separate check.

• Action/Time: 1 standard action.

• Retry? You can always retry a check to provide first aid, assuming the target of the previous attempt is still alive.

Provide 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.

• Action/Time: 8 hours.

• Retry? Varies. Generally speaking, you can't try a Heal check again without witnessing proof of the original check's failure.

Treat Injuries

When treating injuries, you can restore hit points to a damaged creature. Treating injuries has a DC of double the campaign's level and heals 1 point of damage. In addition, for every 5 by which you exceed this DC, you heal an additional hit point. Treating injuries takes a full hour of attention from both the healer and the injured person, during which time they can do nothing else (including bed rest). Treating injuries may be repeated as many times as the healer feels like staying awake to do so.

You take a -4 penalty on this check if you don't use at least 2 charges from a Healers Kit. Using 2 charges of the kit not only negates this -4 penalty but also applies the +4 circumstance the kit normally provides.

• Action/Time: 1 hour.

• Retry? Yes, but each check requires an hour of time.

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.

• Action/Time: 10 minutes.

• Retry? Varies. Generally speaking, you can't try a Heal check again without witnessing proof of the original check's failure.

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.

• Action/Time: 1 standard action.

• Retry? Varies. Generally speaking, you can't try a Heal check again without witnessing proof of the original check's failure.

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.

• Action/Time: 10 minutes.

• Retry? Varies. Generally speaking, you can't try a Heal check again without witnessing proof of the original check's failure.

Treat the Bleed or Bruised Condition

To treat someone suffering under the Bruised or Bleed conditions, you must succeed on a Heal check, with a DC equal to the save DC of the inflicting creature's CR (this can be found in the Monster Blueprint for the appropriate CR). If the source of the Bruised or Bleed condition is not from a creature, the DC of the Heal check is instead 15.

• Action/Time: Standard Action

• Retry? You can always retry a check to treat a Bruised or Bleed condition, assuming the target of the previous attempt is still alive.

Prevent Recovery

A victim in the care of a torturer can be prevented from naturally healing from wounds or ability damage by worrying the victim's wounds, keeping him malnourished, and using various substances to promote prolonged sickness. Preventing recovery counts as light activity for the torturer, and requires an hour's work per day per victim. A victim successfully treated with this form of torture does not heal hit point or ability damage naturally from rest for that day.

• Action/Time: 1 hour.

• Retry? Varies. Generally speaking, you can't try a Heal check again without witnessing proof of the original check's failure.

Torture

Over the course of an hour, you can torture a victim with intent to subdue or kill. If the Heal check is successful, you cause nonlethal damage or lethal damage (your choice) equal to the victim's experience level (or number of hit dice for targets without class levels). Note that the results of this skill do not guarantee answers if you are torturing a subject in order to gain knowledge he might have; the subject of torture can always decide to divulge such knowledge if he wishes to avoid more pain and suffering. Against NPCs, assume that with each hour of torture, they must make a Will saving throw against the result of that hour's Heal check (modified by a cumulative -1 morale penalty to the check for each hour the torture has continued) to avoid breaking under the pressure and answering your questions. Even then, results are not guaranteed. A particularly crafty or brave victim might try to Bluff an answer and give false information; use this method if the torture victim actually does not know the information you are seeking and is trying to just make something up to stop the pain. Do not use this method when a player character is being tortured; the player should decide when and if he wishes to give out information to his torturer.

• Action/Time: 1 hour.

• Retry? Varies. Generally speaking, you can't try a Heal check again without witnessing proof of the original check's failure.

Deep Hurting

This method of torture is similar to standard torture, except that it targets a victim's ability score rather than his hit points. Inflicting deep hurting is more time consuming than standard torture; a single session of deep hurting takes 2 hours to finish. With a successful Heal check, you deal 1 point of ability damage or ability drain to one of the victim's ability scores chosen by you. To inflict ability damage the DC is 20, but if you make a DC of 30 with the roll you can opt to inflict ability drain instead. All other rules governing deep hurting function identically to the rules for standard torture.

• Action/Time: 2 hours.

• Retry? Varies. Generally speaking, you can't try a Heal check again without witnessing proof of the original check's failure.

Prevent Fast Healing

By using potent acids, applications of fire, and mechanical devices designed to prevent wounds from properly healing, you can prevent a creature's fast healing ability from healing damage inflicted upon it. One check must be made each day to keep the creature from healing. In all other ways, this form of torture is treated as if the torturer were preventing recovery. Preventing actual regeneration is beyond the scope of the Heal skill; a torturer is better off simply using things that cause lethal damage to the target.

• Action/Time: 1 hour.

• Retry? Varies. Generally speaking, you can't try a Heal check again without witnessing proof of the original check's failure.

Erode Willpower

The erosion of a target's power to resist with his mind is a different form of torture, and one that usually does not require direct physical harm. Rather, this form of torture relies upon subjecting the victim to horribly uncomfortable living conditions for an extended period of time. This may consist of imprisoning the victim in a cage sized to prevent him from doing anything but crouching, or it may consist of keeping the victim in a room filled to the neck with rancid water, or it may involve exposing the victim to repetitive loud and jarring noises (such as the constant sound of nails scraping on slate). Each day that you make the DC to erode a target's willpower, the victim's Will saving throw suffers a cumulative -1 morale penalty for the length of the next day. As soon as one day passes without having his willpower eroded, all accumulated morale penalties vanish.

• Action/Time: 24 hours.

• Retry? Varies. Generally speaking, you can't try a Heal check again without witnessing proof of the original check's failure.

Modifiers

• Feats 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. See the feat for details.
• Equipment A healer's kit gives you a +2 circumstance bonus on Heal checks.

Epic Skill Uses

Note: All uses below require a minimum of 21 Ranks in the skill to use.

Swift Triage

(DC 60) Perform a Provide First Aid check as a swift action.

Graceful Healer

(DC+CR) Perform a heal check without provoking an attack of opportunity. The difficulty increases by the Challenge Rating of the highest CR threatening creature.

Multi-tasking Triage

(DC +20 per target) Include an additional willing target in your Provide First Aid or Treat Injuries check. Targets must be adjacent to you when the check is performed.

Quicken Recovery

(DC +20) When you treat injuries, the target recovers hit points every thirty minutes, instead of every hour.

Perfect Recovery

(DC +50) When you treat injuries, the target recovers ability damage as if it had rested for 3 days with long-term care.

Not Quite Dead

(DC 150) - You may remove the dead condition, as long as you make the check within 10 rounds of the character being slain.