Heal (Wis)

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.

Task DC AoO? Time
Identify drug/pharmaceutical ? ? ?
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 deadly wounds 20 1 hour
Treat poison Poison’s save DC Usually1 Standard Action
Treat disease Disease’s save DC 10 minutes

1 Table: Actions in Combat states that administering First Aid provokes an attack of opportunity and using any skill that uses an action “usually” provokes an attack of opportunity.

Common Uses

Identify Drugs/Pharmaceuticals

Source: Technology Guide

The Heal skill is used to identify and understand pharmaceuticals. No further information was provided in the source material.

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. First aid also stops a character from losing hit points due to effects that cause bleed.

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 Deadly Wounds*

Requirement: You must expend two uses from a healer’s kit to perform this task. You take a –2 penalty on your check for each use from a healer’s kit that you lack.

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.

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.

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.

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 to +4.
  • Equipment A healer’s kit gives you a +2 circumstance bonus on Heal checks.

Heal Unchained

Source PFU

About This Section Optionally, a character who reaches 5, 10, 15, or 20 ranks in a skill unlocks various bonuses and abilities unique to that skill. The unchained rogue uses these rules extensively, but others can gain access to them with a new feat.

In this system, characters unlock additional abilities when they attain 5, 10, 15, and 20 ranks in a skill. The skill unlocks system interfaces with the unchained rogue to make the rogue the true master of skills.

Skill unlocks give characters new abilities and ways to use their skills upon reaching 5, 10, 15, and 20 ranks in a skill. Any character with the Signature Skill feat can earn skill unlocks for a single skill, and they are a prime feature of the revised version of the rogue who uses her rogue’s edge ability to gain skill unlocks for several of her most iconic skills. Alternatively, you might make skill unlocks a universal part of the game, but you should be aware they add significant power and flexibility to skills, so giving them for free to all classes would grant power boosts to other highly skilled classes such as the investigator and bard, particularly in comparison to the rogue. Another alternative is to eliminate access to the Signature Skill feat, limiting skill unlocks to rogues and rogues alone.

With sufficient ranks in Heal, you earn the following.

5 Ranks: When you treat deadly wounds, the target recovers hit points and ability damage as if it had rested for a full day.

10 Ranks: When you treat deadly wounds, the target recovers hit points as if it had rested for a full day with long-term care.

15 Ranks: When you treat deadly wounds, the creature recovers hit point and ability damage as if it had rested for 3 days.

20 Ranks: When you treat deadly wounds, the target recovers hit point and ability damage as if it had rested for 3 days with long-term care.

New Uses for Old Skills

Source: Villains: Rebirth

Although the Heal skill is traditionally used to aid the injured, treat poison and disease, and otherwise provide comfort to the wounded and infirm, the anatomic knowledge granted by this skill allows it to be used for far more nefarious uses as well. Any character may attempt to torture a living target with physical and mental anguish; the results of such torture can be determined with a Heal check. Note that torture is an evil act, and as such may have repercussions on good characters (especially paladins, clerics, and others that must abide by the precepts of their alignment).

Check: The DC and effect depend on the task you attempt.

Task DC AoO? Time
Prevent recovery 15 1 hour
Torture 15 1 hour
Deep hurting 20 or 30 2 hours
Prevent fast healing 25 1 hour
Erode willpower Target’s Will saving throw modifier (modified for morale penalties) +10 24 hours

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.

Time: 1 hour.

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.

Time: 1 hour.

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.

Time: 2 hours.

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.

Time: 1 hour.

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.

Time: 24 hours.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. Copyright 2009, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Author: Jason Bulmahn, based on material by Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, and Skip Williams.

Villains: Rebirth. Copyright 2003, Bastion Press, Inc. Author: James Jacobs.

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